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.
Sign up for my FREE newsletter and you’ll instantly have access to 3 special reports on sports training on how to improve performance in any sport; you’ll want to get these to not make the same mistakes other coaches and athletes make when it comes to athletic development!
Last week during one of our meeting at Endeavor, one of our coaches came up with an interesting study that supported the use of caffeine to increase maximum strength. The study measured upper body strength in trained subjects(1). The study used a 1RM bench press test as well as a bench press test (with load = 60% of 1RM) to failure. The amount used was 5mg/kg of body weight and was compared to a placebo group. In both tests, with caffeine consumption pre-test, subjects showed an increase in both maximum strength (for 1RM test) and an increase in number of reps (for test to failure).
As I was going over PubMed to find the study, I also came across another similar study done only with women(2). The study measured the effects of caffeine on upper body strength in trained women(2). The tests used were the same one as in the previous one and also showed an increase in maximum strength in women who consumed caffeine prior to an upper body strength test. The amount of caffeine used was 6mg/kg of bodyweight and was compared to a placebo group.
The use of caffeine has previously been supported by research to improve endurance in longer duration exercises, but it’s the first time I actually come across studies that support the use of caffeine to improve maximum strength (1RM tests). These are only 2 studies that have been done within the last year, so I think it’s going to be interesting to see more research on the subject.
References
1. Duncan MJ, Oxford SW. The effect of caffeine ingestion on mood state and bench press performance to failure. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Jan;25(1):178-85.
2. Goldstein E, Jacobs PL, Whitehurst M, Penhollow T, Antonio J. Caffeine enhances upper body strength in resistance-trained women. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2010 May 14;7:18.
This year marks the first time in probably over 10 years that I finished all my holiday shopping more than 2 days before Christmas! Hopefully you did too! But if you still have gifts to buy to people around you who are either athletes, a coaches or just fitness enthusiasts, here’s a couple of ideas that you might want to consider.
This might be the perfect gift for anyone who doesn’t have access to a good coach or trainer, or anyone who doesn’t want to spend hours writing his own programs and going through trial and error to find what works. Eric Cressey has done an outstanding job with this product, and he’s basically eliminating the guessing work one needs to go through when building his own training programs. Show and Go is a proven system that has been put to the test by many before Eric actually launched the product. It provides you with 16 weeks of programs that guarantee you the results you’re looking for. The whole Endeavor staff has been on the Show and Go system for the last 10 weeks, and we’ve ALL made tremendous gains in both size and strength! Click HERE to get your copy now!
This is a great gift idea for anyone involved in hockey training; whether it’s for a player or a coach, a membership to HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com is a gift that will help them get better. Some of the brightest minds in hockey training are behind that website; names like Mike Boyle (Boston University), Sean Skahan (Anaheim Ducks), Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks), Darryl Nelson (USA Hockey) and Endeavor’s own Kevin Neeld are all contributing to the website to help develop better hockey players. For less than 10$/month (less than 100$/year if you pay all at once), a membership to this site will guide any hockey player in the right direction when it comes to his training. What’s even cooler is that you have the option of signing up and getting a 30 day trial for only $1! If you’re not satisfied with the content (which won’t happen trust me!) you can just cancel you subscription. Click HERE to get the 30 day trial.
With the new year coming up, for all these people making fat loss related resolutions, the Precision Nutrition System is definitely the ideal present to guide them through their lifestyle and nutritional changes that will lead them to their results. The Precision Nutrition System includes everything you need to help you make necessary changes in your eating habits in order to get results; everything from cookbooks to online support through the Precision Nutrition website, everything is included. The price is currently down from $147 to $97 for the whole system, so order now!
So if you need a last minute gift for the athlete or fitness enthusiast in your life, one of these should be a perfect fit.
On a side note, as I’ve mentioned last week I’m working on a couple different projects. One of them is related to my website and my readers; stay tuned next week for a special announcement as well as a thank you gift for my readers who have been following my work!
