But it’s the old school ones that actually work.
“Functional Movement? Corrective Exercise? Balance Training?
You can use all the cute, palatable terms you want to try to lure people into your ‘practice’ but please recognize the kids who chalk their hands and actually train are going to wreck your kids playing with bouncy balls.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Good ‘ol buzz word soup.
I find it hilarious that in 2022 people are still buying these terms, but hey if I’ve learned anything in my 3+ decades on earth it’s that most people will gravitate to what sparkles despite any resemblance of validity.
Functional Movement. Corrective Exercise. Balance Training.
Why are these terms thrown at us?
Because they are a lot more palatable to unknowing parents than strength, speed, explosiveness, power, grit, & toughness.
These “practitioners” think that if they can dumb the verbiage UP to sound smart and fancy they can steal from those who tend to gravitate towards the flash.
Now let’s get away from the buzzwords for just a few moments and focus on the less than palatable terms I outlined for a moment.
Do you think I’m using these terms because of machoism? Bravado? Because ‘Eat the WEAK!’
No, you’ll not find a bigger anti pseudo-toughness advocate than me.
I use these terms because despite them sounding more aggressive they are qualities that kid’s ACTUALLY need to develop to excel in sports.
Again, functional movement, corrective exercise, balance training… the terms sound cute, but do you believe that masses of kids are moving functionally incorrect, do you think their movement is so bad that it needs correcting? Do you really honestly think your kid has a “balance” problem.
Of course not.
Now obviously the adolescent going through puberty is going to go through some “funky” stages as they get comfortable in their evolving bodies and because they are beginners in sports & training, their movement isn’t going to be perfect, but how and why would you expect it to be?
We don’t need an entire sect of an industry that creates fake problems to sell fake solutions, but that’s what we have.
Listen, kids haven’t been doing this stuff nearly long enough to be broken to the point of needing all these “fixes”.
They need to get stronger. They need to run hard sprints. They need to move. They need to make mistakes. They need to figure it out. Their brains are their “functional” mentors.
Stop playing with the cute stuff. Start actually training.
You’ll see the “problems” dissolve.
