Gonna Make a Comeback.....

I know, I know it's been a while but now that I'm done with Summer School I'm ready to get back to helping people become healthy, bigger, stronger, and faster.... I'm teaming up with Paleo Chix, Gorilla Pit, and CrossFit affiliates to bring you the best information on training that I can... Until next time check out this new Ad from Nike for women....

Understanding Sport Specific Exercises

I get a lot of questions along the lines of, "Is this exercise specific for _____(fill in the blank) sport?" "Do I need to be doing all these unstable sport-specific exercises on bosu balls and other assorted unstable training?"
With that in mind I thought I'd write this article on general to specific training.

What is a sport specific exercise?
Let's start off with a definition of sport-specific. A truly sport specific exercise must:
A: Duplicate the exact movement witnessed in certain actions of the sports skill
B: The exercise must involve the same type of muscular contraction used in the skill execution.
C: Develop strength and flexibility in the same range of motion (ROM) as the actual skill.
As an example, alternating bounds duplicate the extension witnessed in the sprint stride over the same ROM. They also duplicate the type of contraction found in the sprint. The difference is, the magnitude of force and tension in the bound upon both landing and toe-off is greater, which can provide a positive training effect to the extension and plant that occurs in the sprint stride.
There are basically 3 classifications of exercise along the general to specific continuum.

Classifying Exercises
General strength exercises - These exercises are necessary to develop general muscle strength (force component of power) and do not need to duplicate sporting tasks. (Squats, front squats, deadlifts etc.) These exercises are heavy and slow in nature thus do not replicate the exact demands of sport and power events. They are, however, specific to the sport of powerlifting. Anything that increases general strength could be considered a general strength exercise. Exercises that best impact general strength are the best general strength exercises.
Special strength exercises - These exercises attempt to convert general strength to power but are still "strength" oriented. Most explosive oriented loaded lifts and movements fit in this category. Some examples include Olympic lifts, jump squats, heavier sled towing, and various kettlebell swings and exercises.

Specific strength exercises- These exercises attempt to provide power improvement in a way which is very specific to the required technique of an athlete. Examples of such exercises would include unloaded and lightly loaded plyometric exercises, sprint drills, and towing a very lightly loaded sled. The most specific strength exercise for any given movement is the actual movement skill itself.

A loaded specific strength exercise should not be loaded to the extent that an athlete's technique is compromised much at all. So, someone using loaded sprints as a specific strength exercise would not use a load that causes his sprint times to drop off by more than ~10%. In contrast, someone using loaded sprints as a special strength exercise could use more weight as he's seeking more of a general effect on explosiveness. He would not need to worry so much about the load interfering with his technique.

Exercises typically are described as either general or sport-specific. However, there is a range along which all exercises fall. It's probably more accurate to describe exercises as either more or less specific in relation to one another. Where a particular exercise falls on this continuum depends upon how well it meets the criteria for a specific movement for a particular sport.

So What is Sport Specific Again?
Based on that information it should be obvious that unless you're a skateboarder, surfer, or trapeze artist, most unstable implements and exercises are not really sport-specific at all! Wobble boards, bosu balls and the like would be general training movements..just not very potent general training movements (due to the lighter loads they inherently entail).

The Recipe
To improve athletic performance, general strength exercises should be used in the initial stages to build a base. The goal of these movements is to stimulate and strengthen the same muscles involved in the sports skill. Once a strength base is in place, exercises that are truly specialized (sport-specific) can be incorporated to zero in on targeted weaknesses involved in the sports skill or to help enhance the transformation of general strength into specific strength. In this way, maximal strength is developed initially and then used to enhance explosive strength that can be incorporated into the sport action.
I think there is a time and place for exercises in every category depending on the situation of a given athlete or coach, however, there's also not exactly anything wrong with taking the straight line approach.

The Straight Line Approach
The straight line approach would entail taking the most direct approach to boosting up the general strength (lift heavy and get stronger in basic movements), and engage in and hone the technique of the most specific strength exercise. Or practice the specific movement you're trying to improve in order improve the capacity to express strength in that movement, whether it's sprinting, jumping or whatever. With this approach you have both ends covered. Although simple, this can work well because a lot of people already do plenty of sport-specific exercise just by virtue of playing their sport. In fact, many people are apt to regress by partaking in an excessive volume of sport specific work while neglecting general supportive work.

Additionally, research comparing groups of people who use a very multifaceted approach to development to those who use the simple straight-line approach to development, don't tend to demonstrate many advantages for the multi-faceted approach. In other words. Let's say we take 2 groups of sprinters:
Group A: Squats heavy, engages in explosive lifts (cleans or jump squats etc.), pulls loaded sleds, engages in plyometrics, and sprints.
Group B: Simply squats heavy and runs sprints.
Despite the more holistic and multifaceted approach implemented with the group A, you don't tend to see a consistent variance in improvements between the 2 groups.

The ability to properly administer the more multifaceted approach takes more knowledge and skill. Ideally, you'd individually evaluate and assign target exercises based upon individual needs.

Some people are in situations where they'd benefit from a general lean towards more or less specific exercises. For example, most people that run training studios do not have a sprint track in their facility so they might use more specific exercises for training the sprint.....Basically boosting speed without doing any sprinting at all. The same athlete or coach who runs a facility in the north where it's cold all winter might also engage in and assign more "specific" exercises during the winter months. In contrast, the guy who has year around access to a track or football field in a warm climate is in a different situation and wouldn't have much, if any, need for so many specific strength exercises. An athlete who plays sport year around would also be in the same boat.

Are Cleans and Other Olympic Lifts Necessary?

Just like any other explosive movement, the clean (or snatch) can help bridge the gap between total strength and total useable strength, if that is an area lacking. However, by itself it isn’t a miracle exercise. I love performing hang cleans myself, but a good clean is really a demonstration, or indicator, of explosiveness, just like a fast sprint and a good vertical jump are good demonstrations of explosiveness.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that the clean correlates perfectly with your on-field explosiveness (running and jumping etc.) So, any improvements you make to your clean will be transferred into your running speed and jumps. You'd obviously want to get your clean poundages as high as possible right? Let's say you choose 315 pounds as the magic number. Now, what is the best way to get your clean up to 315 pounds? Can the guy with a 200-pound squat build his clean up to 315 pounds by just performing cleans? Hardly. Can the guy with a 300-pound squat clean 315? No. Can a guy who practices cleans every day of his life, yet only squats 300 pounds, clean as much as the 700 pound squatting powerlifter who comes into the gym and does cleans for the first time in his life? Usually not. My point is this: How much you can clean is highly dependent on how strong you are overall and cleans aren't as good as movements like squats and deadlifts at making you stronger overall. Regardless of how good your technique is on cleans and how much you practice them, the only way you're gonna clean 315 is if you get your overall body strength up to the point where you are capable of at least a ~400 pound squat and 400 pound deadlift minimum.

Once you've mastered the technique in the lift and learned to express your strength in the lift, the only way to continue driving your clean poundages up is to get stronger overall. The clean is really about 1/3 technique, 1/3 explosiveness, and 1/3 strength. Initially, clean poundages will increase as you master the correct technique. Once you've mastered the proper technique, you'll continue to make some gains as you better learn to express your strength, or become more explosive in the exercise. If you're the guy who squats 500 pounds and only cleans 175, you have a big gap between your overall strength and useable (explosive) strength and obviously have a lot of room for improvement. You'd probably be able to take your clean all the way up to 315 by doing nothing but cleans. But if you're the guy who squats 300 pounds and cleans 225, you'd probably never get any better at cleans by just practicing cleans. At some point, you'd have to pay your dues in the power rack getting your strength up on basic movements like squats and deadlifts so that you’d have more raw strength to express.

Now, let's look at a sprint or a jump the same way we would the clean. They're both demonstrations of explosiveness. Since actually practicing the clean is the best way to learn to express your strength in the clean, wouldn't it make sense that practicing variations of the sprint and jumps (and things closely related to that like plyometrics), would be the best way to learn to express your strength in those movements? There is a lot of specifity involved with improvements in speed-strength movements and the carryover from one activity to the next is fairly small. If you couldn't express your strength very good in the sprint or jump what makes you think you'd best improve upon that by engaging in cleans?
Improvements in a sprint or jump are just like improvements in the clean. Initially you'll improve as you master the correct technique. You'll continue to improve as you are better able to express your strength in the movement. If you're the 175 pound guy who squats 500 and only runs a 5.2 40 yard dash, you will probably have a lot of room for improvement. But if you're the 175 pound guy who only squats 250 and already runs a 4.55 forty yard dash, you're probably not gonna get much faster by just sprinting. At some point, just like the clean, you're gonna have to pay your dues with the heavy iron and get your strength up so that you have more raw horsepower to tap into.

