Why History Is Important: In Memory of Dr. Michael Yessis

I wanted to start today’s article by first offering my condolences to the Yessis family, as I unfortunately learned from Brandon Byrd of Byrd Sports Performance last week that the great Dr Michael Yessis passed away recently. I later was able to confirm it via his obituary.

There are many heavy hitters in his generation in their contributions to strength training and athletic development, but for whatever reason, I think there are far too many people that don’t realize how important he was to the development of strength and performance in the western world. The man coined the term plyometrics— how many of you can say you knew where that word came from?

Why Michael Yessis’ Work Mattered

Dr Yessis famously authored a number of books that took complex subjects and distilled them down to methods and training philosophies you could actually apply at the gym the next day. This was no small feat, as much of his published work came at a time when the market was being flooded by English translations of Soviet training manuals that were quite complex, to the say the least.

He spent a great deal of time with Yuri Verkoshansky, who was the Russian innovator of the “shock method” — essentially what utilizing what we now call plyometrics and reactive training to train and produce large amounts of power.

Perhaps his most impressive feat was that his books were read and recommended by every one of my mentors. If you were learning this craft in the 1990’s or early 2000’s, you’ll understand that it was no small feat to get everyone to actually agree on something. It was a time of big personalities (and you think TikTok is bad…). I remember Steve Maxwell had one of Dr Yessis’ books on his required reading list for years. If you walked into Westside Barbell (and even now on their online store), whatever titles were available from him were on the shelf and for sale.

Whenever I’m discussing research with someone, it’s only a matter of time before Dr Yessis’ name appears. There’s a very good chance that some clever, but simple nuance you currently use to great effect actually came from one of Dr Yessis’ titles. He clearly liked to share.

Knowing Your History Saves You Time

Sometimes when a training method or style becomes so ubiquitous, the origins seem to disappear and get washed from the collective memory. I don’t think this always happens nefariously, but unfortunately in today’s content driven world, I do think there is a consumption machine that doesn’t care much for credit or origins. Greed of producing content at a faster rate than your “competition” is definitely not good, but it’s worse for the continued intellect and advancement of our industry.

We can debate the ethics of influencers, lament content theft and the “borrowing” of intellectual property, but the real reason the average athlete or enthusiast should care about the history of training is so you don’t spin your wheels. What ends up happening— and I see it all the time— is people get lost debating in YouTube comments the efficacy of certain training methods that were proven effective long ago by individuals like Dr Yessis, or disproven by the greats that came before us as ineffective or dangerous.

Sometimes you even find that people so fundamentally misunderstand a style of training that they start repeating mistakes of the individuals who innovated that training method— and ultimately arrived at the very thing they’re doing. They’re basically doing a primitive version of the actually better training method.

So if you don’t care much for history, maybe my appeal to your selfish or efficient side will help you— understanding history will save you time and make you stronger.

I don’t think many people would know, or unfortunately even care, where the term “plyometrics” comes from. That’s sad to me. My bias is always toward understanding the past and how it shaped our present. Utilizing the abundance of information available to us and doing some critical thinking will only deepen your ability to better your results.

My parting thought is a positive one and a call to action amongst more trainers and informed athletes: let’s carry on the memory and contributions of individuals like Dr Yessis by continuing to innovate and build on what they taught us. Let’s do so by collaborating and being after the pursuit of knowledge first, and not simply disposable content pushes. It’s increasingly on us now.