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Athletes train completely different than the average person. Not only do they need to train in the weight room for power and strength adaptations etc., but their movement on the field or court is MORE important. An athlete may be able to bench 400 pounds and squat 500, but if they cannot move their weight both in a linear and lateral fashion efficiently, they will not be very successful in their respective sports come competition time.

If you break it down into thirds, the weight room is just a third of what is involved in training athletes while the other thirds are movement and sport specific skill development (which is usually taught by sport coaches). The difference between a personal trainer and a sport performance coach is that the SPC not only can coach in the weight room, but can also coach and teach proper acceleration, deceleration, multi-directional movement patterning along with the crossover and shuffle motions that are utilized in almost all sports.

Growing up, most athletes were never taught the correct way to accelerate (gain speed) and decelerate (slow down) their bodies while participating in what we thought were speed and agility drills. We were always told “run faster!! move quicker!!!” but were never taught the proper cues of lowering our center of mass and widening our base as we decelerated to a cone or opponent. We were not shown from this “break down” position how to change direction by identifying which leg would become our drive leg and which one would be the push leg etc. There is a reason why collegiate and professional coaches hire experts in the area of sport performance.

Nick Saban, the head football coach at the University of Alabama, does not coach his athletes in the weight room or when they are performing speed and agility drills during summer work outs. He has a whole entire strength and conditioning staff for this and he believes these coaches are the catalysts for successful seasons. These coaches typically have certifications and qualifications in the field of Sport Performance, Performance Enhancement, Strength and Conditioning, not personal training. It is important to understand the differences between a coach and a personal trainer. It is cool to see so many people interested in sport performance now, especially for our youth in preparing them for the next level.

Jared Saavedra

M.S., CSCS, PES, USA-W SPC, CPT, YFS, YSAS

The question I get asked the most from athletes, sport coaches and parents is “How do you train athletes of different sports together and still make their program sport-specific? I will usually follow up that question with a question. What does a sport-specific program look like to you? What would you think that consists of? I will get answers such as “well they need to be in shape for soccer, they need to get faster, stronger” but they are unable to explain what that means. However, it may not be their fault.

The term “sport-specific training” is wildly circulating the industry of strength and conditioning but collectively, we are unable to pin point what it means exactly. Let’s look at it. The term is simply defined as training that enhances and improves the specific demands of a sport. This means that every exercise within a program directly improves an outcome of what the sport requires. This is where it gets muddy. There seems to have been a new wave of training where you add resistance to very specific and intricate skills to mimic the actual sport.

Examples would be mimicking a punch with heavy dumbbells, hitting a golf ball with a weighted golf club, shooting a medicine ball that weighs more than a basketball to get those body parts stronger when it can actually do a lot more harm by making the athlete compensate and turn to bad mechanics and technique. Fatigue does that. I have also seen kids run through an obstacle course full of cones, hurdles and other things then catch a football at the end and that is considered sport specific. If you want to get better at your sport, practice your sport. If you want to be a better shooter in hoops, practice shooting. If you want to develop specific skills in a sport, practice those skills (skill development). Do not add weight or resistance to them to the point where the mechanics change. You defeat the purpose.

So if all soccer, football and lacrosse athletes accelerate and sprint in their sport that means we should plan exercises that develop and strengthen those movement patterns. When an athlete jumps in a vertical fashion, they exhibit explosive triple extension (which is the same movement pattern when you are in the acceleration phase of a sprint). Exercises such as dead lifts and squats both strengthen this movement. How about when an athlete changes direction? They must load (eccentrically) on one leg, display proper ankle stability to line up joints correctly to push off the planted leg to optimize muscle recruitment from the glutes, hamstrings and quads extending the knee and hips violently to change direction. A lateral lunge or a split squat provides similar movements. Single leg strength is very important for any sport. It just does not look as sexy when you cannot load nearly as much weight for single leg work but the benefits are ten fold for athletic performance.

