TLA offers monthly athletic testing to our adult clientele.

The testing including finding out body fat levels combined with testing strength, power and speed.

As soon as testing is mentioned the emails come in fast and furious as to why clients won’t be in. Fear is one. However the biggest reason is athletic testing isn’t perceived as a true workout.

This is a shame. Why?

1. With athletic testing the impression is since the quantity would be small and the rest periods high the workout would be easy. Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth. Testing is always about maximum effort and there is nothing harder than maximum effort.

2.The youth and elite levels at TLA love athletic testing. In fact they have embraced so thoroughly they are always asking for the next one. We can learn from their go to efforts to always want to develop and improve.

3. Testing allows us to find these necessary athletic traits that need to be developed otherwise as coaches we are just guessing.

Whenever an athlete is learning a new skill, practicing technique on a skill or displaying maximum speed or power they are predominantly using their nervous system and that training must be done when an athlete is fresh. We need to understand the role fatigue plays in a training session, and understand that training the nervous system and the cardiovascular or metabolic system are two very different animals. Both animals need equal care.

By skipping and instead just doing the hard work clients will not fully develop these important nervous system traits, and never reach their potential for strength/speed/power.  Yes, you will be in great cardiovascular shape, but you won’t be as fast, powerful or technically proficient as you could be if you took the time to develop technical traits first.