Training Athletes- Part 2
When I left off in the last article I went into some lengthy discussions of: specificity, speed, and multi joint training. Now, just as a reminder, this is my personal list and yours doesn’t necessarily have to look like mine, but I have compiled this list from my training, training other athletes and from the influence of some the greatest minds in the field. So enough of the boring stuff, onto the meat.
The first topic for this article is going to be the importance of training midline stabilization. This is better known to the rest of the world as core, but I hate using the gimmicky catch phrase words that is powering the pretend fitness industry. For that reason I stole the term midline stabilization from Greg Glassman of Cross Fit. I think that it really puts into perspective what the important muscle groups are. It is more than your abdominals, which is what Billy Blanks wants you to believe. It is any muscle that helps to stabilize your midline.
The long and short of it all comes down to the fact that in athletics you use your entire body to accomplish a task, I touched on this earlier. Now it is impossible to use your upper and lower bodies with out the use of midline stabilization. Without it, athletic movements become less efficient and performance drops. So the info to take from this is; train the musculature that affects the spine and hips: erectors, abdominals, hip flexors and extensors, and upper back. Preferably train all these muscles in conjunction, such as with a clean or a squat.
One thing that I have learned from working with athletes, that I never realized when I was the athlete was the need to hold them back. I don’t really believe in overtraining, but I do believe in under recovery. A huge part of training young athletes is telling them to take a break. In today's society it is hard to believe that it is beneficial to an athlete to tell them to go take a break and relax. Not only is this great for recovery, but mentally will give them a break from competition too, but needs to be assessed on a case by case basis. And please don’t go saying Coach Kolb told me to train for football by playing Madden 2007 and watching Friday Night Lights, please take it in context. Most kids are training themselves constantly, going from one sport to another, and doing the same lifting workout with no deload, and sooner or later there will be a break down if recovery is not allowed to take place. With consistent weight training, a deload week should be taken about every 6 weeks. This is not exact for all athletes, I have seen kids that need to deload every 4 weeks and up to 8 until they need a deload, the point is they will need it so schedule it in.
An area that I think that Joe Shmoe personal trainer is actually doing well in is to have people using only one extremity at a time, single limb training. I have seen to many trainers using this as their gold standard for strength gain, where I do think that it is important and should be incorporated into an athlete's training, it is just another tool in the training tool box. In sports most of the time is spent performing movements with the arms doing two different things, or only one leg on the ground etc. Since we want to train like we will compete it is important to do lifts and movements on one leg and with one arm. All of the movements that I will do with single limb are generally dynamic in nature; single leg hop or jumps, single arm snatch, and so on. The dynamic nature mimics athletics better. A little further with this concept is the idea of alternating extremities. Often times our limbs are doing the same movement but in an alternating manner, so training this way will help to improve efficiency and coordination.
Coordination, balance, and agility are essential in athletics, but the way that most people are training it is ridiculous. Pick up any catalog that sells sports performance equipment and look at the amount of "crap in a box" people are trying to sell. Agility ladders, wobble boards, swiss balls, BOSU balls etc. the list has become almost endless. I think that all of these items have their place, a limited place, but can be used to enhance performance, especial in the novice athlete. If I constantly perform movements on a wobble board, it has very little carry over to on the field or court. All it has done is improve performance on the wobble board, so if wobble boarding is your sport have at it, if not do something useful. This was proved recently by the NSCA in an article in there Journal of Strength and Condition. The quick explanation of this is that when our body knows what movements we are about to do, such as on a ladder, it only needs to remember that set pattern, not adapt by increasing agility. In order to train agility the body has to be forced to change direction with no set pattern or warning. Like anything else these items have there place in the tool box, but who really uses the metric system.
You may notice that the descriptions are a bit shorter in this article, and the reason, if you haven’t noticed is because I am hot linking to articles that I have already written. No need to reinvent the wheel, I would probably have just cut and paste if I didn’t do it this way. The main concept touched on in this article of the series is that everything has its place in training, it just comes down to what are your specific goals and what you have access to. It would be great to training using every method, but think of training as a box, it can only get so full, eventually to put something in something else will need to come out. So put only the best items in your box.
Questions/Comments tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Monday, May 7, 2007
Training Athletes-Part 1
Well I thought that it would be appropriate for me to write an article that was based on what our focus here is. So this article will be an overview, which is hopefully not to general, on how and maybe more importantly how not to train an athlete. Now I will preface this by stating that I do not know everything about training. In fact the more I learn the more I realize that I don’t know. I do however, feel that from my own training experience and my experience in training other athletes that I have a knowledge base to pull from. A good example of this is the fact that at least 3 days a week I am on the phone with someone I would consider an expert, asking questions, and engaging in conversation. By the way, the real experts don’t have to tell you they are the best at what they do, they can show you.
