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Trip Report: Anatomy for Strength Coaches

How we whet your appetite for what some consider a dry subject

In order to design effective strength programs, it seems only logical that a strength coach should have a good understanding of anatomy. Doesn’t strength training have something to do with muscles? Seriously, any coach who prescribes weight training exercises requires a basic understanding of at least the musculoskeletal system to do their jobs. After all, how can you recommend a stretch for a psoas if you don’t know where it is or what it does?

It’s unfortunate, but the fact is many personal trainers have little background in anatomy, and those who have taken college courses in the subject probably have not dusted off their textbooks since they graduated. Further, those courses often dealt with simple memorization and did not show the students how to apply this information to real-world training. So Charles Poliquin figured that some strength coaches need a refresher course – one that presents anatomy from a more practical perspective.

To accomplish this, Coach Poliquin sought the help of one of his most trusted PICP coaches, Eoin Lacey, a PICP Level 4 International Coach. Eoin co-founded the Irish Strength Institute along with PICP course conductor John Conner, a PICP Level 3 candidate. Eoin graduated from the Institute of Physical Therapy and Applied Science in Dublin, Ireland, and also from the Institute for Functional Medicine in Gig Harbor, Washington. He is qualified as a manual therapist and is also certified in Active Release Techniques®. Among Eoin’s clients are athletes who compete in mixed martial arts and professional soccer, and also amateur athletes in Gaelic football and track and field. He has worked extensively with the Irish International Cerebral Palsy Soccer Team, proving how effective, science-based conditioning can enhance everyone’s performance.

On January 21-22 the Poliquin Strength Institute presented “Anatomy for Strength Coaches” as part of our series of seminars called the Special Consideration Training Series. It was definitely not what you would expect from a seminar of that title – it was much, much more, with a combination of classroom lecture, exercise demonstrations and practice in the gym. In fact, Eoin had many physiotherapists and other medical professionals review the material presented, and they agreed they had never seen this variety of material presented in a single course.

After the seminar, Eoin sat down with me for a few minutes to discuss his approach to teaching anatomy and his impressions of the seminar.

KG: How did you learn what you know about anatomy?
EL: It all started when I was studying physical therapy in college. From there, learning Active Release and neuromuscular therapy, and from there, being an active trainer and coach for the last 14 years. I’ve accumulated knowledge, especially when working with Charles, who teaches you to reevaluate what you’ve learned.

KG: What was your underlying motivation to hold this class?
EL: During the last five years that I’ve been involved with PICP certifications and Biosignature, I’ve found that coaches, personal trainers and other attendees often were lacking in knowledge of real-life anatomy. They’ve been especially deficient in program design or in corrective exercise periodization.

KG: What do you mean by “real-life anatomy?”
EL: A lot of anatomy classes are taught in a way that can be described as “one dot goes to another dot, and that’s how muscles function.” The problem is that in the weightroom we are not dealing with skeletons and cadavers. Factors such as fascia, body position and movement patterns all have a strong influence on anatomy in the weightroom. So when you study anatomy, you have to incorporate your knowledge of program design.

KG: For coaches or personal trainers who don’t want to go back to college, how can they learn anatomy quickly to help them in their jobs?
EL: There are a lot of good clinical anatomy books, and I understand that Frank Netter has come out with anatomy software that you can put on your iPhone. This is great, but you have to keep this type of material in perspective. You cannot develop a practical knowledge of anatomy simply by memorizing it – you have to involve it in your work. You want to learn how to integrate movements of the elbow flexors with specific exercises in the weightroom. That is, try to make the information about what you know link up with the information you don’t know.

I can’t emphasize this enough – you need to do some sort of study of anatomy every single day. If you’re training people in the weightroom, for example, you practice linking muscles to the exercises to reinforce your retention of the knowledge. Take for example, physical therapists and massage therapists; they are dealing with bodies every day – so it’s to be expected that they would retain their anatomy knowledge better than a strength coach would.

KG: Can the average personal trainer or strength coach with no formal study in anatomy get much out of your course?
EL: Yes, but unless they’ve taken PICP Level 1 and 2 before this class, the material on exercise prescription would probably be over their heads.

KG: Does having access to the gym at the Poliquin Strength Institute help in your teaching?
EL: I get jealous when I come here because Charles has every contraption and machine you can imagine. It’s like going to the Disneyland of gyms.

KG: Are you looking at adding more advanced anatomy courses?
EL: For sure, as only so much can be done in two days. There is much that can be added, such as postural assessment.

KG: Is there a need to go into other areas of anatomy, such as the structure and function of the heart?
EL: Anatomy must be related to the skills you use on the job. If you are a personal trainer or strength coach, those skills are stretching, strengthening, and exercise prescription. We’re not talking about orthopedic surgery or working with cadavers, but being able to take what you learned from this seminar and apply it to your job the very next day. That is how you will see the benefits from the seminar and retain the information.

KG: Many fitness certification programs try to simplify the anatomy or just condense it to a few pages. Isn’t this better than nothing?
EL: Dumbing down is not a good way to go, as there is a progressive way to learn anatomy. Start off with origin and insertion, then fiber line, and then go from there.

KG: What feedback are you getting from those attendees in the class who have an extensive background in anatomy?
EL: We have several guys who have taken courses in college, and they say that exercise prescription is never associated with anatomy, and the classes never address how changes in exercise techniques affect the muscles. They have acquired information with no way to apply it. This course is an attempt to change that.