Breaking Down The Broad Jump
In the second portion of our football testing series we will take a look at the standing broad jump. This test is a fantastic assessment of lower body horizontal power. This tool works great for football players, who have to explosively move of the line of scrimmage once the ball gets snapped. A common misconception is that you merely stand on a line and jump. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this assessment. Horizontal jumping can be a complex coordination pattern because the upper and lower extremities must move harmoniously in order to achieve optimal results. Let’s take a look at a few factors that can help you or your athletes add a few inches.
The Arm Swing
It’s no surprise that lower body power is what propels you forward during this test but the arms play a vital role in projecting you higher off the ground and further down the tape measure. The most efficient swing technique would be to start in a standing position with your arms out in front of you. As you drop down to “load the spring” your arms should sweep back, followed by an immediate, powerful swing forward as you takeoff.
http://youtu.be/lqc_pyG7ELk
Build Those Glutes
The hip complex packs a lot of useful muscles that are crucial in just about every sport and activity of daily living. Unfortunately, many people do not train this area of the body as much as they should. We often sit in chairs, whether at school or work, and that equates to hitting the “off” switch for this important muscle group. Driving through hips during the jump and getting this area fully extended will propel the athlete further. Simple hip extention exercises like glute bridges, whether bodyweight or weighted, will help bring life back to your butt. Below are a couple videos to help with the exercise selection:
http://youtu.be/pMQV6A8F8Qw
http://youtu.be/8j4kWFHRq9o
Own The Descent
Does it matter how awesome the take off was if a plane crashes near the end of its flight? The same theory (obviously to a lesser extent) holds true during the broad jump test. Height and distance are all based upon the action taken prior to take off but this in no way omits an individual from having to properly land each jump. When landing a jump it is important to land in a position that allows the force to dissipate. This is achieved by bending the knees and sinking back the hips. An athlete should never land in a stiff-legged position. When landing, it is also important that the knees land in a position stacked in-line with the ankles and do not collapse or cave medially. Both of these habits place a high amount of stress on the joints and can lead to serious injury. Below is a chart with normative data to see how football players stack up in this test and other common tests by position. Check back next we as we move on to discuss the bench press.
References:
Lockie, R. G., Schultz, A. B., Callaghan, S. J., & Jeffriess, M. D. (2012). PHYSIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF NATIONAL-LEVEL JUNIOR AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN AUSTRALIA. Serbian Journal Of Sports Sciences, 6(4), 127-136.
Off-Season Training: Overhead Athletes
Last week, we laid out some general guidelines for athletes heading into their off-seasons. You should read it, if you haven't already. Today, we'll delve into some specifics for overhead athletes (i.e. baseball, softball, javelin, shot put, swimmers (though it seems as if they never have an off-season), etc.). Shoulders are rather complicated and annoyingly fickle joints that can develop irritation easily which is why proper attention MUST be paid to shoulder mechanics and care during the off-season. There is nothing "natural" about throwing a heavy object (or a light one really, really fast) and shoulders can get all kinds of whacky over a long, repetitive season. I'm going to keep it sweet and simple.
1. Restore lost mobility and improve stability
- Hips: they get locked up, especially on athletes that travel a lot during the season (helloooo long bus rides). Restoring mobility will go a long way in preventing hip impingements, angry knees, and allow for freer movements in general. Locked up hips will prevent safe, powerful throws and batting, thus, now is the time, Padawans, to regain what was lost!
- Lats: Usually tighten up on the throwing side and create a lovely posture that flares the rib cage and makes breathing not-so-efficient. Loosen up these bad boys!
- Breathing patterns: Those need to be re-trained (or trained for the first time), too. Breathing affects EVERYTHING. Learning proper breathing mechanics will do a lot to restore mobility (T-spine, shoulder, and hips), increase stability (lower back and abdominal cavity), and create a more efficient athlete (more oxygen with less energy expended to get it). I've written about it before HERE.
- Pecs and biceps: These guys are gunky and fibrotic and nasty. Self-myofacial release is good, finding a good manual therapist would be even better, to help knead that junk out! One caveat: make sure that as you release these two bad boys, you also add stability back into the shoulder. This means activating lower and mid-traps and the rotator cuff muscles to retrain them to work well again. Why? Most likely, the pecs and biceps are doing a LOT of stabilization of the shoulder (which they shouldn't be doing so much) so if you take that away through releasing them, one of two things will happen: 1) injury will occur since there's nothing holding stuff in place, 2) no injury, but the pec and/or bicep will tighten right back up again as your body's way of producing stability. So, mobilize then stabilize!