So I will start off with the catch phrase "sports specific." If you have been reading my articles prior to this, you will know that the only thing that is specific to the sport is the sport itself. In other words, if I am a baseball player, the only sports specific training that I can do involves playing baseball. Throwing a heavy ball or swinging a weighted bat will not increase you performance. What will help you is identifying the muscles that are used in the common athletic movements of your sport and train those. For example if I am training a wrestler, I know that the chest has little to do with wrestling. Therefore, I would never tell a wrestler to bench, but if you look at the power of a single leg, where does that come from? The power for the movement is generated from the glutes, hamstrings, quads, etc. So how do we training those muscles, well they function together in the sport so we should train them together in the weight room, a squat is a great exercise for this. Look at your sport, or have someone else do it, and decide what the main muscles used are. I will give you a hint; they are pretty much the same across the board, with the minor muscle groups differing from sport to sport.
The next thing I will look at will be the speed at which the athlete has to perform; again for the most part this will be the same across the board. You want your athlete to be explosive. What good is a basketball player that can't jump? I have two ways of dealing with this. The first way is to use the Olympic movements. I know that every athletic program should have these implemented in it in some way. The O-lifts teach triple extension at a high velocity, which is sports. There are other parts of training that you can do without or supplement for but this is not one of those. The worst thing about the O-lifts is not just anyone can teach them, you really need to know what you are doing or an athlete will end up injured.
The second method of teaching explosiveness is to have your athletes perform lifts at a weight that they are able to move dynamically. This will differ athlete to athlete which is why I hate using percentages, there just inaccurate. A good place to start will be around 45-55% of one-rep max. This is the lowest that I have seen, but also have seen kids that can use 80-90% for a dynamic lift. The key to remember is that it must be done fast. If my movement is the dynamic squat, my goal is to get from the bottom position back to a standing position as quick as possible. A note to remember; the eccentric or lower portion of a dynamic lift does not have to be overly fast, in fact a lot of kids speed up the eccentric and keep the concentric the same and think that they are lifting dynamically but are not.
The next item up would be to make sure that I am focusing most of my attention on multi joint movements. Watch any sport, any real sport I should say, and show me where an athlete does a movement that requires the functioning of only one joint. I have been sitting here for about 10 minutes trying to think of one, to cover my butt from getting angry e-mails, and can't. So if you do think of one, politely send me an e-mail and let me know. Back on topic. Our bodies function as a whole, so that is the way we should train them also. Why do leg extensions when you can do a step up or lunge and train multiple joints, plus balance. The example that I usually use is with people is this; I may be able to grab you and pull you with just my arm but I also have all the muscles of my back so why not use them, this lengthens the time to fatigue. If I am a general of an army and I need 10 soldiers to take a hill but I have 30 at my disposal I am going to use all 30 and reduce my casualties. A real world example is my dad; he won the bar curl in the NFL strongest man contest and never did a curl in training. How is that possible? What he did do was a lot of pull ups and towel pulls which also train the bicep and even more so than a curl. Moral of the story, it is not bad to do single joint movements, but your time and effort can be better spent with multi joint lifts.
After writing for a while I think that I will divide this article up into at least 2 if not a 3 part series. I don’t like to think that I am such a provocative writer that I can hold someone's attention long enough to read all the way through this so I will divide it up. This will give you a place to start, really how much information can you really digest at once anyway.
Any questions or comment please e-mail me at tkolb@northermichigansportsmed.com
So I will start off with the catch phrase "sports specific." If you have been reading my articles prior to this, you will know that the only thing that is specific to the sport is the sport itself. In other words, if I am a baseball player, the only sports specific training that I can do involves playing baseball. Throwing a heavy ball or swinging a weighted bat will not increase you performance. What will help you is identifying the muscles that are used in the common athletic movements of your sport and train those. For example if I am training a wrestler, I know that the chest has little to do with wrestling. Therefore, I would never tell a wrestler to bench, but if you look at the power of a single leg, where does that come from? The power for the movement is generated from the glutes, hamstrings, quads, etc. So how do we training those muscles, well they function together in the sport so we should train them together in the weight room, a squat is a great exercise for this. Look at your sport, or have someone else do it, and decide what the main muscles used are. I will give you a hint; they are pretty much the same across the board, with the minor muscle groups differing from sport to sport.