Today’s post, which I’m pretty pumped up about, is an interview I did recently with fellow strength coach Bret Contreras. For those of you who don’t already know Bret, he’s a very smart and well read coach who has been in the research field quite a while. He is now a well established strength coach, training clients in his own gym. He’s also been under the bar for quite a while himself. Bret is actually moving to New Zealand in the next couple of months to pursue his PhD, so that will make him even smarter! Bret was kind enough to let me pick his brain for a couple of questions on how he views strength and conditioning. So without further ado, here it is:
DL: Bret, your name has been around for quite a while now in the strength and conditioning world. You have been writing for T-Nation and on your own blog, but most importantly you have actually been training clients and been under the bar yourself for quite a while now, which I think are two very important things to do in order to become a successful coach. You have mentioned to me that you think coaches and trainers should possess a variety of skills to better serve clients and athletes alike. Would you mind naming a few and telling us how they impact the way we deal with clients and athletes?
BC: First off David, I’d like to thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate the fact that you’re interviewing me. Here are some of the skills that will help coaches and trainers be more successful:
-Critical thinking: Strength training is an art and a science – an arta scienza.
Training really IS an art
Coaches should put a ton of thought into their athletes’ and clients’ programs, and each program should differ based on a myriad of factors:
-Knowledge of autoregulation: Coaches should never completely stick to a pre-set plan with their athletes and clients. Coaches should adapt their programming on the fly based on their verbal feedback as well as their biofeedback.
-Psychology: Coaches should try to be good motivators, to “believe” in their athletes and clients, to have high expectations, to figure out what makes their athletes tick and adapt their approach accordingly, and to push them hard while still having fun.
-Knowledge of the history of strength & conditioning: Coaches should try to develop an appreciation for the evolution of the iron game and should be able to rattle off the training philosophies of many different experts.
-Ability to discern the truth: Coaches should possess a sound understanding of the workings of the human body so they will intuitively know what works and what doesn’t.
DL: That is definitely why it’s so important to have a good educational background in this field. I know you have been involved quite a bit in the research world and in particular with muscle EMG for a variety of muscles in different movements, especially with the glutes (and on a related note you’ve been named The Glute Guy, which is probably the coolest nickname ever for a strength coach!). That being said, for the glutes, do you find any difference between open chain and closed chain glute exercises as they correlate to performance in different sports and activities?
BC: I won’t pretend to know the answer to this, but I will tell you that the more I research the more I realize that I don’t know everything I once thought I knew. There’s so much we don’t know about strength training, and our understanding about what transfers best to sport performance is seriously lacking.
I will tell you this – open chain glute exercises render surprisingly high EMG levels. When the thigh can move freely with no ground-communication the glutes seem to contract very hard. Some individuals have trouble activating their glutes in a closed chain environment, but if you put them in an open chain environment they do much better in terms of glute activation. I think it’s wise to make the focus of lower body training on closed-chain movements – squats, deads, lunges, Oly lifts, hip thrusts, ghr’s, back extensions, and hip rotational work. But I also think it’s wise to supplement with open chain hip isolation work – band or cable adduction, abduction, and flexion, reverse hypers, and quadruped hip extensions.
DL: What I really like about your blog and your articles is that you always bring up new ideas and you think outside the box, which I think many coaches and trainers (including myself!) are not very good at. One of the new concepts you brought up that I really like are the ‘Load Vectors’. I find it very interesting and I don’t think many people understand this concept yet. Could you elaborate a little bit on what Load Vectors are and tell us what their practical applications are in strength and conditioning.
BC: The best coaches were already incorporating load vector training into their programming long before I came around. I just came up with a naming system. I’m absolutely amazed that no one came up with this model before I did. The model, which involves axial, anteroposterior, lateromedial, and torsional components, ensures:
-optimal multi-directional strength development
-optimal multi-directional power development, and
-optimal structural balance
This way, the client performs better and stays healthy. Coaches and trainers need to understand the various exercises that can be performed for each vector and which are best for various portions of the force-velocity curve.
DL: A topic that’s hot right now in the training world is core training. I think core training will probably always be a controversial topic as as we understand the core more and more from a functional standpoint, and (thank God) begin to move away from the “just do 100s of crunches mentality” that was so typical of the past. What is your take on core training? And what are you doing differently in that regard?
