Let’s say you’re with a group of five hitters. You give all five the same cue: “Move your hands back.” Your expectation is they’ll all execute a similar movement with their hands. Reality is quite the opposite.
One will move his hands directly back. Another might move them around his body. One might move his upper body with his hands. You gave all five the same cue, but all five came up with a completely different interpretation. One cue produced five different movements.
It’s the ultimate communication problem.
While there are few guarantees in coaching, there is one that will always hold true: No two people will ever interpret the same message the same way. We all have different experiences. How we interpret things is heavily dependent on those experiences. Just because we hear what you’re saying doesn’t mean we’ll interpret it in a way that matches your expectations. This creates a critical disconnect.
When making movement changes, we cannot solely rely on verbiage. It will always be at the constraint of the person receiving it. The messenger doesn’t determine whether the message was effective or not. The receiver does. As a result, we have to find ways to communicate our message without relying on words. We can’t depend on our athletes to hear what we’re saying. We have to make them feel it.
This is the power in 10 pounds of water.
When you train with water filled products, you’re going to feel what it’s like to be:
Stable vs. unstable
Connected vs. disconnected
Strong vs. weak
Sequenced vs. out of sequence
The design of the products creates a critical constraint. With every step you take, the water in the bag is moving and sloshing in an unpredictable pattern. Our body is primed to keep things in balance. If you’re training with instability, your body is naturally going to counter and find stability. This is where adaptations take place.
Water filled implements don’t let you cheat and get away with patterns rooted in instability. They force you to find stability. You’re naturally going to feel whether you’re stable, centered, and controlled or not. You don’t need someone to tell you this. You just need to pick up a bag and start turning. The water is going to give you all the feedback you need.
In the 108 Performance Product Package, we’ve put together three different examples of water filled training aids designed to help you communicate with your athletes:
