Max Sports Magazine
Performance Condition
Issues 19 and 20

Go From Zero To Hero

Marinovich’s Unique Training Tips - Part I
By Mason Storm
Photos by Jason Ellis

Marv Marinovich has had an illustrious career; much more luminous than most men in his position. He’s an ex pro football player, and served as both athletic trainer and coach in the NFL. But it’s the years of development of the kind of mind that perpetually ticks day and night that is most interesting.

Marinovich grew up on a 3000 acre cattle ranch in Northern California and became a physical lad at an early age. That environment got him interested in nutrition and exercise. He used to devise different ways of doing physical things better; even going as far as putting himself through experimental exercises and drills. Since he loved animals, he’d watch their movement and decipher the principles of body mechanics.

But it wasn’t the bovine physique from which he took the majority of his cues. Marinovich was always nearby when ranchers were training horses. He’d watch for hours on end, making note not just of the musculature of the equines being broken, but of their endurance and the mechanics of their fluid movement. From this, he was able to discern pat-terns that could be applied to human physiological movement.

This eventually took him into college with an arsenal of theories and ideas about training the body for human performance. Landing a job as a conditioning coach at the University of Southern California while still a student himself gave Marinovich the confidence it took to eventually go all the way to the NFL; both personally, and as a coach. It was in this environment, and these two capacities, that he was able to act as facilitator for cutting edge human performance theories. And guess what? Without a background in kinesiology, physiology, biology or nutrition, Marv Marinovich was able to extrapolate cause-and-effect relationships between trained movement and performance, and between nutrition and performance, better than most anyone in the fields of either.

Today, a wealth of years spent acquiring practical knowledge of physiology under his belt, Marinovich has set up his own training facility in southern California. He trains all sorts of elite athletes, both collegiate and professional, and never fails to improve their game substantially. But perhaps the most impressive thing about Marinovich is his continued interest in learning new things; his utter thirst for learning how to hone for perfection. This ability to continue in his search for knowledge, and still uncover things, is unsurpassed. And the fact that such an accomplished and successful man has escaped egoism and arrogance along the way, is the only unbelievable thing about him. But it’s precisely why he has accrued the amount of knowledge that most men find stifling. 

At those who choose to maintain a closed mind and prefer to stick to convention, even when everything points to the success of an idea that has no roots in convention, Marinovich just laughs. But laughing has been hard at times when traditionals have tried to get in his path and stop him from implementing and facilitating his very original ideas about training athletes. Had he been arrogant and close-minded him-self, the world might never have known the gems of his approach: That to go beyond the basics is the name of the game!

MAX:  Marv, you’re such a curious fellow. You must have been a voracious reader as a kid. Were you?
MARINOVICH:  Oh yeah. I liked things like Greek Mythology, where these superhumans would perform these incredible feats. I remember reading about the guy who lifted the calf everyday of his life, and so forth. But what I really liked was to be outside everyday lifting things, running, jumping, and throwing. Living on a 3000 acre ranch was the perfect environment for me, let me tell you, because it gave me a chance to become so physical. I'd run in the mountains, throw these big rocks so I tried everything.

MAX: So you were very athletic as a kid, obviously. But did you involve yourself in organized athletics as a kid?
MARINOVICH: Yes. I was fortunate to be blessed athletically as a kid and I did well as a youngster an ended up going to USC on a football scholarship. When I got there, they knew I had a background in training. In those days, as a scholarship athlete, you had to do so much to earn your keep. So they put me in the weight room in charge of training the athletes. As an underclassman, I got my first experience working with others.

MAX: But you were also a pro football player, weren’t you?
MARINOVICH:  Yes. I played for the Raiders in the 70’s. They put me in charge of training the athletes in the off season. So they’d send me all over the country, where they drafted players. But even before they drafted them, they sent me out to test them. I worked researching, testing and evaluating athleticism. Working with anthropomorphic measurements of the arm length and reach and hip girth as it affected performance in football.

MAX:  Wow. You were so interested in the fine points of physiology for someone so young. From where did you draw your knowledge?
MARINOVICH:  Well, I'd read all of the eastern bloc material on the pliometric principles, and periodization. They had really utilized their scientific information from a sports standpoint and had Ph.D people doing the research.