As strength coaches we should know better. We should understand the demands and movement qualities of the various sports our athletes participate in but keeping in mind the bigger picture; total athletic development. A few years ago, I began training a youth female soccer athlete. On our second day she asked me “why are we lifting upper body when I play soccer?” I talked to her about the importance of what we call building the armor for our bodies to endure a long season and how the stronger you are the less likely you will be injured. She broke her collarbone the next week. She never asked me that again. I bring up this experience for parents, athletes and sport coaches to look at the bigger when creating a program for an athlete. Just because an athlete may use their upper bodies sparingly through out a competition does not mean that they should not train their upper body. Every athlete should be able to squat, hinge, push, pull, carry things and sprint. Do not confuse skill development and sport specific training and understand their differences. Look at the athlete as a whole for long-term success.

Here are some great tips for those working with young athletes created by Coach Fred Fornicola.

• Implement a safe, efficient, and effective full-body strength program two to three times per week. Have them work on all the major muscle groups and include exercises specific to strengthening the hands, calves, and in particular, the neck. Use a high level of effort with controlled movement. Include 7-10 exercises per workout and have them move quickly between exercises.
• Additional conditioning work is optional when the athlete is strength training intensely a couple times per week and practicing his or her sport. Conditioning, if needed and included, should be broken down properly. Over conditioning an athlete can lead to injuries and burnout very easily.
• Practice, practice, practice, but make sure the athlete is practicing properly. You can practice all day long that 2+2=5, but you’d be wrong every single time. Make sure what your athletes are practicing is correct.
• Have them become a student of the sport. Make sure they watch other athletes on all levels so they can learn more about the game and particular situations, so they can further their understanding of the sport.
• Have your athletes work on their auditory and visual skills as well. Being able to watch plays unfold and communicate will improve their skill set and effectiveness tremendously.

Jared Saavedra, MS, CSCS, PES

The Science Behind Plyometrics: What Are Plyometrics Intended For And Where Is Their Place in Programming?

As an athlete gets stronger in the weight room, it means very little if those “gains” can’t be carried over into their sport. An increase in power output, strength, stability, mobility and force production can all be measured and achieved by a solid strength and conditioning regime. However, when these specific types of qualities improve,

They are typically trained in a controlled environment; the weight room. We all know that sport is anything but controlled and the demands of each sport can vary from play to play, period to period or round to round. These demands require the ability to produce, control and reduce force (Turner and Jeffreys, 2010). When the demands of these forces increase, so can the probability of injury. Therefore, it is important to develop a tolerance or familiarity to a chaotic environment through plyometric training.

The objective of plyometric training is to link speed and strength through basic human movement patterns. These powerful movements are known as plyos. Plyometrics utilize what we refer to as the stretch shortening cycle (SSC). To keep it simple, the SSC is a rapid shortening and lengthening of muscle to produce a powerful movement that aims to harness, transfer and release energy. Plyos are meant to be explosive and often get confused with conditioning modalities with trainers and sport coaches, so it is important to understand that you can over train using plyos and be more susceptible to injuries just like you can when lifting weights. On the contrary, not implementing plyometric training can lead to injuries, especially non-contact in nature, when the body is not accustomed to the force and demands placed on them come competition time. Programming and tracking the amount of contacts per week (volume) with your athletes is crucial as well as planning around their other activities.

Before implementing plyometrics into your program, be sure to assess the readiness of your athletes or yourself first. There are various methods and ways to do this. I have seen formulas where an athlete must be able to back squat at least their body weight or sometimes 1.5 times their body weight. When it comes down to it, the athlete must be able to perform a solid squat and lunge pattern. If the athlete does not squat or lunge properly, it can be risky to add these movements. To get a better idea on a proper screen, google Coach Loren Landow’s presentation on plyometric at the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Tactical Conference. He will guide you on what to look for during this assessment and the biomechanics involved in jumping and landing. Plyometric training is demanding on the musculoskeletal system but even more so on the central nervous system and a thorough warm up should be performed prior to this type of training.