BC: My take is that we still don’t have it all figured out. Here are some questions that coaches should be thinking about in regards to core training:
-what are the different categories of core exercises?
-is there an optimal amount of volume for the core?
-should the core be trained specifically or does it get worked just fine from compound movements?
-should the core be trained for strength, power, endurance, or all three?
-what rep ranges work best for the core, and are those rep ranges uniform for all types of movements?
-should we train the core for movement, stability, or both?
-are there any advantages and disadvantages to training with dynamic spinal movements?
-are there any advantages and disadvantages to training with static-based stability movements?
-should specific core training be placed before or after the strength component of the workout?
I won’t pretend to know all the answers to these questions either, but I will tell you that the research gives us incredible clues as to how we should train the core. To understand the answer to these questions, you really have to have a sound understanding of spinal biomechanics.
DL: I know you train a lot of female clients; the way we train females has been another hot topic lately. What do you think we should do differently with females clients and athletes compared to males, and also, what should we NOT do differently?
BC: I love training women, and I believe that I’m one of the best in the biz at getting women to look good. Of course, getting clients to look good has more to do with coercing and motivating them to be strict on their diets than it does with sound training. However, in terms of training there are some important considerations. Women are weaker – especially in the upper body, less powerful, and have a tenth of the testosterone that a man has.
As to what we should do differently, women have a higher ratio of type I to type II hypertrophy than men. In fact, their type I fibers are often larger than their type II fibers. This means that higher rep training should be interwoven with lower rep and medium rep training. Furthermore, women recover in strength quicker than men. This means that increasing the frequency with your female clients is a wise strategy. Finally, women often have different goals than men. Listen to their goals and plan accordingly. Most really appreciate a routine that includes tons of targeted glute-work.
What doesn’t change, assuming that the woman has a goal to improve the shape over her entire body, is the emphasis on progressive overload for the big basic compound movements from the primary movement patterns – quad dominant, hip dominant, horizontal press, horizontal pull, vertical press, vertical pull.
DL: Good stuff! Bret, thanks a lot for your time!
This is it folks. Make sure you check Bret’s blog, as he has some great content each and every week! It is definitely one of my favorite websites to visit to get good information on strength and conditioning.
Complex training refers to a form of training that uses a combination of a strength exercise and a power/plyometric exercise to improve total power output. The concept is to do a loaded (preferably a maximum strength exercise) followed by a power exercise like a jump variation for example. The science behind this method is that by doing the strength exercise first you will increase the efficiency of your nervous system by engaging a maximum number of fast twitch muscle fibers, and immediately taking advantage of this improved neural drive by performing a power exercise; the result being more fast twitch muscle fibers engaged in the power exercise, and therefore a better force output (resulting in higher jumps if you’re using a jumping exercise for example). This method is very effective to develop strength, speed and power.
Here is a good example of complex training by combining a Trap Bar Deadlift with Broad Jumps (Please note that in the video I’m actually doing the 2 exercises within 15 seconds apart from one another. In reality, you would want to wait longer, somewhere between 30 seconds up to 3 minutes) :
You want to keep the number of reps low on the strength exercise and the weight below your RM (rep max); the goal is to take advantage of the increased CNS (central nervous system) activation without creating fatigue, which would defeat the whole purpose of the method. Also you will want to use 2 exercises with a similar movement pattern because the increased neural drive will be movement specific to a certain degree; by doing this you will benefit the complex method the most.
The possibilities are just endless with the complex training method; your imagination really is the only limit. A great tool to have for complex training is the Vertimax platform. However expensive, the Vertimax gives a lot of options when it comes down to complex training.
My colleague and friend Kevin Neeld put up an awesome video on how we use the Vertimax with our athletes at Endeavor. Kevin talks about how to use the Vertimax for complex training, but also talks about how to use it for hockey-specific movements. The video is just great and it’s only 6 minutes long, so make sure to check it out:
It’s been a little while since I’ve done a random thougths post, and since I have a couple interesting things to share with you I figured now would be a good time!
