I’m just finishing up Joel Jamieson‘s book Ultimate MMA Conditioning, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, it’s definitely an eye opener for me.  There are many things about conditioning that I thought I understood well, and now I’m just starting to rethink everything.  And to be honest, it goes far beyond just the conditioning part of training.  I’m starting to rethink some of the strength stuff as well.

Ever since I read the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual from Eric Cressey and after I interned at Robert Morris University a few years ago, I was seeing max strength as the answer to pretty much everything; if athletes just got stronger, everything else would just fall into place.  I still think that max strength is a very important part of an athlete’s training program, and has profound effects on speed, power and agility.  But I’m starting to realize that it’s not all…

With that focus on max strength, the emphasis is mostly on improving the efficiency of the nervous system, increasing the activation of the fast-twitch muscle fibers and recruiting more motor units.  All of these effects are very important for any athlete if they want to improve their performance.  And this is mostly how we usually see strength training; it’s all about the nervous system, the muscle fibers and everything in between.

What we, myself included, too often fail to consider is the energy systems part of the equation.  And I’m not talking about how we condition our athletes.  I’m talking about the implication of the energy systems in strength training.  There is indeed a big neural and muscle fiber effect that comes from strength training, but there is also a energy system effect.  Even if it’s not conditioning in it’s traditional form, your body still need to produce the energy necessary to lift the weights.  When we lift weights and train for max strength, the anaerobic alactic system is going to be the one that is used primarily, which also means that we don’t have to worry too much about oxygen utilization, the number of mitochondrias in the muscle and that kind of stuff…..but that’s for one set of one exercise.

What happens when we run out of stored ATP after one set in the anaerobic alactic system?  Your body needs to recover and regenerate that source of energy while you rest.  And how does that happen?  Because you’re resting and the demands on your body are fairly low until you start your following set, this recovery process will happen through the aerobic system.  Now can you see where I’m going with this?

This is just one example to show you that your energy systems, and especially your aerobic system are involved in strength training even if you don’t think about it.  Not because we’re using weights means no energy system work is happening.  There is not a clear line between strength work and conditioning.  There is some overlap, just like there is some overlap between each energy system when you condition AND when you strength train.

Think about the implication this can have on your max strength and ensuing effect it’s gonna have in the practice of your sport.  Training for max strength is going to improve the efficiency of your nervous system and increase the percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers activation.  But if you don’t realize the importance of the aerobic system in the recovery process after short bouts of intense activity (a.k.a the use of the anaerobic alactic system), chances are you’ll be performing your first shift (or your first play, your first punch, first set, etc) at a very high intensity and you’ll have an edge over your opponents…..and then it’s gonna go downhill from there until the end of your game, match, etc. because your body will not have been trained to recover quickly.  If your body can’t recover as fast as possible every time, your performance will only get worse and worse as your game goes on.  Nobody wants that!

This is why understanding the importance and the implication of ALL the energy systems is crucial for your performance or the one of your athletes.  And that includes being aware of the implications of the energy systems on strength training and how to maximize the performance and recovery of each one of them.

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Single-leg exercises like reverse lunges, rear foot elevated split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played.  Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.

For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not transfer as much as single leg exercises when it comes to developing strength, speed and power in a sport context.  You just need to know which one to use and when.

Athletes still need to be able to squat as it is one of the most primitive patterns that the nervous system should control and master at a very young age.  You could be surprised to see how many athletes have a hard time squatting properly.  It can be because of mobility restrictions, stability or motor control problems, or other reasons, but it’s still a movement that an athlete (and any person as a matter of fact) should own.

If this isn’t textbook form….unfortunately I might lose this skill as he ages

That being said there is a strong neural relationship between single-leg strength and its carryover to sport’s performance.  And these can be used as a main lower body lifts just like a squat or a deadlift.  On top of being very beneficial in the transfer to sport’s performance, single-leg lifts can be great to reduce spinal loading (because you’re usually using less weight than double leg exercises) and to establish symmetry between both sides.  Also everything changes from double leg to single stance; more stabilizer muscles are engaged, core muscle activation is increased and the foot’s proprioception is challenged to a much greater extent.

