Remember the Basics -- Ignore the Gimmicks

One of the more horrifying training gimmicks you may see at a youth sport team practice near you soon is some young athlete wearing an Elevation Training Mask. I recently saw that Indiana University Mens Basketball team were wearing these during summer training. And I was on the campus of a local high school this month and observed a high school boy wearing one during a conditioning workout for his high school.

These masks are gimmicks. But to the athlete who is always looking for that extra one or two percent, they have an appeal. Maybe the coaches at IU know something I do not, but I would never want to see one of our athletes training in one of these. The science is not there to back up the worth of this kind of training.

Here's is the question I have for athletes always looking for that extra one or two percent. Is the 98% you need to master -- the fundamentals, the foundation of performance -- in order. If you have perfected that first 98%, maybe something as crazy as a Elevation Mask is worth considering. But I doubt you have spent enough time on the 98%.

Our Volleyball and Track Coach, Jen McQuet, recently posted a fun video on Youtube about her son Murphy. I have been following Murphy's high school swim career from afar. When he was interviewed at the beginning of swim season this year in the paper I was struck by the comments he made on his training. They included
1) be consistent and take care of the little things.
2) do the basics again and again and again correctly.

These are such simple lessons. But they are extremely powerful in our current sports mad culture. We are so quickly distracted from lessons like these by the latest and greatest training toy -- like an Elevation Training Mask apparently is.

Murphy McQuet went on later this winter to be named Illinois's Swimmer of the Year. His success though was no surprise to me because of his approach to preparation. Murphy's performances as a swimmer this year are clearly outstanding. True, he comes from a swimming family and he has great coaches at New Trier. But what I believe was the ultimate difference maker was his mindset -- his approach -- to preparation captured in that newspaper article early in the season.

Here is Jen's Video from 1998 when Murphy was 18 months old. He was working on the basics even then. I think you will enjoy this. Sometimes it starts in a Turtle Pool.