The next thing I will look at will be the speed at which the athlete has to perform; again for the most part this will be the same across the board. You want your athlete to be explosive. What good is a basketball player that can't jump? I have two ways of dealing with this. The first way is to use the Olympic movements. I know that every athletic program should have these implemented in it in some way. The O-lifts teach triple extension at a high velocity, which is sports. There are other parts of training that you can do without or supplement for but this is not one of those. The worst thing about the O-lifts is not just anyone can teach them, you really need to know what you are doing or an athlete will end up injured.
The second method of teaching explosiveness is to have your athletes perform lifts at a weight that they are able to move dynamically. This will differ athlete to athlete which is why I hate using percentages, there just inaccurate. A good place to start will be around 45-55% of one-rep max. This is the lowest that I have seen, but also have seen kids that can use 80-90% for a dynamic lift. The key to remember is that it must be done fast. If my movement is the dynamic squat, my goal is to get from the bottom position back to a standing position as quick as possible. A note to remember; the eccentric or lower portion of a dynamic lift does not have to be overly fast, in fact a lot of kids speed up the eccentric and keep the concentric the same and think that they are lifting dynamically but are not.
The next item up would be to make sure that I am focusing most of my attention on multi joint movements. Watch any sport, any real sport I should say, and show me where an athlete does a movement that requires the functioning of only one joint. I have been sitting here for about 10 minutes trying to think of one, to cover my butt from getting angry e-mails, and can't. So if you do think of one, politely send me an e-mail and let me know. Back on topic. Our bodies function as a whole, so that is the way we should train them also. Why do leg extensions when you can do a step up or lunge and train multiple joints, plus balance. The example that I usually use is with people is this; I may be able to grab you and pull you with just my arm but I also have all the muscles of my back so why not use them, this lengthens the time to fatigue. If I am a general of an army and I need 10 soldiers to take a hill but I have 30 at my disposal I am going to use all 30 and reduce my casualties. A real world example is my dad; he won the bar curl in the NFL strongest man contest and never did a curl in training. How is that possible? What he did do was a lot of pull ups and towel pulls which also train the bicep and even more so than a curl. Moral of the story, it is not bad to do single joint movements, but your time and effort can be better spent with multi joint lifts.
After writing for a while I think that I will divide this article up into at least 2 if not a 3 part series. I don’t like to think that I am such a provocative writer that I can hold someone's attention long enough to read all the way through this so I will divide it up. This will give you a place to start, really how much information can you really digest at once anyway.
Any questions or comment please e-mail me at tkolb@northermichigansportsmed.com
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Single...
Single…
I thought that I would write an article dealing with the difference between doing an exercise with one extremity or both, and what benefits or drawbacks we can by doing such exercises. I will first list some examples of exercises that I am talking about so you get the picture of what I am talking about:
-squat vs. single leg squat
-bench press vs. single arm DB press
-snatch vs. single arm snatch
Ok, I assume you get the point and can think of more exercise that you can manipulate to make a single leg/arm lift. These lifts have both benefits and drawbacks as far as your training goes. There are different ways to increase strength, and one of these is to decrease stability. That is exactly what is happening when you go from two to one leg. You have decreased your stability and intern increased the amount of muscle function that is required in the lone leg. This decrease in stability is exactly why I can not do a single leg squat with half of my full squat. Last Friday I had two athletes squat 400 for the first time, which is very impressive considering there body weights are 178 and 204, but I know neither one of them can do a true single leg squat with a 45 pound bar let alone half there max which would be 200.
So we will stick with the single leg squat (SLS) for a little bit. This is not the SLS where you have a leg on a box behind you; in the true SLS or pistol you only have one point of contact. With the version with the leg up behind you, you will not get the same transfer muscle function, because there has not been a drastic change of stability. By doing a SLS we are in a sense teaching the leg to function by itself, without the aid of the other leg. This should make sense to all athletes, since this is what happens very often in sports, you are required to change directions, jump, or sprint off of one leg.
Now let us turn to the upper body for a bit. When performing a DB press you are in fact using your arms separately, but they are still doing the same movement and typically at the same speed as each other. In basketball if you are guarding someone are both your hands doing the same thing? If so, it is rare. So what I will have athletes do is a DB press where only one DB is allowed to move at a time. So one will go all the way up and then back down, and come to a complete stop before the other one moves at all. You do not want to do the scissors motion where one is going up and the other is going down at the same time, when this happens we you are training momentum, not muscle. This movement is great for all athletes and helps with shoulder preservation. Another bonus, if you are like us and your weight room does not have DB's over 75, having your stronger guys do this will still help improve strength without having the bigger bells.
