Youth Performance Training – K2 Athletic Performance Training

Sprinting Rules …. Running “Kinda Sucks”

If you want to get in shape. Sprint… Do not run.

Running is not sprinting. Sprinting makes you faster; running does not. Sprinting is something you can do for a short period of time and requires recovery to repeat. Sprinting improves conditioning. Running breaks down joints. Anything lasting for more than five seconds is working on something other than speed.

I am a great coach with over 25 years of experience coaching lacrosse, basketball, and track, but most importantly Speed and Agility.

However, this article is a summary of what I learned from these years of experience and backed and supported by Tony Holler, A legendary track coach.

Thank you coach Holler!

This Lady, Deajah Stevens, is sprinting, not running.

Running does not improve speed. Running is sub-max. Full speed is max speed (sprinting). Running makes you good at sub-max running. Sprinting improves speed.

Racehorses are not workhorses. ATTENTION COACHES: Fact: A horse that can plow a field all day won’t win a race. Don’t turn your athletes into work-horses. If you want a fast team (and who doesn’t?), treat all your horses like race horses. Train them for speed, not work.

Sprinting is the most explosive exercise in the world. Nothing in the weight room moves at 10 meters per second. The most explosive lifts may approach 2 m/sec. I’m not telling people not to lift, but sprinting, in and of itself, builds functional strength that directly transfers to athleticism.

Any fool can get another fool tired. Know-nothing coaches often work their kids the hardest. Toughness wins! I believe toughness is just as genetic as speed. Coaches don’t create toughness by designing crushing workouts. Even if hard work created toughness, I would still opt for fast, energetic athletes. Slow and tired athletes lose no matter how tough they are. If you want fast kids, work smarter, not harder. To get faster, you must sprint intensely for five or six seconds and then rest long enough to do it again.

We are not the result of what we did yesterday. We are the sum of what we did for the last six weeks, the last six months, and the last six years. The “6-6-6 Theory”. Speed grows like a tree. Speed training takes consistancy and dedication.

Speed is a barometer of athleticism. What metric is the #1 indicator of future success at the NFL Combine? Like it or not, the 40 is the Holy Grail. The 40-yard dash is a measure of both acceleration (strength and explosion) and max-speed. Surprising to some, speed is not only important for running backs and receivers. The fastest offensive linemen are always drafted highest. The highest drafted 300-pounder will usually be the fastest 300-pounder. The best athletes are the best players.

Speed translates to all sports, even non running sports such as volleyball. Sprinting and jumping use the same fast-twitch muscle fibers. Sprinting and jumping have a reciprocal relationship. Volleyball players jump high and move quicker as their 10m fly times improve.

Beware of “The Grind”. Any coach who embraces “The Grind” is not a speed-based coach. You don’t train a racehorse by grinding unless you want to improve its ability to plow fields. Grinding improves grinding, not speed. Hard work seldom translates to undefeated seasons, but coaches live in constant fear of getting out-worked. Great athletes and great teams are a combination of smart training, enthusiasm, talent, and luck.

Sprinting improves sprinting. No one gets fast by running slow. I never train tired athletes. I never train beaten and battered athletes. Rest, recovery, and enthusiasm are more important than any workout. If I want to train kids two days in a row, I make sure today’s workout does not ruin tomorrow’s workout. My athletes usually perform well and do not break down.

Too many coaches value weight lifting in the absence sprinting. Kids fall in love with the way they look in the mirror. Indiscriminate hypertrophy is a dumb idea and reduces athleticism. But I get it, its about the beach and those 6-pack abs!

P.S. – 60 seconds (15 x 4 sec sprints) of sprinting uses more core muscles than 60 minutes of crunches.

Mix it up for Strength & Safety

Not only does mixing up your workout help improve strength gains, it reduces the risk of injury by training the muscles differently. Most people always lift the same … then when they fall or have to lift something heavy… they hurt themselves because they never trained their muscles for the real world.

I mostly work with athletes and older populations, so introducing various movement patterns and speeds in essential.

Week 1: We bench with 3 second hold at bottom
Week 2: We add bands or chains to increase resistance at top of movement
week 3: Heavy weights & low Reps
Week 4: Lighter weights and High Reps

