30 Things I Want to Share
I started this post back in September when I noticed that I was exactly 30 years and 30 weeks old, thus, the 30 points I want to share. I hope you enjoy this one... going back and rereading what I had written, I realized this post was better than I originally gave it credit for. Lots of things I've learned about training, coaching, and life throughout!
- I’ve discovered that with every moment older I get, the less and less interested in material objects I become. I guess this is how real adults are able to buy things like vacation homes and afford retirement.
- Weight training does not make women gain weight, unless they are eating like they want to gain weight.
- Considering the cost of gas consumption when purchasing a car is one of the greatest financial lessons my parents ever taught me. It is also the reason why we own a Prius.
- Imposing a strict tempo is probably the most important change I’ve made in my programming over the last 4 years. Prior to that I really had very little appreciation for how powerful training the eccentric and isometric portions of every movement can be.
- Knowing you can provide well for you children is hugely satisfying.
- I frequently feel that only a handful of trainers/coaches in the world actually know how to teach a squat correctly.
- A professor I had in undergrad once told me "a Bachelor’s degree simply shows you have the ability to commit to something and finish it over a long period of time. The people at your first job will still have to teach you what you really need to know." It’s all about experience.
- Certifications mean very little. It’s, again, all about experience.
- Everyone who lives in and around DC should check out the National Arboretum. It’s a beautiful and relaxing place to unwind.
- I recently read a running book that did a much greater job explaining the importance of working at your current pacing level (i.e. % of 1RM for weights) than any weight-training book I’ve ever read. The book is Daniel’s Running Formula.
- Every trained female should be able to perform at least 3 pull-ups. I used to make excuses for myself about why I would never be able to do them… then I smartened up and figured out a great pull-up progression (see #9). After a bit of time, I found myself doing sets of 10 dead-hang pull-ups.
- Mel Siff’s Supertraining is still the most comprehensive book about anything ever written. My mind is blown every time I crack that book open. How someone produces a work like that is beyond my understanding.
- You can tell a great deal about how parents raise their children by how their kids act in the face of a challenge.
- “If you want to be fast, you have to move fast.” This is referring to bar speed in the weight room.
- “You will pass out before you die.” Another great weight room quote from a mentor of mine.
- If you’re unsure about set/rep schemes as they relate to percentage of 1RM. You MUST read Tim Kontos’ article on Prilepin’s Chart. I continue to reference this when I need solid guidance on final decisions in volume and intensity.
- Working to become less egocentric is an important endeavor to improve overall satisfaction with your life. For example, women who avoid the free weight area of a gym because “all the guys stare at me.” No they don’t. Get over yourself.
- Coaches (strength or sport) who become frustrated at athletes easily are not well equipped to be teaching in the first place. We’re teaching more than how to set a screen or do a pushup, we’re teaching life skills.
- Not having spent any time around babies before having one, I never really knew what the big-deal was… I get it now!
- Everyone should consider wearing shoes that have a zero drop or a very low drop. I don’t like the term “barefoot” shoes because you’re not barefoot. You still have shoes on they just don’t have any elevation change from heel to toe.
- You will be better off if you make an effort to go to sleep and wake up at around the same time every day (yes, weekend days are still days, so they count towards this).
- You don’t have to yell at athletes and put on a big show to get them motivated to perform. Just treat them calmly and with respect. Get excited when appropriate.
- Television is such a massive waste of time.
- Work on soft-tissue quality regularly.
- I fully believe in the idea and pursuit of the American Dream.
Our take on "sport specific"
Quite frequently we're asked, "Is this (insert sport here) specific training?" Here's our take: Understand that all athletes, no matter what sport, need to engage in general movements to enhance their global strength so to speak; these exercise include squats, deadlifts, rows, unilateral movements, horizontal pressing and pulling, vertical pulling etc. These are, and should be, the bread and butter of every good strength training program.
