Steve Ilg... and little things

I bloody love Steve Ilg. All of his philosophy is spot on. I originally heard of him on Dan Johns forum and subsequently bought his most recent book (Total Body Transformation) for an absolute bargain on amazon. Buy this book.

Yoga is a central point to Ilgs fitness philosophy, now im not exactly a massive yoga follower (I get a little practice in here and there) but there is so much more to it than just 'practicing' yoga. Testing out this path leads to so many improvements: Little things like meditation, keeping your posture in check, nasal breathing and yoga itself. Although perhaps the most important thing is maintaining a balance...

So what, who cares about balance? I can squat and bench a gazillion kilos...

Whats the point in squatting a shit load of weight if you can't run more than 200m without dying?
Whats the point in having such a good bench is you can't do a single pullup, or do 30 pressups?
Why have the ability to sprint really fast without being able to repeat your efforts? Or have the ability to put the brakes on when necessary?

There are generally 9 components of fitness:
Strength
Power
Agility
Balance
Flexibility
Local muscular endurance
Cardiovascular endurance
Strength endurance
Co-ordination

As an athlete, don't neglect the above 9. Of course there are priorities.

For example if you're going through a strength cycle, as pretty much everyone has to do at one stage or another. DONT JUST SQUAT AND DEADLIFT AND PRESS or whatever. You have to maintain your essentials too. Maintaining a movement like running requires "proficiency of that movement can be maintained with around 1 exposure per week". Thats it. Just don't forget these little things that all add up to make YOU.

The body is one piece remember.

(ps a good read on running faster http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/speedtraining.html)