Conditioning for Team Sports: Monitoring Load

So getting back to this idea that there is a better way to condition our athletes, besides these white knuckling feel like you're getting punched in the face and kicked in the gut workouts. Is there a better way?

I say yes, absolutely.

The first thing that must be done is accepting the idea that not all workouts should be that hard. Embracing a monitoring system (HRM, external load, etc) or at a bare minimum using the RPE system is an absolute must. The RPE scale is a rating of perceived exertion, which is the idea of rating the difficulty of a workout/training session on a scale of 1-10. You as the coach should have an idea of how hard do you want this to feel for the athletes on a scale of 1 to 10.

That's really, really important because, if you are wanting to give your athletes a stimulation day, which is going to be a little bit lighter, then we will want to hit at a 6 or 7 on a scale of 10. This isn’t too tough and should feel pretty good. It’s enough to improve fitness while not interfering with the ability for the athlete to recover. If after the session they come back and they're all reporting that the session was a 9 or 9.5 then you've missed your mark. If you absolutely destroyed them, because you’ve missed your mark, you don’t understand the fitness of your athletes and this is going to cause problems.

Now, with that said, if you are getting reports back showing a 9 or 9.5 and you say, you know what, I've done this workout 1000 times, this is a 6/6.5 at most on that scale. Your response should not be to tell them they're out of shape, they didn't do what they had to do, or they’ve got to just pick it up.

Your response has to be okay, what am I going to do to adjust this program to meet the needs of my athletes, because right now, they're not in the kind of shape that I want them to be in. You need to get them to the point that this workout does feel like a six or a seven. A lot of coaches take this attitude of, well, you know, I haven't been playing the sport for 20 years, and I can still do this. So what, you are not your athletes, and your athletes aren’t you. It is your job as the coach to make sure they are a proper fit.

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Bowler Squat for First Step Speed?

The Bowler Squat is an exercise you generally see in a physical therapy setting and is used as a basic way to teach multi-planar single-leg stability.

We’ve used these at SAPT for quite awhile as a regression for athletes who are struggling with single leg balance to the point that they can’t execute a single-leg hop with a balanced landing. But who are more advanced than limiting exercises to side-lying clam level.

This is an athlete who has excellent lateral hip strength and can demonstrate a safe, controlled landing. For athletes who aren’t able to display control, we look to regress, often with the Bowler Squat.

If you take a look at the pictures above you will see both a knee cave and a large hip drop in the example of the Bowler Squat illustration. Most importantly, you will see the same hip drop translate over to running stride - this is a giant red flag signifying weak lateral hip musculature on the support leg (the leg opposite of the dropped hip) and a VERY REAL risk of injury (groin, ankle, knee, hip, etc.).

The Standard Bowler Squat is a great way to work on multi-planar single-leg stability.

Beyond using the Bowler Squat as a way to teach stability and balance, I also like to use the Bowler Squat as a part of my dynamic warm-up with elite athletes as a way to prime/activate their core muscle function. We’ll do several variations of them: straight forward Bowlers with a lateral knee touch, eyes closed, or as part of a single leg balance sequence (again I use a few variations of these).

This is an advanced variation of the Standard Bowler Squat. It can be used as a challenging addition the warm-up for high level athletes.

The 1-Leg Balance Progression is a great warm-up sequence for runners that challenges balance.

Up until recently, that’s about as far as I had ever taken the Bowler Squat both in theory and practice. But, Tim DiFrancesco (formerly the head strength coach for the Los Angeles Lakers) posted about the Bowler Squat being a great exercise for first step speed development. I had never thought of the dutiful Bowler Squat in such grand terms! It gave me an opportunity to reframe the exercise as I watched some of the athletes I work with play their sport of basketball. To be clear, I am taking this post further than what Tim’s initial post suggested, so these are my own conclusions based off of a simple thought he posed.

I didn’t have to look long or hard to find the Bowler Squat in action and came up with an almost endless list of ways the Bowler Squat can be woven into performance exercises.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve started experimenting by using certain variants of this with athletes who are already and must continue to perform plyometric movements, but who struggle with stability, control, and tension.

With only a couple weeks to consider and experiment with a mental reframing of the Bowler Squat as possible driver for first step speed, I would hesitate to assign it too great of importance.