We also blend drills that have a bit more dynamic correspondence, or specificity, to one’s sport. For instance, with our baseball players we incorporate various overhead and rotational drills with light medicine balls to improve velocities on these various planes of motion.
These occur primarily in the offseason as competing for the energy to develop technical abilities is not as significant. When implementing, we're careful to not too closely mimic the intricate movement patterns required by sport, i.e. throwing a baseball, as this can lead to a hindrance in the actual development and create inconsistencies with that particular skill. Read that again; yes, mimicking too closely, or inappropriately weighting a particular movement can actually prohibit technical mastery of specific sport skill. This is why as one gets closer to a competitive season, and certainly as one is engaged in-season, we wean these drills from the student-athletes program as the acquisition and refinement of sport skills are of paramount importance during this time.
From an injury prevention stand point, we are very cognizant of the stressors placed on the body during various sports, and understand that many of these stressors transcend sports. As such we tend to focus most of our efforts on these areas in an attempt to combat the repetitive and asymmetrical nature of sport. Our efforts are also aimed to improve the shortcomings of the individual as each present their own intimate challenges.
Getting strong all day long,
Chris
Keep’um tucked…
Question:Do you have any research that says that elbows out pushups can cause injury or are less beneficial than elbows in?
Is it ever OK to do an elbows out pushup?
Jack
Answer:
Hi Jack:
Thanks for the question! Yes, there’s a bunch of research out there that supports the importance of keeping the elbows tucked during the pushup, most of which is found in health-science related journals that you have to pay for…but why pay when we can give it to you for free; Steve does a great job diagnosing the pushup, HERE!
My quick concise answer to your questions regarding the injury implications of performing pushups incorrectly is, yes, you’re putting yourself in a compromised position by letting the elbows flare. Not only are you creating all sorts of torque around the GH joint, but your scapular stability is compromised as well. It may not happen immediately, but over time, you’ll likely develop an injury from the repetitive stress. Not to mention the countless other imbalances being created by absorbing and producing force incorrectly.
Additionally, from a performance standpoint, it’s certainly not advantageous to the press with flare. Case and point, the picture below of some Detroit Lions linemen jamming the tackling sled…no elbow flare there…
But celebrate with flare…absolutely…
Finally, do I ever think it’s okay to perform an elbow flared pushup…not really. The only circumstance that I’d turn my head is during a testing scenario. Well, let me qualify that, a testing scenario that I’m not conducting. This may be applicable to military personnel. If they are going to let you flare, and you’re more accustomed to this style, I’d probably roll the dice. Conversely, if I’m testing athletes or the general pop at SAPT, less is more in my opinion; I’d rather see 5 perfect reps than 30 crappy ones.
Just keep’um tucked…
Chris
Understanding the Competing Demands of Your Athletes
I'll never forget my first major lesson in programming for athletes. I had been writing training plans for the athletes and general fitness clientele at SAPT for a couple months at this point, when Chris told me to write the next wave for one of our baseball guys. Now, this particular high school senior definitely fell to the right of the athletic bell curve: he was on scholarship to play baseball for a SEC Division I university (which he is currently doing), was right on track to win the region in wrestling (which he did), and carried a general sense of "I'm gonna make you crap the back of your pants if you get in my way" about him when he pushed the prowler.
This being the case, my first thought when Chris told me to write his next wave was, "Sweet! I'm gonna get to have a lot of fun with this guy." I eagerly sat down at my computer, cup of coffee in my left hand, while my right hand performed arts of wizardry (that would be, using the mouse to spray excellence all over the programming template).
For his first lower body day, I gave him some loaded jump squats and med ball work, followed up by multiple sets of heavy squats, then some speed deadlifts, followed by some high volume unilateral work and core stability exercises, with a decent chunk of hip dominant accessory work to bring up the rear. It was the perfect program. "This kid was going to grow like a weed upon finishing this 3-week wave," I intoned to myself at my desk.