Even if spinal loading is not as great as with regular squats, you can still get a tremendous effect out of single-leg training and gain a lot of strength.  If you’re not convinced, just check out this video of one of our hockey player at Endeavor doing Reverse Lunges with 255 pounds for 6 reps!

Even Coach Jorts  from  CoachJortsTraining.com can’t squat as much double leg! (barely 225! Pfff, those jorts don’t even make you stronger)

In all seriousness, my friend Kevin Neeld just released his Ultimate Hockey Training book last week and he goes into great details on the benefits of single-leg lifts.  Make sure you get a copy; he’s still selling it at the introductory price (less than 35$!!)

2 things today I wanted to bring to your attention.  First one is a pretty unconventional plyometrics exercise that we’ve been using quite a bit lately at Endeavor with our athletes.  The unloaded squat jump is a pretty unique exercise in that you use the assistance of bands to jump, and because of it you jump much higher.  What’s the purpose of using the bands?  It’s not so much about the jump, but the rebound or landing part of the jump.  Because you so much higher than you would normally do, the forces you need to decelerate and re-accelerate to jump back up are much greater and that’s the biggest advantage of this exercise.  Another thing is that’s really fun to do.  Not that it’s that important, but our athletes love it!  Check it out:

Secondly, I wanted to bring to your attention a really cool seminar that’s coming up in 2 weeks.  Pete Friesen, the Carolina Hurricanes strength coach, is hosting a seminar August 13th in Raleigh, North Carolina.  If you’re not too far from North Carolina, I would highly suggest you go because the line-up of speakers is pretty impressive and the price of this 1-day seminar is even more!  If you’re a strength and conditioning coach, you can attend for only 50$!  If you’ve been going to seminars, you probably know that you don’t find that many quality seminars you can go to for this price.  I was there last year, and I can tell you that it was totally worth it.  Check out the link below:

FRIESEN PHYSIO FITNESS SUMMIT 

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I came across a study yesterday (thanks to my colleague Kevin Neeld) on ice hockey and the relationship of physiological components with actual on-ice performance.  Before discussing the results of the study, what I found especially interesting with this specific study is that they were interested in the actual on-ice performance during games.  Most studies measuring physiological attributes (such as strength, speed, VO2 max, body fat, etc) usually relate these aspects to on-ice performance, but not very often to actual in-game performance; results will most of the time be compared to on-ice skating speed, endurance and the like.

In this study by Peyer et Al., the physiological measures were compared to in-game performance in the form of plus/minus scores.  The characteristics measured were:

• Age
• Height
• Weight
• Body mass
• Body fat %
• VO2 Max
• Repeated off-ice speed test (in the form of 12 x 110 meters sprints)
• Strength tests (in the form of push ups, chin ups, leg press and bench press)
• On-ice speed tests (dot-to-dot, short lightning, and lap sprint)
• Plus/minus on the ice during games

A significant correlation was found between the repeated off-ice sprint test, 3 strength tests (chin ups, leg press and bench press) and the plus/minus scores.  The players who performed the best on the repeated sprint test and the 3 strength tests had a better plus/minus score.  What is equally interesting to me is that body fat percentage and Vo2 max, which are two highly rated and utilized tests in the hockey community, had no relevance whatsoever with actual in-game performance.

Good Predictor of Hockey Performance?

If you’ve been using a no-nonsense approach to training hockey players (prioritizing strength, using an interval-based system for conditioning, etc) you’re probably not very surprised by the results of this study.  It’s interesting to me that the research world is actually coming up with concrete results that support and back some of the stuff we’ve been trying to spread in the strength and conditioning world.

It is obvious that there is a need for more research to be done on physiological components and their relation to in-game performance, as this study (like any study out there) has its flaws.  The first one is the fact that the study has been done on only one college hockey team (NCAA D-1), so only 24 players were part of the study.  In an ideal world we would want a bigger sample of players to contribute to the results.  Also, the in-game measure that was used was the plus/minus score of each player.  Although the plus/minus score gives a good idea about a player’s offensive and defensive abilities and reflects on-ice performance decently, there are other factors that affect this score.  For example, the goalie’s performance can positively or negatively affect the outcome of one player’s plus/minus; if the goalie is really good and allows very few goals during games, even when he faces a lot of shots, it can positively affect a player’s plus/minus score.  And the opposite is also true if the goalie is terrible and allows many goals, the plus/minus score will be affected negatively.