Now, let's assume that you already spend a significant amount of time in the weight room getting stronger overall. Let's also assume that you spend a fair amount of time performing a nice assortment of sprint, movement, and plyo work. So, in the weight room you're driving your strength and baseline levels of horsepower up. On the field, you're better learning to express that strength in the most direct way possible - by engaging in the very things that you're trying to improve (sprinting, jumping etc). Since you're already addressing your baseline strength and you're already directly addressing your ability to express strength in the specific movements, what are cleans gonna give you that you're not already getting?
I hope that makes sense. One other drawbacks to cleans and other olympic lifts is they are technical lifts that do require some coaching. I know a good coach can teach someone how to do a proper clean or snatch within minutes, but judging by the technique I've seen in most high schools there is a big shortage of good coaches that can properly teach these lifts. It’s not that cleans will hurt you by any means, I like them too but it’s not like you need them.
Having said all that, the best utility for the cleans and other explosive weight room movements would be for someone like I mentioned above who had a big squat and slow running times. His maximum strength is already there and it need not be a big focal point, so, instead of just getting him stronger in the weight room, we could focus on getting him to express his strength better in all his activities, including the weight room. He could use lots of speedier type exercises like cleans, speed box squats, and jump squats while also working on getting more explosive in his field activities. Where cleans and related exercises would REALLY be more beneficial is for this same “strong but slow” type of guy who also, for whatever reason, isn’t able to get out and engage in much specific sprint, movement, and plyo work. They wouldn’t be as effective as the specific sprint, movement, and plyo work, but would at least allow him to train his nervous system to produce faster contractions with some type of accelerative emphasis.
One other good utility for the clean and associated movements is this: Assuming that one has pretty good technique in the clean, it can also be used as a pretty good gauge to ensure that you're building useable strength, or strength that you can use in a fairly high velocity manner. In other words, let's assume that I determine that a person that can clean 75% of his best back squat is doing a pretty good job utilizing the raw strength that he has. So, assuming that technique is good, a person squatting 200 pounds should be able to clean 150, while a person squatting 400 pounds should be able to clean 300. Let's say you have an athlete that squats 400 pounds but only cleans 200. From that information, we know that he's not able to utilize his strength in a high velocity specific manner very effectively, so he would best work on bridging the gap between his strength and useable strength. In other words, instead of continually trying to push up his squat weight, he'd be best to focus on more explosive oriented work in his training. In contrast, the guy squatting 400 and cleaning 300 is already doing a pretty good job using the strength he has, and, assuming his field related tests didn’t show any explosive deficiencies, he’d know that in order to improve he could just get stronger overall.

How Body Structure Influences Expressions of Strength

I am often asked how natural body structure can influence things like the ability to jump high, run fast, lift weight, or anything else. The truth is, your body structure and the way you are built can have a significant influence on not only the way you express your strength in all sports, but more importantly, it will influence the type of training that you tend to respond to.

When it comes to body structure, we can classify people as either long limbed, termed brachiomorphs, or short limbed, termed dolicomorphs. In weight-lifting, long-limbed individuals are prone to think that they're genetically disadvantaged while short limbed people tend to think they're disadvantaged when it comes to something like jumping or running. But are they really? Depends on the sport or movement. Expression of strength is variable. Long-levered athletes tend to express their strength much more successfully on the playing field than in the weight room. For example, Michael Jordan at one time had a startling vertical jump and was very strong, yet when compared to a person his same weight and a foot shorter he has a large disadvantage in a parallel squat and I doubt if you would ever see him setting any lifting records. When you're 6'6", bending the legs to parallel is a long way down!

Those in sport often say that short limbed people are cursed on the field and while their long limbed counterparts often appear to have an advantage the "short limbs" curse is hardly a rule. If anything, those with short limbs tend have an advantage during the initial phase of an explosive movement or when agility is of paramount importance. Nobody ever accused former world record sprinters Maurice Greene or Kelli White of being long limbed yet it didn't seem to hold them back any and it definitely doesn't seem to hold Kansas City chiefs return man Dante Hall.

In a sport like powerlifting, athletes with short limbs tend to have an advantage over those who possess long limbs because the weight is moved through a shorter distance. On the other hand, if an athlete requires a long powerful stroke, such as in swimming, sprinting, jumping, or rowing, then a longer lever, provided it is accompanied by the muscular power needed to propel it, - has an advantage in these types of sports because of the speed those longer limbs can generate at the end of their range of motion.

Think about it. A guy whose upper legs are 20 inches long should be able to come out of a 1/4 squat and generate more velocity at toe off in a vertical jump then a guy whose upper legs are only 12 inches long. However, the guy with longer upper legs will also have to work harder on his strength whereas the guy with short upper legs will probably need to work hard to maximize his rate of force development so that he too can demonstrate superior speed at full extension. The same point can be made in other sports where hitting or throwing are important. For example, speed in a tennis serve, volleyball spike, or a baseball pitch can all be higher for long-levered athletes as long as they have enough muscle power to extend the longer limbs.

Legs Like a Kangaroo
By the same token many athletes who can jump high and run fast have physical characteristics such as long lower legs, high calves and a long achilles tendon. The length of the achilles tendon gives them a leverage advantage for reactive strength because it acts like a long rubber band. Recall that in a plyometric movement the muscles and tendons are stretched and energy is stored and released in greater quantities. Having long tendons in the lower leg can enhance this process. The achilles tendon is amazing at storing elastic energy and giving it back to you; it's an adaptation to make activities like walking and running more efficient. In the animal kingdom kangaroos probably have the longest achilles tendons and are also the best leapers. They can literally bounce around over small buildings with hardly any muscular effort.

This doesn't at all mean that just because you might not have long legs and tendons that you won't be able to run or jump, it just means strength and agility will probably come easier for you and that your leaping ability will likely be naturally more dependent on pure strength and your reactive ability will come less easy. Maximize your attributes and develop your weaknesses and you will definitely overcome someone who has the right attributes but doesn't train correctly.
On the other hand, if you have long legs and tendons,- strength and the ability to demonstrate that strength in the weight room, jump from a pure standstill, or fire off the line like a bullet in a sprint probably won't come as easy for you, - yet being bouncy, having good top speed, and having good reactive ability will. If this describes you and you one day desire to be a powerlifting champion it can be done but you're just gonna have to work a little smarter then others who are gifted with a structure geared towards lifting.

Since there is obviously nothing you can do to change your body structure once you're done growing besides adding muscle (despite what some people may want to sell you!), the only thing you is work with what you have and train to maximize your natural attributes and strengthen your natural weaknesses so that you can perform to the best of YOUR ability!

