A ‘test’ is an examination of something’s value, qualities, basic nature, and instinct as the individual, team, and body have a tendency to behave, respond, and act in a subconsciously instinctive way that’s characteristic and natural of its species. The human species’ foundation for movement lies within its ability to communicate, share, work together, and control itself entirely as a unit and team as the body uses a combination of its instinctive foundation of movement patterns and fundamental skills. Speed, directional, and level changes are used one leg at a time while meshing with perfect coordination into every movement the right amount of strength, core strength, power, stability, flexibility, balance, speed and agility, endurance, bodily awareness/control, coordination, timing, and rhythm at just the right time, with just the right sequencing of joint and movement patterns, in just the right planes of motion.

Essentially there's always a distance the body must cover. Movement is simply a natural, instinctive, survival trait, end result, response, and visible reaction to the body’s ability to use it’s sense of touch and feel to gather information regarding bodily position in relation to itself and space as well as the individual’s ability to battle emotionally, mentally, and physically through the unknown to respond and react with it’s rubber band and bouncy ball type characteristics. Because competition is about consistently getting the greatest amount of work done in the shortest possible time, our concerns when it comes to movement and getting better revolve around using a combination of distance and time. Our objective is to get more work done in less time. That’s instinctive nature and survival. To go as fast and as hard for as long as you can. When you get tired you rest and when you’re ready to do more work, you get back after it as a weak mind and will stands in the way as it is our greatest limitation. Taking the same approach into our physical activity sessions when it comes to rest and recovery is our intent as efficient and consistent movement is subconsciously instinctive; we don’t think about it, it just happens. We try to work in a group for accountability, encouragement, and support to powerfully connect with others as a community struggling to get better together with each other, for each other.

Going all out, going heavy, and going hard signifies a mindset and attitude taken at all times while knowing and understanding that quality work needs to be produced as rapidly, consistently, and efficiently as possible for a certain distance and/or time frame. The unpredictable, unstable, and chaotic situations and environments that life and competition throw at us leave us with the unique opportunity of being able to learn through confidently battling and struggling through the mysteriously unknown. Being apart of the human species provides us all with a similar foundation of abilities and capabilities in the form of movement patterns and fundamental skills that essentially are required in order to naturally and instinctively use our talents, gifts, and potential in order to survive, to get work done, and to accept the fact that mistakes and imperfections are apart of life. We view the learning process as a way to continually be provided with new opportunities to create, develop, and expand a will and mind that is determined and refuses to be persuaded by negativity.

The unpredictable-ness of the constantly changing situations of the world we face is hard to endure. To be persistent and to build upon our inborn tendencies, we must go with the mindset to endure. With that being said, there isn’t a secret recipe to success or protocols to follow, just some basic and foundational guidelines as we will continue to enjoy the process of making everything we do progressively harder by tweaking the usage of our fundamental skills. We’re concerned about having fun and getting our work done with whatever we have access to as the quantifiable numerical output that movement provides is then nothing more than a representation of the quality of instinctive and natural efforts that go into creatively experimenting to make movement better. Whatever time frame we’ve been enabled to work with, we’ll work on closing the gap between rest and work by working intently and intensely resting less and going heavy and hard for the distance, time, and space we have to work with as we’ll make do with whatever setting we’re placed in by going all out. We’ll fill the rest void between movements with more movement. We'll take a specified amount of time and/or distance and see how many efforts (repetitions) we can give over that time frame and/or distance we travel while giving those efforts. If there's adequate control of the body, a person will be able to do more of something in less time for a greater distance!

What can we assess or test?

Literally anything and everything. Every movement, effort, workout, game, and practice session is a test and assessment and every test and assessment is a movement, effort, workout, game, or practice session. Every effort we give should be all out and should have a purpose. We should never just be going through the motions as our objective is to have a distinct purpose and plan behind everything we do while progressively trying to get better at everything we do. Numbers don’t tell the whole story and are at best a small glimpse of the processes that an individual and team has undergone and battled through mentally, emotionally, and physically under constantly changing situations and surfaces (the field’s surface changes after every effort given).