I really like the balance challenge and how it naturally forces an athlete to focus and tighten up with a few reps prior to a jump, but the real workhorses behind first step speed continue to be the Bulgarian Split Squat and all it’s variants as my number one choice - with all other lunge, squat, and deadlift variations following closely behind.

Ensuring an athlete has the ABILITY to execute a perfect Bowler should be a prerequisite to any single-leg plyometric activity. But, being as strong as possible is always the foundation for durable, resilient, and effective performance.

If you are a coach and have any experience utilizing these types of combos, I’d love to hear what you use and how you feel about the results.

Breathing Drills

The foundation of our work with close to 100% of the population we work with begins with correcting breathing patterns. In a nutshell, here is why:

• Dramatic improvement in movement patterns 
• Fewer injuries
• Better recovery (between intense bouts and sessions)
• More bulletproof and awesome
• Sets the stage for building to athletic potential

When you or your child begin a training program at Strength & Performance Training, the first step is going through our advanced, unique, and cutting-edge evaluation. From the results of that evaluation, we begin the program design process. 

As with any evaluation process, the results impact the pathways that come thereafter. In the case of SAPT, their are varying levels of pathways. Each with their own sub-paths. Over our many years of working with athletes at every level and from every walk of life, we have been able to determine the pathways that lead to the greatest progress in the most efficient possible route.

Our first pathway, the one that is always prioritized as both foundational and necessary in all programs, is that of breathing patterns and drills.

Life Support

The human body really is a marvel. When given the proper conditions, it is capable of high-performance, the likes of which we have yet to see fully realized. While on the other end of the spectrum, given the “proper” conditions, the body is capable of adjusting and functioning in extremely unfavorable conditions. Great athletes can even thrive when everything about their lifestyle and training would indicate otherwise. 

The body can adjust to anything that does not actually kill it. We somehow manage to eat completely manufactured food-like products and still manage to think, write, walk. Humans have adapted to a lifestyle of sitting, when we were clearly designed for low-level ambulatory activity at most times. The examples can go on endlessly. 

As these adjustments occur, we generally tend to think everything is on the up-and-up in our bodies. Why walk, run, or bike from place to place when we can sit, relatively relaxed, in a motorized vehicle that quickly zips us from A to B? Sure, it is comfortable. But, when that sitting is complimented by another 8+ hours of sitting at school or work with an extra 3 hours reclined on the couch it starts to accumulate and effect your body negatively. The results - that you may only notice over time - include: poor circulation, atrophied gluteal muscles, low back pain, sciatica, rounded shoulders, forward head posture. All of which result in big time postural problems, predisposition to injury, and a myriad of physical and psychological problems. 

While it has become more generally accepted by the public that sitting = bad and moving = good, there is a lot more to this. The science of human performance is just that: Science. The research coming out every year is staggering and the knowledge that has developed just in the last 5-years is unbelievable. 

At SAPT, we only have human performance specialists on staff. Not hobbyists. Professionals. As such, our charge is to ensure that the programs and, ultimately, value we deliver to our clients must stand at the forefront of the industry. 

Since we’re diving right into science, let’s take a look back at the simple example of sitting = bad and moving = good. Okay, I agree. But, let’s take that deeper. Let’s be a little smarter about this and ask some more questions:

We know that the common mal-alignments in the body ultimately stem from poor pelvic balance and that is, in fact, causing the postural asymmetries.

But what causes this poor pelvic balance in the first place? Traditionally, we’ve chalked it up to an increasingly sedentary environment - too much sitting, not enough moving. Even for children. In fact this problem first develops in children, all children. 

Let’s go deeper still. There is actually something else going on besides our chair bound, screen driven environment. It just so happens that if you look very deep, like inside your body, you will discover that the muscle responsible for respiration, the diaphragm, is actually itself asymmetrical! In fact, the thorax is packed with asymmetrical situations: the heart sets on one side, the liver on the other to adjust the diaphragm is divided into two domes (on the right and left sides) one dome is smaller and weaker than the other. This sets off a precipitation of events. All of which ultimately influence our athletic performance, efficiency, injury patterns and more.

Posture

Let’s break this down a bit further. It’s important to grasp this point. If you can grasp this, then you will understand our methods: All kinds of important parts of the body attach and interact with the diaphragm. Since, by our bodies’ design, one side of the diaphragm is stronger than the other and that means that certain compensatory patterns always develop. Always. If you are a human you have these patterns. 