This article will help you change your routine ASAP

15 Ways To Switch Up Your Routine

Increase intensity. Intensity builds muscle. I have put this one at the top because I believe it is the most important. A lot of the techniques mentioned in this article increase the intensity of your workout. Drop sets, supersets, negatives and slow reps are all classic examples. Other ways you can increase the intensity of your workout are decreased rest times, circuits, forced reps etc. When you’ve been using the same routine for a while it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, you think you’re training hard but your intensity level has been dropping slowly without you knowing it.
Switch up your exercises. Each muscle group has a variety of different exercises that can be used to train it. A lot of weight trainers get stuck into the same exercises week in week out. They cut out exercises they “don’t like”. To continue to grow you need to hit your target muscles with a wide array of exercises. You should be switching regularly. Many experienced bodybuilders never do the same workout twice.
Introduce drop sets. Drop sets are one of those shock techniques that if done correctly can blast you through a tough plateau. Drop sets work by forcing more reps out by dropping weight off gradually, this forces more blood into the target muscle group and causes more muscle tearing, which promotes more growth after the repair of muscle tissue. Drop sets are simple. Do a set until you can’t perform another rep, drop the weight, do another set, drop the weight…and so on. You can do anywhere from 3-6 sets in total. One of the most popular types of drop sets is “down the rack” dumbbell bicep curls where you start off at a normal curl weight and move down the rack, going to failure on each set.
Switch the days you work each muscle. Changing the order of your workout days can have a big impact on results. In general, you should work your weakest muscle groups at the beginning of the week when you have the most energy. But like everything else in your routine, you’ll benefit from change. One point to remember though when switching, always make sure you give each muscle group enough rest – keeping in mind that the muscle group may be hit as a secondary. For example, you shouldn’t do biceps Monday then back Tuesday – you need your biceps as a secondary muscle in all your back (pulling) exercises. You can also cycle your workout days so that on the first day of your workout week you focus on a different muscle group.
Compound-isolation same muscle group supersets. One of the most effective ways to promote growth in a stubborn muscle group is to follow a big compound exercise with an isolation movement. One of the best examples would be bench press-flat bench flys. You complete your bench press as usual, but immediately after you hit out a strict set of dumbbell flys. You don’t need big weights on the second set, your focus should be on muscle contraction. This means slow down and squeeze at the top of the movement. Here are some good compound-isolation supersets:
- Military press then front raises
- Close grip bench then skullcrushers
- Squats then leg extensions
- Bench press then dumbbell flys
- Wide grip pull up (or lat pull down) then straight arm pull down
- Chin up then barbell curl
Weekly rep cycling. Weekly rep cycling works like this. Week 1 – hit out 12 reps per set, week 2 – hit out 10 reps per set, week 3 – hit out 8 reps per set, week 4 – hit out 6 reps per set, week 5 repeat. No one knows exactly how many reps you should be doing for optimum muscle growth. What we do know is, it’s between 6 and 12. So cover all bases by starting at 12 reps and over 4 weeks decrease to 6, increasing the weight as you go. If you’ve got your diet right (which you should have if you want any of the techniques in this article to work) you should find that by week 5 you can lift considerably more than you could in week 1 for 12 reps.
Change the number of days you train. In muscle building, less is more. If you want to get bigger you don’t workout more. This is one of the most common mistakes of new lifters. You think that dropping back to 3 days from 4 or 5 will mean you build less muscle? You’re wrong. Your body will probably benefit from the extra rest.
Negatives. Negatives are extremely helpful in building strength, working up to exercises/weight and beating plateaus. Negatives are where you focus on the negative part of a movement by using very heavy weights (more than your 1 rep max) and a very slow movement. Spotters are needed for almost all types if negatives, so if you train alone, don’t bother with these – you’ll do yourself an injury. Good examples of negatives are bench press, barbell preacher curl, close grip bench, pull ups (jumping up and slowly lowering) and leg extension. Tip: Can’t do pullups? Just do as many as you can then finish the set with negatives. You’ll build strength fast. Use a very wide grip to emphasize you lats and not your biceps.
Slow (controlled) reps. Slow reps are all about control and contraction. Using a lighter weight, with a slower movement, for the same number of reps. You should be using a 3-1-3 count. Meaning count “1 one thousand” 3 times on the way down, pause for “1 one thousand” and count “1 one thousand” on the way up. Using slow reps you do the same number of reps as you usually do but your muscles are under strain for a much longer time.
Alternating & keep under strain (AKA partial reps). Like slow reps, alternate reps work the muscle group harder by keeping it under strain for a longer period of time. What you do is, take an exercise and modify it by not completing a full rep. For example, alternating dumbbell curls. Instead of letting your left arm hang while your right arm curls you do not complete the full rep, keeping your left arm slightly bent and under strain. This does not let the blood escape from the muscle (keeps “the pump”) and makes it work extremely hard to hold the weight. After the set, your muscle has been under strain for twice the time as regular alternating curls. You can use this technique with loads of exercises like dumbbell shoulder press, dumbbell bench, dumbbell tricep extensions and kickbacks.
Change the order of your exercises. If someone asked me how they should order their exercises I would tell them big compounds first, followed by isolations. But like everything else in your routine, your body quickly adapts. Switch up your exercises…do dips first on your chest day, extensions before squats etc.
Pre-fatiguing (or pre-exhausting) your muscles. Pre-fatiguing (AKA pre-exhausting) is another one of those plateau busting techniques that has been around for ages. Using this technique you pre-fatigue the muscle group you want to hit with an isolation exercise and then immediately hit it with a big compound exercise. Here’s some good examples:
- Leg extension followed by squat
- Flys followed by bench press
- Rear delt fly followed by row
- Front raise followed by military press
Forced reps. Forced reps are simple, do as many strict reps as you can without any assistance, then use a spotter to help you force another 2 or more reps out. You can use forced reps to get an extra 2 reps out (for example you hit out 12 on your regular 10 set) or you can up the weight by about 15% and use your spotter to help you force out your regular 10 reps.
Pyramid sets. As the name suggests, pyramid sets start from a low weight and work up to a heavy weight and/or then back down. After completing a proper warm up, the first set in your pyramid will be with a weight that you can push out 12 reps with good form. Your next set will be 8-10 reps, then 6-8, then 4. Then you can always work your way back to 12 reps. Technique is important here, no cheating. You want to do slow and controlled reps on ALL sets.
Take the week off. Rest is the most abused aspect of weight training. Bodybuilding is not like marathon running, less is more. Sometimes you’ll find that taking a week off from training is the best thing for you. Our bodies (and minds) need regular rest breaks from intense resistance training. Our training routines put stress on the entire body, not just the muscles. How do you know when to take a break? You’ll know it, your body will tell you. But as a rough guide, every 8-12 weeks.

So there you have it, time to get back into the gym and put some of these techniques into practice! If you need any more help or advice on muscle building and fitness head over to our muscle building forum and ask one of our experienced trainers or call me directly at 908-803-8019.

5 Ways Field Athletes Can Get Faster

How many times have you, as an athlete, been just one step behind an opponent who outran you, or just one second too late for a chance, a shot, a pass?

Seemingly everyone’s first reaction to such a situation is a socially less-acceptable variation of “oh no!” and the second one is “wow, need to be faster next time.”

Everybody needs more speed.

That is not up for debate, as there are few sports that do not rely on power and speed!

Field sports like soccer, lacrosse, football, hockey and basketball obviously require speed and power as an entry point for the game.

Less commonly considered sports like tennis, dancing, swimming and diving all demand power and speed as well. As these sports are more technical, however, speed and power may not present themselves the same way as in field sports, where opponents face off against each other and the faster one usually wins that moment-long duel. But these skills are most certainly needed!

So how DO we get faster?

As a performance coach for mostly field sports, I may be biased, but many experts in our field seem to agree: Speed is perhaps most purely expressed in its truest form—sprinting.

Sprinting is one of the most aggressive things the body can do. It’s also a “hindbrain” activity, meaning your thinking brain—the “executive” or prefrontal cortex, literally the front part of your head—needs to be turned off to do it well. Sprinting is a natural, instinctual act. This seems perhaps like a contradictory dilemma: If you should not think while sprinting, but you are not already fast, how can one get faster?

Before we address how to increase speed, let us break down the common ways we keep ourselves from it.

How Not to Get Faster

“The more, the better” is not true when sprinting. Because expressions of speed and power—sprinting being the purest expression of this—is exhausting to the central nervous system (CNS), less is actually more.

Overdoing conditioning work will not help you get faster. Wearing yourself down with high doses of speed and power work, called “high CNS fatigue,” is not a good plan either; it just make you tired and sweaty, and not want to train tomorrow. At the same time, training at a low intensity or effort is clearly not beneficial for speed gains!

Contrary to some “sport experts,” permanently breaking up with strength training also does not result in more speed. Neglecting your recovery, diet and sleep is also detrimental to improvement, as the nervous system must recover for the body to heal and repeat speed and power skills.

Lastly, one surefire way to keep yourself from increasing speed and power is to not listen to your coach. If your coach is competent and you have discussed your need for speed, then athletes need to buy into their knowledge and trust the plan. Adding or skipping sets and even workouts is definitely not going to bring quick returns!

How to Get Faster

Sprint fast and often

Does this seem counterintuitive? Did I not just say that, in fact, less is more? The primary message here is to, above all else, be consistent in a speed program and manage your volume according to your training and competition schedule.

Sprinting more often—increasing speed sessions to twice a week from once a week, for example—can certainly help you get faster. However, that does not mean you should lace up and sprint 15 sets of 40 yards at 100% effort every day of the week. That is too much!

It does mean that you should purposefully vary your sprint workouts across different distances, at different velocities, at different levels of effort, with a phase focused on Acceleration in the first 10 steps and a phase of Maximum Velocity. This calculated, purposeful training will make maximum-effort sprints in games much more manageable when the body is used to completing them several times a week.

The central nervous system is sensitive but it can also adapt incredibly well with the right amount of stress and recovery. Starting to sprint more often and in a controlled environment that allows rest, instead of just in competition, is a great way to improve the body’s ability to run faster with less effort and more often.

Train at Appropriate Intensity

Although similar to the last point, it is worth reiterating: To get fast, you do not need to sprint at maximum effort for 100 reps per day. But when you do sprint, you need to make it count.