Testing seems then to be a way in which we can measure how well and how quickly the body learns to evolve and progress fundamental skills and movement patterns by making adjustments and improvements. With consistent, rational, and valid reasoning, we will place the body in chaotic, controlled, unstable, and different geographical environments that require the body to control itself completely while using a combination of fundamental skills and movement patterns to react and respond to the combination of resistive forces placed upon it. We will compare efforts to those given in various situations and different geographical environments as a means to find a better way to progress movement, skill, and athletic levels in which the body uses to survive through movement. Testing allows us to see how effective our plan, ideas, response to random situations, and creativity are at developing the movement combinations needed to enable the body to withstand mental, emotional, and physical hardship and the demands of meeting chaotic and unpredictable-ness with the responsiveness of developed and improved applicable instinctive movements for use in real competitive situations.

Here with the picture illustrations are some ideas and examples for the movements shown that can be used for testing and programming. Please note that we’re constantly trying to cover a greater distance in less time with all of our efforts. Although distances traveled are completely relative to the position a player plays given the circumstance and situation of the game, athletically speaking the greater control we have of the body the more consistent and efficient movement is and will become through the self corrective and learning processes.  

Here in these pictures for the Lunge and Presses and Reaching Lunge to alternate Rows we’ll take the 13 different lunges from the Lunge Matrix as well as upper body progression work (dumbbells & plates) to load both sides of the body simultaneously (holding onto a plate, rock, or dumbbells) independently (dumbbells), and singularly (one arm) to compare and see how many efforts it takes to cover a certain distance say 60 feet or how much distance we can cover with say 12 repetitions. We can see how much time it takes us to cover that distance or just get busy for a certain amount of time say 25 seconds to see how many and how far we can locomote, we can compare the resistance we use for the various lunge and upper body progressions to the distances traveled and efforts given, we can compare those efforts to other forms of lunge pressing and rowing progressions, we can go until we can’t go anymore, and we can compare our efforts on various surfaces. Because we’re always trying to bridge the gap between rest and work we can compare the amount of time we need for recovery with how many efforts we are able to give for the progression that we’re using.  

For the Pushups and 3-Point pulls we can try to get a certain number of efforts done as quickly as possible (16 reps) or for a certain amount of time and compare the resistance and one of our 90, 000 ways to do a pushup with each set we perform. We can alternate arms pulled with after each pushups or we can perform the 3-Point Pulls after the pushups with just one arm to compare both sides of the body in terms of resistance used and ability to accomplish work consistently, efficiently, and responsively. 

For the explosive single leg squat touchdowns with chest pass (a medicine ball can be substituted) we can see how far we can move the object with a certain amount of repetitions (6) or in a certain amount of time, and we can also compare the size of the efforts given between each side of the body (right leg, left leg) in terms of overall distance moved or all out efforts given until exhaustion for each side of the body, we can compare the resistance and size of the object between sides of the body and directions moved, and we will also use our hopping and jumping progressions to compare the position of our foot and the direction we move with all efforts.

For the explosive single leg squat touchdowns once again we’ll use our hopping and jumping progressions to compare distances and the time it takes to cover those distances between each side of the body and between the same sides of body by comparing progressions and resistance used. 

For the Single Leg stair hops we’ll compare both sides of the body and same sides of the body using hopping and jumping progressions for either covering the greatest number of stairs possible until fatigue, while using shuttle work for the greatest amount of stairs covered, for time variables (45 seconds) to see how many stairs and distances can be covered, and while comparing resistance used (body weight, weighted vest, dumbbells, etc.).

For the Towel Pull-ups we’ll compare the amount of efforts we’re able to give amongst pull-up progressions for each set.

For the Suspended Crawling and pull-ups we’ll see how many steps we can cover in a certain amount of time in different directions (up, down, side to side, and diagonally) with different hand grabbing patterns and with different hand positions, and we’ll incorporate shuttle work for time and to see how far we can go until complete fatigue sets in. Pull-ups can be added at stops (each stair, every other stair, or every third step).

For the Crawling up-hill and down-hill with dumbbells we’ll see how long it takes before we have to stop or until we get to the top of the hill. We’ll use progressions for the hands and feet as well as directions (backwards, forward, laterally, rotationally/zig-zag) that we move and compare them between each other and the resistance used. 