The diaphragm is stronger on the right side, this ultimately means that we favor (and overwork) the right side of the body. While the left side becomes weakened and inefficient. Similar to having a dominant hand, the right side of the diaphragm is everyone’s dominant side.

After understanding this as fact, we can see the commonplace asymmetries develop: one shoulder higher than the other, the rib cage set at predictable angles from right to left and front to back, the pelvis rotated predictably.

Injury Potential and Predictability

Alright, we’re getting back on solid footing. The by-design asymmetry of our diaphragm causes the postural asymmetries that cause, over time, injury. This is another fact.

How many times has a well meaning coach had an athlete statically stretch chronically tight hamstrings? Do they ever regain the proper ROM? Nope. But, those tight hamstrings are actually indicative of a risk for injury that points to pelvic misalignment and, you guessed it, points then towards diaphragm and thorax corrections that MUST occur before high performance can ever be achieved.

Another common example: How many times has a pitching coach focused their injury prevention program to address only the throwing side? Their thought being that they need to strengthen and protect the side of the body that gets worked all the time. WRONG. Good gracious that’s just layering on the problems. The body needs to be balanced out for high performance. 

Sub-Optimal Performance

Let’s continue to talk about the pitching coach who runs a one sided arm care program. Hey, it kind of makes sense. You throw with one arm, why wouldn’t focus on strengthening the musculature on just that side? 

Because over time you create many layers of dysfunction. These layers can be very hard to peel back in older, trained athletes. These layers will inevitably limit the lengths of their careers (from a physical standpoint).

Never, ever layer strength on top of dysfunction. The potential for injury skyrockets (that’s my opinion) and it becomes very difficult to make the foundational corrections (to backtrack). 

The result? The athlete has now gotten “stronger” and tighter and more imbalanced in the pursuit of increased performance. 

What should the approach have been? Fix the imbalances first, prioritize this as essential to performance, then and only then, begin to strengthen.

Respiration

When respiration isn’t occurring efficiently, an athlete’s ability to recover between bouts of training (or plays in a game) will be suboptimal. Potentially leading to injury, compromised decision making (think ability to read a developing play), lost points, or a Loss.

Gait

We’ve established that the diaphragm will cause poor pelvic balance. But what does that mean for gait?

“Walking and breathing are the foundations of movement and prerequisites for efficient, forceful, non-compensatory squatting, lunging, running, sprinting, leaping, hopping, or jumping ONLY WHEN three influential inputs are engaged: proprioception, referencing, and grounding.” [PRI coursework]

Pulled muscles, ligament tears, rolled ankles can all be traced back to a pelvis, and thus, breathing problems.

Turns out, that tilted and rotated pelvis can be a real problem!

How many great (or on their way to great) athletic careers have been stopped in their tracks by an injury?

How to fix: Zone of Apposition

Moving forward with the understanding that breathing really is the key to life, we have to ask: how do you fix this?

There is something called the Zone of Apposition (ZOA) and this is the area where the diaphragm and ribcage overlap each other. We want to maximize this overlap through proper ribcage positioning.

Here’s the good news: train the ribcage to be in the proper position and now those imbalances start to clear up. The benefits include:

• Better ROM at all joints
• Better recovery for bouts of work
• Less compensatory patterns throughout the body

Now we can work on performance!

How we use/integrate breathing drills to achieve performance improvements

Ground based:

Against gravity —> Static

Against gravity —> dynamic & sub-max: These drills are any movement in which we can take the opportunity to work on proper alignment of the ZOA and respiration while moving our bodies with or without load. A standing dumbbell shoulder press is an excellent example of a sub-maximal exercise that can be executed with consideration to breathing (or not).

Against gravity —> dynamic & max: again examples include actual lifts but this time at maximal effort or maximal speed. The deadlift is a good example. Taking the opportunity to set the ZOA is what ultimately will fire the core, protect the spine, and make for a more productive lift. And, YES, it IS possible to be very strong and execute max effort with perfect form!

What the athlete gets as a result:

• Better movement patterns (without forcing it)
• Fewer injuries
• Better recovery (between intense bouts and sessions)
• More bulletproof and awesome

It seems that to truly get what we want from our bodies, we need to first take care of some of the deepest considerations: diet, breath, mindset pop out to me. 