In conclusion, this study gives us a good lead on what might be more appropriate tests that actually co-relate to in-game performance and what physiological attributes might be more relevant for hockey players to focus on.

References

Peyer KL, Pivarnik JM, Eisenmann JC, Vorkapich M. (2011). Physiological characteristics of national collegiate athletic association division I ice hockey players and their relation to game performance.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(5):1183-92.

Today I bring to you a guest blog post from my colleague Xavier Roy from Quebec.  Xavier is a very smart guy, he has a no-nonsense approach to strength and conditioning, and he has the experience to back it up.  This is a great post he originally wrote for his own blog, but since Xavier’s blog is in French I asked him if he wanted to translate his post and send it my way so I could feature it here for those of you who are not fluent in French, and he gladly accepted! So without further ado, enter Xavier:

This saying is used constantly by sport coaches and strength coaches in order to encourage athletes under their supervision to follow a training program and become more successful in playing the game (which is not necessarily a measure of success in sport by the way!). But does an athlete who is bigger, stronger and faster will have a marked advantage over his opponents and even teammates?

The answer is neither white nor black. It is certain that an athlete who spent the entire off-season lifting weights and running is more likely to see his performance improve compared with the previous year. However, it is possible that, despite all the effort he’s put in, he finds himself injured because of this training. Agreed, he’s bigger, stronger and faster, but was that done at the expense of his health? Does the athlete in question has self-limiting abilities that can negatively impact the long-term practice of his sport and that the training prescribed did not take these limits into consideration?

For my part, I often refer to a quote from Mike Boyle, who questioned whether it was better to have a Kevin Garnett with a vertical leap of 40 inches on his team (focus on performance) who is always injured or a Kevin Garnett with a vertical leap of 33 inches, but who is dressed for every game and contributing to his team’s success (focus on health). As a strength and conditioning professional and football coach, I’m in a good position to answer this question. My goal as a strength and conditioning professional is to enable athletes to optimize their preparation, which includes improving their movement health first to reduce the chances of injuries and then improve their performance. Often, the mere fact of restoring muscle balance and improving one’s performance in one or various motor patterns will be sufficient to improve performance. As a coach, I want to give the players under my tutelage a chance to learn and understand the game of football. If an athlete is sidelined due to a non-traumatic injury, I did not get to do my job.

In this regard. I think it would be more accurate to change the original adage Bigger, Stronger, Faster for Healthier, Stronger, Faster. Let’s define each component in detail.

* Note that in some cases, muscle mass can be useful and even essential. Take for example a football or rugby player looking a little frail. To successfully compete and go through a season during which he receives his fair share of hits, this athlete will increase his muscle mass to protect himself. A gain in muscle mass is also required for the aging population. Sarcopenia is a loss of muscle mass in favor of increased body fat that is present in aging people. These gains in muscle mass will therefore slow this process.

Healthier to characterize an athlete whose movements are fluid, an athlete who has no physical limitation which may result in compensation to other joints and body parts. The prescribed exercises are chosen based on the ability and level of skill of the athlete.

Stronger because I think it is a necessary step in the development of athletes and the general population. A stronger person will be able to produce more force in activities like weight training, she will be able to propel his body with greater ease when running and be able to perform her daily tasks without excessive fatigue (household chores, carrying bags, etc). Force development is also the prerequisite for the development of muscle power.

Faster in successfully completing movements like Olympic weightlifting. At even strength, the athlete who will move the load faster is going to express more power. Faster in a running a sprint, faster in his ability to accelerate his body while in a static position. An athlete being able to efficiently and rapidly transition from an eccentric to concentric action (i.e. ability to use the stretch-shortening cycle) will have a distinct advantage over the expression of muscle power. In technical and tactical sports like team sports, the ability to rapidly analyze the situation developing in front of you and react with an appropriate response to this situation will give the participant a clear advantage over his opponent.

So, Bigger, Stronger, Faster or Healthier, Stronger, Faster? My choice is clear. What about yours!