2. Improve scapula movement and stability
Along the lines of restoring mobility everywhere, the scapula need particular attention in overhead athletes as they are responsible for pain-free, overhead movements. Below is a handy-dandy chart for understanding scapula movements:
Now, over the course of the season, an overhead athlete will often get stuck in downward rotation therefore at in the early off-season (and throughout really) we want to focus on upward rotation of the scapula. Exercises like forearm wallslides are fantastic for this.
Eric Cressey notes that the scapula stabilizers often fatigue more quickly than the rotator cuff muscles. This means the scapula doesn't glide how it should on the rib cage, which leads to a mechanical disadvantage for the rotator cuff muscles, which leads to impingements/pain/unstable shoulders.
As we increase the upward rotation exercises, we want to limit exercises that will pull the athlete back into downward rotation, i.e. holding heavy dumbbells at their sides, farmer walks with the weight at sides, even deadlifts.(whoa now, I'm not saying don't deadlift, but limit the volume on the heavy pulls for a few weeks, and like I said in the last post, training speed work will limit the amount of load yanking down on those blades.) Instead, athletes can lunge or farmer carry in the goblet position (aka, one bell at their chest).
There is more to be said, but let us move on, shall we?
3. Limit med ball work
At SAPT, we back off on aggressive med ball throwing variations for the first couple weeks post season as the athletes have been aggressively rotating all season. Instead, we'll sub in some drills that challenge the vestibular such as single-leg overhead medicine ball taps to the wall. (I don't have a video, sorry.)
Or, stability drills such as this:
If we do give them some low-intensity throws, we'll have them perform one less set on their throwing side than on the non-throwing side.
4. Limit reactive work
We don't usually program a lot of sprint work or jumps the first few weeks. If we do program jumps, we'll mitigate the deceleration component by adding band resistance:
5. Keep intensity on the lower end
As mentioned in the last post, instead of piling on weight, we enjoy utilizing isometric holds, slow negatives, and varying tempos to reap the most benefit from the least amount of weight. We also maintain lower volumes over all with total program.
There you have it! Tips to maximize the off-season and lay a strong, stable foundation for the following season!
Overtraining Part 1: Symptoms
This month's theme is in-season training since the spring sports are starting up. All the practices, games, and tournaments start to add up to over time, not to mention any weight room sessions the coachs' require of their athletes. Lack of proper awareness and management of physical stressors can lead, very quickly in some cases, to overtraining... which leads to poor performance, lost games, increase risk of injury, and a rather unpleasant season.
The subject of overtraining is a vast one and we won't be able to cover all the aspects that contribute, but by the end of this two part series, you should have a decent grasp on what overtraining is and how to avoid it. Today's post will be about recognizing the symptoms of overtraining while next post will offer techniques and training advice to avoid the dreaded state of overtrained-ness. (Yes, I made that word up.) Li'l food for thought: quite often the strength and conditioning aspect of in-season training is the cornerstone of maintaing the health of the athlete. Too much, and the athlete breaks, but administered intelligently, a strength program can restore an athlete's body and enhance overall performance. Right, let's dive in!
Who doesn’t like a good work out? Who doesn’t like to train hard, pwn some weight (or mileage if you’re a distance person), and accomplish the physical goals you’ve set for yourself? Every work out leave you gasping, dead-tired, and wiped out, otherwise it doesn't count, right? (read the truth to that fallacy here)
We all want a to feel like you've conquered something, I know I do!
However, sadly, there can be too much of a good thing. We may be superheroes in our minds, but sometimes our bodies see it differently. Outside of the genetic freaks out there who can hit their training hard day after day (I’m a bit envious…), most of us will reach a point where we enter the realm of overtraining. I should note, that for many competitive athletes (college, elite, and professional levels) there is a constant state of overtraining, but it’s closely monitored. But, this post is designed for the rest of us.
Now, everyone is different and not everyone will experience every symptom or perhaps experience it in varying degrees depending on training age, other life factors, and type of training. These are merely general symptoms that both athletes and coaches should keep a sharp eye out for.
Symptoms:
1. Repeated failure to complete/recover in a normal workout- I’m not talking about a failed rep attempt or performing an exercise to failure. This is a routine training session that you’re dragging through and you either can’t finish it or your recovery time between sets is way longer than usual. For distance trainees, this may manifest as slower pace, your normal milage seems way harder than usual, or your heart rate is higher than usual during your workout. Coaches: are you players dragging, taking longer breaks, or just looking sluggish? Especially if this is unusual behavior, they're not being lazy; it might be they've reached stress levels that exceed their abilities to recover.