WOW: Week of Workouts 4/3/18

WOW: Victory Lap (aka Whatever Doesn't Kill You...)

In complete contrast to last week's WOW that was focused on injury prevention, we present three workouts designed to push your limits.

As you go through these three workouts, you'll either feel like you are celebrating a well deserved victory lap from the hard work you've put in over the last 8-weeks OR the whole experience may feel like a punch in the face as you careen from one exercise to the next.

Victory Lap

Let's start off the week with a nice, even, full body burn.

Here is week 8 of the 8-week conditioning program. If you haven't started but want to give it a go, please head on back to Week 1 to get going!

Thank you to our intern Ashley for her hard work on putting together these great workouts over the past 8-weeks. 

WOW: Week of Workouts 3/27/18

WOW: Prehab and Injury Prevention

As an athlete, injuries are the ultimate enemy.  Staying healthy is what allows us to play our sport and being strong is what helps us thrive. In this week of workouts, we focus on injury prevention for three of the most prevalent and devastating injuries to all sports:  knee, shoulder, and low back. 

These workouts are great to be added into your current programs since they are just a little extra focus on the muscle groups directly affecting these main injury points. Also, for those who are more likely to hurt those areas due to injury history or sport, adding this prehab in once or twice a week can give you an edge.

Below we have divided the week up into 3 days: knee, shoulder, and low back. 

Let's start off the week with a nice, even, full body burn.

Here is week 7 of the 8-week conditioning program. If you haven't started but want to give it a go, please head on back to Week 1 to get going!

As always, please reach out if you need a form check.

Running Sports: Groin Prehab

After experiencing, for the first time in my career, an athlete with a repeated groin injury. ***I understand groin injuries to be common, but honestly I'd not ever encountered many!*** I became obsessed with understanding the mechanisms for why this happened. As with most things with the body (biomechanically speaking), once you understand where one piece of the puzzle fits, the rest of the pieces fall into place.

In the old days of physical therapy, athletic training, and strength/conditioning, an injured muscle = a weak muscle. Identify the injured/weak muscle and strengthen it. Period.

Lots going on!

Once the pain went away, the advice from trainers and PT's was usually to keep stretching "the area is tight (oh, and weak, so keep strengthening too)." And the athlete would get sent back to S&C for continued strengthening of the weakened area and return to sport performance training. 

Unfortunately, more often that I'd like to count, the injury returned. Time and time again. The outlook for injured athletes, always seemed bleak. It always seemed this would be a nagging issue, no matter the severity.

Fortunately, we know better now - the olden days of working on strengthening injured muscles and looking no where else for dysfunction is over! Just kidding, this is still how most PT's and AT's approach injury.

Back to my injured athlete, after taking a look at her stride, I noticed a very significant hip drop. And a hip drop, boys and girls, is a prerequisite for a groin strain.

Now I knew where to get started. Getting the hips even in striding motions would be the solution. But, wait, there was something else needing attention first! In a previous post, I've called it Priority #1, check it out to understand how the zone of apposition must be corrected before moving into a prehab/rehab protocol.

Once the breathing patterns and rib positioning were improved, we were able to move on to working on preventing another strain.

Below I've got a couple samples of some of the drills we used. But no matter the actual drill, the theme here, and non-negotiable, was hip evenness. That was the main goal. Everything we did must come with even hips. Hips not even after cueing? Okay, that's fine, let's adjust the range of motion. So, as you look at the videos, please remember hip stability, control, and evenness are the top priority for an athlete when groin strain prehab/rehab are on the menu!

Beginner progression

The Single Leg Stance Series is a good option for someone who is recently out of their rehab protocol or can be easily used for a very specific warm-up to improve hip proprioception and and understanding of the relationship your foot has with the ground. 

Performance Injury Prevention

For a healthy athlete, this Groin Series gets a lot accomplished in just 3 movements. This series would NOT be appropriate for someone who is still in a weakened state. Rather, save this for when you've worked back to full health and strength and are looking to keep another groin injury at bay.

Groin injuries don't seem to get a lot of attention, but I think they should. Try a full speed deceleration, change of direction, or even acceleration the next time you've got one!