Xavier Roy (B.Sc, CSCS, HSSCS) is a strength and conditioning coach at Centre Performe+ Joel Bouchard and the owner of XR Performance.  As a kinesiologist and strength and conditioning coach, he specializes in the athletic development of a vast array of athletes, ranging from teens to college players, who are engage in sports like football, basketball and lacrosse.  Since 2009, Xavier has been the strength and conditioning coach, as well as defensive coordinator, for the Triades de Lanaudiere, a men’s CEGEP football team near Montreal.  Starting in September of 2011, Xavier will also take charge of McGill University Men’s and Women’s basketball teams as strength and conditioning coach.

If your French is good enough make sure to check Xavier’s blog HERE!

Bench pressing is gotta be the most popular exercise among male lifters in any gym and weight room in North America.  It’s probably one of man’s best friend.  Personally, I think it’s overrated, both from a athletic development stand point and a muscle building standpoint.  But I will admit that I, like most lifting male out there, enjoy it and I would have a hard time taking it out of my program altogether.  Let’s face it, chicks dig guys with a big bench.  Right? Huuuhh well, maybe not, but we all like to think they do!  Plus that’s not going to make us stop benching anyway.

But sometimes, when you have a bum shoulder the bench press might not be the wisest option.  Most guys will suck it up (which is probably the stupidest thing to do) and keep benching until they can no longer move their arm, because they don’t want to lose their strength on the king of all exercises, right?  When somebody ask you: “how much ya’ bench?” you obviously want to tell them: “I bench freakin’ 315, dude” and not: “Well, my shoulder kinda hurt so I can’t really push it; I have to stay light”.  But what are the alternatives when your shoulders hurt too much to bench press painless?  Well, there are many things you need to do in order to fix the problem, and the first one would be to get your shoulder assessed by a qualified professional.  According to the assessment, there will be many strategies you will need to use to get your shoulder back on track including soft-tissue work, mobility and flexibility work, and targeted corrective work.  The first goal is obviously to stay completely pain-free with any movement/exercise you’re doing.

But what are the options to maintain a training effect on your bench, while getting your shoulder back on track?  Here are a couple options you can try depending on your pain/injury status and what you can do without irritating it.

- Push up variations.  Push up is probably the safest pushing exercise you can use that’s going to spare your shoulder the most.  Most guys with shoulder pain can get away with doing push ups without any pain.  But aren’t push ups too easy and not challenging enough to get a training effect? I beg to differ.  There are many push up variations you can use that’s going to make them  A LOT more challenging, and there are many ways to load them as well.  So before you say push ups are too easy, give one of these a try:
1-Leg Feet Elevated Push Ups (Band Resisted)

Suspended Push Ups

Bodysaw Push Ups (these are actually REALLY hard)

- DB Floor Press. It is a great alternative to barbell bench press and one that you can load significantly too. Using the dumbbells (assuming you’re using a neutral grip) will put a lot less stress on your shoulders because you’re not stuck in internal rotation.  The limited range of motion that the floor provides you with also helps spare your shoulders.

- Board Press. Once your shoulders feel better and your ready to go back to straight bar benching, you should start with some board press, as it will keep your shoulders away from that end-range of motion that puts more stress on the shoulder. Start with 3 or 4 boards and slowly work down to 2 and 1, before going back to full range of motion benching.

As you can see, even if you can’t bench for a little while, there are ways to maintain a training effect and preventing any strength loss from not benching for a while. Remember that you first you need to get assessed to know what’s really going on with your shoulder and to clear out more serious issues before going any further. Also make sure that your shoulder is totally pain-free when performing any pressing work. Pain means irritation and that means something is still wrong with your shoulder, so don’t push it too fast.

Lunges are a staple exercise in every single-leg training program.  Most of the time it is the first exercise we teach our athletes and clients.  It’s a basic exercise, it’s efficient and it’s functional.  But one question stands: reverse lunge or forward lunge?  Here’s a in-depth comparison of both that should give some answers.

Reverse Lunges

The reverse lunge is usually a better option for beginners.  You don’t have to decelerate your body weight as much with your front leg as you do with a forward lunge.  Instead you’re stepping back and keeping your weight on your front leg the whole time.

Your body is not traveling forward, so no deceleration, which is part of the eccentric portion of the movement (and the hardest part of the movement to control).  Because of that, the  eccentric portion (when you go down) is easier with a reverse lunge.  On the way up, you’ll need to get a big push with your front leg to push yourself straight up (think of it as being axial loading, referring to the load vectors principle).

