Arguing for argument's sake!

Lately I am seeing a lot of people in our industry writing rants on certain topics, like the FMS, foam rolling, mobility work, and breathing techniques.

Now I have nothing against people disagreeing, or questioning certain techniques and methods. Actually I am all for this, as this is how a lot of us continue to learn.

But what I do that issue with is 1). People slating techniques that they don't understand or 2). Slating coaches for using certain techniques and methods when they do know how a particularly individual is applying these techniques.

Lets take the FMS. People argue that it alone is not a comprehensive assessment. To this I agree. But 1). The FMS is NOT an assesssment, its a screen, and 2). Gray has stated on numerous occasions that the FMS is just ONE piece of the puzzle. I think we would all agree on this. So why are we arguing??

How about breathing techniques? Some coaches are getting piss off when other coaches start talking about breathing. Again lets get a little perspective here. Nobody has their athletes doing 1 hour sessions of diaphragmatic breathing. It is something that is being utilized for only a FEW MINUTES of a session. Now is it helping? Well if we think that it has benefit, and we know that it can't negatively affect our athltetes and it takes little time away from training, then what are we arguing about?

Lets take foam rolling. Some say its not a warm up. Thats right its not a warm up. No one ever say it was the warm up. It is part of an overall thought process. Now even if foam rolling isn't achieving what we initial thought it was, I refer back to my point in the previous paragraph. If we think it may have a benefit with no negative side effects, and its takes little time away from the overall training process then way not try it at least. Again what is the argument?

At the end of the day there are many whys to skin a cat. But lets stop arguing for arguments sake. Sure it can make for some interesting blog posts, and interviews, but when it comes down to it I think we nearly all agree with 95% of everything that we all do. Even the 5% that we do not, I would venture to say that if we were actually face to face and discussed our thought processes behind certain things, we would even come to an agreement.

Stay Strong,
RB