Or not.
The next day, Chris and Sarah gently pulled me aside to give me a little lesson of the SAPT dojo:
"Something you need to understand is most of these kids have countless competing demands outside of the SAPT walls. In order to continue to truly develop them as athletes, you need to understand what they're facing throughout the other 23 hours of the day"
As it turns out, this high school senior I was so eager to obliterate was, at the time, throwing multiple days per week, playing at showcases on the weekends, lifting in the afternoons with his high school baseball team, AND lifting every morning during a weight training class. (Yes, you read that correctly, he actually dropped out of one of his core classes to take not one, but two, different weight training classes so he could lift every morning in the block scheduling system). Suffice to say, this guy loved being around the iron, up to the point of it nearly being disadvantageous because of all the abuse his body was receiving.
And I wanted to give him 100+ repetitions of CNS-intensive lower body movements in one single session. Right....
Now, (slightly, but only slightly) to my credit, up until I joined SAPT, the large majority of experience I had training people consisted of working with the Division 1 athletes of Virginia Tech, along with personal training a wide variety of clientele in both the Blacksburg and Northern Va areas. In both of these scenarios, the time I had with the athletes/fitness clients in the weight room was the only resistance training they were getting each day. Not to mention, the VT strength coach was handling the programming, and he was in constant communication with the coaches of the teams we were working with (so he knew what the kids were doing outside of the weight room).
In fact, that's one of the greatest differences between training athletes in the private sector (ex. a place like SAPT) and the public sector (ex. working for a Division I,II, or III university). In the private sector, you often have little control of what the athletes are doing outside your walls from a resistance training standpoint, as local coaches often demand that the players attend team lifts, conditioning sessions, and technique training (which sometimes, unfortunately, means throwing a ball until you're blue in the face).
The point of the story above is this: One of the best things you can offer those training under your watch is to not only understand what they are going through outside of your doors, but also be able to effectively program around this. While there are obviously multiple qualities that chip in to the training effect you're looking for, the body can only handle so much stress and thus you must comprehend how to aptly apply, or reduce, each stressor.
Are the athletes in performing loads of sprints and movement training work with their coaches? Reduce the lower body volume and adjust the exercises accordingly.
Are your overhead athletes in a phase where their throwing/hitting volume is ramped up? Pump the brakes a bit on their upper body training.
Is their central nervous system fried from simply doing too much, too frequently both on and off the field? Maybe they just need a light "bloodflow day" when they come to see you.
And this doesn't just apply to competitive athletes. Many times, your general fitness client may show up after completing a 10-hour work day, fighting traffic in the car for another hour, and having received only five hours of sleep the night prior because they had to take their daughter to a 4 a.m. swim practice. Their body may simply refuse to allow them to work at 90%+ of their 1RM.
The program I wrote for the aforementioned athlete may have been appropriate if he was in some sort of accumulation phase of training, his lifting at SAPT was the ONLY lifting he was receiving, and he made a point to eat and sleep as much as humanly possible while outside the gym walls. But this clearly wasn't the case, and so I had to quickly amend the remainder of his program to give him what he needed. To give him what he wasn't receiving from his high school lifting instructor and baseball coach.
Sometimes just a simple understanding what goes on outside of your doors will go a long way in allowing you to provide your people what they are paying you for with their time and money.
Squat vs. Box Squat (+ Personal Update)
I just stumbled upon a study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research in December 2010 titled: “Comparison of kinetic variables and muscle activity during a squat vs. a box squat.” Basically, what the study found is that box squatting was measured to produce both more force and more power than a traditional squat at certain working percentages!
I’m sure many people assume the box’s only value is to ensure depth, but those of us who are familiar with old articles from Westside Barbell or EliteFTS know better:
- A pause on the box – with or without relaxation – takes away the stretch-shortening cycle and forces the athlete to generate all that speed and power from the bottom position. No relying on stored energy, this pays huge dividends when you finally get the opportunity to use a “bounce” out of the hole.
