With this impressive profile, the Engine must be considered central to any long-term plan we undertake. As athletes, a deep understanding of Central Engine and its role in growth and progression is necessary, so that a hierarchy of systems can be established in the management of a long-term plan. The Engine is absolutely on top of that hierarchy. The Engine is the manager of all other physical systems in the body. To exclude it from a purposeful plan, is to leave out the most powerful tool in achievement, regardless of the endeavor.

As athletes, our pursuit is long and arduous. The Engine has an extreme challenge to maintain peak function through the long haul. The Engine can authorize huge growth if stimulated, or cause deep depression if not-stimulated, finding ways to keep stimulated through the process becomes a high priority, and a daunting challenge. Training that becomes mundane or tedious, regardless of its theoretical merit, becomes a burden to the system that buries motivation and thus growth. The Engine has the power to promote huge gains if the training is fun and stimulating. There is a great deal of emotion and personality involved in the formation of champions, and each one will have a unique set of stimuli that will propel him/her to excellence.

That said, the challenge comes in following the champion’s agenda, while all the while satisfying the inherent desire of the athlete. There are few things sadder than the fate of a jaded individual whose potential is never realized. Many times the greatest challenge is to find the motivation to keep up the intensity required to succeed. Your Engine is a system that runs on the electrical fluctuations caused by ionic gradients in the cellular recesses of our body, initiating in our brain and controlling every movement or thought we make, from a quiver of an eyelash to the massive thrust of the quadriceps. The heart, not the one that beats in our chest, but the one that makes us passionate and unique, is absolutely critical to driving that spark. It is no less important to understand and manipulate the mystical aspects of the body that control drive and passion than it is to understand the more tangible physiology or our mechanical function.

The Engine is the hub. Every function of our existence is dependent upon it. Our success or failure is going to revolve around it. As the different aspects of our individual lives radiate like spokes from the hub to the rim, it forms the wheel that becomes our totality. It is critical to realize that this relationship between the hub and the rim is connected by the various spokes that support it, and the strength of the wheel is dependent upon the balance of strength of the spokes, and there common union with the hub. Strength is dispersed throughout the structure and is dynamic as forces act upon it. When one spoke is weakened or broken the wheel may wobble but it won’t collapse as the hub stabilizes from the center and disperses the load through the other spokes. Many spokes may break, but the general integrity of the wheel stays intact. The hub stays firm in the middle, and will form the central anchor for the structure. Without the hub, there can be no wheel. If the spokes of the wheel become too weak and the stresses on the wheel are too great, the wheel will collapse as it becomes overburdened. Then the hub must be built upon one spoke at a time and reinforced and balanced to form a strong wheel again. The wheel must be constantly maintained in true by the creative process of adding strong spokes and removing weak ones.

To maintain a creative process towards fulfillment, it is necessary to manage the aspects that make up the positive and negative influences. A constant accounting is essential. Awareness that the accounting and the outcome of the audit are in our control is a huge benefit. Doing frequent inventory of the positives and negatives will help us to learn to maximize the positives and eliminate or minimize the negatives. Stress is bad and is a negative. Anything that gets us happy or enthused is positive. That’s why training for a goal is positive as long as we’re excited and passionate about it. The day that we lose that passion, it becomes, instead, a stress. Athletes in the pursuit of their potential can not expect to reach that goal unless all peripheral and obvious stresses are minimized, and positive aspects are maximized. The spark needed for an athlete to excel can be burned entirely out by the emotional meanderings of a tortured soul. Likewise, an athlete treading in mediocrity can be lifted to greatness by a wink from a cherished admirer.

The science behind the generation of power as it relates to your Engine is vast as it pertains to the neuromuscular realm. Yet, we must affect outside of the physical realm as well, as the physical realm is a slave to the subjective. This removes the notion of canned programs, and monthly recipes. It actually creates the art of coaching, as the creative process is constantly encouraged. We must maintain at all times methodological credibility, simultaneously creating the program that each individual can soar on.