Z-Health Athletic Performance System Review: Concept #2 The SAID Principle
September 8th, 2009
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by Mike T Nelson · Filed Under: Uncategorized
Series Content
- Z-Health Athletic Performance System: Behind The Curtains Part 1
- Z-Health Athletic Performance System Review: Concept #2 The SAID Principle
- Key Z Health R Phase Review Concept #4: The 3 Rs of R Phase Why is it called R-Phase?
- Key Z Health R Phase Review Concept #5: “All the body all the time”
- Key Z Health R Phase Review Concept #6: Optimal Motor Learning
- Key Z Health R Phase Review Concept #7: Enemies of Efficiency and Sensory motor amnesia
- Key Z Health R Phase Concept Review #8: 4 Elements of Efficiency
- Key Z Health R Phase Review Concept #9: The Neuromatrix of Pain
The Monday Mobility series rolls on, even though today is not a Monday due to the Holiday in the US yesterday.
If you missed last week’s episode, be sure to check it out below.
Z-Health Athletic Performance System Review :Behind The Curtains : Part 1
Now on to the the most important governing physiology principle that nobody talks about.
I’ve taken a ton of physiology classes over many many years, and it is incredibly rare this concept is even mentioned based about Physiology 101. Most trainers have even forgotten about this and if they have heard of it, they rarely use it in practice. It is……..the SAID principle!
The SAID principle translated is
Specific
Adaptation to
Imposed
Demand
This is roughly translated as “your body ALWAYS adapts to EXACTLY what you do, whether you realize it or not”
While this is not a new concept at all, it is forgotten about almost everywhere.
How does it work?
So if I bench press heavy, what do I get better at? Bench pressing heavy! I know this all seems incredibly obvious.
If I play football, will squatting heavy make me a better football player? According to the SAID principle, no. The question you are asking is TRANSFER. Will squatting heavy TRANSFER to the playing field? If it does make you a better football player (again, that is tricky to evaluate), it is POSITIVE TRANSFER. If it makes you a worse player, it is NEGATIVE TRANSFER.
Ironically, I think many top athletes who train and do screwy stuff in the weight room, find that it does NOT transfer to the playing field and this is a good thing since if it did it would make them a worse player. Many succeed IN SPITE of what they do.
Below is an article I wrote SAID Principle and Transfer for XL Athlete on this topic
SAID Principle and Athletic Transfer at XL Athlete
Summary
Keep in mind that the SAID principle is true and “your body ALWAYS adapts to EXACTLY what you do, whether you realize it or not. If you want more details, be sure to read the article above.
My buddy Todd has a great article on the SAID Principle too at the link below
SAID Principle article at Better Movement
What are your thoughts on the SAID principle? How do you use it in your training?
Rock on
Comments RSS 
Thanks for the plug Mike! Reminds me to get to work on the next blog post. Its been months. How do you do so many?
Yes, get back to work Todd! ha!
Sometimes I feel like I have so much stuff in my head, I just need to get it out and this blog serves that purpose. You should see all the stuff that never makes it here. At last count I have 230 articles still “in draft” yikes.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
“Specific
Adaptation to
Imposed
Design”
Imposed Design??? Interesting. And I always thought it had to do with demands.
“What are your thoughts on the SAID principle? How do you use it in your training?”
I don’t know. How can I use it to my advantage? What does it really tell me?
I think performing the task you want to get good at gets more important the more technical it is. If it’s all about complex fine grained coordination like for example playing an instrument anything but doing just what you want to get better at is probably a waste of time and has very little to no effect. Want to be able to play fast sweep picking arpeggios on your guitar? Play arpeggios in with sweep picking. Nothing else will help. But as somebody how wants to play guitar that is probably what you would do anyway. Nobody would do strength training and think that it would help them with their arpeggios.
But than there are other tasks that aren’t solely limited by coordinative demands. There are things where other aspects play a huge roll and performing the task you want to get better at isn’t perhaps the best way to improve all aspects of the involved structures. Take the vertical jump. You’ll find lots of studies that show that jumping combined with strength training shows better improvements than jumping alone. So a combination of specific and unspecific training is superior to specific training alone in this case. But the SAID principle doesn’t tell you that. You’ll even find some studies that show that Olympic lifting alone can shows greater improvements than jumping alone (for example Tricoli et al. 2005), so completely unspecific training can be superior to completely specific training. Again the SAID principle doesn’t tell you that.
If you want to get good at playing football you probably want that because you enjoy playing football or you have to play football for any other reason so you play football anyway. You don’t need any principle to tell you to play football.
I currently can’t think of any case where knowledge of the SAID principle would help.
I hate it that you can’t edit your comments on most blogs.