Again, listening to a competent coach and program is important. Does your workout say 90-95% effort on 5 sets of 20m today? Or is it 5x30m at 70%? Either way, all reps need to be focused and executed with proper technique, with appropriate rest between, and hitting that prescribed intensity every time.

It does not take a high dose or a million reps of sprinting to make an athlete fast. It just takes many small, intense, well-timed and recoverable doses.

Lift

Do not stop lifting weights.

In working with teams as a performance coach, I have heard every variation of “I’ve never seen an athlete get faster by lifting weights” and “weights make you slow and heavy!”

Although the equation Speed + Weights = Heavier Player = Less Speed may appear to pass the logic test, it skips over some key factors.

If lifting weights makes you slow, you are lifting wrong. Strength training for performance sport is not bodybuilding or powerlifting; those kinds of lifting do indeed add mass and restrict mobility, which can make an athlete slow.

By the time you are in the preparation and competition phases, when you need speed and power, your “strength phase” is over. You do not need to be lifting maximally four times per week or put on mass with intense soreness after every workout.

Mass makes athletes slow. But lifting weights does not necessarily equate to adding mass!

Another complaint I hear regarding strength training and speed is that athletes are too tired to be fast after lifting.

This equation does make sense.

Every stress we put on the body, including training, taxes the CNS. Some movements and types of lifts tax the CNS more than others, such as Olympic lifting—that’s why you do not need very many repetitions in a session. The Shoulder Press, though, is a low-CNS movement—if you complete 3 sets of 6 reps, you might be a little gassed, but you will not be wiped out on the floor as if you Clean-and-Jerked 3×6.

But that is not the only way to lift weights!

Lifting with speed can help.

Heavy lifting to maintain maximal strength is important, as are hamstring-specific accessory lifts to keep your legs in top condition for sprinting. Depending on your sport and its demands, you can also work on upper-body lifts because this will not tax your nervous system heavily enough to detract from your speed gains.

However, lifting below your 1-Rep Max, around 60-70%, and moving at a higher velocity is essentially “weighting” your speed in the gym, with the goal of moving faster when the weights come off.

There are also other training methods of getting faster, such as ballistic training and the ever-famed plyometrics. A competent coach knows how to program these into a speed and strength program so that all exercises contribute to your power, velocity and resilience.

Power training—sprinting, throwing, jumping—and speed lifts should come before the lifts in a workout. You do not need to stop going to the gym to get fast, but do not spend your whole week there powerlifting either.

The Other Stuff

This might sound basic, but you need to focus on your recovery. Again, speed requires a healthy, regenerated, and adaptive CNS. That means between workouts you need quality sleep, appropriate food intake and to keep your stress low. Just keep your recovery a high priority.

Listen to Your Coach

Speed training has to fit into your training schedule, right?

If you are just out there sprinting every day with no guidance or idea of how to progress, the truth is that you will get slower because you are tired, taking on too much training volume. This translates to the CNS as stress—throughout your whole week with games and training sessions—and not recovering enough to improve speed in games.

If your strength or speed coach is competent, it is worth listening to him or her and trusting the program. They know how to manage your body’s stress and fatigue, your load, and how it all fits together with the rest of your performance.

Final Thoughts

Speed is awesome, and everybody needs it. It is a requirement for most sports!

It also seems like gaining speed should be easy and intuitive, but it actually is not!

Speed and power are very fine balances that require attention to fine details—your CNS, your recovery and your schedule.

Always keep in mind the following tips, which I hope make speed training more accessible to you:

Sprint, jump and throw more often, but know that less is also more!
Sprinting is perhaps the best tool for training speed and power.
Take your recovery seriously. Speed and power training is hard on the CNS, and regeneration time is when you heal and adapt.
Continue lifting. Weights do not make you slow; they make you strong and resilient.
Listen to your coach! They wrote your program that way for a reason.

Good luck, and sprint hard!

Does A Multisport Background Improve An Athlete’s Opportunity For Success?

Written by FMS

After every championship game or major sports draft, data emerges supporting the benefits of a multi-sport background.

While multi-sport athletes aren’t nearly as prevalent in high school as they were a few decades ago, the voices and anecdotes around the virtues of sampling vs specialization are growing.

Hall of Fame athletes like John Smoltz and Wayne Gretzky are using large platforms to advocate against early sports specialization. Famed-surgeon Dr. James Andrews cautions parents and kids against the perils of playing one sport, even backing an awareness initiative.

Before becoming Masters champion and golf’s next megastar, Jordan Spieth played point guard and was a standout pitcher. Tom Brady was drafted as a catcher by the Montreal Expos out of high school. LeBron earned all-state honors at wide receiver as a sophomore. Physical traits like size, speed, explosiveness, coordination and kinesthetic awareness transfer from sport to sport.

While the justification for a multi-sport approach is sound, it’s important to acknowledge the data is probably a bit noisy. Did these athletes become great because they played multiple sports? Or did they play multiple sports because they were great athletes? Probably a little of both. Think about it. If wide receiver is running by DB’s on the football field, the track coach will probably be interested in having him on the 4 x 100m team. The size or athleticism that allows a volleyball player to play above the net would be useful on the basketball court. Endurance developed playing soccer will likely carry over to cross county. And so on… Gifted athletes have early success which likely encourages greater participation and recruitment.

That said, we do believe there are benefits to having a broad sports background that relate to the FMS philosophy.

1) Injuries Related To Overuse

Of all the potential pitfalls of early specialization, exposure to overuse injury is arguably the most perilous. A widely publicized study of 1,500 high school students in Wisconsin found that athletes specializing in one sport are 70 percent more likely to suffer an injury during their playing season than those who play multiple sports. The potential exposure is even greater in rotational sports like baseball and golf. It should be said, however, that the vast majority of studies don’t take into account the number of games an athlete is playing in a year or how they are training. Those are HUGE factors. An intelligent training program and reasonable competition period can go a long way in reducing exposure to overuse injuries (well said by Driveline Baseball here).

2) Movement Competency

A precursor to owning movement patterns is exploring those movement patterns. Youngsters who participate in a wide variety of activities are exposed to a wide variety of movement patterns in comparison to kids who are specializing in one sport (or, even worse, are sedentary). The association between movement variability and movement competency is observable at a young age too. A 2016 study found that gymnastics-like movement training improved stability and object control in kids with an average age of 8.

Additionally, limitations in mobility or stability may impede skill acquisition. As Dr. Michael Chivers states:

“If there are structural and/or physiological deficits in the joints involved in the skill to be learned, the process of motor learning cannot happen to the fullest extent. Skill acquisition is not about grooving a repeatable, symbolic representation of the skill. It’s about building the physical capacity first and then the coaching and technical applications of the skill based cognitive learning can aid in the acquisition process.”

3) Athletic Capacity

Want to increase your vertical? Try jumping more. Want to drop your 40 time? Research indicates that the best way to improve sprint speed is to practice sprinting. Again, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg conundrum, but one reason why basketball players jump well is because they jump a lot. Even if an athlete doesn’t end up playing competitive basketball, they will benefit from the explosiveness they learned from it, even if the sports look nothing alike. For example, Dr. Greg Rose and TPI have found that vertical leap is one of the athletic indicators of potential swing speed in golf. What’s one thing that some of the longest hitters in pro golf have in common? They all have a basketball background.