7 Modern Day Myths About Plyometrics

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Myth #1 - Plyometric ability (reactivity) is a distinct, separate quality =======================================================
Pull a rubber band back, stretch it, and let it go. It has long been thought that muscles behave the same way. When you pre-stretch them force is stored in the tendon which allows you to exert more force. The pre-stretch is why you jump higher when you precede a jump with a short dip or you throw harder when you rear your arm back. This "plyometric action" exists in just about all movements and in most strength and conditioning texts has been though to be a separate, distinct quality. This might be partially true, however, more recent evidence indicates the reason we produce more force when we pre-stretch our muscles isn't due to a lot of magical stretch like plyometric action, it's largely due to the fact that preceding a movement with a countermovement allows us to position our limbs and muscles in a way to better exert force. (1, 2) It allows us to take up the slack in the muscle and gives us more room to build up force. The force is still voluntary and is still impacted by the same things that improve any other movement. Build powerful, strong, and efficient muscles and you improve plyometric action as well as everything else.
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Myth #2 - Plyometric action is a highly trainable quality =======================================================
How much additional force you get from a "plyometric" movement is mostly genetic and unique to you as an individual. True plyometric ability isn't something you can really impact through training to a large extent. In fact, it's likely to get less as you grow as an athlete even as you progress as an athlete. HUH!? Before everybody goes off the deep end with that statement let me explain:
Let's say your standing stationary vertical jump is currently 20 inches and your 3 step countermovement vert is 26 inches
That basically means you're getting 6 additional inches from plyometric action.
What I'm saying is you're unlikely to ever see that difference grow much. It can (and usually does) get smaller, but it rarely grows much, even as your overall performance gets better. The general trend in any developing athlete is to get more proficient at exerting force under smaller windows of opportunity so he finds over time he doesn't need as much wind-up to generate the same amount of power. This is even true for people like high jumpers, who seek to benefit as much as possible from plyometric action.
In sticking with this same hypothetical example, lets say you improve your stationary jump from 20 up to 35 inches. You're still unlikely to find more than a 6 inch difference in your running countermovement jump (41 inches), regardless of what type of training you did to get there. Generally speaking, the longer your limbs and legs (particularly lower legs), the greater you'll benefit from plyometric wind-up. The shorter your legs, the more likely you are to jump just as high or move just as well from a virtual standstill.
That brings us on to our next myth:
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Myth # 3 Plyos work because they train "reactive" ability ========================================================
If you've followed much of my writing the last few years you know I love to break all athletic movement down into 2 basic qualities:
A: Movement Efficiency
B: Horsepower
Movement efficiency is how efficiently you carry out your athletic movements and is impacted strongly by things like coordination, flexibility, posture, and practice. Horsepower is simply how much power you have behind your execution and is impacted strongly by things like muscular strength.
Plyos can effect both qualities. They directly enhance the movement efficiency aspect because they allow you specific practice and rehearsal carrying out a variety of jumps, bounds, and hops, which closely rival sporting movements.
With regard to the horsepower aspect, power in most sporting movements is a result of how much force you exert at the hips, knees, and ankles. The ankles are most important for absorbing forces allowing your quads and hips to drive your movements. Most plyos provide a low degree of overload to the muscles acting on the hip, a moderate degree to the muscles acting on the knee, and a HIGH degree of overload to the muscles acting on the ankles, due to the constant eccentric forces involved in landing.
Many athletes are less than stellar because they lack "stiff ankles". By stiffness I'm referring to how much your muscles "give" when you move. You want to be like a racquetball and not a flat basketball. Practicing plyo drills on their feet allows them to improve their coordination and ability to quickly engage and generate force thru the ankles. This is an example of good ankle stiffness:
So, in a nutshell plyos work primarily because they improve your feet; They make the muscles acting on your ankle (plantar flexors/calves) stronger, more powerful, and help you become "stiffer." They also allow you specific practice performing jumps, hops, and bounds.
It's also worth noting that people with longer, slender legs often inherently tend to be more ankle dominant. People with thicker builds and shorter legs tend to inherently be more hip and knee dominant. Great athletes often put all 3 together very well.
In my opinion tests such as the consecutive bounce jump test (designed to measure elastic/plyometric ability) really measure how proficiently and powerful your plantar flexors are in relation to your hips and thighs, or simply, how good your feet are. Here is a video of Mike Boyle demonstrating the test and talking about the concept:
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Myth #4 - The "shock" method gives supramaximal muscle recruitment =========================================================
The shock method primarily refers to the use of depth jumps as a training strategy. Read any russian text on the shock method and you'll likely come away thinking all an athlete ever needs to become great is a couple of boxes to do jumps with. The magic of depth jumps is explained by the notion that they give involuntary muscle recruitment.
Muscle recruitment refers to how well you use or "turn-on" your existing muscles. The explanation is that great athletes are great becuase they can utilize, or turn-on, more of their existing muscles in a given task. However, because of the shock method all hope is not lost for the average Joe athlete. Most exercise variations are limited by the force we can voluntarily exert. However, imposing a high amplitude forceful stretch on a muscle, such as what happens when you drop off a box, hit the ground, and jump back up, (the shock method) causes the muscles to involuntarily stretch and in an effort to protect the joint it causes the involuntary recruitment of ALL existing muscle cells. Over time this allows the average Joe to become like a superstar. Sounds great eh?
Unfortunately, we now know this is partly a myth. It is true that great athletes get more out of their muscles but not because of muscle recruitment. Even beginners can recruit all their muscles. Anything equivalent to around 80-85% of max voluntary effort will do it. The reality is great athletes can really ramp up something called rate coding and this is largely due to the inherent excitability of their central nervous systems.
Rate coding refers to the frequency that your brain sends messages telling a muscle to contract. The faster the frequency the greater the intensity of any given muscular contraction. Rate coding is similar to beating the heck out of a drum with your hands. The faster and harder you move your hands the stronger the beat. Rate coding appears to be highly related to the excitability of the CNS. Activities that cause a great psychological arousal fit the bill here. This explains why we're capable of exerting more force in our movements when we're excited or slightly nervous. A highly excitable nervous system can produce greater force at a faster rate due to the positive impact on rate coding.
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The Stimulation Method

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In this regard the Russian "stimulation method" in my opinion is better at doing what the shock method/depth jumps are supposed to do. Here you perform one exercise to really activate or excite the CNS. You then follow it up with an exercise to take advantage of the CNS excitability, which temporarily boosts rate coding. Over time your body becomes more sensitive to the neural discharges from your CNS and learns to accept a new level of force as being normal for a particular movement. Think of a baseball player swinging a bat loaded up with weights before he steps in the batters box. The loaded bat allows him to swing a regular bat with more speed and power. The stimulation methods are also known as post-activation potentiation methods. Here are a few examples:
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Squat x 2-3 with 90% load - rest 5 minutes jump squat- x 6-8 with 20% load
Depth jump x 5 from 24 inch box rest 3 minutes running jump x 3
Loaded sled sprints x 20 yards with 50 pounds rest 5 minutes bodyweight sprint x 10-40 yards
Jump with weighted vest x 3 rest 5 minutes regular jump x 3
Bench press unrack and hold 110% of 1rm at lockout x 5 seconds rest 3-5 minutes 1rm Bench press
Snatch grip partial deadlift from blocks with shrug - x 5 reps rest 5 minutes Hang Power snatch x 2-3
Squat 2 x 2 at 90-95 % - rest 4-6 min depth jump- 2 x 5 from 24-30 inch box.
*45 degree back extension Iso hold with toes pointed x 7 seconds - rest 3 minutes - jump variation
* This one is the brainchild of Coach Andrew Darqui who had excellent results with it.
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Getting back to depth jumps, what they really are is:
A: A form of loaded jump training
B: Specific strength training for the plantar flexors and to a lesser extent the knee extensors (quadriceps).
Depth jumps enable you specific practice jumping while simultaneously providing a HIGH degree of eccentric overload to the plantar flexors (ankles/calves). Anytime you practice an activity you optimize qualities such as rate of force development in the task. As a lone training method depth jumps have a weakness in that they are quad and calf dominant and don't affect the glutes and hamstrings strongly, thus aren't effective for long in isolation. (4) You can still use them though, but just know what they're capable of and what they're not. You need good strength at the hips and knees (a.k.a.- a good squat) before you can really benefit much from them. Think about it - If shock methods were all they were cracked up to be all these guys doing this new age "parkour" would be jumping out of gyms.
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Myth #5- Plyos/Depth jumps don't improve standing vert ==========================================================
This is one I hear a lot. The reality is anything you do to improve one form of vert will likely improve the others. Providing you can benefit from them, in my experience depth jumps do a good job of improving standing vert. Squats will also improve running vert. The reality is it's about impossible to improve your running vert without improving your standing and vice versa. The exception is increased strength in squats won't always impact your running single leg jump.
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Myth #6- One must do plyo activities =========================================================
If you want to optimize your jumping efficiency you need to jump. If you want to optimize your sprinting efficiency you need to sprint. The best way to improve horsepower for most muscle groups is through strength training with weights. You can certainly jump high without ever performing a single plyometric drill you just need to optimize your jumping technique and get stronger. The same goes for sprinting. You can certainly add in some plyos for enhanced effectivness if you want, but don't think you NEED to.
In my observations more people screw up by doing too many plyos than those that don't do enough. Plyos are kinda like dating the Hooters chick. She might be better than what you have on your plate, but you better be careful or you're just setting yourself up for a fall! Many athletes border on overusing their ankles and knee extensors already and plyos surely don't do anything to help that. In the last few years I've had the privilege of working with 5 athletes who achieved a 37 inch vert or better while improving at least 8 inches. Most of them did very little plyo training. That's not to say they wouldn't have benefited more from plyos, but with practice, games, and other qualities being more important, plyos are the first thing I'd put on the backburner. If you're 100% structurally sound and you've determined you can benefit from them and you're in offseason mode and don't have practices, games, or frequent conditioning seassions to work around, you might be the type that can get away with more plyo work.
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Myth #7- Plyo workouts should be fatiguing and exhausting =========================================================
Most young guys think a plyometric workout should be as fatiguing as an Army Ranger obstacle course. The reality is completely opposite. In general you should finish any plyo workout just as fresh if not fresher than you were when you started, or you did too much. You should keep the reps low enough so that each rep is a quality rep. With regard to rest intervals, you should pretend that each set you're going to do is a test of some sorts and rest long enough to be at 100%. For depth jumps a workout of 20 foot contacts is usually plenty and for most athletes I would keep the box heights at no more than 18 inches. Personally I prefer to use plyos as sort of a warm-up to strength training. See my Ultimate Split article for some ideas on how to implement plyos to your strength training workouts.

