On Sunday, we hosted Neil Rampe of the Arizona Diamondbacks for a Myokinematic Dysfunction seminar at Cressey Performance.  It was a great experience, and Neil did a very thorough job of highlighting the different schools of thought with respect to addressing movement impairments.  In particular, Neil spent a lot of time on two schools of thought: Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (discussed in this post) and the Postural Restoration Institute.

There was some advanced stuff being discussed, and we had a wide variety of professions and ability levels represented in the audience.  There were athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, personal trainers, physical therapists, and chiropractors in attendance.  And, they ranged in age from 20 all the way up to 55 (or so).  After the seminar, I got to talking with Neil about how it’s interesting to think what each person takes away from a seminar based on their age, occupation, and experience level.  It led to me coming up with the six kinds of seminar attendees:

1. The Experienced, Open-minded Attendee – This individual may have similar experience in similar fields as the presenter.  If he gets just 2-3 good tips over the course of the seminar, he’s thrilled.  The more experienced you get, the more you appreciate the little things you can add (or subtract) to refine your approach.

Example: Last year, I spent about 95% of Greg Rose’s presentation at Perform Better in Long Beach nodding in agreement, as he and I both deal with a ton of rotational sport athletes (him with golf, and me with baseball).  He did, however, introduce one new thoracic spine mobility test that I absolutely love and use to this day.  I might have only picked up one thing, but it was a hugely valuable for me.

2.The Experienced, Close-minded Attendee – This individual may be very experienced in a similar realm as the presenter, but isn’t openminded enough to realize that a professional on his level still might have things to offer to improve his approach.  These are usually the people who claim to be “old school” – which essentially applies that they only have experience doing the same thing for 25 years.  This is one kind of “there’s nothing new here” person.

3. The Experienced Attendee from a Different Field – This individual might be excellent at what he does in a semi-related field, but completely new to the material presented at a seminar.  The challenge here is to learn what can be applied in that other realm. Think of a pitching or track coach attending a strength and conditioning seminar – or a S&C coach attending a pitching or physical therapy conference.

4. The Intimidated, Lazy Beginner Attendee – There are times when a beginner attends a seminar and has little to no clue what’s going on during the event and is completely intimidated by what he doesn’t know.  And, as a result, the attendee claims that he will never need the information anyway.  These folks should either change their attitudes or pick a different industry, as they are the second kind of “there’s nothing new here” person.

5. The Motivated Beginner Attendee – This attendee is identical to the intimidated beginner, but rather than getting insecure about his lack of knowledge on the subject, he uses it as motivation to study further and find a way to get to where he wants to be.  This may be an understanding of how to apply bits and pieces of what the presenter taught, or a desire to become an expert in the same topic the presenter covered.  You see this quite a bit in the fitness industry, as exercise enthusiasts who aren’t in the industry will actually attend seminars just to learn about better training practices – just like I might tend a talk by an economist, for instance.

6. The Middle of the Road Attendee – This individual is somewhere between a beginner and an expert in the material being covered.  My experience has been that the “middle of the road” folks only attend seminars (at least the ones at which I’ve presented) if they genuinely care about getting better, not just for CEUs (the intimidated/lazy beginners do that).  I find that this is probably the biggest group of the six.

Groups 5 and 6 are the ones who have loved our Building the Efficient Athlete seminar the most, as it either complemented their college anatomy and kinesiology curriculum nicely, or helped to take the place of it altogether (for those who didn’t attend school).

Think about this for yourself and start to consider where you fall in the context of these six categories.  And, more importantly, how does your “placement” in this scheme dictate the next 2-3 seminars you’re going to attend?  Do you want to completely get outside your realm of expertise and see something entirely new, or do you want to hone in on your specialty and see if you can come up with a few new tricks to take you to the next level?  There isn’t a correct answer on this, other than that you need to keep getting out to see others in action to get better!

On a related note, I’ve got a busy spring of seminars booked, so if you haven’t already, check out my schedule page for details.