- The same pause that removes the stretch-shortening cycle is also the responsible factor for why box squatting or dynamic effort box squatting can be considered valuable supplemental deadlift work, too. Why? In the deadlift you start from the bottom with virtually no stored energy.
- A bigger squat and a bigger deadlift?!? Sign me up!
Below I’ve put in a repost of mine from last May. Maybe the big gains were due to the BOX? Eh, it was still the dynamic effort work, I’m certain. But, I've now found real science backing up that decision to use a box:
Dynamic Effort Training to Fuel Huge Strength Gains (from May 2011)
I had something wonderful happen last week: the George Mason Throwers – who just came off the season – retested in the squat and everyone PR’d. I’m not talking 5lb PR’s, we had HUGE PR’s of 55lb and even 60lb (that’s a 365lb squat moving up to 425lb and a 455lb squat moving up to 510lb)! The lowest PR was 20lb. This progress occurred over about 16-weeks. By the way, I called the depth on each attempt myself, anyone who knows me personally knows I’m a stickler for proper squat depth.
I will be (and that day I was) the first to admit how shocked I was at our new numbers. You see, we were retesting so everyone could be sure they are working off the correct percentages for their summer training program. Coming off the season, I figured everyone would be down around their old max (if we’re lucky) or even below… that’s how it works, right? Maybe not…In hindsight, my approach to this team (much like the sprinters and jumpers I wrote about last week) has been extremely conservative. So what was the catalyst for all these great PR’s? Dynamic Effort Squats (or Speed Squats as they’re sometimes called) are the key to their success.
What are they? Dynamic Effort squatting is a squat that is performed using relatively low percentages and performed as fast as possible through the concentric portion.
Why did we use them?The Throws’ coach communicated to me at some point in December or January that the group, generally speaking, needed to learn to accelerate through to the “block” portion of the throw. I suggested Speed Squats.
How do you use them? Don’t mess with success: There is a pretty tried and true method to speed squat success and you can work off of these parameters for YEARS. If you are new to speed squatting try this wave over a three-week period: Week 1 10x2@50% - Week 2 10x2@55% - Week 3 8x2@60% - stay strict with a maximum of 60 seconds rest between sets.
Can Olympic lifts take the place of Dynamic Effort Squats? Theoretically, yes. In practice, absolutely not! The problem with the Olympic lifts and their variations is the complexity of the movement – it is, after all, its own sport. You are better off taking a simple movement that an athlete is familiar with and squeezing out every drop of progress (which will last through 4-5 years of a college career, I promise).
It blows my mind how relatively unknown Dynamic Effort lifting remains to many coaches. But, then again, the only reason I know the ins and outs of the method is via my colleagues over the years. Okay, I NEVER do this, so since you’re probably already sitting down – stay there! I don’t want anyone injured… Below are a full 4 waves of lower body lifting I wrote for the throwers this past semester. You’ll see that we did a lot of speed squatting and very little heavy accessory work. Really take a close look at the last few weeks. Oh, and a note about Wave 3, the team’s CNS was trashed so I took the DE squats out to let the team recoup. Finally, in addition to this mandatory team session lower body training day, we had an additional Saturday lift that was to be completed on their own. It consisted of very basic movements to “clean up” what we couldn’t get to during the two days they see me.