There are countless exercises that we can change to work our bodies in this way and if you need more please let me know, the key is that it must be a free weight movement to have a great effect. There needs to be a decrease in stability by only using one appendage. Doing a single leg, leg extension is not going to do anything worth while, more than a regular leg extension to help you athletically. Even with doing a leg press, there is nothing to stabilize, so reducing legs does not change the muscle activation for these exercises.
Through this training you are required to stabilize your appendages and they will function better independently. So why not do all movements like this? As I have said before everything has its place, but as you add something in, some other movement must come out. If all you did was single movements you would miss out on the increase in absolute muscular strength. In addition to this there would typically be a decrease in speed of the movement, depending on what lift you are doing. What I am trying to say is that there must be a balance, and the hard part is that it is different for everyone, and it is greatly effected by weak points. Again, if you have questions feel free to e-mail me tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com, I try to get to all e-mails within a day or two unless it becomes an article.
I thought that I would write an article dealing with the difference between doing an exercise with one extremity or both, and what benefits or drawbacks we can by doing such exercises. I will first list some examples of exercises that I am talking about so you get the picture of what I am talking about:
-squat vs. single leg squat
-bench press vs. single arm DB press
-snatch vs. single arm snatch
Ok, I assume you get the point and can think of more exercise that you can manipulate to make a single leg/arm lift. These lifts have both benefits and drawbacks as far as your training goes. There are different ways to increase strength, and one of these is to decrease stability. That is exactly what is happening when you go from two to one leg. You have decreased your stability and intern increased the amount of muscle function that is required in the lone leg. This decrease in stability is exactly why I can not do a single leg squat with half of my full squat. Last Friday I had two athletes squat 400 for the first time, which is very impressive considering there body weights are 178 and 204, but I know neither one of them can do a true single leg squat with a 45 pound bar let alone half there max which would be 200.
So we will stick with the single leg squat (SLS) for a little bit. This is not the SLS where you have a leg on a box behind you; in the true SLS or pistol you only have one point of contact. With the version with the leg up behind you, you will not get the same transfer muscle function, because there has not been a drastic change of stability. By doing a SLS we are in a sense teaching the leg to function by itself, without the aid of the other leg. This should make sense to all athletes, since this is what happens very often in sports, you are required to change directions, jump, or sprint off of one leg.
Now let us turn to the upper body for a bit. When performing a DB press you are in fact using your arms separately, but they are still doing the same movement and typically at the same speed as each other. In basketball if you are guarding someone are both your hands doing the same thing? If so, it is rare. So what I will have athletes do is a DB press where only one DB is allowed to move at a time. So one will go all the way up and then back down, and come to a complete stop before the other one moves at all. You do not want to do the scissors motion where one is going up and the other is going down at the same time, when this happens we you are training momentum, not muscle. This movement is great for all athletes and helps with shoulder preservation. Another bonus, if you are like us and your weight room does not have DB's over 75, having your stronger guys do this will still help improve strength without having the bigger bells.
There are countless exercises that we can change to work our bodies in this way and if you need more please let me know, the key is that it must be a free weight movement to have a great effect. There needs to be a decrease in stability by only using one appendage. Doing a single leg, leg extension is not going to do anything worth while, more than a regular leg extension to help you athletically. Even with doing a leg press, there is nothing to stabilize, so reducing legs does not change the muscle activation for these exercises.
Through this training you are required to stabilize your appendages and they will function better independently. So why not do all movements like this? As I have said before everything has its place, but as you add something in, some other movement must come out. If all you did was single movements you would miss out on the increase in absolute muscular strength. In addition to this there would typically be a decrease in speed of the movement, depending on what lift you are doing. What I am trying to say is that there must be a balance, and the hard part is that it is different for everyone, and it is greatly effected by weak points. Again, if you have questions feel free to e-mail me tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com, I try to get to all e-mails within a day or two unless it becomes an article.
Female Training
One question that I get all the time from parents and even coaches is, "what should our female athletes do?" It is true that most of the focus of strength and conditioning is on males, but I don’t think it should be that way. It is necessary for all athletes to strength train, and the training of men and women should not differ to the extent that most think it should.
