Smart Circuit Training

An athlete’s ability to repeatedly produce high amounts of power - and then recovery quickly to do it again (and again… and again…) is the definition of fitness for team sports.

Lately I’ve been working with an athlete rehabbing from a lower body injury who needs to keep her cardiovascular conditioning and fitness as high as possible. It’s been a great challenge and has gotten me utilizing some methods and equipment I don’t regularly utilize.

Circuit training, in particular, has been crucial.

It’s really important to keep training, even with an injury, you just have to be smart about it. Otherwise, the athlete will come back from injury only to find themselves woefully out of shape - which can lead to a new injury simply from fatigue when they try to pick up their sport again.

There are truly unlimited possibilities when it comes to circuit training. A basic understanding of what you want to get out of the session should help guide some decent decision making. Always be sure to factor in some rest time and/or active recovery.

I’m also a big supporter of self-regulation. If your body says it needs to go slower or rest, then give it what it needs! We always want to train with the intent to “live to fight another day”. There will be another workout to push to your limit.

Here is a circuit that I designed for myself that focused on repeated efforts of maximum power with active recovery. All active recovery exercises were chosen for my specific injury prevention needs:

Explosive Belt Squat x5

*Scap Pull-up x10

Explosive Lat Pulldown x5

*Heel Raise x10

MB Keg Toss x5

*Full cans/Empty cans x10

Explosive Push/Pull x2/way

*Elliptical x:60

Active recovery exercises indicated with the asterisk and italics.

I was able to monitor power output on a rep-by-rep basis throughout the session, but if you want to give this a try and do not have access to that type of feedback just simply do each of the main exercises with as much speed/force as you can generate for every single repetition.

Let me warn you: the above is not for the faint of heart. The repeated focus on power was a real difference maker. Be smart with the amount of total time you want to work. This session was done for 7 rounds and that took around 45-minutes. It was exhausting. Like impacts-the-rest-of-your-day exhausting. I suggest targeting 20-minutes or so for your first time.

Feel free to substitute your own exercises for the active recovery choices. If there’s a chink in your armour, this is the perfect opportunity to know your staying fit and pushing yourself with exercises that are safe for you, while also getting the extra reps on your prehab/rehab exercises.

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Developing Strength & Power in Young Athletes: Youth Speed Training Workout #002

In addition to speed and agility development, young athletes need to be allowed to develop musculoskeletal systems that are sufficiently robust to tolerate the repetitive impact forces commonly experienced during aerobic or anaerobic endurance activity. - High-Performance Training for Sports

In a nutshell, that’s strength training, y’all. In another nutshell, that quote also tells you EXACTLY why so many kids get injuries playing sports. You have GOT to get resistance training in the mix!

Below is a single session example workout that I used with my 9-year old daughter that provides lots of opportunities to work on change of direction, coordination, strength, and speed training technique. This session is scalable and appropriate for children in the 9-11 year old range who have adequate physical and psychological readiness:

Football Toss & Form Shooting 5-min

MB Side Throw 2x5/side

Hang 2x:15

Carry 2x1 trip

Alternating Side Shuffle 2x15yd

Side Shuffle 2x15yd

Overhead MB March 2x15yd

Overhead MB A-Skip 2x15yd

Overhead MB A-Run 2x15yd

Side Shuffle to Sprint 2x/side

Side Shuffle to Backpedal 2x/side

Side Shuffle to Backpedal to Sprint 2x/side

A1 BW Split Squat 3x6/leg

A2 Pogo Hops 3x5

B1 Band Assisted Chin-up 3x3

B2 Hands Elevated Push-up 3x6-8

C1 Trap Bar Deadlift 3x3

C2 Box Jump 3x3

Hang Snatch Technique 3x3

Below is a transcript from a recording on my thoughts behind this session:

“It's really important that fun is in almost every part of a kid's workout. Even If each movement isn't all that fun, The fact that you're just laughing and making time for a little bit of fooling around and joking is very, very important to long term adherence to a training plan. Right now, For my nine year old, she is in the Learn to Train phase of her development, which means that everything we're doing revolves around setting the foundation for later on when she's old enough to push a bit harder, be it with her focus, or the weights that she's using, or the intensity overall, whatever it is that we might be pushing. But right now, we're just learning about all those things and learning about consistency and learning how to move well. 