Often times, when I see trainers and sport coaches implementing plyometric movements within their training program, they usually are unable to explain the reasoning behind why they are performing these movements in the first place. I have seen athletes adding 20 jump squats in between heavy sets of deadlifts (when the intent was to maximize strength) with very little rest in between because well, it’s “hard.” Just doing whatever is hard can also be very counterproductive in your performance goals, especially as an athlete. Understand what you are asking them to do and make sure you can give them the “why” behind your methods.
 
Benefits of Plyometric Training: Speed and Velocity Adaptations

Injury Reduction:

• Allows body to handle fast stretch loads
• Allows body to store energy elastically to decrease energy cost of movement
• Helps body coordinate movements involved in change of change of direction and reactive movements (Myer et al., 2008)

Performance:

• Allows body to generate force quickly because of increased explosive strength
• Increased Reactive Strength
• Minimizing energy leaks by transferring force through joints more efficiently (Aagard at al, 2002, Komi, 2003)

Movement Classifications:

• Hops- Exploding off one leg and landing on the same leg
• Bounds- Exploding off one leg and landing on the opposite leg (think lateral bounds).
• Jumps- Exploding off of two legs and landing on both
• Directions- Vertical (Up and Down), Medial/Lateral (Side to Side) and Horizontal (Forward).

Executions:

Non-Counter movement: beginning in a shortening position—>lengthening (arm swing is initiated from the starting position: there is no counter movement, so there is no full arm swing)

Counter-movement– beginning in a lengthening position—>shortening–>lengthening (vertical jump testing)

Double Contact– beginning in a shortened position, followed by contact on the ground (pre-loading) right into the lengthening movement (triple extension)

Continuous– continuous counter-movement reps (think non-stop jump squats, except you are are spending minimal contact time on the ground; the objective is to produce as much force in the shortest amount of time).

Plyo Training Recommendations: (Athlete’s Performance, 2013)

I have used this guideline numerous times through out my programming and I have found it useful and appropriate for many levels of athletes. I usually program two different movements in each session that are performed in different planes ie: double broad jump with single leg lateral bounds. You can also add or superset with an Olympic lift or any other ballistic movement.

• Training Frequency/Time Per Session: 2-4x per week, 10-15 minutes per session
• Movements Per Session: 2-3
• Sets/Reps Per Session: 5-8 sets/ 3-6 reps per set
• Rest: 1-3 min between sets
• Daily/Weekly Contacts: 25-50 per session/ less than 120 contacts per week

Final Coaching Tip: When possible, make plyos as measurable as possible. Athletes typically do not understand how fatiguing these movements are to their central nervous system unless they see their results in a measurable fashion. When I tell an athlete “okay, you are going to give me 6 vertical jumps, really pushing away from the ground”, they give me a look that says “6? That’s it? I can do 15!” I say “okay, well lets do this; I want you to stand perpendicular to the wall but close enough to where you can touch it. You are going to jump 15 times continuously and you will reach as high as you possibly can and touch the wall on every rep.” As the athlete performs this drill, you will notice their power starting to dramatically diminish around the 6^th rep or so. Why? Because their central nervous system is shot and the movement becomes more and more of a conditioning tool and less of a power/plyometric exercise, which was the original intent.

People waste their time performing hundreds of jump squats when their goal is to add height to their one rep vertical jump because they believe the more jump squats they do, the better that movement will be when there are a lot of other variables involved. If you want to be explosive, you need to train explosively and to train explosively; you need to have adequate rest in between sets so that you can perform with high intensity for every rep. Use cones and other tools to measure and track reps and sets. This is a simple guide so if you have any more questions, you can email me at CoachJared@athleteready.com

Jared Saavedra, M.S., CSCS, PES, USA-W, MMACA