Muscle fiber is inherently the same, without regard to typing, regardless if it comes from a male or female. This was shown in a study done by Fleck and Kraemer(3) stating, "Female muscle has the same physiological characteristics as male muscle and, therefore, responds to training in the same fashion." The main difference is the amount of response that comes from training. When I coach, my main goal is to increase the strength of the athlete. Some athletes are not allowed gain weight and others do not want to gain weight. This is reflected in females, who frequently give their excuse for not wanting to train as, "I don’t want to look like a guy." What a load.
I hear this all the time, as I assume any other person working in the profession does, but what it comes down to is that this just will not happen. In my research I found a host of articles that showed little or no increase in muscle size and still having significant increases in strength(3). The reason that men grow so much larger than women is due to higher levels of male hormone. Hormones such as testosterone are produced at amounts of 5-10 mg/day in men and 2-4mg/day in women. Testosterone is one of the main hormones responsible for protein synthesis and the increase in muscular size. In addition to this, female hormone levels do not peak following a training session the way that men's do, explaining why women gain strength slower(4). So ladies not only would you need hormone supplementation (which is illegal), but you would also need to take in an equivalent amount of calories to that of a mans diet, which I also think is unlikely. Lastly on this topic is the fact that you will not wake up one morning and be huge. It takes time and I think that if you feel that you are getting too large you can slow down, although I doubt this will ever come up.
OK, I think that I have exhausted that subject and need to move on to the "meat and potatoes" of the article, and that is "why should women strength train?" There is a plethora of information out there showing the increases in sports specific movements in women due to strength training. Some examples are increased muscular strength and power, increased vertical jump, improved standing jump, improved agility, and increased sprinting velocity and acceleration(5). So our main reason is that women should strength train because it will make them a better athlete, and in my opinion if you don’t want to be a better athlete, don’t play at all. When an athlete is reluctant to begin a strength training regime I will ask them if I gave you the ability to jump higher, move faster, and control your body better would you take it? This is exactly what strength training will do, amongst other benefits.
The next reason is prevention of injury, and specifically injury to the ACL. Women are predisposed to greater trauma to the ACL than men, and it is partially due to a greater Q-angle. The Q-angle is the angle that the femur makes as it comes down from the hip to the knee. The problem is made worse because women also typically have a muscle imbalance between their hamstrings and quads. This problem can be easily remedied from strength training, and studies show that the functional ratio between the two muscles can be brought to 1.0 with in 6weeks of training(3). I stress the training of the posterior chain to all of my athletes, but for these reasons it is even more important for females.
In recent years there has been a surge in female athletic participation; it is time that the training of females makes a similar surge. Females must prepare for competition the same, if not more than their male counterparts, but we need to move past the stereotypes and focus on the benefits.
"Females can still train like Tarzan, yet look like Jane" Joe Defranco
1. Defranco, Joe. (2007) Should Females Train Differently Than Males? www.defrancotraning.com.
2. Holcomb, WR et al. (2007) Effect of hamstring-emphasized resistance training on hamstring:quadriceps strength ratios. J Strength Cond Res. Feb 21(1).
3. NSCA (1989) Strength training for female athletes: A Position Paper: Part I. NSCA Journal 11(4).
4. NSCA (1989) Strength training for female athletes: A Position Paper: Part II. NSCA Journal 11(5).
5. Peterson, MD et al. (2006) The contribution of maximal force production to explosion movement among young collegiate athletes. J Strength Cond Res. Nov 20(4).
Muscle fiber is inherently the same, without regard to typing, regardless if it comes from a male or female. This was shown in a study done by Fleck and Kraemer(3) stating, "Female muscle has the same physiological characteristics as male muscle and, therefore, responds to training in the same fashion." The main difference is the amount of response that comes from training. When I coach, my main goal is to increase the strength of the athlete. Some athletes are not allowed gain weight and others do not want to gain weight. This is reflected in females, who frequently give their excuse for not wanting to train as, "I don’t want to look like a guy." What a load.
I hear this all the time, as I assume any other person working in the profession does, but what it comes down to is that this just will not happen. In my research I found a host of articles that showed little or no increase in muscle size and still having significant increases in strength(3). The reason that men grow so much larger than women is due to higher levels of male hormone. Hormones such as testosterone are produced at amounts of 5-10 mg/day in men and 2-4mg/day in women. Testosterone is one of the main hormones responsible for protein synthesis and the increase in muscular size. In addition to this, female hormone levels do not peak following a training session the way that men's do, explaining why women gain strength slower(4). So ladies not only would you need hormone supplementation (which is illegal), but you would also need to take in an equivalent amount of calories to that of a mans diet, which I also think is unlikely. Lastly on this topic is the fact that you will not wake up one morning and be huge. It takes time and I think that if you feel that you are getting too large you can slow down, although I doubt this will ever come up.
