Written by: Kevin Cann I have always been skeptical. My whole life. I wish smartphones and Google existed when I was kid so that I could have called bullshit on a few of my teachers at the time. This attitude has led me to be wrong probably more often than I have been right. However, it has taught me to think for myself and to really learn. Periodization was one of these concepts that were driven down my throat Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I have been involved in competitive sports for 32 years now. There has been a value system that has been embedded in me from all of these experiences. I have learned that we can only control what we can control, and this is our attitude and our efforts. Whether we were successful or unsuccessful on the previous attempt, we need to do the same thing moving forward. We need to refocus our attitude and efforts Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I am currently doing a series for my Patreon channel about the general principles of training. Specificity is of course a general principle that all coaches need to apply. You can’t play tennis and expect to have a bigger total. I think that many coaches and lifters actually miss the mark on specificity in their training. Seems like the majority views specificity of the movement as the primary driver, and others seem to argue Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I discussed this with PPS last night during our bi-weekly team meeting. I think that this is a fun topic and actually one that is relatively important. Understanding these social theories and how they influence research and ideas can be very important to identifying a bias and making decisions. I like to read. I read on average about a book per week. These books vary in their topics and range from social theories, economics, coaching Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I was asked this question in a direct message on Instagram by a lifter. I think it is a very good question and sparks a good discussion. I also was not even aware that there was this thought process that training should be drastically different for a beginner. When I first started out with Boris Sheiko, he had laid out his system for his lifters. The only real difference between level of lifter would Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann This is a topic that seems to come up quite frequently in discussions with other lifters and coaches. I really enjoy these conversations and they happen to be some of my favorite ones to have. Biomechanics was always one of my favorite classes in both undergrad and grad school. It is a topic that has always interested me. It is probably another reason why I was so drawn to Sheiko when I hired him Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann The world of sports has changed quite a bit over the years. Coaches and athletes are often trying to gain competitive edges over everyone else. This has led to a massive spike in data driven coaching. This can be seen across all of sports, even the NFL. In the documentary “The Art of Coaching” which interviewed Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, they discussed this. These coaches are the two most successful coaches in the history Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I love taking singles. In any sport I have ever participated in, I would much rather scrimmage than drill various aspects of the sport. Singles to me are like getting to scrimmage in practice. I always felt that all of the sparring rounds that I did in mma made me a better fighter than anything else. I honestly believe that if we could do more singles in training, we could yield better results. I Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann Understanding motor control is important for any coach. I believe that all coaches will emphasize the importance of technique. In order to help guide a lifter to better technique in the lifts, the coach must understand how the human body solves movement problems. In order to do this, we must look into the Degrees of Freedom (DOF) problem. The DOF problem was introduced by Nikolai Bernstein, a Russian neurophysiologist, in 1967. Bernstein researched the repetitive Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I will admit, this title is a bit of clickbait. I honestly did not know what to title it and have this weird OCD thing that makes me title it before I get started. With that said, here we are. This is a conversation that I have had quite a few times in the last few days. Not only with lifters of PPS, but other lifters as well. We have all heard someone tell us Read More