Hocevar Performance

And you thought the tire by itself was chaotic!

What is chaos training? Let me first present what was defined as the “Chaos Theory” by Edward Lorenz in 1960. He suggested that when a small random change is introduced into the system, it causes a riple effect that can overwhelm and change long term behavior of the system. Henri Poincare later determined that unless these initial changes could be defined and measured, the outcome or deviation caused by these ripples could never be predicted.

So where soes this fit into sport? Well, sport by nature is dictated moment to moment by randomness and the athletes reaction to it. A small change in play, one step too late, a push from the side can radically change the ongoing sequence of events. The athlete must react with intuition and make decisions in a split second.

 So when it comes down to it the performance of the athlete is determined by how they react to these choatic situations, which is dependent on the adaptations and preparation from strength, skill and cognitive training.

Some of these training protocols may be to advanced for some athletes and there alwayshas to be an assesment that determines what the athletes needs to reach their desired goal. After certain things have been adressed and corrected then we add a chaos component to training. The majority of training means that we use up to this point include movement patterns that are predictable so we add exercises that will stengthen the athlete with random stimuli and bridge the gap between regular strength training adaptations and sports performance.

I have to admit that it was reading Jim Smith’s (one of the most knowledgable and creative coaches in the industry) work on Chaos Training that had me start using even more of the these methods and I have had great results with my athletes. They are improving on field performance and most of all staying injury free.

Above I am training with one of our upcoming football and track stars Armin Basic of Renton High School. We are flipping the 500 lb tire explosively with random resisitance from stretch bands. This is definitely chaotic and it is also great for bracing the core.