“somebody how wants” -> “somebody who wants”
Mike,
I know what you mean about writing to get stuff out of the head, I have quite a few backlog articles myself. But not 230 though, sheesh.
hey Mike
love the posts keep em coming Ok im a tennis coach and the fashion right now in training is to mimic strokes using med balls to create a load and supposedly create strength ie see this months NSCA journal devoted entirely to tennis training. after doing and learning lots about Z and motor patterns i felt that doing this kind of training set up competing motor patterns and was not such a great idea also thought that the weight of the balls was not enough of a load to create much of a training effect (like ken and barbie kbs and dbs) but because i didnt have enough letters behind my name the powers to be thought i was none to bright especially after i started talking about Z work that just about ended things. So i am asking you your opinion on that type of training. thanks in advance for the time and congrats on your marriage being married is the best!
Thanks for the great comment Helium! Thanks for catching that too as it is Demand and not Design. I fat monkey fingered “demand” wrong and ran spell check which thought I needed to use “design” Much appreciate the correction and it is fixed now.
I would agree that it seems to be the more technical the movement, the more the SAID principle is important.
I would argue that some hand and finger mobility may improve your arpeggios with sweep picking
While this would not be SAID specific, it would be positive transfer.
John Jerome was famous for his quote “Specificity works, but at a price”
That is why you can’t do SAID specific work for 100% of your training and the reason to find things that positively transfer to your sport, such as training your weak points.
HOW you practice is just as important. Quality over quantity. A bunch of very poorly performed plyos may not increase your vertical jump. Quality first always.
I hope that helps a bit and let me know what further questions you have.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Todd,
I can’t wait to read another brain dump from you! Everyone needs to read Todd’s blog at Better Movement http://toddhargrove.wordpress.com/
If you ever want to do a guest post here, drop me a line!
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Hi there Paul! Great to hear from you again and much appreciate the comment!
Yes, as a card carrying member of the NSCA and past presenter, I love the science the NSCA uses and the great people in the organization. I do, however, scratch my head and some of their conclusions though!
In general, motor control is VERY SAID specific. There have been many cases where pitchers careers have been ruined by a coach having them throw a slightly heavier ball to “improve their pitching” All it did was destroy their accuracy. Huge NEGATIVE transfer. Like all things, I am sure there is some place for it, but I would put it near the bottom of my list.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have not trained any top level tennis players, so this is not from direct experience; BUT if I was I would take the same stance I take with just about every athlete. I train them as a ATHLETE first and work increase their movement equality and efficiency. My goal is NOT to replace the skills coach at all, my job is to create a better athlete. A better athlete is stronger, faster, thinks better on their feet, has better vision, balance and over all movement quality.
I would find a way to evaluate their tennis performance, since that is the ultimate end goal.
I would reassess EVERYTHING that they do to ensure it does not degrade their movement. This would include EVERY set of EVERY exercise. It is really pretty easy to do–watch them walk and look at their gait!
Think about how the brain of an athlete gets info, it gets it from
1) eyes (visual)
2) joints (proprioception)
3) inner ear (vestibular)
These converge in the brain to create your “movement map” Many athletes need better software to run their hardware. Too many only focus on the hardware, If I install a new hard-drive in my computer but don’t update the software to run it, how well will it work?
Beyond that, foot efficiency is HUGE. I will send you a presentation Brad “No Relation” Nelson and I did at the last NSCA state conference on this. Stop doing all cariocas too. Stupid exercise. Do that in a game your butt just got burned, badly.
Yes, talk of movement maps and stuff leaves most people fogged. I’ve found some demos to work brilliantly instead. These are taught in the Z-Health R Phase series.
I hope that helps a bit. Feel free to post any follow up thoughts here too.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
PS
Are you all signed up for Z-Health cert now?
Having played football, as well as some other sports, there is a phenomena called “work out wonders.” These were guys who tested well. They could lift and they could sprint. Problem was that they couldn’t play football. They were strong and they were fast but they weren’t football players. Too many coaches (in all sports) get seduced by test data that doesn’t translate to skill. One problem is this. As Gray Cook put it, “There is a reason NFL teams only play once a week.” The physical and mental demands imposed by the game are tough to replicate and if exposed to that stress too often is counterproductive. Most college and pro teams only have contact on game day as it is too expensive the rest of the time. Wish we could find a way to impose SAID there during the season.
Mike thanks for the in depth reply to my question it helps to know that the path i am on is the right one. i was signed up for r and i phase certs and on the way to san diego i was in a car accident a lady hit me from behind messed me up pretty good just now starting to feel better working the Z alot sure has helped. thanks again for your time im going to chk out your presentation right now!