2. Lifters/power athletes (baseball, football, soccer, non-distance track, and nearly all field sports): inability to relax or sleep well at night- Overtraining in power athletes or lifters results in an overactive sympathetic nervous response (the “fight or flight” system). If you’re restless (when you’re supposed to be resting), unable to sleep well, have an elevated resting heart rate, or have an inability to focus (even during training or practice), those are signs that your sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive. It’s your body’s response to being in a constantly stressful situation, like training, that it just stays in the sympathetic state.
3. Endurance athletes (distance runners, swimmers, and bikers): fatigue, sluggish, and weak feeling- Endurance athletes experience parasympathetic overdrive (the “rest and digest” system). Symptoms include elevated cortisol (a stress hormone that isn’t bad, but shouldn’t be at chronically high levels), decreased testosterone levels (more noticeable in males), increase fat storage or inability to lose fat, or chronic fatigue (mental and physical).
4. Body composition shifts away from leanness- Despite training hard and eating well, you’re either not able to lose body fat, or worse, you start to gain what you previously lost. Overtrained individuals typically have elevated cortisol levels (for both kinds of athletes). Cortisol, among other things, increases insulin resistance which, when this is the chronic metabolic state, promotes fat storage and inhibits fat loss.
5. Sore/painful joints, bones, or limbs- Does the thought of walking up stairs make you groan with the anticipated creaky achy-ness you’re about to experience? If so, you’re probably over training. Whether it be with weights or endurance training, you’re body is taking a beating and if it doesn’t have adequate recovery time, that’s when tendiosis, tendoitis, bursitis, and all the other -itis-es start to set in. The joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments are chronicallyinflamed and that equals pain. Maybe it’s not pain (yet) but your muscles feel heavy and achy. It might be a good time to rethink you’re training routine…
6. Getting sick more often- Maybe not the flu, but perhaps the sniffles, a sore throat, or a fever here and there; these are signs your immune system is depressed. This can be a sneaky one especially if you eat right (as in lots of kale), sleep enough, and drink plenty of water (I’m doing all the right things! Why am I sick??). Training is a stress on the system and any hard training session will depress the immune system for a bit afterwards. Not a big deal if you’re able to recover after each training session… but if you’re overtraining, the body never gets it's much-needed recovery time. Hence, a chronically depressed immune system… and that’s why you have a cold for the 8th time in two months.
7. You feel like garbage- You know the feeling: run down, sluggish, not excited to train… NOOOOO!!!!! Training regularly, along with eating well and sleeping enough, should make you feel great. However, if you feel like crap… something is wrong.
Those are some of the basic signs of overtraining. There are more, especially as an athlete drifts further and further down the path of fatigue, but these are the initial warning signs the body gives to tell you to stop what you’re doing or bad things will happen.
Next time, we’ll discuss ways to prevent and treat overtraining.
The Fallacy of More Is Better
Let us travel back in time... not that far, just to Monday's post. Building on the theme of "Magic Bullet" fitness, there's another fallacy that runs alongside Magic Bullet, kinda like those weird fish that attach themselves to sharks:
It's the mentality that more is better, if you're not gasping for breath and barely able to stand after the workout, then all is for naught! Oh, ho my friends! How far from the truth does that little fish swim.
This is not to say that I don't enjoy a good heart-pounding, sweat-pouring workout now and again (they're fun) or that you should never push yourself beyond your comfort zone. What I am saying is that progress and the value of a training session should not be measured on a) soreness b) tiredness c) vomiting. Matter fact, if the last one does occur, that's the signal your body gives you that you were an idiot and pushed it beyond it's ability to recover (both during the session and possibly after, depending on other stressors). Way to go, bucko.
Let's clear the air a bit and distinguish between soreness that leads to progress and soreness that leads to poop. (that's a technical term by the way.)
Most people, at some point or another, have experienced DOMS (the "Jaws" theme always plays in my head when I hear "DOMS"). DOMS is delayed onset muscle soreness. It usually manifests any where from 12-72 hours after a training session. There's a couple different theories on what contributes to DOMS but for the most part, it stems from microtrauma (itty bitty tears) to the muscle fibers during movements. The body repairs these tears to be more resilient to tears in the future, thus the muscle becomes bigger and stronger. It's similar to forming a callus: the skin is sore and tender, but eventually toughens up to prevent future damage.