OK, I think that I have exhausted that subject and need to move on to the "meat and potatoes" of the article, and that is "why should women strength train?" There is a plethora of information out there showing the increases in sports specific movements in women due to strength training. Some examples are increased muscular strength and power, increased vertical jump, improved standing jump, improved agility, and increased sprinting velocity and acceleration(5). So our main reason is that women should strength train because it will make them a better athlete, and in my opinion if you don’t want to be a better athlete, don’t play at all. When an athlete is reluctant to begin a strength training regime I will ask them if I gave you the ability to jump higher, move faster, and control your body better would you take it? This is exactly what strength training will do, amongst other benefits.
The next reason is prevention of injury, and specifically injury to the ACL. Women are predisposed to greater trauma to the ACL than men, and it is partially due to a greater Q-angle. The Q-angle is the angle that the femur makes as it comes down from the hip to the knee. The problem is made worse because women also typically have a muscle imbalance between their hamstrings and quads. This problem can be easily remedied from strength training, and studies show that the functional ratio between the two muscles can be brought to 1.0 with in 6weeks of training(3). I stress the training of the posterior chain to all of my athletes, but for these reasons it is even more important for females.
In recent years there has been a surge in female athletic participation; it is time that the training of females makes a similar surge. Females must prepare for competition the same, if not more than their male counterparts, but we need to move past the stereotypes and focus on the benefits.
"Females can still train like Tarzan, yet look like Jane" Joe Defranco
1. Defranco, Joe. (2007) Should Females Train Differently Than Males? www.defrancotraning.com.
2. Holcomb, WR et al. (2007) Effect of hamstring-emphasized resistance training on hamstring:quadriceps strength ratios. J Strength Cond Res. Feb 21(1).
3. NSCA (1989) Strength training for female athletes: A Position Paper: Part I. NSCA Journal 11(4).
4. NSCA (1989) Strength training for female athletes: A Position Paper: Part II. NSCA Journal 11(5).
5. Peterson, MD et al. (2006) The contribution of maximal force production to explosion movement among young collegiate athletes. J Strength Cond Res. Nov 20(4).
Warm Up
Well I have had my first topic request, and it is about warming up. So I thought that this week's topic would be in response to that request. To me this is a very important part of a workout that is typically overlooked by many athletes, and all too often coaches overlook this as well. The warm up that I am speaking of specifically is that prior to a strength training session.
Ideally before beginning a strength training session you would want to get the body's core temperature up and this can be done a number of ways. Some examples are a light jog, shooting some hoops, or even a spin on an Air Dyne bike. No matter what your modality, you want to make sure that you have a bit of a sweat going before you begin your actual workout.
Following the activity of your choice for raising your core temperature I would then have you go through a "dynamic warm up." This is the part of the warm up where the muscles get stretched and shortened, but it is done in a dynamic and athletic way. I will almost never have an athlete do any type of static stretching, (stretching where you hold a stretch for a specific amount of time). In fact, the only people I suggest static stretching to are those who are severely inflexible.
Getting your body temperature up and the dynamic warm up done should together take only about 15 minutes, so it is not a huge time commitment. Also, up to this point, this is the same warm up I would use if it was a conditioning or agility/plyo day. Now you are ready to begin the actually lifting portion of the workout.
Example Dynamic Warm Up Drills
Duck walk
Lunge walk
Side step kick hip open
Side step kick hip closed
Power skip-height
Power skip-distance
Squat jumps
Skates
Backward reaching kick
Carioca- I really don’t know how to spell this.
Side shuffle
Back pedal
Sprint
Not an exhaustive list but enough to definitely get you started.
In a later article I will discuss programming of a workout, but in general I start with the quick explosive movements, such as a clean, then core movement, such as a box squat, and then on to auxiliary/ supplementary movements such as a bench press. Every workout my athletes will perform 2-3 sets of jump shrugs or clean pulls. This just helps get the body ready to do the explosive movements of the Olympic Lifts and is then followed by an ascending set/rep scheme. When moving to the core lifts I require that the athlete perform 3 sets of 5-10 repetitions at gradually increasing sub maximal weight. Obviously this is very generic, but in a weight room of 80+ athletes it is a good guideline to keep them on task.
