Establishing a Foundation
Traditional training leads to moderate gains in athletic and physical fitness, which are soon overwhelmed by injury, imbalance, and physical deficiency. Most athletes excelling using traditional methods do so in spite of them, their natural talents overcoming the deficient training. Some even sense the problem and begin to take their own path, athletes like Troy Polamalu. The SSL Methodology will first address the weaknesses, imbalances, and deficiencies imposed by traditional anti-athletic training. Once the body has been audited for these problems, they will be repaired using foundational training, beginning with the feet, spine, and nervous system. The training of the spinal micromuscles and core postural muscles, both dynamically and statically, will enhance stability and posture. Everything in Phase 1 begins to develop the foundation for the main athletic attributes: power, speed, and quickness. Additionally, a thorough analysis of the subject's body will result in a proper regimen to address needs for physical therapy, rehabilitation from surgery or injury, or quality-of-life improvements.
The Importance of the Feet
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The first step in the SSL process requires proper analysis of the athlete to find weaknesses, imbalances and deficiencies, whether physical or biomechanical. To properly analyze what needs to be improved with an athlete, you must first be able to compare them to what great athletes possess. If you don’t know what good is, how will you know what needs to be improved with the athlete you are training? The body is repaired from the ground up, focusing on the feet, spine and neuromuscular system, providing a foundation which is shock absorbent, injury resistant, and capable of increased power, speed, and quickness, as well as speeding recovery from physical problems, be they injury- or lifestyle-related. Most importantly, followed faithfully, SSL's Methodology allows an athlete to progress to higher levels of athletic accomplishment with greater mental strength and a reduction in serious injury risk.
The main introduction to the core concept of SSL Methodology: The Neuromuscular Intensification System, or NIS. NIS challenges the body's proprioceptors, forcing the athlete to increase their awareness of where they are in space, and the results of their movements from where they are in space. The NIS achieves this initially through a variety of basic movements, done to an exacting specificity, to increase motor and nervous system function. Through the NIS, the body will naturally improve on weakness further.
The NIS has a powerful advantage over traditional systems in our unique accelerating isokinetic training. Through decades of testing and reworking, the SSL Methodology has determined the best full-body accelerating isokinetic movements to increase muscle balance, torso stabilization, and nervous response. This accelerating isokinetic machine ensures a maximum load throughout the entire range of motion, without gravity playing a factor, which increases or decrease automatically with your ability. This awakens your neuromuscular system in a way no other exercise or training can. Conventional weight training doesn’t do any of these things. It increases the risk of injury and slows strength gains.
The Missing Eccentric Link
Plyometric movements dominate all sports. The concentric contraction is preceded by a very fast eccentric stretch. In this phase all of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons are loaded with elastic energy and heat, which provide the power for the concentric contraction. Traditional weight training and the focus on maximal weight loads completely ignores this basic scientific fact. This basic fact also eliminates conventional weight training as a valid regimen for improving eccentric to concentric changeover speed. The best athlete is the one that has the greatest eccentric to concentric speed of contraction. A pitcher’s arm is not held in a state of tension; it is instead held completely relaxed while the rest of the body begins to store elastic energy through movement and rotation, ultimately releasing it out through the arm. The standards of excellence in conventional training is achieving maximal weight load. A pitcher’s ability to bench press 300 pounds does not correlate in any way to his ability to throw 90 miles per hour. Maximal weight load does not equal maximal athletic ability: very fast eccentric stretch and concentric contraction equals maximal athletic ability.