In conclusion, encouraging young athletes to play multiple sports won’t guarantee success or eliminate injuries, but encouraging kids to play multiple sports has the potential to improve movement quality, limit overuse and increase athletic capacity.

Are you TRAINING or EXERCISING

The principle of progressive overload is perhaps the most important concept for anyone to understand when developing athletes or simply getting stronger. It is one of the most basic differences between training and simply exercising.

For both adult and youth athletes!!

Unfortunately, this concept is often misunderstood and misapplied, I’d like to simplify the concept of progressive overload and discuss how to most appropriately apply it as part of an overall training program.

The most simplistic way to explain progressive overload is to slowly challenge yourself to do more than you’re currently capable of doing. Without some system of progression, we’re just burning calories and making athletes tired. Sure, they may benefit from exercise, but the process of training or developing athletes should be more systematic so they progress in the safest and most efficient manner possible.

The variables that can be manipulated when applying overload include:

Frequency – how often the stimulus is applied
Intensity – either the percentage an athlete’s maximum capability or the degree of effort that goes into an exercise
Duration – how long the workout takes
Volume – the total amount of work performed. This is generally represented as the weight x reps for strength training, but it can also be represented by the total amount of sets, number of reps or distance traveled.

Most of this article will focus on progressive overload for strength development, but speed & agility will also be discussed briefly.

Linear Progression

The essence of progressive overload is that your body adapts to a stimulus and slowly grows stronger or more efficient, depending on the goal. For example, if you can currently do 10 push-ups in a row, you would try to do 11. You would try to complete 11 push-ups until you can achieve that goal. The stimulus of attempting to do 11 forces the body to adapt and grow stronger. When you can complete 11, you begin working toward 12.

This is a very simple version of linear progression. Linear, meaning one variable, constantly moving in one direction. Many experts turn their noses up at this basic concept because progress eventually stagnates with most people, but it is a simple way to understand the underpinnings of progressive overload.

The story of Milo of Croton is another simple example of linear progression. Milo was a 6th-century Greek wrestler who picked up and shouldered a young calf when he was a young man. He picked up the calf every day as it slowly became a full-grown bull. Because he had lifted it every day, he gradually became stronger and was able to impress crowds of people by picking up bulls as an adult. The slowly increasing size of the bull provided a constant challenge that his body adapted to, and the concept of progressive overload was born.

Many athletes were developed through rough versions of this basic concept, and this was the inspiration for the adjustable barbell where small weights could be added to a bar in order to provide increasingly challenging stress.

Many coaches still take advantage of this simple strategy with relatively new trainees as they have athletes perform as many reps as possible of a single set of certain exercises. The results are recorded each day, and they are asked to “beat their score” in the next training session. This has the potential to turn into high-rep sets, but it works well when there is limited equipment and/or beginner lifters who will respond to even the lowest volumes. A basic workout for a young athlete could be one set of each of the following:

Push-ups
Chin-ups
Sit-ups
Single-leg squats
Goblet squat
Hanging leg raise
Curl & press with dumbbells
Inverted row

Something as simple as this routine could be a great way to teach beginner lifters how to slowly progress, execute quality reps, and push through the discomfort of strength exercises. Many coaches use a “20-rep set” where they prescribe one set of 20 reps of each exercise. Instead of giving the athlete a weight that can be lifted 20 times, they pick a weight that can only be lifted 10-12 times. Once fatigue sets in and no more reps can be completed, the athlete puts the weight down, rests for a few seconds, then attempts a few more reps. This is repeated until the athlete has performed all 20 reps. Only the first “set” (when the weight was put down the first time) is recorded, but the athlete stays with the exercise until all 20 reps are performed. If the athlete performed 13 reps on the first set today, the goal is 14 at the next session.

This is a way to utilize linear progression but also add extra volume to the workout because the athlete is essentially performing multiple sets. When the athlete can complete all 20 reps in one set, weight is added, a new exercise is prescribed or something else changes to increase the demands placed on the athlete.

Double Progression

This system gets at the essence of the “double-progression” method of progressive overload in which the resistance is increased when a certain number of reps is attained. A typical example would be to select a range of 8-12 reps. You could choose a weight that could be lifted at least 8 times, but no more than 12. Let’s say you can complete 10 reps today, but cannot do 11. In the next training session, you attempt to complete 11 reps. Once 11 reps can be completed, you attempt 12 reps at the next training session. When 12 reps can finally be completed (which is the top of the rep range we selected), the weight is increased the smallest amount possible, and you start the process over again, gradually trying to perform one more rep than you were able to get in the last workout.

This is an excellent way to help young athletes choose appropriate weights for their workouts, which is actually a very common issue in many weight rooms. Beginner lifters usually have no idea what an appropriate weight would be for each exercise, so they end up choosing weights based on what others are using. Testing is another way to help athletes choose weights for certain exercises, where a 1RM is established and percentages of that number are prescribed. But, this takes a lot of time, can be dangerous with inexperienced lifters, and often isn’t very accurate with young lifters. It’s also difficult (and not recommended) to establish 1RM’s for every exercise.

So, this system of gradually increasing the number of reps performed, then slowly increasing the weight, is a great way to help athletes learn how to choose appropriate weights.

Multi-Set Double Progression

Another way to implement this system is by using multiple sets of each exercise. Using multiple sets gives athletes more opportunities to practice technique, and the additional volume can provide a great training stimulus, especially for athletes who cannot push themselves hard enough to get maximum benefit from a single set.

In this case, prescribe a number of sets and reps for each exercise, for example, 3 sets of 8 reps or 3 x 8. In this example, athletes will use the same weight for all three sets and attempt to perform 8 reps on each set. When all 3 sets of 8 reps can be completed, the athlete gets to move the weight up the smallest amount possible at the next workout. If an athlete using 100 lbs can only perform 8 reps on the first set, 7 on the second, and 6 on the third, he/she will stick with 100 lbs on the next workout.

Many coaches will encourage athletes to perform as many reps as possible on the final set as a way to challenge athletes to push a little harder. This will also help you determine when they’re ready to increase the weight and how much the increase should be. In the above example, an athlete who performs all three sets of 8, but cannot do 9 reps on the last set, should increase the weight the smallest amount possible. On the other hand, an athlete who performs 15 reps on the final set is probably ready for a slightly larger increase in order to provide a more appropriate stimulus.

Different versions of this scheme have been used by intermediate and advanced lifters for many years with exceptional results. The idea is that the first set should end up being fairly easy, and allows for some technique practice. The second set becomes more challenging, and the third set is where the hardest work is done.

It’s also important for athletes to record their results somewhere so they can look back at how many reps they performed in the last workout as a way to set goals for the current session. Most young athletes aren’t going to remember they did 7 reps on the second set of bench press with 115 lbs. Most young athletes already have enough on their minds, so that needs to be recorded. A workout card or training software like TrainHeroic are great options for recording workout results.

Super-compensation

Teaching athletes about progressive overload is also an excellent way to teach the value of slow progression so they begin to understand the concepts of gradual adaptation, recovery, and super-compensation. Many young athletes think that they are going to get big and strong very quickly. Teaching them the value of consistency and gradual adaptation is an excellent concept for young athletes to understand so they begin to value small gains and how to schedule their workouts.