What all these pictures have in common is an individual’s ability to adapt, learn, and make adjustments from effort to effort on the go and within each all out effort itself by battling mentally, emotionally, and physically through everything while using just the right amount of strength, core strength, stability, flexibility, balance, power, endurance, speed and agility, bodily control/awareness, coordination, timing, and rhythm for every and all chaotic, unpredictable, and unstable situations and environments. We’re simply doing all we can to instill and unleash self-determination, motivation, passion, and aggressive movement into every effort. Efforts are accumulated history, no effort ever goes unnoticed.

PHYSICAL CONDITIONING IS MENTAL CONDITIONING. A WEAK BODY IS A WEAK MIND.

The pictures of these athletes giving an all out effort during this small frame of history and particular shot represent the many games and stories within the game and larger pictured story…baseball’s history. How well these individuals are able to use a combination of physical characteristics in the form of strength, core strength, stability, flexibility, balance, power, endurance, speed and agility, bodily control/awareness, coordination, timing, and rhythm will effect recovery time, consistency, efficiency, adjustability, and adaptability for a particular outing, game, for the entire season, and for the entirety of one’s career as we’re trying to defy the aging process which stems from wear and tear from the accumulation of poor habitual lifestyle choices, habits, and adapted traits. Competition is a test of one’s physical preparations and the determination of the will as physical conditioning is mental conditioning (CONFIDENCE) and a weak body is a weak mind.

When the body physically wears down, mentally and emotionally the athlete becomes completely unsound, out of rhythm, and looses confidence. The season is a test of repeatability from spring training through September and October. Spring training or ‘pre-season’ is no longer the time to ‘get in shape’ and the in-seasons are no longer just a time to maintain ‘strength’ with off-seasons growing smaller and smaller at every level. Athletes at all levels are expected to be in tip top game ready shape because there’s somebody else ready to make a dramatic impression to take their spot and there’s competition looking to thoroughly embarrass them ‘to pay that light bill’…that’s competition at its best, working by any and every moral and ethical means to separate yourself from everyone else…that’s survival of the fittest. How well are the athlete in these pictures and your athletes able to repeat their all out efforts?   

Each effort is a test of how the individual and team can mentally, emotionally, and physically give their best effort consistently and efficiently each time given the variables the situation provides. How well can these pitchers handle the situation if it’s 2nd and 3rd, no outs, in front of 50,000+ standing fans on the road, 2-1 lead bottom of the 8th, game 7 of the NLCS and hasn’t given up a hit to allow those runners to get there? How well can he perform knowing that his offense hasn’t scored a run in their last 24 innings, that they average 3.8 runs/game…the lowest in the league, with the worst fielding percentage, they’ve just traded their two veteran offensive threats…one of which is the reigning 8 time gold glove winning centerfielder that covers some serious acreage…the team has decided to ‘rebuild’…the pitcher just signed a four year deal last off-season and is 5-15 on the year with a 3.39? How well can he handle a combination of the umpire squeezing him and he changing his game plan and deciding to become a nibble monster in the 7th inning…walking the first two batters of the inning? How well can he handle not making it through the 4th inning in his last three starts…pivotal games and losses in his teams playoff hopes as his e.r.a. has gone from 2.34 to 2.96?

How well can he and the team come back from 2 blown saves in 4 days in crucial losses in a tight playoff race? How does he respond to giving up a two run double when he didn’t cover first base on a thought to be double down the line that the first basemen made a diving catch on followed by a four pitch walk? How does he respond to booting an easy play…a bunt back to him? How well can this hitter stick with his approach at the plate off a pitcher he’s a career .488 hitter with 10 home runs against when he’s 0 for his last 17 while making 3 errors in the past two days, one of which was in the top of the first inning of today’s game? How does he handle a 14 pitch at bat where he just misses his pitch, but ends with a strikeout…back door slider caught looking?

How does he handle carrying a poor batting average into September…his free-agent/contract year? How does he handle an 0-6 game against the first place team leaving 8 guys on base in a 6-5 loss that is amidst a pennat race… ½ game out of first place with 2 games left in the season…if the division isn’t won a wild card birth is no chance being 5 games out…he’s a career .300 hitter hitting ..343 this year? How does he respond to his worst nightmare…cutters in or the bad habitual flailing attempt at sliders down and in? How does this infielder make this play and continue to play good defense if he’s struggling amongst a year long hitting slump… .245 this year and he’s a career .308 hitter? Everything is a test, SUCCESS as much as failure. How well are they focusing their efforts on the situation at hand despite the past which often times is the last pitch? How much do these athletes believe that their physical ability will give them the mental and emotional edge for wearing down and abusing their opponent? How well do they believe and trust in this simplistic process?

