411: Tim Anderson on Dialing the Spectrum of Speed in Movement and Performance

Today's podcast features coach Tim Anderson. Tim is the co-founder of Original Strength and has been a personal trainer for over 20 years. He is an accomplished author and speaker known for streamlining complex ideas into simple and applicable information. Tim is passionate about helping people realize they were created to be strong and healthy. He has written and co-written many books on this subject, including The Becoming Bulletproof Project, Habitual Strength, Pressing RESET, and Original Strength Performance. Tim's message is simple yet powerful: We were created to feel good and be strong throughout life. Many systems, philosophies, and assessments start with clients and athletes feeling broken, while Tim's work blends a positive message with functional strength and restorative movements. The longer I go through my journey as a coach, athlete, and mover, the more I value Tim's work, and I have incorporated many of his ideas into my own methods and programming. On today's episode, Tim and I discuss fluidity of movement, body tension, and creativity, followed by a discussion on utilizing a variety of speeds in training. Much of our talk centers around the benefits of slow movements and how these can, in turn, benefit much higher velocity motions, as well as ideas on how these fit in training complexes. Tim speaks on this and much more in this episode. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “justfly25” for 25% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points: 2:09- Enhancing Well-Being through Natural Movement Integration 2:42- Movement Exploration: Learning Through Curiosity 6:24- Exploring Fluid Movement for Enhanced Performance 11:58- Dynamic Seagrave Warmup for Track Athletes 15:39- Embodied Awareness for Enhanced Well-Being 16:32- Dynamic Speed Integration for Athletes 20:36- Enhancing Body Control Through Slow Movements 32:28- Enhancing Physical Expression Through Creative Movement Exploration 48:41- Fluid Movement Inspired by Childlike Joy 54:11- Animal-Inspired Visualization for Enhancing Movement Patterns Tim Anderson Quotes "You have to experience what it feels like to you so that you get that connection between your mind and your body. Otherwise you're disconnected." - Tim Anderson “So I'm a huge fan of exploring slow motion in movements. Now, I do primarily do that, like during pressing reset, like say for crawls or rolls or rocks. But you can, you can do it with any, any movement whatsoever. And the beautiful thing about going slow, though, is that it teaches you so much about your body, but it also exposes the areas of, of your movement that you don't really have control of yet” - Tim Anderson “Sugar Ray Leonard, like, he was extremely, he was lightning fast, but he would also do super slow shadow boxing to, like, where like it trick photography, slow motion.” - Tim Anderson "It's not that going fast isn't great for you. It's just that it's only one end of the spectrum. You got all this other room that you can play in and learn from that actually will help you move faster when you do want to go fast." - Tim Anderson "So it's not beyond just moving slow. Um, is to. To kind of be curious to see where you can move. Like, a lot of times your body will. It'll give you barriers. You know, a lot of people say, well, I can't move that way because I get stuck right here. Great. Like, use that. That barrier to learn from it." - Tim Anderson "I know correctives are well intentioned, but I think they can be dangerous or mismanaged because if you do start labeling people as broken, they're going to, that's what they're going to. That's the program you've given them and they're going to run the program. I mean, we are, we are so programmable. - Tim Anderson "Everybody starts at good because you already know this. A person, if they're, they have compensations or limitations, they are already moving exactly the way their body is designed because their brain is telling their body to move that way because it's not getting the information it's looking for. So they're not moving bad or wrong. They're doing exactly what their brain is telling them to do because it's working the way it's supposed to." - Tim Anderson "If you give me ten minutes of movement every day in a year, you've given me 3650 minutes of movement. And you have built a very efficient neural nervous system with all the neural pathways needed to, for those movements to give you complete access to your body with no tension, no fear, no reservation, no limitation." - Tim Anderson “When we were children, we got strong by being on the floor. When we're adults, we can stay strong by being on the floor” - Tim Anderson Transcript About Tim Anderson Tim is the co-founder of Original Strength, and has been a personal trainer for over 20 years. He is an accomplished author and speaker and is known for streamlining complex ideas into simple and applicable information. He is passionate about helping people realize they were created to be strong and healthy. Tim has written and co-written many books on this subject including The Becoming Bulletproof Project, Habitual Strength, Pressing RESET, and Original Strength Performance. When it comes down to it, his message is simple yet powerful: We were created to feel good and be strong throughout life.