The graph below should be drawn out and explained to every athlete beginning a strength training program so they have a basic understanding of how the process works and why consistent training is so important.

Teaching athletes about progressive overload also gives coaches the opportunity to explain the value of recovery in the process of adaptation. Understanding how the cycle of stimulation – recovery – adaptation – super-compensation works is an invaluable lesson for athletes to learn. Most young athletes simply do not understand this cycle, and they end up either training inconsistently or too often. This also gives us the opportunity to explain how performance training fits into their overall schedule with sports practices, competitions, and other commitments. They need to see that all stress should be accounted for so they can create schedules that lead to progress in all areas.

Speed, Plyometrics, and Conditioning

While most of this discussion has been about strength training, progression should also be used with speed training, plyometrics, and conditioning. With plyometrics and speed training, progression is not quite as simple and easy to explain because technique and volume are so important to progression. You’re not adding another rep in every workout or increasing the number of repetitions every day.

Conditioning programs are a little easier to quantify because coaches can easily manipulate variables such as number of reps, work;rest ratios, and total volume to gradually increase the demands placed on an athlete. It’s important to gradually build this volume rather than creating dramatic spikes just to make it extra difficult. Of course, there can always be a case made for making training difficult, but coaches need to be aware of how athletes will respond to large spikes in volume or intensity, and ensure that there is adequate recovery after this kind of session.

Periodization

As athletes get more advanced with their training, or enter their competitive seasons, we need to think about the concept of periodization. Through the years, I’ve seen coaches try to overcomplicate periodization and progressive overload with crazy set/rep schemes, charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and percentages that require a calculator. While certain systems of periodization can get very complicated for advanced athletes, we can (and should) keep things more simplified for most athletes who haven’t even entered college.

Most of these athletes would be considered beginners in the world of strength training, and some could be considered intermediate lifters at the very most. These trainees don’t need overly complicated programs, but we should definitely change the demands placed on them throughout the year. Off-season training programs (when athletes are not engaged in daily sport practice) can include a higher volume of strength training and the overall demands can be greater. During the pre-season, the amount of conditioning and sport-specific work will increase. Once daily practice begins during the in-season phase of the year, it’s important that we continue to train, but in a way that does not induce unnecessary fatigue.

This phase of training is difficult for both coaches and athletes to understand. Both groups often feel like brief training sessions are difficult to schedule and not worth it. Education is crucial here so they understand the importance of maintaining their strength gains without overly taxing their bodies. Inducing unnecessary fatigue will have a negative impact on both practice and competition performance, so the volume and intensity will be reduced. For example, an in-season athlete who has been training consistently for several months may still be able to squat during the season, but instead of doing multiple sets at a high rate of exertion, he/she may do only 1-2 sets, stopping each set before maximal fatigue sets in. This athlete also won’t train as often during the in-season phase. 1-2 training sessions per week are about all that’s possible during a demanding season.

Once athletes have a substantial training base, periodization becomes much more critical because experienced lifters will not make progress as easily as beginners. Complete books have been written on periodization, and many popular training programs have been devised, but most of these programs are unnecessary until athletes have trained consistently (without interruption) for at least a year and are no longer seeing significant progress. That doesn’t often happen before college, so we can do a much better with young athletes by simply monitoring training volume and intensity and understanding that strength training is meant to supplement a sport, not be the sport by itself.

Keep It Simple

When working with young or inexperienced athletes, it’s important for coaches to teach them about the training process so they have a better understanding of how they will make progress. Teaching athletes the basics of progressive overload, and using basic systems of progression, will give them an understandable framework in which to work from. They’ll be much better able to make consistent progress, choose appropriate weights, and train safely. They will also be much better prepared for more complex systems they may encounter if they advance in their athletic careers. It will also help them understand how to train for the rest of their lives.

Most coaches also see themselves as teachers or mentors, and teaching athletes the value of progression can be a gift that will pay dividends for the rest of an athlete’s life.

How Survival Instincts Drive Speed Development

Written on September 25, 2017 at 6:27 pm, by Eric Cressey

As a kid, I was a big fan of “The Flintstones.” I loved how Fred and Barney could run so fast. I can remember when they were chased by a Sabretooth Tiger; it was amazing how they could escape so quickly. Hmm, maybe there is something to that…

Fast forward to 2017, I still love speed. But now, I actually study it. I continually ask myself the question; “Why were humans given the ability to have speed and quickness?” This question has taken me down a road not many speed coaches travel. Many of these coaches like the traditional route of current methods of training. That’s cool, and in most cases, proves to be quite successful. But…

What if coaches would investigate more down the road of our human history? What if they allowed themselves to be vulnerable to the ways of how we escaped or attacked for survival? How would they think differently about speed?

What if we asked the question, “Why were we given the ability to have speed and quickness?” What can we learn when we venture down that path?

Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Survival drives us through channels not so easily understood from a Central Nervous System (CNS) standpoint. We have to bow down to the subconscious effort that makes us move quickly on instinct or reflex. This is harder to understand, so we try to ignore it as a viable option for speed training.

2. Playing competitive sports actually taps into our CNS – or should I go deeper and say our “sympathetic nervous system?” This is where our heightened awareness of our surroundings kicks in. If I am caught in a rundown in baseball – or going to be tackled in football, or being chased during soccer i- it takes us to a level of effort we don’t commonly experience in our daily lives.

3. Our body kicks into what we call fight or flight: the survival mode. This occurs all the time during sports competition. It drives us to make incredible speedy plays. It forces us to react in such a way that our feet move quicker than our conscious mind can drive them. This is where I want to concentrate on for the rest of this article. I want to share with you strategies to make you faster!

Repositioning

Repositioning is a term I use to relate to how an athlete moves his or her feet quickly into a more effective angle to either accelerate or decelerate the body. Terms I have used to describe repositioning are:

Plyo Step: The plyo step is an action that occurs when one foot is repositioned behind, to the side, or at any angle behind the body. This act quickly drives the body in a new direction of travel.

Hip Turn: This is basically the same as the plyo step except the athlete turns and accelerate back away from the direction they were facing. Repositioning occurs to find an angle to push the body in that direction.

Directional Step: Think base-stealing. The athlete will face sideways but turn and run. The front foot opens to be in a greater supportive position to push down and back during acceleration steps.

The goal is to get into acceleration posture as quickly as possible to make a play when one of these repositioning steps occur.

A great drill to work on repositioning is what I call “Ball Drops.”

a. Simply have a partner or coach stand 10-15 feet away from the athlete with a tennis ball held out at shoulder height.

b. The athlete is in an athletic parallel stance facing the coach, turned sideways, or back facing- depending on the drill.

c. The coach will drop the ball and the athlete must accelerate to catch the ball before the 2nd bounce. I encourage the coach to use the command “Go” at the exact time of the drop to help when vision is not an option.

The action you will see 99.9% of the time is a repositioning or a hip turn or plyo step (the directional step is the act of preparing the front leg for push off; it angles in the direction of travel). Perform this drill facing forwards for four reps, sideways for four reps, and backwards for four reps (2 to each side for the side-facing and back-facing). Perform this drill 2-3x per week to tap into the “fight or flight” response.