This type of soreness is the kind we want for it leads to progress. Think about when you first start training again after a break or introduce a new exercise, at first whoooo buddy! Your muscles are pretty tender, but after a couple more sessions, those same exercises no longer leave you incapacitated afterwards. Those who train regularly, be it lifting, running, lightsaber dueling, will rarely be sore after a workout. This is a sign of progress since the muscles are now more resilient to the training stimulus (and they're stronger to boot!). Do you see how gauging a good workout on soreness is a rather inaccurate measure? The opposite is in fact true: the lack of soreness (over time) is an indication that the training program has a stellar balance of tearing the muscles and repairing them.
In contrast, workouts that cause soreness (or, one step further, real pain) either during or immediately after, are NOT ideal. Immediate soreness/pain is an indication that the body has been pushed too far, and potentially incurred more serious damage to the muscles, joints, or tendons that in can recover from. Over time, if the body isn't allowed to fully recover between training sessions, this could lead to actual injuries. This is bad. Instead of spending energy to repair the microtrauma of the muscles, the body is going to direct resources to repair the more serious damage.
For example, let's say you do a workout of 100 burpees, 400 m sprints, and 100 pushups. Your muscles will incur the microtrauma mentioned above (the kind that leads to strength gains), but you probably also had some damage done to the muscles and tendons surrounding your shoulders, elbows, ankles, and spine. All of which the body will prioritize in healing before dealing with the smaller tears in the muscles. Overall, you're probably not going to get much out of this workout in terms of strength and/or performance gains as your body is spending it's time with emergency repair crews at the joints and tendons (which, from your body's standpoint, are more important).
Therefore, if a workout that causes immediate soreness that's an indicator that the body has been pushed beyond it's limits (either at the muscles or joints or both) and will have a harder time recovering from the workout. As we learned from above, the recovery process is KEY to growing stronger and increasing performance. Thus, if recovery is impaired...fill in the blank, folks. (hint: progress is impaired)
So if you're feeling beat-up, exhausted, and shaky after each workout, I would say it's time to reevaluate your training. Sessions that lead to that are not sustainable over time. If the body can't recover, stress will pile up (even if you don't feel mentally stressed) the physical stress can actually inhibit your fitness goals by either a) cortisol, a stress-related hormone, is jacked up which hinders overall recovery (if it's too high. A little coritsol is part of the recovery process, but chronically high levels can eventually mess everything up). b) injury. Your poor body is just pooped. Bummer.
Take-Away:
1. Soreness is ok, especially in a new program or after a new exercise is introduced. Over time, the soreness will decrease and that's a mark of progress (the body becoming stronger and more resilient).
This is not to say that you should NEVER be sore; part of progressing is stressing the system a bit beyond what it's used to. There should be days throughout your lifetime of training that soreness occurs. But, it should not be....
2. Immediate soreness/pain, particularly around joints or the spine. This means the workout was perhaps more than the body could handle and, despite no actual injury you can see, the body IS injured and will require a longer recovery period. If that recovery time is absent, eventually injuries will manifest.
3. Basing the effectiveness of a workout on "soreness" or "tiredness" is not a fair gauge and often the wrong measuring stick. Instead, one should track progress by strength goals, clothes fitting (or not fitting. Growing some hamstrings can cause pants to be tighter), aerobic markers (such as, running a 100m faster, or the ability to rest less during a weight circuit), and other such performance markers over time.
A witty remark escapes me at the moment, therefore, just assume I said something that would be of a high caliber wit.
Should Baseball Players Olympic Lift? 5 Reasons Why Ours Don't
The snatch and the clean and jerk are amongst the most impressive feats a human being can perform. These two events are so highly regarded that every four years countries from all over the world showcase their best lifters to compete for national pride in the Olympic games. Many of us have seen it on TV or YouTube: An athlete grabs a heavy barbell that's placed motionless on the ground, then creates enough tension throughout their body to break inertia and throw the barbell overhead with inhuman ease, speed, and fluidity. This is a breathtaking display of the perfect blend of mobility, explosiveness, technique, and overall stability.
These “O-lifters,” when compared to athletes of other sports, are often associated with having increased numbers of type II muscle fibers, greater ability to produce power, superior vertical jumping ability, and greater levels of hypertrophy.
One may thus conclude that practicing these movements may lead to adaptations towards becoming a bigger, stronger, faster, more powerful athlete… and one would be correct! Who wouldn’t want that?
Baseball is one of the most “power-based” sports around, due to the stop-and-go nature of the game. Power is a key component in a successful baseball player, and each year SAPT excels at augmenting our baseball players ability to harness and produce power during their hitting, sprinting, and throwing.
