My (Hilarious) First Incident Report & Why Simple Exercises Win

I can remember it too vividly.

My two Day 1’s, Noah and Lucas, were using bands to make their sprints harder.

I had seen an Instagram video of a coach being pulled by their athlete, only holding on by a band. The catch was that their feet were on sliders. Looked sumptuous!

By the way… this was the first 6 months of my career when I thrived off cool (in hindsight meshugge) looking exercises. You can picture that this was right up my alley.

So Noah was the bigger athlete. Of course, he would be the one to volunteer as a runner. Lucas who was substantially smaller decides to ride the wave and surf the facility. Or had I known, more like fly through the facility. I was way too optimistic and believed Lucas would handle this bucking bronco like a champ. Boy was I wrong!

Noah takes off like he is running for a million bucks.

Not even 3 feet into this gong show, Lucas had a foot toe pick the turf. Just the slightest touch caused a tsuris.

In less than a blink of an eye, Lucas is imitating superman through the air. Had not even thought to let go of the purple band. Noah not even realizing what had happened continues darting to his glory.

By the time Noah realizes the tension is long gone, the damage was done. Lucas had already been defying gravity for what seemed to be a lifetime.

Before I could register the chaos, Lucas has hit the turf and beginning the worst portion of this predicament…. the dreaded turf burn.

The turf doesn't care about Lucas. This teenage boy had to have skidded 15 feet thanks to the energy of that resistance band combined with the velo produced by Noah.

All motion comes to a stop, we are all scanning one another for a proper reaction.

I am concerned and so I immediately ask Lucas if he is fine and needs medical aid. Lucas begins laughing, “That was insane! I flew!”.

Not a second after those words left his mouth, the adrenaline had depleted.

“Ugggh, ahhhh, my shoulder”.

When Lucas pulled down his shirt, it was like roadkill meets week old pizza.

Chilling. Crude. Perplexing.

Gone was skin, here comes the ooze.

I told him to keep it covered by the shirt because bandaids were out of the question by a mile.

Explaining this to his Father was awkward, to say the least, but to my surprise, we shared a few laughs.

THE IMPORTANT THING: If I had kept things simple, gone with a modality that is proven by science, this wouldn't have happened.

I want you the reader to always remember that for optimal gains in the gym, simple, compound movements that can be loaded progressively is key.

A very important point to note. There is no perfect program. The perfect program for an individual is the one which they can stick with until the day they die. I am simply stating what works effectively when sustained by the athlete. A small group of compound lifts +progressive overload. That is all it takes people. Not many can maintain patience and persistence. Those two attributes determine the success of someone more than any particular modality will.

Wish y’all the best! Win the day.