As with anything else, when working one on one you are able to better tailor your warm up to your specific needs and weaknesses. The above listed example works well across the board. As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at: tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com.
Ideally before beginning a strength training session you would want to get the body's core temperature up and this can be done a number of ways. Some examples are a light jog, shooting some hoops, or even a spin on an Air Dyne bike. No matter what your modality, you want to make sure that you have a bit of a sweat going before you begin your actual workout.
Following the activity of your choice for raising your core temperature I would then have you go through a "dynamic warm up." This is the part of the warm up where the muscles get stretched and shortened, but it is done in a dynamic and athletic way. I will almost never have an athlete do any type of static stretching, (stretching where you hold a stretch for a specific amount of time). In fact, the only people I suggest static stretching to are those who are severely inflexible.
Getting your body temperature up and the dynamic warm up done should together take only about 15 minutes, so it is not a huge time commitment. Also, up to this point, this is the same warm up I would use if it was a conditioning or agility/plyo day. Now you are ready to begin the actually lifting portion of the workout.
Example Dynamic Warm Up Drills
Duck walk
Lunge walk
Side step kick hip open
Side step kick hip closed
Power skip-height
Power skip-distance
Squat jumps
Skates
Backward reaching kick
Carioca- I really don’t know how to spell this.
Side shuffle
Back pedal
Sprint
Not an exhaustive list but enough to definitely get you started.
In a later article I will discuss programming of a workout, but in general I start with the quick explosive movements, such as a clean, then core movement, such as a box squat, and then on to auxiliary/ supplementary movements such as a bench press. Every workout my athletes will perform 2-3 sets of jump shrugs or clean pulls. This just helps get the body ready to do the explosive movements of the Olympic Lifts and is then followed by an ascending set/rep scheme. When moving to the core lifts I require that the athlete perform 3 sets of 5-10 repetitions at gradually increasing sub maximal weight. Obviously this is very generic, but in a weight room of 80+ athletes it is a good guideline to keep them on task.
As with anything else, when working one on one you are able to better tailor your warm up to your specific needs and weaknesses. The above listed example works well across the board. As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at: tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com.
Sled Dragging
So for today’s exercise I am actually going to give a series of different exercises that can be done using the same piece of equipment. Now this list will not be exhaustive by any means but will help to build a sufficient base to begin.
I am referring to sled dragging, which can be used more than just for strengthening but for conditioning and endurance training as well. What I mean is that if you are struggling in the final minutes of a game, then the sled may be something that you want to add into your regime. I would classify sled dragging as GPP, which means General Physical Preparedness, and there will soon be an article on that. This exercise is working the main athletic muscles of the posterior chain, the muscles that are responsible for jumping and sprinting.
So I will give a list of dragging exercises and then show you how to implement them into your program.
Ankle Dragging- forward and backward
Belt/harness dragging- forward and backward
Rows
Flys
Shoulder punches
Pull Throughs
Reverse dragging
Shoulder dragging- forward and backward
Sled dragging can be used many different ways. I really like it for conditioning and recovery, but is also good for warming up, cooling down or it can be used as a workout by itself. To add dragging into your workout, I would start slow and just do some light dragging as a warm up 2-3 days a week. Maybe distances of 15-20 yards using 3-4 exercises and 3-4 trips with each exercise. You could also drag for time, by just tossing some weight on the sled and start pulling and go for 5 minutes.
Try some of these out, and if you get bored with these and need some more, let me know and I will do a follow up to this article.
OK, so since the time that i wrote this article I have lost the demo pics that were originally in it, so I will try and remedy that within a few days.
I am referring to sled dragging, which can be used more than just for strengthening but for conditioning and endurance training as well. What I mean is that if you are struggling in the final minutes of a game, then the sled may be something that you want to add into your regime. I would classify sled dragging as GPP, which means General Physical Preparedness, and there will soon be an article on that. This exercise is working the main athletic muscles of the posterior chain, the muscles that are responsible for jumping and sprinting.
So I will give a list of dragging exercises and then show you how to implement them into your program.
Ankle Dragging- forward and backward
Belt/harness dragging- forward and backward
Rows
Flys
Shoulder punches
Pull Throughs
Reverse dragging
Shoulder dragging- forward and backward
Sled dragging can be used many different ways. I really like it for conditioning and recovery, but is also good for warming up, cooling down or it can be used as a workout by itself. To add dragging into your workout, I would start slow and just do some light dragging as a warm up 2-3 days a week. Maybe distances of 15-20 yards using 3-4 exercises and 3-4 trips with each exercise. You could also drag for time, by just tossing some weight on the sled and start pulling and go for 5 minutes.