Have a Purpose behind Training....

Human performance is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I can see through the eyes of a strength and conditioning coach as well as through the eyes of a head football coach. The balance for how best to prepare for battle on Fridays and Saturdays lies somewhere in between.

Training philosophy
You must be efficient in your training: From a coaching standpoint, you must be efficient at teaching so that you maintain your audience’s attention. From the athletes’ standpoint, you must be efficient because you’re balancing academics, time needed for developing sport-specific skills, and perhaps other sports. This doesn’t even include texting and messing with your iPod. You must be efficient in implementing whatever it is you want. Time is the only thing you and your opponent share. Who will use it most wisely?

What this means in regards to training is that you may want to implement many different movements when in reality you don’t have time to teach them or do them justice in the short time you have. This also includes following someone else’s routine. Being efficient is “performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.” It isn’t “no pain no gain,” but “no brain no gain.”

If you can’t teach it, don’t implement it: There are literally thousands of exercises and movements that can be considered beneficial. You have to decide wisely what is best for you and your program. A perfect example is the Olympic lifts. Don’t stick them in your workout if you have no idea what triple extension is or how to perform these movements. I’m not saying that you have to be able to perform them at the highest level yourself when demonstrating. However, you do need to be able to communicate and understand why they’re in your program.

The coach wouldn’t install a screen play if he didn’t know how to draw the play on the board, verbally communicate it to players, evaluate it once executed, give feedback after running the play, implement it in practice, and call it during the game. Why should the insertion of a new exercise be any different?

Never stop learning: This applies to coaches and players. The first step to gaining knowledge is to realize you don’t have all the answers. With that said, let me be the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers, and I love the journey of continually searching for ways to do things better. Seek out experts in different areas, watch videos, read books, network with others, and always ask questions. With the progress of the internet, there is a resource for every component of training—nutrition, flexibility, conditioning, and so on.

There are many different yet effective ways to skin a cat: Before training, you must understand that there isn’t one single best way to train. You can get great results from a variety of methods and programs. During your training career, it will also be beneficial to utilize a variety of these to avoid physical and mental burnout. Don’t get caught up in what someone else or some other program is doing. You may not be prepared to engage in that type of training. You may not have the resources and or proper equipment.

Different athletes respond differently to training as well as to how they learn. When dealing with high school and college athletes, an incoming freshman is very different from a senior or fifth year student. As a result, both athletes will be at different points in their training age and will respond and require different types of training. As a coach and player, I’ve used three-day splits, four-day splits, Olympic lifts, speed equipment, no equipment, circuit training, linear periodization, and conjugate periodization. I’ve had results from all of them. Developing the best training plan is like a puzzle. Find where the pieces go.

Your peak will only be as high as the base: Athletes can play any sport because they possess abilities that can translate to all movements. Just like the fundamentals of blocking and tackling are necessary for success on the field, basic strength, flexibility, and speed mechanics are necessary for a player’s success. Sometimes too much time and energy is spent on fancy or “in vogue” things that an athlete isn’t ready for or doesn’t need.

Players need to be motivated: In a dream world, all players would be intrinsically motivated. Because this isn’t the case, we need to find a way to motivate the extrinsic type as well. For example, have T-shirts for award winners. I’m always amazed at how much T-shirts mean to players or what they will do to earn one. Try having 1000-lb Club T-shirts, Iron (mascot) T-shirts based off of the strength index (clean, squat, and bench divided by body weight), or 3 X 3 Club T-shirts for set gains on the three major lifts over an off-season or summer.

A record board is a must. It will get athletes competing with each other to have their names on it. Include videos of weight training and speed work on your team’s highlight video. Include pictures of award winners in your summer manual. Have daily competitions to teach athletes how to be seven-second competitors. Write personal notes encouraging players and recognize great effort in front of the team. Be creative in how you motivate. You could have the best program in the world on paper, but if the player isn’t motivated, it’s useless. Like the old saying goes, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Developing High School Physical Preparedness

Over the last month I’ve been working with the local high school to develop a program to physically prepare the athletes for their given sport. The significance of this school is that it is particularly small. This makes athletics dependent on athletes participating in multiple sporting competitions. So the most important consideration is the induced fatigue almost year round from sport practice and competition. This made frequency and recovery highly important when designing a program for athletes that are exerting such high efforts throughout the year.

All that being said, the focus was on a program that didn’t require high frequency of training but was still able to develop advancement in the preparedness of the athletes. This meant that proper alternation in workouts was needed. Exercises in consecutive training sessions should minimally involve the same muscle groups and thus repeat the same pattern of muscle coordination (Zatsiorsky 1995). Also, when large muscle groups are worked, rest periods of 48 hours are optimal. For optimal recovery from training and competition, a three-day per week program was implemented. The lower body was worked on day one, the upper body was worked on day two, and the full body was worked on day three. This allowed for optimal recovery between large muscle groups, and muscle groups were worked twice a week.

With athletes of this age range (14–18), certain qualities need to be prioritized for further development. Enough power related work must be done during the early years to maintain the genetically determined levels of white muscle fibers. However, until the desired somatotype is developed, methods to increase cross sections of muscles must be emphasized. After this, the reverse is true (Francis 1987).

The choice for power exercises ranges from a snatch/clean variation to a plyometric/medicine ball progression. To promote maximal strength, sets are held at five reps and will sometimes drop to three. Using more than five reps per set during the learning phase of a new exercise will usually make correct technique harder to reproduce. Enough weight should be used so that force production increases but not so heavy that the cardiovascular component is completely absent from the exercise (Rippetoe 1997).

Single repetitions could potentially be dangerous for some younger athletes because the high percentage requires a lot of coordination to perform the movement.With so many athletes participating in multiple sports, exercise variation can have a heavy influence on adaptation and thus lead to soreness. If you have played a basketball game with fatigued legs due to training, you know what I’m talking about. In the end, performance in competition and injury prevention are the main goals. So exercise selection of “core” lifts will remain the same while supplementary ones will change. This will induce as little soreness as possible when transitioning to a new mesocycle.

Example of core lifts include the front squat, Romanian deadlift, bench press, and rear foot elevated split squat (RFESS). Some may think that not alternating core exercises will ultimately lead to stagnation or plateau. However, every time you complete a performance goal that passes previous results, your body is introduced to a new stimulation and will be forced to adapt. The avoidance of stagnation is how intensity is set. The training principle known as progressive overload is key. As Mike Boyle once stated, if you take an athlete and have him front squat 135 lbs for ten reps while only adding two and a half pound weights to each side each proceeding week, by the end of the year, he could potentially be at 395 lbs. Many problems with programs fail because athletes miss reps. So in selecting weight, the athletes started at a moderate load and used progressive overload at small increments throughout the training cycles. The athletes have shown improvement each week and PRs are already being set.

Example:

Freshman: Football, basketball, track, and baseball

Weeks 1–4 (last set recorded each week)
Front squat X 5: 165, 170, 175, 180 (PR)Romanian deadlift X 5: 155, 160, 165, 165 Hang clean X 3: 170, 175, 185 (PR)RFESS X 10: 100, 105, 110, 115Bench press X 5: 145, 150, 155, 160Warm up/activation should address coordination, preparation for training, and the undoing of the poor postural habits throughout the day. Taking into account that students are sitting for almost the entire day while at school, a build up of stiffness and tissue creep may occur. When students are sitting for upwards of an hour and a half at a time only to get up to go to another class, stiffness issues will undoubtedly follow. When sitting, hip flexors stiffen, which inhibits gluteal function. This should be taken into consideration when developing a quality warm-up program.