Are the Olympic lifts a phenomenal tool to develop power and explosiveness? Absolutely. Is a strength coach wise to employ them with many of his or her athletes? Of course.
However, ask any of our baseball beasts how often they snatch, clean, or jerk during a training cycle at SAPT and you will probably find that the range of frequency falls between “never” and “0 times a week.”
Why? Well, here are 5 reasons why SAPT baseball players don't Olympic lift:
1. Plane-Specific Transference of Training Qualities
(Note: In general, movement is categorized into three different planes: sagittal, frontal, and transverse. Sagittal plane movement involves anything going front-to-back, without any involved rotation or leaning side to side. So, things like lunges, squats, sit-ups, deadlifts, sprints, box jumping, and Olympic lifts, all occur in the sagittal plane. Frontal plane movement examples include side lunges, side shuffles, and side raises. Transverse plane movement involves anything with a rotation component; a perfect example of this is the stroke Obi Wan used with his lightsaber to kill Darth Maul.)
To an extent, strength and power development is very specific to the plane of motion in which it is trained. Sure, there will be a bit of carryover from one plane to another when it comes to transference of athletic qualities, but to truly maximize potential in a given plane, you need to train that plane, specifically!
Guess which planes of motion a baseball player remains in to hit, throw, and/or pitch? The frontal and transverse planes.
Now, guess what plane of motion the Olympic lifts exclusively take place in? The sagittal plane.
So, for the baseball athlete, how can they train outside of the sagittal plane in order to best enhance power production in the frontal and transverse planes? Which exercises will provide them the most bang for their buck, be time efficient, and have the most carryover to their sport?
It is here I argue that the answer doesn't lie with the Olympic lifts, but in med ball work and lateral jumping variations. These become an enormous asset to the baseball player; they are fun (few things beat throwing a medicine ball into a wall as hard as you can), fairly easy to learn, allow the athlete to demonstrate and forge power output in a concerted manner, and they're downright effective!
Here are just a few of the med ball variations and lateral jumps we use at SAPT. (We have over 30 variations in each category to cycle through.)
MB Cross-Behind Shotput
MB Cross-Behind Shotput w/Partner Pass
MB Heiden to Side Scoop Throw
MB Cyclone Overhead Throw to Wall
MB Hop-Back Side Throw
In-Place Heiden with Stick Landing
Single-leg Depth Drop to Heiden with Stick Landing
The options are virtually limitless.
Assuming they are already proficient in the sagittal plane - as one DOES need to learn to master that plane before attempting to train frontal and transverse, similar how one should learn to add and subtract before performing algebra - roughly 80-90% of the "power" development we utilize with our baseball guys takes place outside of the sagittal plane. The remaining 10-20% we will fill by having them perform sagittal-based movements such as KB swings, broad jumps, and speed deadlifts and speed squats.
2. Faulty Movement Patterns Overhead
Watch the majority of people put their arms overhead, and, if you know what you're looking for, you'll often find nothing short of a multiplicity of grody compensation patterns taking place along the entire kinetic chain. Yes, even in overhead athletes.
Tony Gentilcore has said that the majority of trainees must "earn the right" to press overhead, and I continue to nod my head in agreement with him. Watch someone press a bar overhead (or snatch or jerk it, as one would during an O-lift), and, using a classification system I learned in my college biomechanics class: their mechanics lie somewhere between poop and utter poop.
I hope it goes without saying that it'd be far from prudent to have these folks continually throw a loaded bar overhead at high speeds. However, the strength coach can't freak out about ALL overhead movements for the baseball player, as their sport does, in fact (get ready to have your mind blown....), necessitate them going overhead.
While we can certainly improve a baseball player's overhead mechanics by having them perform core stabilization drills, thoracic spine mobilizations, shoulder "corrective" drills, and improving lat length, there's still something to be said for doing a few, shoulder-friendly, loaded overhead activities to complement the corrective drills and give the athlete a chance to further ingrain solid overhead mechanics.
One of our favorites is the landmine press, as the neutral grip position opens up the subacromial space - giving the rotator cuff tendons more room to "breathe" - and the natural arc of the press grooves some nice scapular upward rotation. Not to mention, the core musculature has to work like crazy to keep the pelvis and ribcage in a stable position. I've yet to work with anyone - including myself, and I have a REALLY beat up shoulder - who has shoulder pain while landmine pressing.