Can they sense and feel through their physical activity preparatory habits improvements in the way that they move…a carry over into competition for the duration of the season and their careers? How bad do they want to separate themselves from others by doing what others are either unable and/or unwilling to do? How are their activity, nutritional, and sleeping habits? Mentally, emotionally, and physically the body works together as a unit and whole. When one area is affected performance suffers. We use whole body activity to develop confident people in all areas of life, to eliminate wear and tear, to allow the body the opportunity to learn and make corrections, and to allow the body mentally, emotionally, and physically to be in synch together.              

Today it’s easy to be persuaded by cookie cutter programs dishing out the same quick fix solutions that stem from recruiting movement patterns the body will rarely if ever use. If the testing we’re implementing is to simply ‘come-up’ with stuff (quantifiable results) that will belittle and show our athlete’s and those looking at what we’re doing how bad they are for the sake of our lack of creativity and our willingness to go through the motions to accept the norm and status quo just to prove and protect our self worth then what we’re doing is implementing and abiding by failure based methods by making others look bad…real bad. As coaches, teachers, and educators we’re here to facilitate growth, to continue to work hard at what we do and finding better ways of doing things, not to be confused with baby sitting as test results more than anything are a direct result of our ability to build bridges and connective ties strategically and mysteriously.

We need to continue to take a good long hard look at our testing methods, program, the health of our athletes, what we’re doing with our testing results and the rationale for what we are doing. With the consistency and efficiency of our movements being limited to the body’s ability to control its constantly changing center of gravity, our focus and intent should continue to be upon progressing movement by making everything we’re doing more difficult. There’s a whole lot that statistics don’t tell us and a whole lot that we can’t see with the visual eye or with the aid of slow video taped frames. We need to continue to remember that the body is in and of itself a self healing vehicle.

The body is way smarter than us and our accumulated ‘hero-like’/‘wisdom’ based degrees when it comes to progression, programming, and movement and will correct itself if we allow it by placing it in environments and situations that allow it the opportunity to build upon its blue print of movements through self interaction and communication with itself in its entirety. What all successful athlete’s have in common is their ability to willingly do what others are unable and unwilling to do and to prepare for…to separate themselves from others. They trust and believe in these processes…they simplify things and let their aggressive instinct take over. How can we help them help themselves?       

Helpful tips for testing and programming:
• Be creative, have fun, and experiment with variables. There isn’t a right or a wrong way.
• The more you move the more lifelike it is and the greater the opportunity the body has to learn.
• Often times it’s best to just tell the brain to take a seat. Mix and match set, rep, rest, distance, and time variables (no stop watch…no problem, we’ll get it in our mindset to go as hard and fast for as long as we can and go again as soon as possible)…continually work to close the gap between rest and work…more work in less time and being able to recover quicker to repeat those all out efforts means a worn down opponent.
• Competition continues to occur under completely different circumstances and situations with constantly changing surface texture. The ability to control one-self mentally, emotionally, and physically are hall of fame like qualities.     
• Why ‘trick’ and confuse the body by performing tests of movement patterns the body will never use? No failure based methods.
• Do you want to see improvements in your programming and test results? Place the body in skilled positions that require it to control itself in its entirety. Sport and competition are not played sitting or lying down. A bat is not swung and a ball is not thrown from back, butt, or knees. Is it wise to practice and train lying or sitting down? Should we expect those controlled isolated environments to get us the best results while maximizing the time we have to spend getting work done? Let the body paint a clearer picture of its athletic abilities in skilled, athletic positions.
• There should be no difference in your tests and programs.
• Simplicity. Don’t loose focus on what’s really important.
• Are basing team and individual program design around pure numbers and ‘test results’ really as good and efficient as it’s cracked up to be?
• The more you COMBINE mental and emotional developmental work with physical activity, the quicker learning and adjustments can be made to current skills and athleticism while being able to develop new skills, the less wear and tear the body will experience, the more CONFIDENT the athlete will be. MORE work in LESS time.