Warm up (10–12 minutes)
· 4 hurdle/dynamic routine continuous (twice each way or one time right and left)
· Right/left step over/inch worm
· Lateral over/high knee pull
· Backward over/lunge elbow to instep with knee extended
· Alternating over–single leg Romanian deadlift
· Lateral under–crossover walk
· Leg kick/quad pull
· Activation (1 X 10 each)
· T-spine mobility
· Glute bridge
· Lateral band
· Front/back monster band walk
· Shoulder PNF
· Band pull apart
Phase 1,Day 2
· Linear unilateral, lateral bilateral
· Short box single leg jump (2 X 3 each)
· Medicine ball, side tosses (2 X 15 each–kneel)
· Lateral jumps over short hurdles (3 X 6 each–stick landing)

All in all, the entire workout never takes more than an hour, which works perfectly for those who do this during physical education class and prior to school. The key to a successful youth training program is supervision. Fortunately, the athletes have set times and sometimes multiple coaches to observe technique, motivate, and ensure safety practices. A well-designed program can go a long way in terms of youth athletes having a good experience in sport competition. Seeing improvements is not only motivating but also goes a long way in building character and confidence, which are beneficial far beyond the spectrum of sports.

References
1. Zatsiorsky VM (1995) Science and Practice of Strength Training. Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics.
2. Francis Charlie (1987) The Charlie Francis Training System.
3. Rippetoe Mark (1997) Starting Strength. 2nd Edition. The Aasgaard Company

Training Young Athletes

Athletic performance enhancement is an exciting and dynamic field. More athletes are realizing at increasingly younger ages that simply playing their sport without training outside of their sport decreases their chances of successfully competing at the level they desire. I believe that this has also led to the unfortunate practice of early specialization. Young children who play one sport year round retard their overall athletic development and open themselves up to overuse injuries.
Research has demonstrated that athletes who specialize in one sport at an early age do tend to reach a higher level of achievement quicker than their multisport counterparts, but they also tend to peak at an earlier age while the multisport athletes tend to continue to progress longer. Some forward thinking colleges are considering this in their recruiting as they view the multisport athletes as having a bigger “upside” than their early specializing rivals. Just as in any other field, if you don’t spend at least some time looking ahead, you’re in danger of falling behind. I try to learn from as many sources as possible and have found that the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. I love seeing kids improve and appreciate the opportunity to work with kids who want to improve.Although I’m not medically trained, my number one priority in training young athletes is the physician’s creed: “First, do no harm.” In keeping with this philosophy, I try to make sure not to give advice or recommendations beyond my scope of practice. I also constantly attempt to search for and seek advice in regards to the safest and most effective training strategies and methods available. It’s been said that “the carpenter who follows everyone’s advice builds a crooked house,” so I’m careful to only make changes that I believe are sound, not follow the “newest fad.”With the priority of doing no harm, my goals in training a young athlete are to:

· Reduce the likelihood of injury
· Improve the general health of the athlete
· Improve the performance of the athlete

Fortunately, meeting the first goal tends to work toward meeting the second two. Meeting the third goal may or may not work toward meeting the first two. It’s possible to improve athletes’ performance in the short term but make them more susceptible to injury, thus severely hampering their performance in the long term. Just because an athlete is physically able to perform a movement or take a “supplement” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s appropriate for that athlete to do so. I attempt to follow an appropriate progression of training protocols and make sure that an athlete is ready to move on to the next progression before doing so. This is sometimes complicated when working with groups of athletes, and adjustments have to be made.

In order to reduce the likelihood of injury, I want to make sure that the musculoskeletal system is functioning the way it’s supposed to. I want the athlete’s joints to have an appropriate range of motion and the appropriate muscles to provide that motion. Some trainers/coaches specialize in corrective exercises and perform an assessment that can be very comprehensive in nature. This can be the best way to go when working with individual clients. When working with a team, you can often make assumptions (I know that this can be dangerous) about what the athletes will need based on their age, gender, and sport. Not just athletes but people in general tend to follow patterns as far as their biomechanical needs are concerned.

Joints have varying needs of stability or mobility. Mobility can be defined as the ability to move while stability is the ability to resist movement. As one goes up the body, there is an interesting pattern that can be observed. The feet tend to need more stability, the ankles more mobility, the knee more stability, the hips more mobility, the lumbar spine more stability, the thoracic spine more mobility, the scapula more stability, the glenohumeral joint more mobility, the elbows more stability, and the wrists more mobility. There has been some debate about the scapula needing more stability or mobility, but most of these debates center around stability versus mobility in different planes of movement. This debate can be made for every joint. For instance, we want our knees to be mobile in the sagittal plane (flex and extend), but we want our knees to be stable in the frontal plane (left to right movement) and transverse plane (rotation).Softball is probably the team sport with the highest likelihood of overuse injuries due to the extreme one-sidedness of the game. You throw with one hand and catch with the other. Most players swing the bat either left-handed or right-handed. You always run the bases in a counterclockwise direction (unless you forget to tag up). Because of this, most softball players are unequally developed when comparing their right and left sides. This is most glaring with pitchers. Everyone has seen pitchers whose pitching arm seems twice the size of their glove arm, but the differences can be more subtle. Softball players typically have differences in shoulder and hip rotation due to the mechanics involved in throwing a ball and swinging a bat. When you combine these differences with the postural problems that arise from everyday activities outside the world of sports, the potential for injury is increased. Teenagers who sit at a desk all day tend to have a kyphotic upper back (forward, slumped shoulders and sunken chest) and have hips with a limited range of motion.
You might wonder why the potential for injury is increased when a muscle has grown and gotten stronger in an athlete. Every movement that we make is accomplished by a muscle or group of muscles shortening or flexing and an antagonistic or opposing muscle or group of muscles lengthening or stretching. A muscle or group of muscles may grow or shorten in response to a certain activity in an effort to aid in that activity, and the muscles that are the antagonists for those muscles will lengthen or even shut off to aid in that same activity. However, there are many other movements that our body needs to perform other than swinging a bat or throwing a ball and what’s good for one movement may not be good for another.
Softball players will have injuries when they attempt to make movements that require their joints to move in ranges that they are unable to move in. They will also have injuries when they attempt to make movements that require their muscles to provide motion and stability when they are unable to. These failures of the joints and muscles are due to the adaptations that have been made from movements (like batting or throwing) made on a repetitive basis. We’ve talked about how joints have varying needs of mobility. When one joint does not have adequate mobility, the athlete tends to compensate by having the joints either above or below that joint move beyond their intended ranges while performing various athletic movements. This hypermobile joint will move beyond the range of movement in which it is designed to move and an injury will eventually result. Injuries will also occur simply because of overuse without adequate rest.Volleyball players can be at risk for overuse injuries. If volleyball players perform excessive repetitions of the same movements with the same side of the body, they can experience unequal development between their left and right sides. A volleyball player who serves and hits excessively with one hand can experience many of the same issues as a softball player because the movements are very similar. Thoracic spine mobility is a high priority for volleyball and softball players because if the thoracic spine doesn’t move enough the lumbar spine and/or the shoulder will have to move too much to perform the actions needed in these throwing or “overhead” sports. Volleyball players and female athletes in general can be at particular risk for knee injuries. Studies have shown that girls are four to eight times more likely to experience ACL injuries than boys. There are many different reasons theorized for this increased risk including the angle from the hip to the ankle, quadriceps dominance in females, decreased hip and ankle mobility, and menstruation. Decreasing quad dominance and increasing hip and ankle mobility are high priority items for me when I design programs for female athletes.
I consider there to be seven qualities necessary for athletic movement. These qualities are strength, speed, power, flexibility, endurance, coordination, and balance. Some would argue that power is simply a combination of speed and strength, but for training purposes, I believe it best to consider power a separate quality. Other qualities come into play when one considers athletic movements that add a visual component, but these qualities aren’t necessary for movement itself. Visual skills can be incorporated into training and visual skills training could be considered a separate field.
To accomplish my goals of reducing the likelihood of injury, improving general health, and improving performance, I need to do two things. First, I make sure the athlete is moving correctly, meaning that the joints are able to move in a proper range of motion, the correct muscles provide the force in the right sequence to move the joints, and the athlete knows the proper positions to put her joints in. Second, I make sure the athlete is able to make her joints move with the optimum amount of speed and force possible over the necessary length of time. The seven qualities necessary for athletic movement must be addressed to different degrees to make sure the athlete moves correctly with the optimum amount of speed and force over the necessary amount of time.I use four methods to ensure the athlete’s joints are able to move in a proper range of motion—self-myofasical release, self-joint mobilization, passive stretching, and dynamic mobility drills. I use these methods as part of training and movement preparation prior to any athletic movements. Muscle activation techniques are used to make sure the correct muscles provide the force for the movements and these are also used for movement preparation when needed. Movement coaching is used to make sure the athlete knows the proper position to put herself in and consists of demonstrating and explaining the proper technique when performing specific athletic movements such as jumping, landing, starting, and stopping.
Self-myofasical release is basically a form of self-massage that can be accomplished with a number of different implements. The foam roller is a personal favorite. Myofasical release is an attempt to change the quality of muscle tissue and would benefit many people, not just athletes. Self-joint mobilization techniques are attempts to alter the structures at the site of the joint. This alteration is accomplished by the athlete, not by any physical manipulation by the trainer. Passive stretching involves different techniques including static stretching and proprioceptive neural facilitation techniques. Passive stretching certainly has a place and is necessary at times but is not a technique I use as often as the other methods mentioned. It is an attempt to increase the passive length of a muscle.
Dynamic mobility drills are attempts to take the body through dynamic activities that increase the length of a muscle in movement. They can also increase strength, speed, coordination, balance, power, and endurance depending on the athlete’s condition. Muscle activation techniques are attempts to isolate and activate a muscle. This is done in an attempt to “wake up” the muscle so it will be used in other movements that don’t isolate the muscle in question. Some techniques are combinations of all of these methods. When used as movement preparation, all of these techniques serve to raise the core body temperature and prime the central nervous system to operate at peak efficiency. Most of these techniques have progressions that can be followed depending on the needs of the athlete.Of the seven qualities necessary for movement, strength is the base that all of the other qualities are built on. Without strength, movement is impossible. An optimum strength level is the number one priority. This doesn’t mean the strongest athlete will necessarily have more of the other six qualities, but without a certain level of strength, the other qualities can’t exist. Athletes have varying needs of strength depending on their sport. They require different levels of strength in different areas of their bodies. Athletes have different needs in all seven qualities dependent on their sport. The selection of the proper methods for training athletes can’t be accomplished without knowledge of the needs of the athlete within her sport. The proper selection of methods can contribute to developing all of the seven qualities concurrently.
Other methods may be used to focus specifically on certain qualities to the exclusion of the others. Certain methods are inappropriate to use with some athletes if the athlete isn’t physically ready to perform them. In an attempt to insure that I “do no harm,” I have to make sure a proper progression is followed. For example, power is a combination of strength and speed and can be developed with a number of different exercises and drills. An athlete is put at risk of injury when certain power specific exercises are used if she hasn’t developed an appropriate level of strength, speed, coordination, balance, and endurance. Program design is a complicated matter. Many factors must be considered, including but not limited to preparedness of the athlete, exercise selection, load selection, repetition range, set range, rest periods between sets and sessions, recovery methods, periodization methods, proper progressions of movements, and movement tempo.