Another option is to use the single-arm bottoms-up KB press, as many of the benefits of the landmine press still apply (scapular upward rotation, core stabilization, etc.) yet you get to train through an even greater degree of humeral elevation (flexion+abduction), and also receive some nice "reflexive" firing of the rotator cuff due to the kettlebell wanting to shake back and forth in your hand.
Both of the above exercises can be performed half-kneeling, tall-kneeling, standing in parallel stance, or standing in a staggered stance.
There are a host of other options as well, but the point is there are much less "dummy proof" methods of training the overhead position without resorting to a jerk or snatch. (Even though the O-lifts do look way cooler.)
3. Wrist and Elbow Concerns
To say the success of a baseball player's career is at least partly contingent upon the health of his wrist and elbow is akin to saying that Superman derives his power by absorbing and metabolizing solar energy from the Earth's energy; both are platitudes.
As Dan John aptly put it, the "Rule #1" a strength coach needs to live and breathe by is Do No Harm!
To rely on Olympic lifts as the primary tool for developing the baseball athlete would make about as much as much sense crossing the the Atlantic Ocean in a one-man canoe. Or using a canoe of any size, for that matter. Could it be done? Sure. But do there exist other ways to accomplish the same goal, with a much lower risk of something undesired occurring in the process? You bet.
Given that, day in and day out, baseball players' wrists and elbows already take a wicked beating from pitching, throwing, and hitting, why compound the issue by performing lifts that stress those same bodily structures more than perhaps any other lift? Especially given that, as you saw earlier in this article, there exists a host of other training modalities one can employ to enhance athletic power.
Regarding the power and hang clean, most baseball players have a hard enough time even being able to comfortably get into the clean position for front squatting, without the mere position causing their wrists or forearms to scream, so why we would choose to add velocity and then CATCH in that position is beyond me. And, if we're discussing the snatch: the top, catch position places considerable levels of strain on the UCLs (ulnar collateral ligaments) of both elbows; if you follow professional baseball to any capacity, then you for sure know how important the UCL is to a baseball player. Tommy John Surgery, anyone?
One last point I'll add is that not only do you have the wrists and elbows taking a beating during cleans, but the AC (acromioclavicular) joint, as well, due to that poor fellow living smack dab in the middle of the barbell's landing zone. The AC joint is located just inside of the index fingers during the catch phase of a clean, and while professional Olympic lifters often "flow" into the catch phase with minimal impact, it's far from uncommon to find high school and college baseball guys literally slamming the bar onto their shoulder during the catch, as it can take years to make it a fluid transition.
Now, just because baseball players overuse their elbows and wrists, and we don't recommend the inclusion of cleans and snatches in their programming, does this mean they are to be babied, forever relegated to pilates as the most intense training they're "allowed" to perform? Don't be silly!
As demonstrated earlier, we use the countless other methods at our disposal for their power training, and then have them perform plenty of heavy lifting to develop strength, structural integrity, and throwing speed.
4. Sagittal Plane Dominance
A typical training program for our baseball guys are rich with lifts such as squat variations, deadlift variations, lunges, glute bridges, step-ups, and the list goes on. Notice a pattern? These are all movements that occur in the sagittal plane. (We can argue about frontal and transverse stability components in the single leg exercises, valid points indeed... but let's save that for another day.)
The point is, although we dip into the other planes of motion, the majority of the work is sagittal. Throwing in Olympic lifting variations just adds to the volume of sagittal plane work and takes time away from working the other planes of motion.
To build a properly balanced athlete, we have to save some room in the program for some work in the frontal and transverse planes which can include tons of variations of: lateral step-downs and step-ups, lateral lunges, single arm farmer’s walks, anti-rotation/pallof presses, prowler side-drags, jumping, hopping, and, as exhibited earlier, medicine ball drills.
5. Time
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I am going to have to bring up the token argument against Olympic lifting: It takes too long to learn.
When it comes to training competitive athletes, time is the major limiting factor. With most of our baseball guys, who typically have 3-5 months of off-season training with us, we opt for a program consisting of exercises that don’t require such a significance prerequisite time-commitment for the learning process. The price in time we must pay to proficiently learn and perform the snatch, clean, jerk, and their variations safely and effectively (as it doesn't do them any good to perform the lifts poorly) is often more costly than we care for. Instead we use the modalities shown above in point #1, for supreme power development.
Another critical focal point we attend to for baseball power development is sprint work. We spend a significant amount of time working on our athlete's sprint technique, stride length/frequency, change of direction speed and starting speed.