For this session, we started off with a football toss and some form shooting for about five minutes. This was us just having fun and and throwing a football. Then we went into form shooting for basketball, and did that for a couple minutes. 

Next we started a warm-up circuit that I like to use, which involves a throw of some kind, hanging for time, and a loaded carry variation. 

For children who are not involved in a sport focused heavily on rotational power (baseball/softball and golf, as examples), it can be really tough to get enough “reps” and learn the technique. Rotational power is important for all athletes, but it’s complex for those who haven’t done it much in a controlled environment. As such, I've been putting transverse plane activity in pretty regularly so that they can eventually getting the hang of the sequencing. I think right now it's kind of a complex task for both of them. 

That the hanging works on static grip and upper body strength; the carry, as well, is his grip strength and total body strength. 

Then we go into an alternating side shuffle, and a regular standard side shuffle. This is more just to help them sequence the movement patterns and smooth it out over time. 

From there, we went into an overhead medicine ball march, then the A-skip, and finally the A-run. These are similar to the overhead positions that we've done in the past for form running. And also on the front, front rack position with the dowel rod. The medicine ball is heavier, so it's more challenging. 

Next we tried some transitions: side shuffle that transitioned into a sprint, side shuffle that transitioned into a backpedal, and side shuffle to backpedal to sprint. The purpose here is to get practice of changing from one task to the next. 

For the resistance training portion, I start with the body weight split squat. I really like this as the primary movement for my daughter, in particular, because she's growing so fast. I paired this with Pogo hops for the purpose of Achilles tendon durability and to train the stiffness required for effective jumping. 

A new movement for today was the band assisted chin-up. This was a big deal for all of us! From my perspective, I have to trust that a child is strong enough to hold their own body weight for around 20 seconds before we attempt a vertical pull. From the child’s perspective, it can feel like a mega accomplish that comes second to none.

The chin-up was paired with a hands elevated push-up. One note on the push up, you have to teach proper hip position and you have to teach the kids to know what it feels like to brace and move through a push-up before you can expect them to consecutive do push-ups. 

We finished with trap bar deadlift and box jumps. The deadlift is looking really good now (meaning my daughter has reliable positioning and can receive coaching cues as needed), so I think we will start progressing it slowly with volume and load. The goal with box jumping was to land quietly while perfecting takeoff and landing form.

Off-the-cuff, I decided to check out her hang snatch with the technique bar (instead of a dowel rod) and it looked really amazing. This was a pretty major milestone, as her strength and stability is sufficient to begin working on this movement pattern.”

The catch position for the snatch requires overhead strength and ability to stabilize the whole body.

Teaching children to train, and build a foundation for a lifetime, requires a positive environment, a variety of exercises, and a lot of flexibility.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

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My Hip Hurts! Training with a Hip Labral Tear, Part 1

So your hip hurts? I’m sorry to hear that - mine does, too! The good news is there are always safe workarounds in the case of injury or lingering issues (that should be accounted for as they always add up to real injuries down the road).

If you’d like to learn about the “why” behind some hip trouble, check out: "My Hip Hurts!" Training Around Femoroacetabular Impingement

Today, we’re just going to start talking more specifically about solutions for hip impingement - often felt as a pinching or dull ache - and often resulting in hip labral damage (there is a wide variety here).

It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that squatting is either not recommended or recommended to be heavily modified for athletes who are having hip labrum issues. This is because of the high degree of hip flexion during the squat - or where the knees come closer to the chest - can cause some major problems in the hip. The usual recommendations to modify the squat are to adjust depth or move more towards unilateral exercises (like split squat and lunge variations). 

Hip IR/ER: the body needs a balance of both and should be both strong and mobile throughout both rotations.

Some strength coaches have famously denounced the bilateral squat pattern because they feel the risk vs reward does not make sense and will remove the movement all together. 

I’m not there, yet! But I will say, that for the athletes I work with, they almost all have the same risk factors in common: poor ankle ROM, long femurs, and short torsos (relative to leg length). This is a recipe for hip trouble over the long term. 

In these cases, I like making unilateral lower body exercises the main lift (be it as a precaution or a necessity) because it ensures we are getting a full range of motion in training the legs. Then we don’t have to rely so heavily on squatting to full-depth to get proper training effect.