(Don’t) Assume the Athletic Position

- stance (noun): the attitude or position of a standing person or animal, especially the position assumed by an athlete preparatory to action

— posture (noun): the position of the limbs or the carriage of the body as a whole

In all sports, the rudimentary beginnings of movement starts with a specific stance or posture. Whether it’s a defensive stance on the basketball court, a three-point stance for an offensive lineman, a batter preparing to hit a baseball, or a weightlifter preparing for his final clean and jerk, there is a proper starting position. All of these athletes must be taught the fundamentals of a proper stance to place them in a position to be successful. Everything successful in sports starts with a proper starting position. The simple foundation of all sports—the stance—is often times overlooked because of the ever increasing natural athleticism of athletes of this era.
In an athletic era where natural gifts supersede technique, many coaches and athletes have forgotten to focus on this piece of the puzzle that can help garner continued success and possibly reduce the chance of injury occurrence. By placing the athlete in a proper starting position, the athlete has the ability to move more efficiently with less effort, allowing him to accomplish a successful bout of exercise.

Developing a sound athletic position is no different. We must teach and direct our athletes to be able to start in a basic position from which all athletic movements can derive. It is important to note that although there is a developmental progression to establishing the athletic position, each individual athlete will look slightly different because of limb and torso difference. It is our goal for each athlete to understand the basic postural mechanics of the athletic position so that there will be an efficient transfer to strength training, running exercises, movement mechanics, and sport-specific position drills.

By establishing the athletic position, we can then begin to teach, instruct, and educate the athlete on the numerous movements and the techniques associated with all aspects of training. Each individual coach will have a slightly different version of what “their” athletic position technique will look like, but I assure you that we will all be very similar. When speaking of technique, many ask the question, “What protocols should we use when teaching our athletes?” There are numerous ways to answer this. Some may say “good technique is a form of movement that does not violate biological and mechanical laws” (Nytro). Others may use the old cookbook philosophy of what is written in a textbook or scientific data, bullet points, or checklist methods. I prefer to use a holistic approach including all of the above plus my own abilities as a former athlete as well as others who are professionals in specific fields of athleticism. Therefore, I can create my norms and know how to differentiate for the laws of individual differences and still stay within my protocols of success.

Before an athlete can begin to perfect his sports’ starting stance, it must be determined if he can properly align his body into the basic athletic position. As a coach whose main objective is to enhance the general physical preparedness of the athlete, it is my focus to help the athlete understand body positioning and awareness. If I can perform my duties well, the athlete will have the general athletic consciousness to apply the specific skills and body alignments needed to succeed in his individual sport of choice.
From the anatomical to athletic position Our first step is to put the athlete in our basic anatomical position.

Definition of anatomical position (1)—that of the body standing erect with palms turned forward, used as a position of reference in designating the site or direction of structures of the body (2); the erect position of the body with the face directed forward, the arms at the side, and the palms of the hands facing forward, used as a reference in describing the relation of body parts to another.

Many of us who have a general background in exercise science are familiar with the anatomical position of the body. This position is the basis of our ability to determine the movement planes and actions the body can perform. It is an extremely critical function when determining the way we will choose certain exercises to enhance overall athletic performance.
Planes of movement, gross movement patterns
Sagittal plane: Divides the body vertically into right and left parts. The main motions are flexion and extension. A major example is walking.
Frontal plane: Divides the body vertically into anterior/front and posterior/back parts. The main motions are abduction/adduction, side flexion, and inversion/eversion. A major example is a jumping jack.
Transverse plane: Divides the body horizontally into superior/upper and inferior/lower parts. The main motions are internal and external rotation, horizontal flexion and extension, and supination and pronation. A major example is throwing.
Note: All functional movement is tri-planar motion, meaning there is simultaneous movement of all three planes in one motion, making all functional movements three-dimensional.

Definition of athletic position—the position of the body in a flexed (bent) hip and knee position. The foot position is based on the athlete’s natural landing position. The head is set in a neutral/natural spine position (looking through the eyebrows). The shoulders are retracted back and the chest is expanded (proud position). The shoulders will be slightly over the toes. The arms are flexed at the elbow, and the hands are at the hip. The palms are neutral (facing hip) with the thumbs up. The lower back is isometrically contracted as is the abdominal region. The majority of the athlete’s weight is distributed on the mid-foot to the heels. This position is used as a general starting point for most athletic endeavors.

Most of us have assumed that all of our athletes can drop their hips and knees and correctly put themselves in a position of athletic success. Don’t!! With the aid of assessment protocols such as the functional movement screen and by establishing an orientation program for newcomers, you will find that many of your athletes can’t perform this simple act to your satisfaction when they enter your program. This article isn’t made to go into all of the reasons why. It is written to give you practical “in the gym information.
Stepping into the athletic position: Assessing the athlete’s natural starting position
We determine the athlete’s natural athletic position with a simple reaction test. Have the athlete stand on a line in a relaxed manner. When the athlete hears a whistle, he must immediately react to the verbal cue, set his athletic position, and hold. The only instruction given is, “At the sound of the whistle, set yourself in a basic athletic position.”

Generally, we see variations of these three positions:
· Knee bender: Knees pushed forward, heels off the ground, hips still in full extension
· Waist bender: Bent over at the waist, chest down, knees extended
· Hip and knee bender: Athlete naturally can assume a basic quarter squat position
Obviously the third one is the goal for each athlete. Any of these three positions has the ability to expose the athlete’s deficiencies in ankle, knee, hip, and shoulder mobility and flexibility as well as core strength and stability.

Teaching progression
Start position: Anatomical position
Feet: The foot position is set first. Instruct the athlete to do a very low intensity vertical jump. The natural landing position of the feet will be the starting point for the general athletic position.
Head: The head will be set in a natural or neutral position. As the athlete progresses to the bent knee and hip position, the head will continue to be in a neutral position in which the top of the head is in alignment with the spine. The eyes will be focused straight forward in the upright position and then looking through the brow and forehead in the bent knee and hip position.
Shoulders/chest: The shoulders will be retracted back and down, which will allow the chest to be expanded in what is called the “proud” position.
Arms and hands: The arms will begin extended with the palms facing away from the midline of the body. The athlete will then flex the elbow until the hands are at the hip and rotate the hand so the palms are facing the hip with the thumbs up.

