Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)!

By Jeff Blair

For www.EliteFTS.com

Has this ever happened to you? As a strength coach, a good athlete—let’s call him Johnny—lands in your lap. Do you wonder what brilliant programs you can create to make Johnny bigger, stronger, and faster? Do you stay awake at night wondering what periodization schedule you should utilize to transform Johnny from Clark Kent to Superman?

Well, let me relate a little story to help clear things up. My little brother, Johnny, was my first strength and speed client. I guess Johnny “hired” me because I was his brother and I was cheap.  Uh, free, actually.

I didn’t have any certifications. I hadn’t attended a single training seminar. I had never heard of periodization or conjugation, and I knew nothing about strength and speed other than what I learned playing high school and college football. My coaches had taught us a basic strength training program. I definitely had never visited an Internet message board for training tips because the Internet hadn’t been invented yet!

We didn’t have any dyna-discs or stability balls, fancy force plates, or testing equipment. What we did have were deadlifts, squats, benches, pull-ups, and sprints. And me in Johnny’s face two hours, four days a week. Johnny worked harder that summer at the basics than he ever had. 

Johnny sliced 0.4 off his forty time, gained five pounds of lean body mass, and became dramatically stronger that summer. Most importantly, he was better trained to play football. Johnny did not take to the weight room naturally. He was just a great athlete who had the desire to excel so he pushed himself.

How can someone with limited knowledge train an athlete to make rapid, effective gains in a short time?  Don’t you need at least a CSCS or master’s to increase an athlete’s performance?  Shouldn’t we check the hottest trends on the Internet discussion forums before designing a program? No and no. The most important concept with training young athletes is to K.I.S.S.—“keep it simple stupid.”

Since that summer twenty years ago, I have been to countless seminars, taken many classes, earned a couple certifications, written many papers, and am about to earn my master’s degree.  However, before learning any of that, I already knew enough to make Johnny bigger, stronger, and faster.

There’s no knock against education here. I advocate increasing education more than anyone you will meet. Education is great if applied correctly. The more we learn, the better we are able to help our athletes. However, sometimes the biggest benefit of education is teaching us what not to use. And many of the tools available today are largely unnecessary for most young athletes. 

Basic strength is the foundation for any young athlete. While “athletic” training certainly has its place, it shouldn’t be done at the expense of old-fashioned strength training. Who do you want playing middle linebacker—someone who can deadlift a large amount of weight (and is therefore strong in the glutes, hamstrings, and back) or someone who can perform “athletic” moves with the medicine ball or other device? For my money, getting stronger is the most important thing we can give an athlete in the gym. It is the meat and potatoes of strength and conditioning.  Everything else is gravy.

Eighty percent of the strength solution is consistently working hard at the simple stuff.  The age of the Internet can hopelessly confuse an otherwise simple solution. So KISS and soon your clients can be like Johnny and proclaim you as the “new guru!”

Jeff Blair is a personal trainer and strength coach in Los Angeles. He is CSCS certified and is in the process of completing his master's in sports conditioning. Jeff competed in his first powerlifting meet this past September at 40-years-old.