The classic box squat. Easy on the knees, great way to load the hips. Might this be too much of a “good thing” over many years with little variety?

But, adjusting squat depth and favoring lower body unilateral work is certainly not a new approach. 

Here’s what is: combining postural breathing exercises while encouraging the natural internal rotation of the hip. I’ve been diving in deep on using postural breathing exercises coupled with hip adduction. These positional breathing drills, which are realigning the diaphragm and the pelvis simultaneously, while also involving the adductors and even the hamstrings. The adductors themselves do not get a lot of work while squatting, and could cause an imbalance or injury if not addressed (side note: a split squat DOES heavily involve the adductors).

Pounding the adductors, hamstrings, with a simultaneous “tail tuck” and “rib tuck” through exercises relieves the hip a bit in how we then start to train the surrounding musculature. This can be quite refreshing for the athlete over time. More on these specifics next week in part 2.

But why keep chasing the squat? Why bother trying to make adjustments? Why NOT just join the group that bans this movement pattern from lifts? 1. Variety is key (I’ll touch on that later); 2. A bilateral squat is VERY functional: defensive position, anyone? Bilateral jumping is also pretty darn commonplace 3. It allows you to use more weight and thus tax the core a lot more.

Not what I’m talking about! This is bad squat IR and shows weakness and lack of control. An injury waiting to happen.

Okay, I’ve convinced myself. Let’s keep plugging away:

Most coaches when coaching the squat do not allow for natural internal rotation of the hip, true, most coaches will coach athletes to drive the knees out really hard and maybe even use a wide stance as well. 

The opposite of this, and perhaps the more natural way to squat, that I’ve been experimenting with lately is this idea of not driving into so much external rotation when squatting, and allowing a little bit of natural internal rotation. 

With this knee travel, the knee must remain inside the toe box and we should see this slight motion in the deeper portion of the squat or as part of a natural motion in the split squat. Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, the knee motion is very slight, always under control, and stays within the toe box.

If you are struggling with hip pinching or catching, I recommend getting the hip looked at by a qualified medical professional who can help you understand what’s going on inside. If things are looking manageable, that’s awesome! You can train.

Please come back next week for part 2 of this post and I will share exercises ideas, specific training days, along with safe loading parameters. Getting the correct work-arounds will help you not only feel better but also feel like you are making progress once again.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Developing Strength & Power in Young Athletes: Youth Speed Training Workout #001

For children who are physically and psychologically ready, this is a great single session example workout that provides lots of opportunities to work on coordination, strength, and speed training technique:

Overhead Stick March 2x15yd

Overhead A-Skip 2x15yd

Overhead A-Run 2x15yd

Front Rack Stick March 2x15yd

Front Rack A-Skip 2x15yd

Front Rack A-Run 2x15yd

PUPP Start 2-3x 15yd

3-Point Start 2-3x 15yd

2-Point Start 2-3x 15yd

Overhead Stick Squat 2x8

Hang Snatch with Stick 2x5

A1 BW Split Squat 3x5/leg

A2 Arm Mechanics from Seated Position 3x:10

B1 Suspension Strap Row 3x10

B2 Push-up Eccentrics 3x3

C1 Conventional Deadlift Technique 3x3

The marches, skips, and stick runs in the first portion are serving to provide a thorough warm-up. It would be totally appropriate to add in other ground based warm-up exercises beforehand, too.

Keep a close eye on children’s fatigue level throughout each set and always offer plenty of opportunities to take a break or get water. For kids not used to this type of work it can be very fatiguing and they may need time to build up their work capacity. We go through the whole session at a leisurely pace and have plenty of time for laughing, joking, and questions built in.

This entire session is predicated around working on technique and I am always ready with a regression or progression in case a certain exercise is not a good fit on any given day. For this particular session, my daughter has recently grown 3/4” and was struggling with the balance for the Split Squat. So, I quickly told her we’d adjust to using body weight (instead of 10lbs) and even gave her a bit of support/assistance by letting her hold onto my arm when needed. This approach got us the good technique I was after and helped to keep her feeling successful.