Reactive Shuffle or Crossover

In this drill, the focus is on reacting to either a partner (like a mirror drill) or the coaches signal to go right or left.

a. The athlete gets in a great defensive stance and prepares to explode to her right or left.

b. The coach will quickly point in either direction.

c. The athlete will create quick force into the ground in the opposite direction of travel. Typically, there will be a repositioning step unless the athlete starts in a wide stance where outward pressure is effective in the current stance.

d. As soon as the athlete shuffles one to two times, he will shuffle back.

e. The same drill is repeated, but now using a crossover step.

Perform 3-4 sets of ten seconds of both the shuffle and crossover drill. Allow 40-60s of recovery between bouts.

Shuffle

Partner Mirror

Crossover with Directional Step

Hip Turn to Crossover

The final skill I want to write about might be one of the most important “survival” speed skills an athlete can have. It falls under the “retreating” set of skills where the athlete moves back away from the direction they are initially facing.

The hip turn can allow an athlete to escape or attack. The critical features are:

1. The athlete must “stay in the tunnel.” Do not rise up and down; stay level.

2. By staying level, the immediate repositioning that takes place allows for a great push off angle to move the body in a new direction.

3. The athlete should attempt to create length and cover distance quickly. Short choppy steps are not effective when in “survival mode.” GET MOVING!

4. In the snapshots below, the athlete is performing a hip turn based on the coaches command or signal. The athlete will perform a hip turn and either a shuffle, crossover, or run – and then recover back to the start position as soon as possible!

Perform 3-4 sets of 7-10s of work. If quickness/speed is the goal we want to do it in short bursts of time and not long duration where speed in compromised. Recover for roughly 45 seconds and repeat.

Now, I know it sounds kind of crazy to be talking about survival, cavemen, and “fight or flight” when we are referring to speed, but we have to always look at the genesis of all things. Animals that don’t have reactive speed have other ways to protect themselves. Humans have intelligence and the ability to escape or attack using systems derived out of our CNS to help us use our speed. Our job as coaches is to tap into this ability and use it to help our athletes “naturally” move fast!

Are You Ready For Spring Sports

The crack of a baseball blasted over the fence; the whack of a golf ball blasted off the tee; the sound of lacrosse pads smashing against each other. These are all signs spring is in the air, and with it, spring training for many of our children.

Are you ready? Are you physically ready for the season? Not just ready to run sprints on the first day of practice, but strong enough to complete day-in and day-out for the next 3 months.

We’re encouraging our student-athletes to follow their training guidelines, eat healthy meals and drink plenty of fluids, and most importantly, listen to their bodies. Minor aches and pains from training and activating those dormant muscles are normal, but prolonged pain that causes difficulties with your training regimen is not and may be a sign of injury.

More than 2.6 million children are treated in the emergency department each year for sports and recreation-related injuries.

Sadly, many of these injuries can be prevented through proper training, which MUST include muscle prep activities such as foam rolling and stretching.

Athletes must listen to their body as spring training gets underway and see your healthcare professional when those minor aches persist. There are so many treatment options as basic as the use of ice packs and cold compresses to myofascial release which will improve your injury recovery.

These are a couple steps to stay healthy during spring training and through the season:

Get a physical. Ask your primary care physician to give you a physical exam. He or she can then clear you for participation in your sport.
Seek support. Your school has athletic trainers, use them. They can guide your training efforts and help you safely prepare your body for your sport.
Protect yourself. Use the correct protective gear for your sport – helmets, knee and elbow pads, goggles, ankle braces, etc. Make sure your protective gear fits, is worn correctly and is in good condition.
Practice your form. This can prevent many sports-related injuries resulting from improper swings, kicks, throws and other sports mechanics.
Make sure you hydrate. Prevent dehydration by drinking lots of fluids, preferably water. Sports drinks are OK, too.
Get enough rest. Your muscles need some time off to heal and ultimately help you get stronger. Plus, resting prevents your muscles from becoming overused which can lead to injury.
Take care of your head. All concussions are serious. They can lead to a host of problems including, but not limited to, nausea and vomiting, headache, mood swings, altered sleep patterns and more.

Spring training brings with it renewed championship hopes and dreams. Do your part to make sure you perform your best this season without having to experience an avoidable injury.

As always, K2 is here to help you get ready for the spring season!! You can check out our schedule at http://www.k2strength.com/schedule.html.

If you are looking to take your game to the next level and stay strong all season long…… K2 is the place to be!

Please call me if you have any questions and / or concerns. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kevin Haag
908-803-8019 (Call or Text)

Foam Rolling for Athletes

by Michael Boyle, MS, ATC

anna-on-roller — Anna working on spine mobility

A decade ago, strength coaches and athletic trainers would have looked quizzically at a 36-inch long cylindrical piece of foam and wondered, “What is that for?” Today, nearly every athletic training room and most strength and conditioning facilities contain an array of foam rollers of different lengths and consistencies.

What happened to bring foam rollers into prominence? The change has been in our attitude toward massage therapy. We have been slowly moving away from an injury care mode of isokinetics and electronics to more European-inspired processes that focus on hands-on soft tissue care. We now realize that techniques like massage, Muscle Activation (MAT), and Active Release Therapy (ART) can work wonders for sore or injured athlete.

In addition, the understanding at the elite athlete level is: If you want to stay healthy, get a good manual therapist in your corner. Thus, athletes at all levels are starting to ask for some form of soft tissue care.

What does all this have to do with foam rollers? As coaches and athletic trainers watched elite-level athletes experience success from various soft tissue techniques, the obvious question arose: How can I make massage available to large groups of athletes at a reasonable cost? Enter the foam roller.

National Academy of Sports Medicine (www.nasm.org) President Michael Clark, DPT, MS, PT, NASM-PES, is credited by many-this author included-with exposing the sports medicine community to the foam roller. In one of Clark’s early manuals, he included a few photos of self-myofascial release using a foam roller. The technique illustrated was simple and self-explanatory: Get a foam roller and use your bodyweight to apply pressure to sore spots.

Since then, many of us have discovered more uses for foam rollers, including injury prevention and performance enhancement. We’ve also moved away from the accupressure concept and now use them more for self-massage. And we’ve come up with specific protocols for different situations.

Essentially, foam rollers are the poor man’s massage therapist. They provide soft tissue work to the masses in any setting. But you need to know their nuances to get the most out of them.

What, How & When

A foam roller is simply a cylindrical piece of extruded hard-celled foam. Think swimming pool noodles, but a little more dense and larger in diameter. They usually come in one-foot or three-foot lengths. I find the three-foot model works better, but it obviously takes up more space.

They are also now available in a number of densities from relatively soft foam (slightly harder than a pool noodle), to newer high-density rollers that feel much more solid. The denser the athlete, the more dense the roller should be. Large, heavily-muscled athletes will do better with a very high density roller whereas a smaller, younger athlete should begin with a less dense product.

The application techniques are simple. Clarke’s initial recommendation was based on an accupressure concept, in which pressure is placed on specific surfaces of the body. Athletes were instructed to use the roller to apply pressure to sensitive areas in their muscles-sometimes called trigger points, knots, or areas of increased muscle density. The idea was to allow athletes to apply pressure to injury-prone areas themselves.

The use of foam rollers has progressed in many circles from an accupressure approach to self-massage, which I’ve found to be more effective. The roller is now usually used to apply longer more sweeping strokes to the long muscle groups like the calves, adductors, and quadriceps, and small directed force to areas like the TFL, hip rotators, and glute medius.

Athletes are instructed to use the roller to search for tender areas or trigger points and to roll these areas to decrease density and over-activity of the muscle. With a little direction on where to look, most athletes easily find the tender spots on their own. However, they may need some instruction on the positioning of the roller, such as parallel, perpendicular, or 45 degrees, depending on the muscle.

The feel of the roller and intensity of the self-massage should be properly geared to the age, comfort, and fitness level of the athlete. This is one of the plusses of having the athlete roll themselves-they can control the intensity with their own body weight.

There is no universal agreement on when to roll, how often to roll, or how long to roll, but generally, techniques are used both before and after a workout. Foam rolling prior to a workout can help decrease muscle density and promote a better warmup. Rolling after a workout may help muscles recover from strenuous exercise.

My preference is to have athletes use the rollers before every workout. We also use them after a workout if athletes are sore.

One of the nice things about using the foam roller is that it can be done on a daily basis. In fact, in their book, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, Clair Davies and Amber Davies recommend trigger point work up to 12 times a day in situations of acute pain.

How long an athlete rolls is also determined on a case-by-case basis. I usually allow five to 10 minutes for soft tissue activation work at the beginning of the session prior to warmup. If my athletes roll after their workout, it is done for the same length of time.

Some Specifics

While the foam roller can be used on almost any area of the body, I have found it works best on the lower extremities. There is not as much dense tissue in the upper body and our athletes are not prone to the same frequency of upper body strains as lower. The hamstrings and hip flexors seem to experience the most muscle strains, so we concentrate on those areas.

Here are some protocols I use:

Gluteus max and hip rotators: The athlete sits on the roller with a slight tilt and moves from the iliac crest to the hip joint to address the glute max. To address the hip rotators, the affected leg is crossed to place the hip rotator group in an elongated position. As a general rule of thumb, 10 slow rolls are done in each position (although there are no hard and fast rules for reps). Often athletes are simply encouraged to roll until the pain disappears.

TFL and Gluteus Medius: The tensor fasciae latae and gluteus medius, though small in size, are significant factors in anterior knee pain. To address the TFL, the athlete begins with the body prone and the edge of the roller placed over the TFL, just below the iliac crest

After working the TFL, the athlete turns 90 degrees to a side position and rolls from the hip joint to the iliac crest to address the gluteus medius.

Adductors: The adductors are probably the most neglected area of the lower body. A great deal of time and energy is focused on the quadriceps and hamstring groups and very little attention is paid to the adductors. There are two methods to roll the adductors. The first is a floor-based technique that works well for beginners. The user abducts the leg over the roller and places the roller at about a 60-degree angle to the leg. The rolling action begins just above the knee in the area of the vastus medialis and pes anserine, and should be done in three portions. To start, 10 short rolls are done covering about one third the length of the femur. Next, the roller is moved to the mid-point of the adductor group and again rolled 10 times in the middle third of the muscle. Last, the roller is positioned high into the groin almost to the pubic symphysis for a final set of 10 rolls.

The second technique for the adductors should be used after the athlete is comfortable with the first one. This exercise requires the athlete to sit on a training room table or the top of a plyometric box, which allows him or her to shift significantly more weight onto the roller and work deeper into the large adductor triangle. The athlete then performs the same rolling movements mentioned above.

Although I primarily use the rollers for athletes’ legs, they can also be used with upper extremities. The same techniques can be used for pecs, lats, and rotator cuffs, although with a much smaller amplitude-making the movements closer to accupressure.

Assessing Effectiveness

Foam rolling is hard work that can even border on being painful. Good massage work, and correspondingly good self-massage work, may be uncomfortable, much like stretching. Therefore, it is important that athletes learn to distinguish between a moderate level of discomfort related to working a trigger point and a discomfort that can lead to injury.

When an athlete has completed foam rolling, he or she should feel better, not worse. And the rollers should never cause bruising. Ask the athlete how his or her muscles feel after each session to assess if the techniques are working.

I also judge whether foam rolling is working by monitoring compliance. If I don’t have to tell athletes to get out the foam roller before a workout, I know the techniques are working. Most do it without prompting as they see the benefits.

Rolling vs. Massage

The question often arises: “Which is better, massage therapy or a foam roller?” To me the answer is obvious: Hands-on work is better than foam. Hands are directly connected to the brain and can feel. A foam roller cannot feel. If cost was not an issue I would have a team of massage therapists on call for my athletes at all times.

However, having an abundance of massage therapists on staff is not in most of our budgets. Therein lies the beauty of the foam rollers: They provide unlimited self-massage for under $20. Sounds like a solution to me.

World famous strength and conditioning coach Mike Boyle is Director of Elite Conditioning in Boston, MA. He is author of numerous videos and books and a featured speaker at seminars throughout the U.S, including Perform Better “Learn By Doing” Functional Training Seminars.

6 Amazing Exercises that Will Improve Athletic Speed

By: Coach Lee Taft

Exercise #1 Medicine Ball Side Throw Progression:

A. Standing side throw– The athlete will face sideways to the wall in an athletic stance with the ball at chest height and elbows out. (stand roughly 10-12 feet away depending on the bounce of the ball)

Using the backside leg to drive the hips forward and taking a small step toward the wall with the lead leg…
Explosively drive the ball, keeping the back elbow up so the shoulder doesn’t get injured, into the wall.
- The focus of the exercise isn’t so much on throwing, it is on understanding being in the best stance to drive the off the back leg like a lateral shuffle.
- If the athlete is too narrow in stance or standing too tall the power production will be limited.
- This exercise needs to be done on both sides

B. Forward shuffle side throw– The athlete will back away from the wall roughly 6-8 feet further. The exercise will be performed the same as the standing side throw but the emphasis changes to lateral speed:

The athlete will shuffle one to two times staying in a good stance and then driving off the back foot and transferring the speed into the throw.
The athlete must use the back foot to push down and away to generate more speed on the throw.
- If the athlete does not have a good athletic stance (foundation) they will not generate enough force to gain benefits.

C. Backward shuffle side throw– Same exercise but now the athlete will shuffle away from the wall. Start the athlete only 6-8 feet from the wall.

The athlete will shuffle aggressively one to two times away from the wall and plant aggressively to throw the ball.
This is the most important exercise of all to reinforce the athletic stance and the importance of plant leg angles.
If the plant leg of the back leg is too narrow when attempting to stop the throw will be weak.
The athlete wants to still get forward movement when throwing. I like to do 2-4 sets of 3-5 reps on each side. The exercise has to be intense. The wt of the ball, experience of the athlete, and skill level determines the sets and reps.

This is the stationary version of the Side Medicine Ball Throw. The forward shuffle throw and backward shuffle throw would still get the athlete back to this position. The backward throw crucial for teaching deceleration angles. If the plant is poorly done the throw will show it. Great feedback drill.

Excerise #2 One arm One leg tubing row

This is a great speed exercise because it focuses on both deceleration (which is what most quick athlete do better than other athletes in athletic speed) and acceleration.

a. The initial position is having the athlete squat/bend on one leg and resist the pulling action of the tubing. The decelerators are kicked on.

b. Then the athlete quickly stands and pulls on the tubing while driving the knee up. This recruits the accelerators.

c. The extra benefits of the this exercise is the balance and stability ttraining.

We normally do 2-4 sets of 5-8 reps per side. Slow down into the squat/bend and explosive up.

Exercise #3 Reactive Shuffles and Crossovers

In this shot the athlete is ready to react and shuffle or crossover in the direction the coach points. This is a real live setting for athletes to develop their skill and for coaches to use great feedback.

a. The athlete will get into a loaded athletic stance and be prepared to shuffle or crossover (already determined by the coach) and react to the coaches point.

b. This type of exercise is great for athletic speed development because the athlete must randomly react. The athlete will use his or her innate abilities. If a mistake is made the coach can easily correct and have the athlete reproduce a better pattern for many reps.

I normally will do 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps. The athlete will react out to the cone and get back as quick as possible for one rep. Because I am after speed I will allow decent rest so the athlete isn’t completely pooped out.

Exercise #4 Resisted power skips

I like resisted power skips for speed because it increases force production and extension of the hips.

a. The athlete must learn to drive hard to move the resistance of the tubing yet maintain good posture for acceleration.

b. The athlete will learn to coordinate the arms and the legs during this exercise. It isn’t easy at first.

c. The biggest benefit is that more muscle fiber gets recruited when attempting to power skip. This is the goal to generate more acceleration speed.

I like to perform 3-6 reps for 20 meters. This is enough distance to get enough quality push offs yet not too far to get overly fatigued and change mechanics.

Exercise #5 Pure acceleration starts

To increase the mechanics and efficiency of accelerating from various starts you must practice them.

a. I will use falling starts, get ups, box starts, parallel stance starts, and many other variations so I can coach the athlete on the proper technique.

b. The goal is to be consistent with leg and arm action as well as acceleration posture.

c. If the athlete has breaks in his or her form they can be addressed quickly.

I like doing 2-3 different stances and 3-4 reps of each. Plenty of time is available to teach the form well.

Exercise #6 Cutting skills

Teaching cutting is a great way to improve the efficiency of the athlete in athletic speed. Most court and field sport requires so much in regards to change of direction it is important to address it.

a. The first thing I want my athlete to understand about cutting is the reactive nature of it. There is not enough time to think about the cut. Just do what comes natural and we can correct mistakes if they present themselves

b. The athlete must learn to make the cut by re-directing the cutting foot outside the width of the body that meets the angle they cut will be made at. I do not want the athlete to purposely drop low with the hips if the cut must be quick and not real sharp.

c. If the cut is sharp and the athlete must come back then the hips may lower slightly but only enough to control the center of mass.

d. The key to cutting is to create separation if an offensive player and to close the gap if a defender. The better body position you have and foot placement the better the results

I like to do 3-6 reps of 2-3 different variations of cutting:

a. Speed cuts

b. Sharp cuts

c. Rehearsed cuts

d. Random cuts

e. Jump stop cuts

f. Spin cuts

g. More…

Yours in Speed,
Lee Taft

READY TO PLAY

READY TO PLAY – How Nutrition may be the key to staying in the game.

Yes, injuries are often an unavoidable part of sports. And to recover fully, whether from a minor strain or major surgery, you must meet certain specific nutrition needs. The physical damage caused by training or injuries is the same as any other trauma. Even if sport trauma is anticipated and intentional, the body needs to repair and recover from that damage before it can handle more stress.

LET THAT SINK IN!!!

The body needs to repair and recover from that damage before it can handle more stress!

Recovery from injury is a complex process that involves fueling the healing process, removing damaged cells, managing inflammation and repairing damaged tissue.

Fueling Healing

One of the most common errors in recovery nutrition is misunderstanding calorie needs. Many athletes underestimate how many calories it takes to heal. Depending on the severity of the injury, calorie needs can increase by up to 20 percent above baseline. Injured athletes should also realize they are often significantly reducing calories expended during activity. By accounting for both decreased activity and the increased healing factor, athletes are able to fuel recovery without promoting negative changes in their body composition.

Protein is often the focus of recovery, as it plays a major role in tissue regeneration and repair. Athletes must consume enough protein. General recommendations for protein are between 0.8 and 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight, but injuries can push the need up to 2.0 grams per kilogram.

Injured athletes can often meet their additional protein needs though dietary changes. Many add whey protein isolate or a vegan protein option to help support their diet.

Managing Inflammation

Swelling, pain, redness and heat are signs of inflammation that most athletes readily identify following an injury. Inflammation is an important and necessary part of injury recovery. It is triggered by the body’s need to clear dead and dying cells and to start the process of new cell development. For as many as four days post-injury, it’s important not to attempt to decrease this inflammation phase because it can impact recovery time. Following this initial stage, the focus should shift to managing inflammation.

A diet rich in fats knowns as omega-3s can help maintain the body’s normal inflammatory response to activity and injury. Research has shown that consuming 2-3 grams of omega 3s daily can positively influence markers of inflammation in the body. Athletes can consume this amount through a diet containing two servings of fish per week combined with increased intake of nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, chia and flax seeds—or through the addition of a fish oil supplement.

Bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapple, has been shown to promote reduced swelling and bruising after surgery by helping to maintain a healthy inflammatory response to exercise and injury.* Bromelain is recommended in amounts between 150 and 500 milligrams per day. Although all parts of the pineapple contain bromelain, it is most abundant in the stems, leading many people to add a bromelain supplement to their diet.

Repairing Damaged Tissue

The final piece of recovery nutrition involves supporting the creation of new tissue to replace the tissue damaged by injury. While many vitamins and minerals are needed to support recovery, vitamin A, vitamin C and zinc get the most attention.

Vitamins A and C help support the first few days of a beneficial inflammatory response and assist in the formation of collagen, which helps provide the structure of connective tissues such as tendons, ligaments and skin. Vitamin A has also been linked with a decrease in immune suppression normally seen after an injury. Research has shown that a vitamin C deficiency can lead to irregular formation of collagen fibers, and hence to decreased stability of the tissues and abnormal scar formation.

Zinc plays a role in new DNA creation, the ability of cells to multiply and protein synthesis.* Zinc deficiency, which is fairly common, can inhibit wound healing. Recovering athletes might consider a multi-vitamin containing vitamin A, vitamin C and zinc to assist in the recovery process

Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, are the last area of consideration for the recovering athlete. In times of stress and damage, the body has an additional need for some amino acids. Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the bloodstream. It is considered conditionally essential in times of trauma or damage as an important source of energy in recovering cells.

Leucine and its metabolite HMB have been shown to help slow muscle breakdown and nitrogen loss in injured patients.

Arginine can increase nitric oxide production, which can improve blood flow to damaged areas, providing important nutrients and promoting removal of dead and damaged cells. Amino acids are part of complete proteins in the diet, some athletes prefer to take them directly in supplement form.

Understanding what is happening in your body following an injury can help ensure that your diet supports a full recovery so you can get back on the field or court quickly. The above recommendations are guidelines. It’s always best to consult a registered dietitian or your health-care provider when making significant dietary changes or introducing nutritional supplements. When choosing a nutritional supplement, it is imperative to look for a brand that has been certified for safety and is free of banned substances, as determined by a third party such as NSF Certified for Sport.

Special Thanks to Stack.com and Exos Performance for providing the information for this article.