Try some of these out, and if you get bored with these and need some more, let me know and I will do a follow up to this article.
OK, so since the time that i wrote this article I have lost the demo pics that were originally in it, so I will try and remedy that within a few days.
Overtraining
“Everyone wants to be the best!” How true is this statement? Very true, and if it wasn’t then I probably would not have a job. In athletics there is such a constant battle within ones self to constantly be improving. So what is the result of this battle? Constant training and practice to become the best athlete possible.
Training is good, I love to train and also to train others, but what it comes down to is that it may be the time that we are not training that has the most effect on our athletic ability. Those hours in the day when you are at school, home, or just hanging out with your friends can be very valuable to your success as an athlete. All of this combined with your athletic training adds up and will have an effect on your ability, and this can be positive or negative.
In my opinion, and I am sure that some would argue, but I think that it is near impossible to overtrain. I think that the problem actually occurs from under recovering. Our bodies are amazing machines that are capable of withstanding harsh treatment. Look at the Navy Seals who go through “Hell Week.” Their bodies are put through an amazing amount of stress and are able to adapt and recover. The key to this is the amount of recovery that you allow yourself after a training session.
Ok so you get the point, your body needs rest, but how do you know when and how much? For most people, that are not elite level athletes, a week is sufficient for recovery. Some will get the needed recovery from what I call “active rest.” Active rest is great right after a season also. What is Active Rest? It is activity that is substantially less than your normal activity levels. For example if you are used to playing basketball everyday of the week and lifting 3 times a week and you want to take active recovery an option would be playing racquetball 3 times a week. This will allow your body to heal from the stress of your sport but you are still able to be active.
If you are in the off season and all you are doing is weight training, you need to think about deload weeks. A deload week allows the body and your central nervous system to recover from the stress of strength training. This should occur at least every 4-8 weeks depending on the athlete and their training age. Now this rest time doesn’t need to be a complete break in the action. Some options that I have used in the past are to have my athletes perform their core exercises the same as normal and drop all supplemental and accessory work. The opposite can also work, drop the core exercises and keep the supplemental and accessory. If you test your athletes strength gains this is a perfect week to do it. Again, like everything it depends on the athlete and their specific situation.
Let me stress that deload weeks and active rest are not to be used as excuses to get out of doing some real training, they are serious tools that can help you become a better athlete. In some cases where the athletes don’t have the proper guidance or even poor guidance this could make the difference between a injury and a successful season.
Training is good, I love to train and also to train others, but what it comes down to is that it may be the time that we are not training that has the most effect on our athletic ability. Those hours in the day when you are at school, home, or just hanging out with your friends can be very valuable to your success as an athlete. All of this combined with your athletic training adds up and will have an effect on your ability, and this can be positive or negative.
In my opinion, and I am sure that some would argue, but I think that it is near impossible to overtrain. I think that the problem actually occurs from under recovering. Our bodies are amazing machines that are capable of withstanding harsh treatment. Look at the Navy Seals who go through “Hell Week.” Their bodies are put through an amazing amount of stress and are able to adapt and recover. The key to this is the amount of recovery that you allow yourself after a training session.
Ok so you get the point, your body needs rest, but how do you know when and how much? For most people, that are not elite level athletes, a week is sufficient for recovery. Some will get the needed recovery from what I call “active rest.” Active rest is great right after a season also. What is Active Rest? It is activity that is substantially less than your normal activity levels. For example if you are used to playing basketball everyday of the week and lifting 3 times a week and you want to take active recovery an option would be playing racquetball 3 times a week. This will allow your body to heal from the stress of your sport but you are still able to be active.
If you are in the off season and all you are doing is weight training, you need to think about deload weeks. A deload week allows the body and your central nervous system to recover from the stress of strength training. This should occur at least every 4-8 weeks depending on the athlete and their training age. Now this rest time doesn’t need to be a complete break in the action. Some options that I have used in the past are to have my athletes perform their core exercises the same as normal and drop all supplemental and accessory work. The opposite can also work, drop the core exercises and keep the supplemental and accessory. If you test your athletes strength gains this is a perfect week to do it. Again, like everything it depends on the athlete and their specific situation.
Let me stress that deload weeks and active rest are not to be used as excuses to get out of doing some real training, they are serious tools that can help you become a better athlete. In some cases where the athletes don’t have the proper guidance or even poor guidance this could make the difference between a injury and a successful season.
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