Wave 1: Weeks 1-3
A1 High Pull
6x3@65%
5x2@75%
4x1@85%+
A2 Rocking Ankle Mob
2x10
2x10
2x10
Banded DE Box Squat
10x2@40-50%
9x2@45-55%
8x2@50-60%
B1 Band Pistol Sq
2x5
3x5
3x6
B2 Pallof Press
2x6
2x7
2x8
C1 DB Swing
2x12
3x10
3x12
C2 Plate Pinch
2x:15
2x:20
3x:15
Wave 2: Weeks 4-6
DE Box Squat
10x2@50%
9x2@55%
8x2@60%
A1 Oblique Deadlift
6x3
6x2
4x1
A2 Body Saw
3x10
3x10
3x10
B1 Bulgarian Split Sq
2x5
3x5
3x6
B2 St. Arm Walkout
2x6
2x7
2x8
C1 OH Plate Squat
3x6
3x8
4x6
C2 Plate Pinch Driver
2x10
3x8
3x10
Week 7: Deload Week – light DB and bodyweight work… step away from the barbell!Wave 3: Weeks 8-10 – Taper Begins
“Low” Bar Squat (1/4 Squat depth)
4x3@75%
3x2@80%
3x1@85%+
A1 Oblique Deadlift
4x3
3x2
skip
A2 Partner Plank
4x:15
3x:20
2x:10
B1 SL DB RDL
3x6
2x8
2x5
B2 MB Side Throw
3x6
3x7
2x5
C1 OH Plate Squat
2x10
3x8
3x6
C2 Hex Hold
2xFAIL!
2xFAIL!
2xFAIL!
Wave 4: Weeks 11-13 – Taper Continues to Conference
DE Box Squat
5x2@50%
4x2@55%
n/a
“Low” Bar Squat
3x1
3x1
n/a
A1 SL ¼ Squat
2x5
2x5
2x5
A2 MB OH Throw
2x5
2x5
2x5
DB OH Squat
2x6
2x5
3x6
Lastly, here's a personal update from the weekend: Arabella "successfully completed" her first 1K race - I believe it was with a blazing fast time of 17:25. She made it on her own for a little less than half the race and I carried her the rest of the way.
In all honestly, the "Fun" Run was anything but fun. 1. It was super cold outside which wouldn't have been so much of a problem if they had started the race on time, not made everyone stand there for an extra 25 minutes. 2. Number 1 led to a fairly uncomfortable and cranky Arabella (finely tuned athletes can not be kept waiting!). 3. There was ice all over the place! Arabella slipped several times as she pushed for a PR.
The Goblin Gallop was well run, as always, and they certainly didn't have control over the weather. Regardless, I think this will be a wonderful memory for my family in the future!
Q&A: Strength training vs. conditioning
During the season, I have 2 days scheduled in the weight room. For the time in the wrestling room, should I not have them do any sandbag work? Should it all be "conditioning"? What's the difference between strength training and conditioning??
I'll start by answering the last question and then work my way backwards - What's the difference between strength training and conditioning?
The simple answer is that pretty much everything can be considered conditioning (even strength training). It all depends on how you are combining the movements and planning the work to rest ratios.
Specifically for wrestling (and all of the combat sports) I would absolutely suggest utilizing the sandbags along with body weight resistance. After all, the conditioning required for wrestling deals completely with one wrestler being able to manipulate another wrestler's body weight during a specific time frame. So, focusing 1 or 2 days a week (of the three set aside for conditioning) on weighted conditioning series/circuits would be completely appropriate.
Here is a sample 3-min circuit:
1. Sandbag Zercher Squat x :25 (:05 given as rest/exercise transition time)
2. Up/Down to Broad Jump x :25 (:05 rest)
3. Sandbag Overhead Carry x :55 (:05 rest)
4. Jump Pullups x :25 (:05 rest)
5. Tiger Crawl x :30
Repeat 2-5 times.
Another tip I can offer when planning your team's conditioning: look specifically to the nature of the sport FIRST and then design specific training around the work to rest ratios that naturally occur in the sport. As an example, when I've trained fighters in the past, I have used isometric holds (like the bottom of a pushup) as "rest." But, it's important to note that you have to lead your athletes to this level first! Rest can occur as literally rest OR it can occur with other movements that are easier than the main movements and thus allow the athlete to recover before the next intense bout.
Hope this helps a little bit!