With such limited time (and not to mention recovery capacities; many of these guys are still in leagues or camps throughout the off-season) it is simply impractical to throw in the O-lifts into the mix.
If a baseball player never learns to snatch during his athletic career, does it really matter? I’d be more concerned with his on-base percentage, runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, consistency, and health.
Strength: You're Doing it Wrong! Part 2
In the first installment of this series, we dived into a couple of the fundamental errors many folks tend to make while on the quest to become stronger. In case you missed it (shame on you), you can check it out with the link provided above; otherwise, let's get right to it and pick up where we left off!
"You're Doing It Wrong" #3 - Overkill
In case you're wondering what overkill looks like within the context of a strength and conditioning program, Dan John once gave a fantastic illustration of it: "If jumping off a box helps my vertical, then jumping off of a building will help that much more."
People often make the mistake of taking an idea, or something that may be good either in moderation or a specific context, and carrying it to the extreme:
- "I've heard that focused periods of training with loads of 90%+ will augment my one-rep max, so I'll employ them all the time, every day." - "Since a few sets here and there of isolated bicep curls may develop connective tissue quality of the biceps tendons, I'll do thirty sets a week!" - "Strong lifters use bands for accommodating resistance, so I should use them, too." - "Three sets of heavy squats will make me stronger, so doing twelve heavy sets must have four times the effect."
Here's a tip. Always do the least required - be it intensity, volume, or using "secret powerful" methods - to incite the desired adaptation. This way, you can save the higher intensities, volumes, etc. for later in your training when they become essential for continued improvement. (Note: I discussed this in further detail, via the concept of the minimum effective dose, HERE.)
"You're Doing It Wrong" #4 - Sacrificing Form for Weight on the Bar
Putting it another way: sacrificing form to stroke your ego.
How many times do you see "that guy" deadlifting with a rounded back, squatting with the knees wobbling all over the place, or bench pressing with the bar bouncing off his chest like a trampoline?
Sure, sometimes it can be a simple lack of education - he (or she) hasn't been coached correctly on the ability to perform fundamental human movement. But other times, and this is more often the case (at least with males), is that people don't wish to take the time - and by extension refuse to exercise patience and discipline - to learn the various movements correctly. They don't care that adding fifty more pounds to the bar causes complete breakdown in form, as long as it means they can satisfy their egos by lifting fifty more pounds.
Dr. Kelly Starrett summed this up quite nicely: "Sacrificing good form will cannibalize your potential benefits."
Be it training to get stronger, run faster, jump higher, or simply improve your quality of life, lifting with poor form does absolutely nothing for you. Well, other than eventually showing up on your doorstep to exact payment by means of pain or injury.
(Note: for those of you who think one can't lift any appreciable weight with good form, check out the video below with Jeremy Frey.)
You can do pushups with your low back sagging toward the floor and your elbows flared, deadlift with a flexed (or hyperextended) lumbar spine, bench with your shoulders protruding forward, squat with the knees collapsing, overhead press with all sorts of compensation patterns, until one day....you can't.
Who cares who is around you or who may be watching. Recognize that you are in this for life, that a lot of small improvements add up to quite a bit, and that greatness isn't achieved in a day. Exercise the patience and discipline of a true professional.
"You're Doing It Wrong" #5 - Adding Too Many "Finishers"
Confession: I have a slight masochist streak in me, which loves to push my body to the brink of destruction on occasion. And I think it's evident that quite a few others do, as well, which is why sports such as CrossFit are so popular.
However, constantly pushing our body's limits - either as the training session itself, or as a "finisher" at the end of the strength training - will undoubtedly hinder strength gains.
You can only chase so many goals at one time, and it's easy to fall into the "I want it all! Now!" trap. More strength, more endurance, more flexibility, more hypertrophy, etc. Attempting to achieve all these things, concurrently, is akin riding multiple horses with one saddle: rarely does it end well.
Using myself as an example: back when I discovered the "wonderful" world of metabolic circuits and Tabatas, I'd throw them in at the end of every strength training session thinking that it would automatically turn me into a lean, mean, fighting machine. My primarily goal was strength improvements (I was following a powerlifting-centric program at the time) but me, in all my intelligent greatness, thought it'd be wise to throw in crazy finishes at the end of each session to improve my work capacity and keep body fat at bay.
Did I become pretty decent at doing a lot of squat thrust + tuck jumps in a short period of time? Sure....but to what end? Did I get stronger throughout the course of the program? Not so much.
