Although I have not made this fact readily known, I love Tex Mex food. And the almighty taco heads up my list of greatest foods known to man. The good thing about the taco is that you can find it just about anywhere in the United States; and it is pretty easy to make yourself.
The taco is made up of only four main ingredients. Obviously, you can add different things (tomatoes, sour cream, salsa/taco sauce, etc.) but the base of the taco is always these four things:
- Taco Shell
- Meat
- Lettuce
- Cheese
With such simple and readily available ingredients, you'd think it would be impossible to get a bad taco. Well, won't you be surprised to learn there is a huge amount of bad tacos being made and consumed at THIS VERY MOMENT. A good (or great taco) is not about any fancy additional ingredient. It is about the quality of the shell, meat, lettuce and cheese. You mess them up and no matter how fancy you present the taco, it is a culinary disaster.
Training is much like a great taco. An awesome training program doesn't need all the bells and whistles; it needs a few high quality components done with a high degree of common sense. Of course, each training program may need some additions; this would be determined by your goals and your current state of fitness (or readiness or whatever it is called). I've said this many times before but each training program should consists of strength/resistance training, conditioning and mobility/flexibility. Each of these three need not be extensive; they need to be balanced. And done with a high degree of quality.
This doesn't mean you can't add in the "bells and whistles". It just means that you should make sure your training taco has a solid foundation of quality.
We can take this analogy a little bit further with an example. At London High School, our football training program revolves around a few simple things. And one of them is strength/hypertrophy training. And while the training program is of high quality (at least I believe so), the EXECUTION of the movements should also be of high quality. And yes, maybe not every single rep is perfect; but that is always the goal. We don't strive to add weight to the bar until the athlete proves ready.
One of our coaching keys both in the weight room and on the field is attention to detail. Do the little things correctly. When a quality program is done with quality reps, with high quality of effort, you give yourself a great chance at succeeding.
And when quality becomes the norm, you will be surprised at how much it carries over to every thing that you do. Especially when it's Taco Night in your house.
