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