At least, not nearly as much as I could have had I not committed such wanton foolery at the end of each strength training session. Our bodies can only handle so many competing demands; you can only get so far by trying to simultaneously train for both strength and the anaerobic lactic system.
Keep the goal.....well, keep the goal, the goal! If your goal is strength, then your actions should reflect this. 20-rep deadlifts in a circuit, for time, is not strength training.
I'm not poo-pooing on those who enjoy circuit training or want to add a "metabolic boost" to each training session. To each their own. But I do feel many miss the mark when it comes to choosing a goal and seeing it to the end. If you want to get better at circuit training, then do circuit training. But if you want to get stronger, then, well, do things that will make you stronger, and focus on those things alone.
Now, just because strength may be your primary goal, this doesn't necessitate you allowing yourself to fall so far by the wayside that you become winded from climbing a small flight of stairs. In fact, smart cardiovascular activity will only aid you in your quest to carry, push, and pull heavy objects. Just follow these rules with any conditioning you do:
- If you're worried about increased bodyfat levels, do your due diligence in the kitchen. A rule we use with our athletes at SAPT is that training should NEVER be used to make up for irresponsibility in the kitchen.
- Don't be an idiot.
- If you do need to develop your work capacity, go about it in an intelligent manner. Monitor your heart rate, employ joint-friendly modalities, and track your strength gains to ensure you're still moving in the right direction.
Examples for the Strength Enthusiast
- For some examples of joint-friendly conditioning options, check out the series I put together HERE and HERE.
- Hill sprints are another great option.
- Todd Bumgardner also put together a solid article at T-Nation, A Practical Guide to GPP, in which he lays out some good options, along with providing advice on when to put focused periods of GPP (general physical preparedness) into your program.
- Tim Henriques wrote a great article, Cardio for Strength Athletes, that discuss and provides awesome guidelines for....well, I think the title is self-explanatory.
"You're Doing It Wrong" #6 - Training at Too High of a Percentage Relative to Your One-Rep Maximum
I tell you truly, it really is incredible how strong one can become by lifting with submaximal loads. While yes, there certainly are times to push it and incorporate periods of lifting close to your max, there's much to be said for maintaining solid bar speed and keeping the load low(ish) in training.
Yes, I am biased, as I work predominantly with athletes and I'm always seeking ways to make them stronger and faster with minimal risk of injury, but many successful powerlifters have (successfully) utilized this approach, as well.
Two quick examples of student-athletes at SAPT. Here is Carson, now at UVA and competing in powerlifting, who we helped take his deadlift max from 410lbs to 445lbs, never using loads higher than 365lbs in training!
And here is Red Dowdell (now playing Division I baseball at VMI) who trained at SAPT in-season during his senior year of baseball. I kid you not, we never had him lift anything higher than 275lbs during his in-season training, and yet he was able to pull 405lbs post-season. (His previous best was 325lbs.)
That's a 35lb and 80lb improvement, all accomplished while using loads well less than 90% of what they were actually capable of doing in training.
It's amazing what you can accomplish by ceasing to obsess over weight liftedin training as your sole benchmark for improvement, rather than improving rate of force development, honing technique, and judiciously manipulating frequency, volume, and other training variables to make yourself stronger and more powerful.
And the stronger you become, the more imperative it becomes to astutely plan and cycle periods of higher loading, given that your nervous system is more efficient and you recruit more higher-threshold motor units than you did as a beginner. While a beginner may be able to get away with regularly training close to their max, stronger individuals become absolutely fried from doing this too regularly. What may be 90% for a 700lb deadlifter (630lbs), will have a much different impact/effect on the human animal than 90% for a 200lb deadlifter (180lbs).
"You're Doing It Wrong" #7 - Failing to Train with Purpose
Even though, in the points outlined above, I touched on concepts of good form, not going too heavy, and never doing more than is required, this doesn't mean that you can expect to become stronger without training with conviction, purpose, and intent to succeed.
Those who constantly check their cell phones for texts and Facebook or Twitter updates, and those who converse with others while the bar is on their back, will always see sub-par results compared to those who train with some freaking purpose.
Don't just go through the motions! Put the magazine down, grab the bar as tight as humanly possible, and move it like you mean it!
When you walk on to your respective training grounds - be it your garage, a commercial gym, or an awesome performance institute like SAPT - let go of everything that was plaguing you outside the facility walls. Traffic, girlfriend/boyfriend problems, co-workers driving you nuts, celebrity news tempting you to read the magazine on the shelf, it all doesn't matter.
Focus on the task at hand, and then be amazed as you reach new heights.
