Absolute Resource Guide: Deep Questions Podcast

Strategies to Prevent Neurological Stagnation: How Practitioners Can Damped the Limiting Constraint of Context Switching and Enhance Athlete Development to Point B.

Context Switching: A Conginitve Limiting Constraint on the Strength Practitioner

This episode of Deep Questions with Cal Newport highlights the concept of context switching—a behavior common among strength practitioners. When you understand just how devastating this behavior can be to executing the specific training work needed to stimulate the develop an athlete to Point B, you'll recognize it as an "energy black hole" and take steps to dampen its effects, both in the clinic and the weight room.

Note: Cal Newport has a great book called Deep Work.

Context Switching: A Driver of Neurological Stagnation in the Practitioner

At Absolute, we were the first to propose the concept of neurological stagnation in athletes and explore how it differs significantly from biological accommodation. Unfortunately, many practitioners still conflate the two and fail to grasp the distinction. To avoid neurological stagnation in ourselves as practitioners, we need to minimize context switching during our work. This means focusing our training efforts on a specific element of Point B, or even a sub-element, and ensuring we stimulate that element fully before moving on.

For example, if we choose to work on the bottom-up aspect of reactive strength—such as connective tissue architecture—we must stay focused on that aspect and resist switching to another element until the necessary work has been completed. If we switch prematurely, we risk engaging in 'pseudotraining,' where work occurs but does not lead to the desired outcomes—the stimulation of a specific element of Point B. Moreover, when we jump from working on connective tissue architecture to joint function or neural network stimulation, we, as practitioners, will begin to feel the fatigue of context switching, and if we’re experiencing it, our clientele likely is too.

Strategies to Avoid Neurological Stagnation in Strength Practitioners