1. All the Endeavor staff is on Eric Cressey’s Show and Go program right now and the progress we’ve all made since starting the program 6 weeks ago has been phenomenal! I hit PRs on the trap bar deadlift and the front squat and I also added 5 pounds of muscle since starting! And all the Endeavor staff has made similar progress. Eric actually gave us some love in his blog this past Tuesday in that regard; CHECK IT OUT HERE. Eric has done an incredible job with Show and Go and the results speak for themselves. If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you get it. You are provided with 16 weeks of programs to get bigger, stronger all while reducing your risk of injuries and imporving your posture. How much better can it get? Eric also provides you with videos for every single exercise in the Show and Go programs. Get your copy of Show HERE.
2. I really like to learn new exercises and stretches as it adds variety to your training, and most of the time these new exercises and stretches will feel totally different than any other thing you’ve been doing. This is why I like the wall adductor stretch so much…probably my new favorite one!
I will admit that the position is a little suspicious, but the benefits you get from it are totally worth it! Give it a try, and make sure you keep your butt as close to the wall as possible and keep your knees straight.
3. Last week, I celebrated my first Thanksgiving by eating a lot of food and watching football all day! That holiday also marked the return of a couple of our hockey players who took the opportunity to get a couple of training sessions in at Endeavor while they were back home for Thanksgiving. While conditioning the guys on the slideboard with Phil Collins blaring on the stereo, it just reminded me how much of a good time this past summer was.
I can’t wait for next summer!
4. Last week I was talking with one of my friends in Montreal who was telling me about some knee problem he’s had for a while. He also told me that he saw a professional who recommended he gets some orthotics because his feet were the problem. After getting the orthotics, his pain magically disappeared. But within 2 months though, his knee pain came back to bother him. I was trying to explain to him that his feet probably weren’t the problem and that someone needed to look at him with a more global perspective than just looking at the feet. He agreed to go see anyone I would refer him to, but he also insisted on the fact that the professional he saw put him through different tests for his feet and that there was clearly a problem there. And he also said something like: “the guy’s gotta know his stuff he’s worked with professional sport teams in the past”. As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I don’t care if you work with pro athletes, you still can suck at what you do. That doesn’t mean you’re good; it only means you have good contacts and you’re good at selling yourself. But I digress. After contacting an athletic trainer I used to work with in Montreal and explaining her the situation without letting her know what I thought about the situation, here was her reply:”Orthotics might help in the acute phase, but in the long run they are crutches most of the time and they probably won’t correct your real problem. You need to look at the global picture and not focus only on the knees and feet, and assess everything from the hips down.” I couldn’t have agreed more. It’s really great to see people in the field who really get it. And more than anything else, it also highlights the importance of having a good network of professionals around you.
As I’ve mentionned often in the past, I’m a firm advocate for single-leg training. I believe it is truly one of the most important part of lower body training, especially for athletes. It’s more functional, more sport-specific and better for injury prevention purposes. At Endeavor, we use a ton of single-leg lifts with all our athletes, and most of the time we use these single-leg lifts as our main lower body strength exercise.
Some of you might wonder what type of exercise we’re using, because let’s face it, you can’t DB reverse lunges all the time. So here’s a little insight to the progressions we use with our single-leg lifts.
- The DB reverse lunge is the first variation we use 99% of the time. Dumbbells keep your center of mass low, so therefore it’s not too hard on your balance compared to other variations.
A reverse lunge will allow you to use a good push off your back leg, so it is easier for athletes and clients who don’t have a lot of single-leg strength. A reverse lunge is also easier than a forward lunge because you don’t have a big deceleration component on your front leg like you have with a forward lunge. This deceleration component makes it much harder to keep a proper upper body posture throughout your set.
- The second one on our progression list is still a reverse lunge, but in which we will change the center of mass by using a back squat grip or a front squat grip with a barbell. Since the load is much higher, the center of mass moves up and it makes it harder to maintain your balance.