You’ll also get a significant push off from your back foot to help propel you forward and come back up in the starting position.
Because of the axial loading (straight down) on the front leg and the big push off from the back foot, you can load a reverse lunge a lot more than you can load any other type of lunges, whether it is with dumbbells, with a front squat grip with a barbell or with a back squat grip.  It is not uncommon to see beginners go up in weights very quickly with reverse lunges once they’ve mastered the movement.  I’ve seen many kids (younger than 16) get up to 70 pounds dumbbells and with 155 pounds on the bar for reverse lunges within 3 months of training.

To recap:

• The reverse lunge is easier to learn;
• It has more of an axial loading vector;
• You can load them up more than other types of lunges.

Forward Lunges

The forward lunge is definitely more difficult to perform, and to master as well, than a reverse lunge.  By taking a step forward, you are propelling your body forward, and therefore need to decelerate this forward momentum of your body weight with your front leg from the instant the foot touches the ground and all the way down to the bottom of the movement.

That portion of the movement alone makes a forward lunge a lot more challenging than a reverse lunge.  The concentric part (the push off to return to the starting position) is also more challenging.  The loading is more postero-anterior (again, referring to the load vectors theory), which means you need to push yourself up and back to return to the starting position.

Your body actually has to travel back to its original position, and therefore you need a big push off with your front leg.  Your push off also needs to be quick and powerful if you want to generate enough force to propel your whole body back.  Because of that increased need for a quick and powerful action you won’t be able to load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge (think of it this way: the heavier the load gets, the harder it is to move it fast.  The opposite also being true; the lighter the load, the easier it is to generate force quickly).  Another factor that’s going to limit the amount of weight you can use with a forward lunge is the fact that you don’t get much help from your back leg, because you’re actually pushing back.  A very important thing to note is that because you can’t load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge, doesn’t mean it’s an inferior exercise.  The deceleration (or increased eccentric) part of the movement makes it a great exercise to improve decelerative abilities for athletes.  Deceleration is a HUGE part of any sport, and crucial in quick transitions and efficient change of directions (athletes need to decelerate fast, and accelerate fast in order to have optimal quickness and agility).

To recap:

• The forward lunge is a more challenging exercise than the reverse lunge to perform;
• You can’t load it as much;
• It has more of a postero-anterior loading vector;
• It has a big deceleration component to it;
• It’s really effective for athletes to train deceleration.

In conclusion, there is not one exercise better than the other one; just a more appropriate choice depending on who it is for and what you’re trying to accomplish with it.  I hope this clarified any confusion that you might have had with this exercise.

Don’t forget that I opened up only a couple of spots for my online program design services!  If you’re interested, visit my Services page to read all the details, make sure you e-mail me as fast as possible; spots are limited!

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There are many important factors that account for the results you’ll get from your training: your training program, your nutrition (including supplement use), the quality and quantity of your sleep, the effort you put into your training and many other things.  Among these other things is your training environment.  Too much people underestimate the power of your training environment.  Lifting in a weight room where you’re surrounded by people stronger than you, people that push you and where you listen to loud and angry music will make all the difference in the world.

I have known this for a while, and I actually lived it the for the first time back in 2007, when I was an intern at Robert Morris University under Todd Hamer.  Before that, I was either lifting in commercial gyms or in private gyms and always with training partners that were weaker than me.  At RMU, I learned what it was to be surrounded by strong people and having the ideal atmosphere.  The progresses I made that summer were really surprising to me to say the least!  But then I went back to lifting in a commercial gym for two years and a half and most of the time I was lifting by myself.  That’s not to say that I didn’t make any progress during that time period, but it just wasn’t the same.

I have now been at Endeavor for close to a year, and I was looking back at the progress I’ve made in my training in the last year, and it’s simply amazing!  I’ve put on 18 pounds (14-15 being lean muscle), I broke my deadlift PR within 3 months of being here:

I broke my front squat PR about 2-3 months ago:

and I broke my bench press PR last month. And I’m no exception. Our athletes all experience similar results. The environment in which you lift is one of the most underrated, yet very powerful factor that will influence your results. It’s about the people you surround yourself with, it’s about the atmosphere, it’s about the coaches and it’s about the music!

