Finally posting again...Nothing personal... but what you train for is what you get
Yup I have been swamped lately with clients, work and conferences. But an interesting article came out a few days ago in the local paper. As you know one of the unique features of Singapore is our national service (i.e. ARMY). One of the things that we do there is this thing called IPPT - Individual Physical Proficiency Test.
In the article this so called "fit" guy was whining about how he has completed 3 marathons and other "fitness" events and yet fails his IPPT because of his lousy standing broad jump. He barely cleared 200cm - worse than many teenage female athletes I know. And the passing mark is an extremely unimpressive 216cm which is really not hard for a fully grown man.
There is the principal of specificity at work here - What you train for is what you will get. The poor fit-boy's muscles and nervous system are so tuned to jogging (with its bad effects) that when called upon to produce POWER they just can't. I can also be sure that joggers are super quad dominant (can't use their buttocks to generate movement) and thats a weak way to jump as well.
So don't complain that you can't pass, stop all the joggin and lift heavy stuff instead . Those 16 cm to the passing mark will fly right by under your feet.
As for the validity of the IPPT as a test for combat fitness... haha I have my thoughts on that as well but will save them for another article.
posted by Coach Jonathan Wong @ 3/20/2007 10:01:00 AM
Comments: 3