Upper body set up
Low back and abdominal region: The low back is arched and isometrically contracted. The abdominal region is also contracted in a natural state. We won’t emphasize “belly button drawn in” or “stomach expanded” in the athletic position protocol.
Hips: The athlete will break at the hips first to begin the lower body descent. The athlete will push the hips back until the shoulders cover the toes.
Knees: The athlete will break after the hips and will continue to flex until the shoulders cover the toes.
Weight distribution: The weight will be distributed from the mid-foot to the heel to heel to begin. At this point, the athlete will be asked to push the feet through the floor to learn how to apply force into the ground.
Completion: When the athlete is in the athletic position, he is required to hold that position for a prescribed number of seconds in an isometrically contracted manner. This will give him his first experience in body awareness, coordination, and balance. See this video for more information.

This investment can’t be overlooked. With the amount of pre-existing back injuries and lack of mobility (to name a few) increasing each year in our incoming athletes, there is extreme merit in placing this important aspect of sport into your incoming freshman or beginner program.
See these examples of utilizing the athletic position into specific position stances for the sport of football:

Why You Aren’t Getting Faster

Speed training is a very hot topic. Hell, it always has been. In sports such as football, baseball, and soccer, the faster players almost always have the upper hand on their opponents. Speed literally does take the life out of another team. No matter how well you prepare yourself for a given team, if they have a couple more speedsters than you do, they automatically have the upper hand.

How often have you been on the other side of being beat deep for a touchdown by a player who just was flat out faster and more explosive than you? How frustrating is it to race for the ball in the middle of an open field during a soccer game and get beat every single time by a player who had a better set of “wheels” than you? These are just some examples, but do you get the point?

I wanted to address this topic because of a comment I heard last night from one of the announcers during a high school football game. It was along the lines of “you can’t teach speed.” I’m sure we’ve all heard this before. I used to believe in this. No matter what I did in high school, it seemed that nothing worked to get me faster and more explosive. I was told I’d probably never break 4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash. My freshman year of college I ran a 4.66 40-yard dash weighing 208 lbs. A little over a year later (after some hard and smart training), I ran a 4.59 40-yard dash weighing 215lbs while being significantly stronger!

What is the point of all this? Speed is a skill that can be taught to any athlete. Anyone can get faster than they previously were with some smart planning and hard work as well as just enough work to create an adaptation. Quick tip: Do enough to stimulate, not annihilate.
Here are some reasons why you may not be getting faster.

1. You’re doing too much: If you’re going out and running endless 100-yard sprints every single day, your body will start to break down. Injury will happen soon enough, or you’ll get frustrated as fatigue starts to accumulate and you get slower. My general rule is keep a speed session above 200 total meters/yards but no more than 500 total meters/yards in a given session and do no more than three speed sessions per week. The rules are rough guidelines, so follow them loosely. If your form starts to break down or you feel fatigued, call of the session. This leads me to my next guideline…

2. You’re not focusing on quality: If you try to turn these speed sessions into a conditioning session, you’re defeating the purpose! In order to facilitate improvements in speed, you must achieve complete recovery after each repetition in order to teach your nervous system what a fresh, full speed sprint feels like. You won’t be able to achieve the types of speed you’re looking for if you’re resting 30 seconds between 60-meter sprints. The effort might be there, but the times will show otherwise. Take home point—rest enough to make each rep quality.

3. You aren’t lifting weights: Yes, most young (and even some college) athletes are flat out weak. If you aren’t strong enough to apply force to the ground, absorb force (each sprint stride places around 4–5 times your body weight on each limb upon foot strike), and consistently do that rep after rep, you aren’t going to be as efficient as you need to be. Again, like number one, don’t overdo it and go and lift five days a week and expect to get faster. My rule here is lift after speed sessions (if speed is your main priority, this must be emphasized as supplemental to speed work) and keep it simple.

Often times, you may be too drained from a great speed session to lift. You might only be able to perform a few sets of heavy squats, cleans, or chin-ups. That’s fine as long as you’re striving to get strong and aren’t afraid to pay your dues in the squat rack. Most fast athletes are also very strong. (Ben Johnson, former world record holder in the 100 meters is said to have squatted approximately 600 lbs for two sets of six and bench press 440 lbs for two sets of five at a body weight of 175 lbs. He ran 9.79 seconds in the 100-meter dash.) Think about it like this—you need to add some horsepower in that engine of yours, so get stronger!

4. You aren’t warming up properly: A thorough warm up is critical in order to generate the heat necessary for your muscles to perform optimally. Because sprint training is such a high velocity activity, you must be warmed up prior to engaging in this type of activity. No, this doesn’t mean static stretch for five minutes and expect to be ready. I’m talking about a full dynamic warm up (lunges, hip circles, leg swings, skips, jumps, throws, push-ups, sit-ups, and drills). This shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes. Not only will you be ready to sprint, but you’ll notice a decrease in some painful problem areas such as your back, knees, and shoulders. Quick tip: Don’t turn the warm up into the workout itself. This should be something that gets you “warm” and lightly sweating before activity.

5. You aren’t resting: Your body adapts to training while it rests in between high intensity bouts of training, not during the training itself. A training demand of this nature requires you rest so your body can repair and come back fresh for the next session. The nervous system generally requires 48 hours in between bouts. So if you’re going to sprint on Monday, wait until Wednesday or Thursday to do it again.

6. You’re out of shape: Yes, even sprinters and team sport/power athletes must have some sort of general fitness in place. The key here is to keep this type of training in the lower intensity range. Low intensity activities can include extensive tempo running (“rhythm running” or strides at 60–75 percent of your best time over a given distance with short recoveries), body weight/calisthenics circuits, jump rope, incline walks, swimming, and even an extended warm up of 30–45 minutes without resting. The benefits of these types of activity are that they improve capillary density to promote greater blood flow and recovery between training bouts, increase the amount of high intensity activity you can tolerate (work capacity), decrease recovery time the day after a hard training session, keep the athletes “fit” with a low body fat percentage (ever seen a fat, soft, pudgy, weak guy who could run really fast? Not very often!), and promote rhythm through cadence. This can be done in between high intensity days. The younger or less fit you are, the more this type of work should be done. Start out with 2–3 times per week.

Note: There is a time and a place to partake in those gut wrenching, ball-busting conditioning training sessions, but keep in mind, the further away you are from your competitive season, the less you should do this type of work. (This is my opinion. Others may think I’m full of crap, but what are you going to do? You can’t please ‘em all!)

Putting it all together:
Ok, so we’ve established some general guidelines, but how the hell do you put a sample week together or a given training day? Here’s an example of a speed day:

Full dynamic warm up: Light jogging for 400 meters, leg swings, hip circles, knee hug/quad stretches, walking Spiderman lunges, crossover lateral lunges, A-skips, B-skips, pogo jumps, medicine ball throws; practice starts.

Speed work (acceleration focus): 5 X 10 m, 4 X 20 m, 2 X 3 X 30 m (complete recovery)

Jumps: Standing long jump 2 X 6, standing triple jump 2 X 5

Weights (full body): Back squat, 4 X 5 (increase the weight on each set to a heavy set of 5 on the last set); bench press, 3–4 X 5–6; one-arm dumbbell row, 3 X 10 supersetted with pull-ups, 3 X max reps; glute ham raise, 3–4 X 8–10; front/side planks, 2 X 60 seconds.

Regeneration: Foam roll for 5–10 minutes, static stretch for 5 minutes, consume a post-workout carb/protein shake, take a contrast hot/cold shower.

Getting Started...

It has been a while since I have posted. I have been in transit from Okinawa, Japan since Feb. 20th. Now that I'm home, I have taken on the full time role of parent and trainer. I will add student to that in the summer. So stay tuned for more articles and workouts....

How to Increase Your Speed & Acceleration

It's true - genetics do play a part in how fast you can run. But don't let that discourage you...
Everyone can get faster. And anyone can improve their speed off the mark.
And just a small improvement with training relates to a significant improvement on the field.
With that said, what does it take to increase your sprinting speed?

