Improving Athletes In Two Weeks Or Less: My Process
When designing someone’s program, I’m asking the athlete to spend her precious and finite time and energy on my prescriptions. She’ll never get those resources back. So whatever I advise better work.
I treat every prescription as an experiment and give myself two weeks to get results. Usually, I get my answer within the session, but some things require a smidge more time.
I know it sounds as ludicrous as getting a hamster to golf in two weeks, but I wouldn't have such audacious expectations if I didn't have the evidence to back it up. Let me share two examples:
A runner did seven months of ineffective physical therapy. Thirty minutes with me, and she fought back tears of relief. We made progress.
NFL player plateaued his lifts and skills, and his body ached. Visited Apiros. Body felt better, fast. In a few months, he PR’d in his main lifts not by five or ten pounds, but by eighty. Skills followed same trajectory. Made millions more dollars. Healthy.
Stories like these are what I expect, and I hope they open your mind to what's possible.
Wanna know my secrets? It’s not just the Evolved Coaching I use. I’m willing to fail—a lot. My technique is trial and error, and my equipment is trust and confidence. The game? Puzzles. Jigsaw.
Every athlete is a puzzle, and I yearn to solve them. It’s just a matter of finding the right pieces. I take a piece and see if it fits with another. Most don’t. So I cast each aside and scour the table for the next likely candidate. I know the corners and the edges; they’re how humans evolved to move. But the inner image is the athlete, what she does, and what she’s missing. We figure it out together.
To the outside observer, what seems like an array of random movements is actually a scientific process. I make a hypothesis, “I think he’s substituting femoral internal rotation for tibial.” So, I get him to rotate his tibia internally and see what happens.
Some days look extraordinarily creative and playful. We’ll try the same movement in different orientations—it’s like I’m turning the piece around to see if any edge clicks into place.
If I hypothesize that improved hip flexion will solve her woes, we’ll try open chain or closed, and supine, prone, standing, side-lying, or slightly inverted—I’m turning her around to see if an orientation clicks. Each position recruits different muscles, and I hope one will be a clear winner in the session. If none are, I reconsider my hypothesis.
When she’s trying these new movements, I notice big and minuscule details: how did her bones move, locally and globally? What else did she contract, and is it necessary? How did her skin move? How did her weight-bearing blanche the blood in her foot? Did her breathing change? Did she feel better or worse? (I ask.) What words did she use, and more importantly, what was her tone?
This list may seem like an overwhelming amount of things to notice, and it is at first, but a great soccer player scans more focal points in less time as she faces each opponent. Why can’t my coaching be similar?
Results
How do I know if a puzzle piece fits? There are only a few results that matter:
She feels better, or she doesn’t.
She moves better, or she doesn’t.
Numbers one and two can happen instantly with the right prescription; all I’m looking for is progress, not completion or perfection.
She’s stronger/faster, or she’s not.
She improved her stats, or she didn’t.
Three and four take more time. Sometimes days, sometimes months. But progress must be seen in two-week intervals.
If she says, “Yeah, I think I’m hitting the ball harder.” I won’t take her word for it because it’s what I want to hear. I ask her to prove it. I am a relentless devil’s advocate against my methods. I want to purge the useless things I’ve given her so I can craft an increasingly effective program.
I do not take any methodology at face value—even my own. I take it for what it’s worth to each athlete. If I find myself repeating the same prescription while hoping for a different result, red flag. I need to try something else. But once I find the thing that makes her feel better, move better, and all that jazz, the chaos stops. The piece stays in her program for weeks or months.
This “two weeks or less” thing seems like a schtick, even to me. But I stick to it because it puts me under pressure to solve problems, and I’ve seen too many miracles to expect otherwise. Also, this self-imposed necessity makes me innovate. Yes, it can look messy. But necessity is the mother of all inventions, and failure is the father.
Increase Your Efficacy
I didn’t write this post to toot my own horn. I don’t care about accolades, fame, or praise. I want to open your eyes and mind to what’s possible—we are an extremely adaptable species. Practitioners and coaches can become incredibly more effective. And I want to help you evolve.
If you’re a dedicated practitioner who has tirelessly tried methods that failed you and your clients, I understand your frustration. You've invested precious time, energy, and resources to acquire the skills and credentials needed to make a difference. You were promised results, but unfortunately, those promises turned out to be empty.
There's nothing more disheartening than being sold on a philosophy or approach that was supposed to be Wonka’s golden ticket, only to discover its ineffectiveness when put into practice. It feels like a betrayal, as if you've been misled.
At least, that was my experience. Then I did something about it and innovated practices based on evolution and efficacy. They work for athletes, not Sally, from accounting. Evolved Coaching is so effective that I believe this “two weeks or less” nonsense, and so do my students because it works for them too.
In my eight-week online course, I help you problem-solve and think critically. Steam might come out of your ears, but we will make progress. I’ll help you apply this stuff to yourself and your clients so you can experience its efficacy. I’m by your side every step of the way, and you have unlimited access to me. I promise to challenge you to grow, pushing the boundaries of what you believe is possible. I’ll be the Alfred to your Batman.
—AE