You don’t need to have testing protocols in your training program to make progress, but it sure does help accelerate the process. Here’s why.
Without something Trackable, you’re guessing at best
Data eliminates emotion and actually gives quantifiable results as to where you’re currently sitting. Whether that’s strength, power, speed, or even DEXA Scans for Muscle Mass, Fat Mass and Bone Density. As coaches and even within yourself, you can subjectively make relatively good guesses as to where your performance is. You can have a look at progress photos, see previous lifts and make judgements on your progress. BUT, data actually gives you the black and white insight into where, how much and what you have progressed in. There is a time and place for subjective judgements, but objective data is key to seeing where you actually are without the emotion.
The accuracy drastically improves
There is one key thing we got drilled about in our Exercise and Sport’s Science degree. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY.
Reliability is ‘Is what you’re testing or training for consistent with the environment, the testing parameters and the performance?’
Validity is ‘Is what you’re testing or training actually testing what you’re wanting to test?
These two key concepts make sure that what you’re training for is actually improving the key qualities AND ensuring that when you test them again, it’s consistent with the same environment.
If you test a Run or a 1RM in the gym then great. But when you go to re-test it in 6 or 8 weeks time, can you ensure the environment is exactly the same? Is the test performed the same?
This is the difference between testing protocols creating a more accurate environment to get results.
Achieve Better Buy in to your Training
When you see the numbers, you generally want to improve them. It’s black and white. With most testing protocols like the force plates, the data actually creates comparable data to others which gives you a percentile of where you sit. This almost always creates a level of buy in to wanting to improve that given fitness quality which only helps motivation to train and improve. Again, you can achieve this by simply doing it yourself, but there’s always a level of competitiveness within ourselves and against others that we want to beat. After all, you wouldn’t be competing if you weren’t competitive?
We love data and we implement it as often as we can where it’s applicable. There’s a balance between creating environments to get the best results alongside not becoming robotic and only training from the numbers. This is why we have created a full performance testing platform available to our Hybrid Premium members so we can guarantee results.
