Athlete Performance: Try this for a New Level of Readiness

Have you ever experienced a “blah” feeling at the onset of a competition? Despite being completely recovered and ready by all other indicators? Have you wondered what the deal is with that?

If you choose to use strength or strength-speed lifts in your priming, make sure you get the volume and load dead-on! Not a lot of room for error with this technique.

Are you a coach and find your team to be flat the first 10-minutes or so?

Well it could be that you have missed out on an underutilized, but quick and easy, method of precompetition preparation. The strategy is called Priming.

It is simple and you can easily implement a priming workout to help you or your team pull out of the early competition slump.

Game day lifts have been used for a long time - especially by athletes in sports that have multiple competitions in one week. But, to execute a true pregame LIFT you really need to be certain that the athletes are extremely well trained so that you can garner the proper effects. If you go too far, you could add unnecessary fatigue that may impact performance.

Hey! Is this like Russian Roulette for game day prep?!? The stakes are high and we have no idea what will happen?

No, c’mon, I wouldn’t do you like that!

Staying true to my ultraconservative loading parameters, I suggest that if you’ve never used Priming techniques previously (or are working with a relatively untrained group of athletes - like high school athletes!) that you start off with body weight and medicine ball work.

And taking it one step further, you will also try to limit the eccentric load as much as possible.

The goal of priming is to fire up your central nervous system and get your body ready to GOOOOO for your next workout.

Here’s a sample program that is on the lighter end of the spectrum:

Be sure you/your athletes are thoroughly warmed up before starting and be sure to target similar movement patterns to the exercises you’ve chosen, too:

Box Jump 3x3 (rest :90)

Medicine Ball Chest Push with Step 3x3/leg (rest :90)

Partner Side Throw (light toss) 3x3/side (rest :90)

Set box height appropriately to ensure an easy, soft landing - we’re not trying to set any records.

Allow the ball land on the floor before resetting for the next rep.

A light partner toss is all that’s needed. Notice how the back hip is loaded as the ball is received.

To achieve the targeted benefits, each exercise needs to be done with focus, precision, and power! Avoid circuiting exercises and enjoy a leisurely rest to fully power-up before the next set.

Place this workout the morning of a night competition or the day before a midday game and enjoy a new feeling of readiness when it counts.

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

Reasonable Warm-ups

In the case of warm ups and stretching, you need to have an idea of what is appropriate for the situation for which you are warming up or stretching. Different stretching/warm-ups are used whether an athlete is prepping or recovering from an activity. 

But do not forget that every athlete’s body is different, some need more stretching/warm-up time than others. However, if it’s much more than others (in the same group or team) this is may be a good indicator that something is wrong and the body is not ready for normal activity. 

I’ve seen players “need” nearly an hour warm-up BEFORE they get to my dynamic warmup that I give them. That’s an excessive amount of time! Needing this amount of time is typically an indicator of poor recovery, poor strength, and poor balance within the body in some way. 

But, if the athlete is requesting this, then that’s what they need to feel ready. As we all know, sometimes it is the mind that needs the ramp up time. 

Generally, I’d say this type of example is of an athlete with poor recovery and balance, and will often manifest itself with everything feeling tight. If this is the case, a separate stretching workout should be done the night before or in the morning before the practice time frame begins.

However it gets done, that amount of stretching that will take 45-75 minutes should not be a part of the practice time period. If you (or an athlete you know) need that level of warming up and stretching, you’ve got to get that on your own time. You also need to understand that there likely are other issues at play that need to be identified and strategized around if that has not already been done. Again, constant tightness is often the manifestation of other issues.

A normal warm-up period will be 10-20-min for most ball sports while track athletes may take 30-minutes or more. Keep in mind track athletes are a different kind of athlete with very specific physical requirements. 

With this we are looking at different shades of preparation and different shades of athletes and that does matter as well. So bottom line, don’t waste your time on a long warm-up when the reality is, the need for a lengthy warm-up may be caused by some other factors that need to be dealt with in other parts of an athlete’s training day.

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