MAX:  Were you a physiology major at USC?
MARINOVICH:  No I wasn't. I was actually a Fine Arts major at USC. But there were a number of people there who were ahead of their time. There was a guy there named Vern Wolf, who was the track coach. We was one of the first people to utilize performance weight training to affect speed and agility in his athletes. So, that really impacted me as a youngster, to have him there to get together to discuss training from a sports standpoint. That was instrumental in my thinking.

MAX:  So tell me a bit more about the athletic testing of athletes for potential NFL drafts. What did you see in athletes that others didn’t? 
MARINOVICH:  Well, they’d send me out, and I’d evaluate all of these athletes and based on my findings, they were able to take some people who weren’t highly rated by the scouts because of the potential of their bone structure, mental attitude, etc. Later on, I devised what’s called a combine for testing I helped design the flexibility and agility portions of those tests.

MAX:  What do those tests entail, anyway?
MARINOVICH:  Well, they have orthopedic surgeons check the athletes structurally first. And then they run them in the 40, the 30, the 20. They have them do a vertical jump. They do agility drills. They do throwing, catching and specific skill work to help rate them. But the work I’d done on evaluating athletes, was some of the first work to be able to determine what the potential of an athlete was.

MAX:  So you could find a kid from a small university that really hadn’t been trained properly and, by virtue of his structure, you could determine potential? 
MARINOVICH:  Yes. We would take athletes from the big universities that had major programs, and then take athletes from some small black school with no program. But the potential of the athlete would be determined by his physical structure, his attitude, his fast twitch fibers, and other factors that would point to his eventual potential for success.

MAX:  Did you ever go beyond football to include other sports?
MARINOVICH:  Oh yes. I've worked with almost every major sport. I've worked with basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball and swimming.

MAX:  So what do you do to estimate the abilities of an athlete?
MARINOVICH:  Well, I still work with athletes form all sports because there are common threads between certain ones. To be able to evaluate an athlete for his or her potential, pinpoint what his or her weaknesses are, and then to continually change their training as the athlete develops. A lot of people talk about an intensive evaluation, but it’s usually like a cookie-cutter thing where everyone does bench press and pull downs. What I do is completely different. My evaluations are based on actual potential and bone structure and alignment, and one of the things I’m big into is balancing the muscles of the body. Incorrect or inappropriate training overdevelops some areas and under-develops or weakness others, causing major imbalances in some areas of the body. That affects performance because it puts that individual in a position where he or she is not as explosive as they could be, and more apt to be injured.

MAX: So how can you test for imbalances created by training?
MARINOVICH: What we do is evaluate the athlete by doing muscle tests and just strengthen the areas that are weak. The restorative process is the first part of the training. So we don’t just take someone and have them start doing something until we know where they're weak and where they're strong. The next step is devising a program for them.

MAX:  So it's not just a matter of endomorphic, mesomorphic or ectomorphic physiques that determine all of this, it's based on structural weaknesses and strengths, and what type of muscle they have?
MARINOVICH:  Exactly. I can really pinpoint what is going to impact whatever sport they're playing, the quickest.

MAX:  So you could pinpoint exactly which areas of the body were weakest, not necessarily by testing strength in conventional ways, but by finding the weak fiber areas amongst the stronger body parts?
MARINOVICH:  Yes. I can actually precisely say that I can locate sub-structural weaknesses because the nervous system is such a major factor in performance. It’s a huge thing. I try to develop the nervous system to respond. That transmission of response can be tweaked through certain types of training. I use iso-kinetic training to facilitate the nervous system development. It affects balance and the coordination and firing patterns of the muscle, and so forth.

MAX: So define for our readers, what is iso-kinetic? 
MAX: Tell me more about how to train the nervous system to act in your favor during any sporting activity? 
MARINOVICH:  Well, I have a few iso-kinetic machines here at my training facility. The resistance is such that, the harder you push, the more resistance you get. It’s set at a standard rate. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I know exactly why it works, but I know that it does.

MAX: Right. The old, I don’t have to know everything about the electric company to know how to turn on a light switch and get light-type of thinking. 
MARINOVICH:  Exactly. Science doesn’t know if you’re actually increasing the recruitment pattern of the muscles, or the nervous pattern of the muscles. I feel strongly that it’s the neural activity it’s increasing through practical experience and knowledge. In a sequence of training, we go to a warm up and go immediately to the iso-kinetic and then go to the pliometric, and then into the strength, and then maxi-mal strength recruitment. The sequence is important. 

MAX: Tell me the benefit of pliometric (repetitive quick burst activity) training? 
MARINOVICH:  Pliometrics affect the nervous system also. But with pliometrics what you’re really doing is strengthening the muscles on the stretch, the way you’re going to use them in sport. So, by training the muscle in a stretch, the way you’re going to use it in a game of basketball or volleyball, for instance, allows you to apply more force and speed within the same movement in your game. It’s a real logical cause-and-effect relationship that is proven to be effective. It’s an essential part of my training. 

MAX: Tell me more about how to train the nervous system to act in your favor during any sporting activity?
MARINOVICH:  Well, we use a number of different types of training to do that. The iso-kinetic training is a good example. When you take an iso-kinetic exercise and use it in an unstable environment, you’re channeling the nervous system in the spine. We use the balance disks and gymnastic balls in just about everything. 

MAX: What are balance disks? 
MARINOVICH:  It’s a circular piece of wood about 24 inches across that is balanced on a ball underneath. It's obviously unstable.

MAX: Thanks. Continue
MARINOVICH: So we use that with iso-kinetic exercises so that the foot position is unstable. By doing this, you’re affecting the micro-muscles of the spine. When you affect the micro-muscles of the spine, that’s the roots of athleticism right there. It’s not the biceps, triceps, deltoids and quads, it’s the small muscles of the spine which affect quickness, reaction, explosiveness. They’re like the megaphones of the body that tell other muscles to work.

MAX: Now that is interesting.
MARINOVICH: In starting with the micro-muscles, you actually affect more athletic ability and more nervous system and recruitment aspects, and it’s more efficient recruitment because wherever you’re weak, you’re going to feel it in only those areas. It pinpoints things immediately. Everyone is different so everyone will feel it differently.

MAX: I’ve have a board that is built like a see-saw. What is the advantage to having a disk instead of the see-saw type of balance board?
MARINOVICH: Because where your board is two dimensional, this is multi-dimensional; sort of the hybrid brother to what you’re talking about. The two dimensional board is a great start, however.

MAX: Do the balance exercises you use actually strengthen the nervous system?
MARINOVICH: Yes, because you’re working the intrinsic muscles of your feet all the way up through the stabilization of your ankles, your knees, hips, and all the way through. Where as in a normal bodybuilding routine, you are deciding what muscles to train and how you’re going to train that particular body part, with this, you let the body make the decision what it’s going to affect.

MAX: Oh, I get it. So your body becomes its own self-correcting machine then?
MARINOVICH: Yes. It’s because of the balance factor. That’s propriaceptive stimulation. It’s like 10-1 compared to regular exercises done statically. Compare one normal exercise without the balance aspect added to it, and it would take 10x that exercise to replicate what you can do using the disk in conjunction with that exercise.

MAX: So, based on the fact that you can only use a balancing disk with your lower body, is that sufficient to balance the entire body through the micro-muscles of the spine?
MARINOVICH: Well no, actually, there’s more than just one way to use it. For instance, you can do military press by being seated on the disk. As you get more proficient, you find more challenging ways to use it. For instance, my athletes are doing power cleans, with dumbbells, on these disks. It’s actually too easy for them. I have some elite athletes who come in and have a hard time doing anything to start with. After your body learns it though, you can go out and go skiing or play golf, and your body works together as a unit; finally the way you want it to be. When you’re just training with weights, a lot of times you go out and try to do something with it and you feel as though you’ve had lead shot through your body. When you leave this sort of training, you feel better. Your coordination is better, and your performance is better.

NEXT ISSUE: Look for the continuation of our interview with Marv Marinovich.

In PART 2, Marinovich will talk about the often unconventional, unique, but perfectly logical, training techniques he employs with elite athletes. Using a combination of pliometrics, pilates, flexibility, and more propriaceptive movements with prototypes of tools he has developed himself, he sets himself apart from almost any professional trainer in the field today. He also discusses the ways average people not destined for pro athletics can improve their health and daily performance through diet, and  simple training techniques. So whether you are a weekend warrior, a bona fide fitness buff, or a real player, Marv’s cutting edge techniques can improve almost anyone’s physical ability and overall balance.