1. Increase Your Strength The more powerful your leg muscles are the more force they can apply to each ground contact. Power is a product of both strength and speed of contraction. If you make improvements in either of these components you WILL become a faster athlete.
Improve both and you double the effects - and this it what speed training for football is essentially all about. Assuming strength training already contributes a significant amount to your schedule, lets look at the other side of the equation...

2. Improve Your Speed of Contractions Any increase in strength will only translate into gains in speed IF you can still contract your muscles as quickly - ideally even quicker.
Sprint training over short distances will help you do that. So will some light plyometrics exercises. The science behind plyometrics or jump training can get a little complex but the actual training is straightforward. Be careful with plyometric training...
It's easy to overtrain without knowing it. Too many of these exercises (particularly the intense types) can cause stress injuries.

3. Improve Your Running Mechanics Most football players, in fact most sports men and women have never been taught correct sprinting form. All other things being equal, the more efficiently you can run, the faster you can run. There are basically two phases to sprinting - the acceleration phase and top speed phase. Remember acceleration is probably more important in speed training for football than top speed. Here are some pointers for good acceleration form:
Drive off the balls of your feet never the toes or heels.
The whole body should be leaning forward, not just from the waist.
Strides are short and powerful, pushing off the ground.
Pump the arms vigorously throwing the elbow back hard rather than forward
Keep the head still and square to the shoulders.
After the first 10-15 yards, running mechanics change noticeably as you gain speed...
Foot strikes should still be from the balls of the feet.
There is still a slight forward lean from the ground but much less.
Strides are longer and more relaxed. Don't try to push away from the ground.
Arm action is still exaggerated but more relaxed.
Head remains still.

As part of a season long plan, speed training for football features heavily in late pre-season preparation and gradually increases over the whole of pre-season. It should also follow a period of base strength training for maximum results.

Strength vs Power

So today I hung out on the range with my old team at the rifle range and happen to get into a pretty funny debate with a Marine about strength and power. He told me that as a Marine he would rather be strong than have power. As he told me this I almost fell to the ground in disbelief. So this brings me to this post about Strength vs Power.

The word power is commonly misused or misunderstood. The true meaning of power is the ability to generate as much force as possible. Examples of power are a golf tee off, a vertical jump, Olympic Clean and Jerk, and swinging a baseball bat. Basically if you do this things slowly, they just wont work out well for you. Strength, on the other hand, is the ability to generate as much force as possible with no concern for the factor of time. A 1RM bench press or a 1RM deadlift are examples of pure strength movements. It doesn't matter how long it takes to complete these tasks. All that matters is that it gets completed- doing it slowly doesn't take away of the success of the lift.

Power, which is often referred to as speed-strength, is an important factor in sporting activities, but it is also used in daily activities such as moving fast, running up a flight of stairs, keeping of with your kids, moving to a shooting position under fire, increased work capacity, and increased overall body strength.

The simple equations to determine the strength and power in a specific exercise are as follows:
Bench press performance..
Strength (work) = mass x distance
Example: 300 pound bench press that moves 2.5 feet
300 x 2.5ft= 750 units of work
Power= work / time
The same bench press takes about 3 seconds to complete
750 work units / 3 seconds= 250 units of power

Now let's compare that performance to 100lb power clean
Strength (work)= mass x distance
100lb power clean that moves 5 feet
100 x 5ft= 500 units of work
Power= work / time
Same power clean takes 1 second to complete
500 work units / 1 second= 500 units of power

Power exercises will always have higher amounts of power units than traditional strength exercises regardless of load simply due to the time factor.

So after explaining this to the Marine he had a better understanding why his 300lb bench press wasn't an awesome feat of strength in my eyes( plus I have a 385lb bench that I didn't tell him about when he out weighed me by about 20 pounds). Post to comments...

Six Rules for Building Athletic Linemen

I’ve heard many strength and conditioning coaches say that they “train their lineman like throwers and their skill guys like sprinters.” In my opinion, this is a great starting point for building strong and athletic down linemen. Elite level throwers are some of the strongest, fastest and most powerful athletes on the planet. They are this way because they train for these skills and they not only possess great strength, they (for the most part) have superior body composition to NFL linemen. There are far too many football coaches and athletes, especially at the high school level, who put too much emphasis on bodyweight and maximal strength. Just because college and NFL linemen weigh over 300 pounds, doesn’t mean that a high school athlete will succeed because of a number they read on the scale. Great linemen at every level are great athletes and need to be trained as such. Here are six rules to follow when you want to build athletes who can make blocks at every level, run down plays and dominate their opponents.

Who would you rather have protecting your QB's back side?

1. Run
Linemen need to be able to pull, get downfield to make blocks, play in space to make blocks on screens, run down plays from the back side and chase down ball carriers. All of these necessary skills have one thing in common - running. Short sprints (under 20 yards), sled resisted sprints, band resisted sprints, hill sprints (less than 5 seconds in duration) and tempo runs (under 50 yards) will help your linemen develop the short area speed and quickness necessary to make plays and win games.

2. Jump
Great linemen all share the quality of a great get-off. The ability to explode off the line into your opponent will help your players win battles at the line of scrimmage. To develop a great get-off, linemen must develop their rate of force development. Jumping is the best way to develop this. The best jumping variations to use for linemen are seated box jumps and kneeling jumps. I prefer these jumps because they have a static start. They require static-overcome by dynamic strength, just like exploding out of a stance. With heavier athletes, I suggest jumping out of foam and landing on foam. This will force the athlete to recruit more muscle fibers, as well as teaching them balance and saving their joints. Kneeling jumps can be performed in a variety of ways. After bodyweight is mastered, adding a weight vest, holding a weight, or putting a weight on the back are all good options. Performing a second jump or a throw upon landing the kneeling jump is also effective. My favorite combinations are Kneeling Jump+Box Jump, Kneeling Jump+Long Jump, Kneeling Jump+Vertical Jump and Kneeling Jump+Medball Chest Pass. These variations will teach your athletes to explode repeatedly, the way they need to in order to finish blocks and explode through blockers.

3. Throw
Having great feet and explosive lower body power is useless if it can’t be transferred through the torso and into a powerful punch. Med ball throws are the best way to teach the transfer of power from the legs, through the torso and into the punch. Chest passes from a variety of positions should be utilized. Chest passes into a wall for reps - or time - should be done from the feet and knees. Chest passes for distance from the knees, or a seated position, are effective builders of explosive punching power. Once athletes master these variations, they can progress to two-footed hops into a throw. Another great option with these throws is to have the athlete leap, head first, onto a pad after completing the throw. This will allow your players to achieve full extension through the hips, without the inhibition of falling on their face.

4. Strongman Training
Strongman training will teach your athletes to move forcefully against heavy loads, exactly what they have to excel at if they want to be great players. They will learn leverage and build grip strength, as well as total body strength and power. My favorite strongman exercise for building great linemen is the tire flip. The weight of the tire doesn’t need to be excessive - it needs to be something they can move at a relatively high velocity. A favorite variation of the tire flip I use with my athletes is flips followed by a sprint. For example, the athlete will perform 2-3 flips, then sprint for 10-15 yards. The yoke and farmers walk are also great options for training linemen. They’ll build grip strength, torso stability and strengthen the entire lower body. These should be used over short distances, with weights that are challenging but can be moved quickly. Rest periods should be kept short.

5. Box Squatting and Bench Press Variations
Do them. Lots of them. Linemen must be strong from every angle and at every grip, so use lots of variations. For the squat, I prefer squatting with chains. For the bench, become strong at every grip width, incline, floor, off of boards, with chains/bands and from the chest. Always put emphasis on pushing the bar with maximal force. An athlete who can bench 250 with great velocity, but only has a 1 RM of 350, will be more effective than another athlete who may have a 1 RM of 400 pounds, but doesn’t move submaximal weights as quickly. You must generate power from a wide variety of positions, so you must train to be powerful from a wide variety of angles.

6. Don’t be fat
I tell my athletes “Fat doesn’t fly.” I could amend that statement to say that it doesn’t get off the ball fast, make downfield blocks well, run down plays from the back side, or put pressure on the quarterback, either. Linemen, particularly at the high school level, often have poor body composition and need to clean up their diets. At the high school level, a lean and athletic 235 pound player is going to be much more effective than a sloppy 280 pounder. Teach your athletes how to eat properly. Then their training will be better, they’ll be better players and for high school guys particularly - they will get more girls (that’s why we play anyway, isn’t it?).

Don’t let your linemen fall into the trap of thinking that good linemen are fat SOB’s. Great linemen are great athletes, so train your guys to be great athletes.