If you don’t have the opportunity to train in that type of facility for different reasons and you’re stuck lifting in a commercial gym here’s two things you can do:

1- Find a good training partner (ideally stronger than you) who’s going to be reliable and who’s going to push you when you need it.
2- I-Pod! If you lift in a commercial gym and you don’t have your own music, it’s been proven scientifically that your testosterone levels are dropping at an alarming rate every second you listen to Justin Bieber. And I can assure you that the lady lifting the pink dumbbells for 57 reps of curls while chatting with her friend is going to have the best of you. So do yourself a favor and load your I-Pod with angry music. For a couple of suggestions, check out my blog post Top 10 Lifting Songs.  Rise Against, Korn, Rage Against the Maching, Eminem and Metallica are all decent options.  But let’s face it when you’ve been listening to the same stuff for a while, you need something angrier.  This is what led me over the years to become a huge fan of Slipknot and Devildriver.  If you feel like your lifting music is not kicking your ass hard enough this is a good choice to bring things to the next level:

Training for sports has been around for years, even for decades.  I haven’t made any specific research on the topic, but from what I’ve seen and heard people were training for sports as far back as the 1960s.

It’s cool to think that over 50 years ago, people understood the concept of training for sports; that they needed to do some type of strength work and some type of conditioning work in addition to the practice of their sport to become better athletes and perform better in their sport.  Understandably, what they did back then was not optimal because they didn’t know as much about the way the body works as we do today.  They didn’t know much about functional anatomy, energy systems, injury mechanisms and overtraining; research was simply not where it is today.

Training for sports over the 60s through the 80s has been strongly influenced by bodybuilding, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and distance running.  What they were doing back then was definitely not optimal, sometimes counterproductive and they had pretty much no injury prevention strategies.  All everyone did was go hard, give a 100% whatever they did.  When in doubt or when they didn’t get the results from the training program, they just worked harder.  It was also a time when everyone thought that more is always better.   Nobody ever questioned if the program made sense and if it was geared toward their goal or not.  After all, all types of training were created equal and any program was only as good as the effort you put in.

I really don’t have a problem with that; everything has to start somewhere.  And more than anything else, there is a valuable lesson to be learned through that: your training program is only as good as the effort you put in.  But everything has to evolve.  Or does it?

The problem I have with all of this is that WAYYY too many sport coaches, strength coaches and trainers today in 2011 are still doing the exact thing and using the exact same protocols they used when they were athletes back in the days.  They just transfer what they have been using 15, 20 and even 30 years ago when they were athletes, and having their athletes train the exact same way.  Like I mentioned earlier, we evolved, we learned things we didn’t know about how the body works and a lot of research has been done in the last 30 years.

Some training protocols never get old though!

So where does that leave us today in 2011? Training influences from decades ago still govern how most athletes train.  And even worse, they do it because they don’t know any better!  This is the sad reality of sports training today: most people go by what has been done over 30 years ago.  Coaches and trainers alike don’t go out to try and learn and understand what is optimal and what should be done.  Or is it because recent training knowledge is not spread enough by the people who know their stuff?  Or is it just because the culture change we desperately need hasn’t caught up yet?  All I know is that it leaves us with under-qualified exercise “specialists” in the sports training field, even at the professional level!  Instead of having well informed coaches and trainers that apply appropriate training principles, we have coaches who use what they used 20 years ago, which in turn probably comes from what their coaches at the time taught them that probably comes from what they used to do themselves 20 years prior to that.  So we end up with training strategies that go back 40-50 years ago that are flat wrong!

This is the training culture that is engrained in almost every sports in 2011.  There is a lot of people out there that really get it; they understand how the body works and how athletes should train to become better athletes; they went out of their way to learn new things and apply it with what we know is best for an athlete training for a specific sport.  But this is a very, very small percentage of the training community.  That same culture is present in every sport, as much at the amateur level as it is at the professional level.

How is it that distance running is still the most common training modality for high level baseball pitchers when a pitch takes no more than a second and the rest in between each pitch is at least 30-40 times longer?

How is it possible that VO2 max (an aerobic test that lasts usually more than 10 minutes straight) is one of the most commonly used test among professional hockey teams when the average hockey shift lasts around 30-45 seconds followed by at least a 3-4 minutes rest?

How could the leg press be one of the most commonly used lower body exercise to develop strength in athletes when there is clearly no sport that require you to drive as hard as possible with both legs at the same time with your back resting against an immovable object?

How is it possible that among basketball players who are clearly among the weakest athletes ever, there are a amazingly high percentage ofplayers who don’t even lift any weights in the off-season?

The culture engrained in sports today is completely retarded.  There are just so many things that don’t make sense and are totally outdated.  This even happens with coaches and trainers who have Bachelor’s degrees in exercise science and kinesiology.  Having been to college myself, I can tell you that a lot of the stuff they teach you is outdated.  We’re not going in the right direction to fix that problem at all when the “educated crowd” out there is taught stuff that is not updated.  Who’s to blame in that situation? The education system? The colleges?  The teachers that don’t always have updated material to teach because they don’t stay current themselves?  But I digress.

Something needs to change.  Something need to change quiclky.  In an era where performance enhancement is more important than ever and where the incidence of non-contact injuries is increasing at an alarming rate, something needs to be done.  Performance enhancement happens through proper training and dedication.  Non-contact injuries are preventable through good training as well, according to many experts.

The culture needs to change.  Hockey players should know that aerobic training is not optimal and that they have better options to improve their conditioning on the ice.  Baseball pitchers should know that they have so many options available to them to reduce the risk of shoulder injury that they can use between starts instead o just using distance running that might be more detrimental than beneficial to them.  Basketball players should know that max effort strength training will improve their vertical jump.

Everyone involved in sports should know those things.  It should be part of the culture.

Last year we had quite a few baseball players come train with us at Endeavor after they finished their season.  Most of the players who started early were pitchers, and we had some more position players join us throughout the summer and fall.  I wanted to share with you the progression one of our pitcher made throughout the off season.

That 16 years old pitcher came to us at 6’1″ and weighed 165 pounds.  When he first started, his best ever fast ball was 80 MPH, but he also said he only got that once as he was a constant 76-78 MPH.  His throwing shoulder was also very painful after every throwing session, whether it was bullpen session, long toss session or just about any game he played.  He even had some pain the day after training for the first couple of weeks he was in.

He didn’t come in as a total beginner in strength training, as he has been lifting in the past.  His numbers were pretty standard for a beginner of that age: 30s for DB reverse lunges, 35s for DB chest press, but he had a very hard time just doing 3 good push ups and the power he was putting in his med ball throws against the wall was borderline pathetic (boy, I wish I had a video of him at the beginning!) .

During the last 8 months we did a lot of mobility work for the thoracic spine, the hips and the ankles; we did a ton of med ball work to improve his rotational power, and we focused on big multi-joints lifts like lunges, chest press, rows and chin ups and got his strength up big time; we hammered the scapular stability stuff and worked on dynamic stabilization for the rotator cuff.  We also tried to emphasize the soft-tissue work using the foam roller and the lacrosse ball, and he went to get some ART work done with a qualified manual therapist to work on the muscles around the shoulder and scapula for a couple of sessions

Fast-forward 8 months later, he’s now 17, his body weight is up to 185, his push up form is flawless and he can probably bang at least 15 and the velocity on his med ball throws is pretty impressing.  His numbers went up a lot as well: he can DB reverse lunges 70s (165 with a bar and a front squat grip) for 6-8 reps and he can DB chest press 75s for 5-6 reps.  But most of all, he hit 87 MPH on his fastball last week and he doesn’t have anymore pain in his throwing shoulder, at all!  He is entering his senior high school season in just a couple of weeks and he’s more ready than ever to throw heat!  He also plans on playing at the College level next year, which makes things look very good for him.

All in all, we didn’t do anything crazy; just good, smart strength training, using specific modalities to take care of his throwing shoulder and get some soft-tissue work done on the overused structures.  It’s that simple!  There really is no gimmick to getting results with your athletes; you just need to understand the functional anatomy and the real demands of the sport and take that into consideration when you program for your athletes.  But apparently not enough people understand that, because there are still so many strength coaches and trainers out there who do all kind of stupid stuff that will do nothing but get their athletes injured in the long run.

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