The development of strength and power in youth has previously been a source of great debate, yet despite earlier misconceptions there is now a wealth of evidence supporting the use of resistance training by both children and adolescents. Conceivably, if a child is ready to engage in sport activities, then he or she is ready to participate in resistance training. -High-Performance Training for Sports

To get all the above done in one session is the result of a slow process of building. Before using something so lengthy, please make sure the children you want to use this with are ready both physically and psychologically. They should have a good work capacity and be excited to embark on this type of technique training. If they are not ready in either area, work needs to be done to get both areas improved so they will have a better experience with this type of workout.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Is Calf Training the Key to Jumping High?

Much like one of our most popular posts is: Is Direct Arm Work Necessary for Sculpted Arms? I wanted to bust some myths with the question: Is Calf Training the Key to Jumping High?

I’m not quite sure how the idea of calves being the one thing standing between you and throwing down a tomahawk style dunk became such a popular, ingrained, and accepted idea. So, I thought it would be a great idea to break down what it takes to get big air and how to prioritize.

The answer is a bit more complicated than just doing calf raises and jumping rope. 

I get such a chuckle out of this idea! The calf muscle is not the whole picture and to really get a comprehensive vertical jump training program you need to make sure you are addressing all aspects of what will help you jump higher.

If you want to test how high you can jump with just your calves, try a max effort pogo jump. Do not allow your hips or knees to bend when you load or land, just use your ankle. 

Now try test number two: a max effort vertical jump. Use your arms, your hips, knees, and ankles for the jump. This one will always be quite a bit higher.

To jump higher, we need to train all the muscles that are involved in a big jump.

Let’s break this down into priorities:

Priority #1 - Look at your Foundation

Are you following a well rounded strength training program? If you're not, you need to get on one. And even though we're training to jump higher, there are other parts of your body on the upper half that assist with jumping. 

As an athlete or coach, you have to be concerned with what's going to happen once you're in the air, right? For most athletes something is happening overhead, that’s kind of the point! 

What’s the end goal of jumping high? Scoring or blocking when in the air! I mean, even pole vaulters need to be pretty concerned with what's going on with their upper body as they go over the bar, but concerning basketball or volleyball, there's some big important stuff that's happening overhead once you are in the air! 

Therefore, making sure that you're training your upper body during any vertical jump training program is extremely important. A strong and powerful upper body with directly assist with getting into the air. In particular, the muscles in the back need to be focused on. 

Priority #2 - Core Strength

Are you training, with specific loading parameters, your core muscles? To attain effective core strength, you need to be training and focused on ALL of the core muscles. These include the hamstrings, glutes, lower back, and abdominal muscles. This area is called the core because it's central to everything that you do as a human and as an athlete. 

It is the glutes, In particular, that are going to give you the lift off the ground. If you are not training to get those muscles as strong as possible, you will be missing out on inches. 

You can try any kind of training for this that you like, just be sure you are qualified to do so. Ideally, hire somebody that knows what they're doing to give you a custom program and coach you. 

Everything from medicine ball throws to dynamic effort strength work, to maximum effort strength work, to repetition effort strength work, to single leg strength work will all be fair game and effective. Squat and deadlift variations are both critical to include, in some form or another.

There should also be included a wide variety of intensities and volumes, you want to be utilizing. A well planned structured program will move you forward, step by step. 

Priority #3 - Develop Explosive Hip Extension

To start to bring things together, is the triple extension. The hip extension is concerned with the hips extending (this and knee extension happen most during priority #2); triple extension is when the ankle, knee and hip all extend simultaneously. That's what actually happens when you're jumping. 

Exercises to include are snatch and clean variations. For inexperienced or young lifters, utilizing the medicine ball is a perfect solution.

Priority #4 - Productive Jump Practice

The training of actual jumping is going to be on the much lighter end of the weight spectrum. Most people are going to be using bodyweight only. Very advanced athletes who are quite strong and have done a lot of strength training, as a prerequisite, may be qualified to do weighted jumps. But you can get a ton of mileage off of just practicing moving your own body. 

Exercises to include for this priority would be bounding, double leg and single leg bounding, all kinds of box jumps, depth drops, etc. Sprinting short distances (starts up to 10yd) should also be included.

Unlike the strength work, the total volume of jumps should be fairly low and should not vary quite so broadly. The focus is primarily on low volume and high intensity jumping. When our main concern is jumping higher, getting in just a few very intense and high quality reps are more than sufficient for development and progress.