Another variation we use to make it harder by moving the center of mass higher is to use dumbbells overhead. This is a variation we will use more in conditioning circuits or to unload the joints, because the overhead position makes it very hard on the core and shoulder muscles. So what happens most of the time is the core and shoulder muscles will be the limiting factors before you get to a weight that’s going to be heavy enough to be challenging for your lower body.
- Third on the list would be the rear foot elevated (RFE) split squats with dumbbells (a.k.a. bulgarian split squats). Having your back foot on a bench makes it harder to get help from your back leg compared to a lunge; so, more weight is supported on your front leg. Some beginners don’t have the strength to do a RFE split squat; they need to do lunges for a little while to get their strength up before they can progress to a RFE split squat.
- Then, of course, you can progress the RFE split squat with dumbbells to a RFE split squat with a back squat grip or a front squat grip with a barbell. Once again the center of mass is shifted higher, so it makes the exercise more difficult.
- Once you’ve mastered the reverse lunges and RFE split squat variations, you can progress to a slideboard reverse lunge. Don’t let the name fool you, because it is much harder than any other lunging variation. The reason is that because of the nature of the slideboard (slippery…duh!), you can’t really use your back leg to help you much; putting more weight on the back leg would make your foot slide away from your body and dangerous things could happen. Just keep in mind that you have very little support from your back leg and you’re using mostly your front leg to pull yourself up, so you need a decent amount of single-leg strength before you try it.
- Last on the list is the single-leg squat and its variations. The main reason why it’s the hardest one is because the leg you’re not using is totally unsopported, therefore it can’t help you at all. You need very good single-leg strength in order to do this one; especially when you perform it with a full range of motion.
All in all, this might not be the exact same progression we use with 100% of our client because there is many factors to consider when building a program; how old is the client? how much lifting experience does he have? how strong is he? does he have any restriction or injury? etc. All these factors will dictate the progressions we’ll use with everyone of our athlete. Also keep in mind that there are many other ways to progress single-leg lifts and make them more challenging, but this is a basic progression that should give you a pretty good idea on where to start and how to progress athletes and clients from there.
If you have been following my website for a while now, you probably know that I’m a big advocate of an appropriate long term development plan for every athletes. I strongly stand against early sport specialization and I honestly think that if we would get away from that, we would have a lot less of injuries in sports and surgeries related to overuse. It is very hard to get people to understand that when you have 90% of people involved in sports training (parents, coaches and trainers) that advocate the exact opposite: if you want to get better in a certain sport, you need to play more and more and more and do it year-round as young as possible so you can develop better.
I went into great details in previous blog posts why this is a totally retarded way of thinking. By doing so, you’re not developping better athletes, you’re actually developping patterns for overuse injuries. That being said, it is our job as strength coaches to educate athletes and parents on why this is so bad and how they should go about training the right way and following a good development model for optimal development and long career as injury-free as possible.
The first step to take in that direction is obviously to have the different national sport associations to endorse a good development model and help promote that to organizations, coaches, parents and players. The big problem we have right now is that these organizations don’t get it. So when you see steps taken in the right direction, it’s really satifying to know that they start to get it and want to help change the trend that is currently poisoning most sports. Mike Boyle gave a presentation about the long term athletic development for hockey players to USA Hockey a couple of days ago. Coach Boyle is one of the smartest, most experienced strength coach out there; he has seen it all in his long career and he has probably trained more hockey players than anybody else in the world. Most athletes he trains, if not all, turn out to have long careers and very few injuries; so, there’s gotta be something he’s doing right. Here is the video of the presentation. I need to warn you that it is an hour and 20 minutes long, but make sure you listen to it; it’s all really worth it.
To me, to know that USA Hockey actually took a step in the right direction and took the time to listen what coach Boyle had to say, tells a lot about the organization and where they’re headed (they also made several changes within the organization and to their development model recently). Don’t be surprised to see more and more American hockey players emerge at the pro levels in the next decade or two.
Please, if you know anyone involved (closely or not) in sports, you need to forward this blog post or just the video to them, whether they’re parents, coaches, athletes and anyone else.