On the low end for one exercise you might do 5 total jumps, and on the high end, that might be a total of 15 jumps for someone well conditioned and depending on where they are within their training cycle.

It’s important to remember the goal is a higher maximum effort jump. When you are trying to squeeze out another inch or two, it logically does not make any sense to jump 100 times in a row. And yet, this is how many people think they should train to increase their vertical jump.

Priority #5 - Training Robustness

Finally, we get to the calves! Or more specifically, the Achilles tendon. The goal is to train the Achilles so that it is capable of being as spring-like as possible.  

Conditioning of the lower leg requires a high volume of repetitions accumulated over a very long period of time (years). Many exercises are appropriate for this, but a few examples include: jump rope, sprinting, skipping, and practically any low amplitude repeated jumps. 

One of my favorite drills to use is called aerobic plyometrics. This is for lower leg conditioning, in particular. It will help prepare the joints and tendons and get them sturdiness and resilience capable of handling the impact that comes from jumping.

While the high quality jumps are going to be max effort, or close to max effort, and low in volume, to train robustness you will be using a higher of lower amplitude jumps. It’s always best to start conservatively, but once all is going well you can work your way up to pretty high volume. To progress aerobic plyometrics, I'll usually start people at three minutes, see how they react, and then move up to a continuous 10-12 minutes. This allows the athlete to accumulate hundreds of low amplitude jumps during that time.

Even though this is broken down into five different priorities, this is really the blueprint for what could become an extremely detailed jump training program. 

To determine what you or an athlete will get the most benefit from you need to do testing of some sort to understand basics about where they need to spend the most time training. One athlete will often have different needs than the other.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Importance of Deceleration in Athletics

This is an excerpt from the recordings I do regularly to capture and share my ideas around performance, nutrition, and strength. It sounds conversational because it is. Enjoy!

“Importance of Deceleration

I’m really excited about the conditioning that we will be implementing this season, the heart rate monitors we are using are very advanced, giving me a lot of information during practice and weight training sessions. Outside of heart rate (HR) and different zones that we’re targeting I can see speed (mph), accelerations, decelerations, and time in each HR zone. Our goal for this season is to be as fit as possible, so having this information at my disposal is invaluable.

Having this data allows me to better mimic the demands of the sport in our conditioning sessions, without actually playing more basketball. I know what heart rate zones each player stays within during games, so I can adjust our training for that.

One of the really interesting things I’ve seen lately is looking at accelerations and decelerations. The acceleration and decelerations values fit into 4 categories based on if they are high or low threshold. I thought this was super telling, as none of my players went into the highest threshold of acceleration, which was 3 meters per second squared. On the other hand, everyone was decelerating at three meters per second squared or faster. This is so important and so fascinating.

This is not new information, just not a mainstream topic. What that means is that our players cant accelerate nearly as fast as they can decelerate. What I found last year was that one of our players with the most significant knee issues, that wasn’t necessarily the fastest, was the one that had the highest deceleration values! She was not even close to the fastest on the team in terms of acceleration, but would be able to and required to decelerate the fastest on the team.

That’s a very important information for us to know about this athlete. We have to learn to decelerate our bodies safely, and the best way to learn it is in the weight room. The best way I’ve found is with very controlled depth landings and depth drops. With these movements you are teaching the body to absorb force or decelerate in a controlled manner.

Another important point to discuss is that the majority of injuries in athletics happen during some sort of deceleration phase. These athletes have to control their body through these enormous forces, and we have to train for that. Just playing the sport doesn’t make you strong enough or fit enough to absorb these forces safely.

This is where overuse injuries come up, too. Typically when these things happen we say the glutes weren’t strong enough or the hamstrings weren’t strong enough to absorb that force. That may be true, but we also may not have given that athlete enough opportunities to practice high speed deceleration. Again the weight training is the base, but we have to give the athletes the opportunity to practice full speed deceleration in a controlled manner.

One of the easiest ways to do this is again just landing jumps. Step off of a box and stick the landing. It seems simple, but that’s usually the solution. The solution often isn’t doing lunge jumps in a sand pit, it’s the simple basic things that the athlete can work on. When looking at these kind of issues, the answer is generally a lot more simple than people think.
”

— Sarah Walls

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT