Sarah Walls 9/20/11 Sarah Walls 9/20/11

Teaching Triple Extension

Want to work on improving everything from linear sprint speed, power, change of direction, force production, vertical jump, and deceleration strength? I know, who doesn’t, right? These qualities should be included in the very definition of athletic success.

The triple extension is a huge key aspect to unlocking all of these qualities in concert. It is also the component that is common through virtually all the movements that come to mind when thinking about the ideal strong, fast, and powerful athlete. Some good examples are a wrestler shooting, a sprinter coming off the blocks, throwers at the point of release, the vertical jump in a volleyball attack, etc.

What is Triple Extension?

Triple extension is the simultaneous extension of three joints: ankle, knee, and hip. Getting all of these areas to extend powerfully at the perfect moment is a beautiful and natural occurrence. Mess it up and, well, it looks really bad…

Why should Triple Extension be taught, developed, and progressed?

Again, if you’re looking to unlock and develop the athletic potential in yourself or an athlete under your guidance, then triple extension work is a must. Perfection of this movement during training will result in a faster, more powerful athlete on the court, field, or mat. And if you’re faster and more powerful, you WILL be more successful and less injury prone.

Teaching Progressions:

Basic Bodyweight Strength Exercises – pushups, pull-ups, body weight squats, body weight lunges, etc. should all be considered foundational portions of any athletic development program and should NEVER be skipped. Trust me, no one is “too advanced” for this type of work. These movements have their place in any program whether they appear in the warm-up or the body of the training session.
Medicine Ball Overhead Throw – this particular exercise allows triple extension to occur. However, I like using other MB variations to teach a powerful hip extension like a Scoop Throw. I suggest 2-3 sets of 4-6 repetitions for beginners and 3 sets of 2-5 repetitions for more advanced athletes.
Broad Jump and Vertical Jump Variations – these are fantastic because you can add subtle variations almost endlessly to increase or decrease intensity/difficulty for every athlete’s needs. Plus, this is a great opportunity to teach takeoff and landing technique to avoid the dreaded and dangerous knee collapse. Common variations I use regularly include: broad jump, burpee to broad jump, single leg broad jump, vertical jump, hot ground to vertical jump, vertical jump to single leg landing, etc, etc, etc… Sets and reps are the same as med balls at 2-3 sets of 4-6 repetitions for beginners and 3 sets of 2-5 repetitions for more advanced athletes.
Sprint Variations – Numbers 1-3 are progressed over the course of at least 12-weeks for beginners (less for more advanced athletes), sprinting variations can be added to encourage exceptional high quality triple extension repetitions. Generally for this application of sprints the distance should be kept quite short. I find 5-20 yards hits the right spot. At this point we should be dealing with an athlete that can, minimally, be considered “intermediate” in level and with that qualification I suggest 6-20 sets of 1-3 repetitions at a distance of 5-20 yards. The higher the number of sets, the shorter the distance and the lower the number of reps should be. Oh, and be sure to allow for full recovery for achieving power and speed development.
Speed Squats – Hands down my favorite style of lower body exercise. This movement type teaches athletes how to produce force by pushing hard into the ground and accelerating up as fast as possible. These variations include the traditional Speed Squat, Wave Squat, and Jump Squat. Speed squat variations should ONLY be used with ADVANCED athletes. I suggest 6-10 sets of 2-3 reps with about 45-seconds rest between sets. Weight should be kept at 55-65% of the athlete’s 1RM squat.
Olympic Lifting Variations – Please take note that this is the absolute last suggestion of my list of progressions for teaching the Triple Extension, but it is the variation that inexperienced (and in my opinion misguided) coaches frequently jump to first. Olympic lift variations have their place with highly advanced and elite level athletes. However, I rarely use them. Why? Because through my experience I have found that one can elicit faster and greater gains via cycling through numbers 1-5. However, I do use them sparingly with some athletes. I have to admit the athleticism required for Oly lifts can make executing them a lot of fun, but there is a requirement of athleticism!! It makes me sick to my stomach how many coaches are on some kind of auto-inclusion of each and every Olympic variation for each and every athlete. What a mistake! Including these in a program too soon leads to poor form and execution which means you’re not getting that much bang-for your-buck with the movements (i.e., wasting time) and would be better off regressing to something more straightforward. Anyway, some great variations include the jump shrug, high pull, hang clean, etc. Keep the sets moderate and reps LOW.

You really can’t make a mistake if you cool your jets and follow this progression slowly. Remember, untrained athletes will get stronger and faster with very little stimulus. So take your time and learn to enjoy and respect the process!

Sarah Walls 9/19/11 Sarah Walls 9/19/11

Action Thinking: Your Million-Dollar Advice for the Week

Admittedly, one of my greatest weaknesses is my tendency to over-analyze a given topic. In high school, I was "the geek" in my circle of friends, and they frequently joked on me for the fact that I enjoyed doing Calculus, Physics, and Philosophy homework more than I liked sitting down to watch the next Friends episode in the evenings. I never considered that "thinking" could actually be done in excess and become a negative thing until my lacrosse coach pulled me from the starting line-up. Upon asking him what I could do to improve, he told me: "You think too much. Your technical skills, speed, and game sense are all sound but you often freeze up. Stop thinking and just start doing."

Fast forward to college. I was going through some difficult times, and I called one of my old-time mentors for some guidance. As usual, he pulled through. However, this particular bit of advice stood out over almost everything he had ever told me:

It's easier to act yourself into healthy thinking than it is to think yourself into healthy acting.

The more I thought about it the more profound it became. Heck, I'm convinced that psychiatrists could make millions off this piece of advice alone as it can be applied to just about every sphere of life. Given that SAPT is in the business of augmenting the physical prowess of athletes and non-athletes alike, I'll touch on this particular subject for a quick moment.

How many of the world's best athletes do you know that appear to be over-analyzing their craft while in the middle of a match or game? It's almost always the opposite, right? Rather than thinking too much, the greatest athlete's just "do." Take a look at the snatch of a proficient Olympic lifter, or the take down of a #1 ranked Division 1 wrestler, and you'll see that it just "happens." It's like they're not even thinking about it. Take a quick look at Dwayne Wade in the video below (I'd x-out the red boxes); do you think he's carefully scrutinizing every nook and cranny of each play before he makes it? Conversely, it's as if he's just floating along the court, allowing his instincts to take over and make his opponents look like children:

Similarly, you can apply the healthy acting ==> healthy thinking advice to a simple gym routine. I often tell those struggling with remaining consistent in the gym that "the most difficult step is getting off the couch." More times than not, once you get inside the gym and begin your warm-up, you're home free, no matter what your thoughts were telling you before you stood up in your home to get in the car.

Earlier this year, one of my friends was waiting for me to get back to him on some advice for a good workout routine. Rather than sitting around and waiting for the "perfect program" to pop in his email, he just started going in the gym! Even though he didn't have much experience, he went in, did some squats, split squats, and pullups, and then left. He didn't worry about following the wrong set-rep scheme, or become paranoid about which form of periodization he would utilize, but instead just got it done because he knew that would take him a step closer to his goal than sitting at home.

Looking at the dietary realm, the same principle applies. Those that spend countless hours researching various diets, meticulously count all their calories, weigh themselves every day, toy on and off with intermittent fasting until they're blue in the face, refuse to buy a fruit/vegetable until they know which has the most antioxidants, etc. nearly always experience less successes than those that just go out and take an ACTION step.

Having trouble with your intake? Here's a million-dollar first step: If a food is from the Earth, this = good. If man has tinkered with it, this = bad. Start with this and don't think about anything else.

The point of all this is that it's near impossible to think yourself into a healthy mindset. Just begin by taking an action step, and before you know it you'll become a steely eyed, barrel chested freedom fighter.

Sarah Walls 9/16/11 Sarah Walls 9/16/11

Some Female Pushup Goodness

A misconception I would like to blow out of the water today is that women should only perform pushups from their knees. It seems that when some fitness instructors are working with females, and realize they can't do "normal" pushups from the feet, they resort to placing their knees on the ground. Not that there is never a time or a place for this, but I feel it's a misguided mindset, for two reasons:

I've never seen a correlation between the number of pushups a woman can do from her knees versus the ability to perform a pushup from her feet (ex. even if a woman can do 25 pushups from the knees, she still may not be able to do a full pushup with the knees off the ground). This is largely do to the heightened lumbo-pelvic stability suddenly required at the hips/torso when the knees are elevated.
While subtle, it continues to perpetuate the notion that women should train differently than men and are destined to be "inferior," if you will, in the weight room. I think we should set women up for success, and show them what they actually cando with some perseverance and proper coaching.

If we're trying to, oh I don't know, actually improve female's movement quality and help them become stronger (not to mention boost their confidence), we need to stop perpetuating this notion that the majority of women are doomed to eternally fail at the full-range pushup.

Granted, nature hasn't necessarily set women up to learn the pushup as quickly as most men, due to biomechanical factors. For example, females tend to have a higher "lower body mass:upper body mass" ratio compared to men (think of having a weight placed over your hips versus your shoulders in a pushup, this would make it much more difficult).

However, with some careful coaching and persistent practice, almost any female can obtain this. We coach girls who can perform better pushups than most men I see in commercial gyms, and these same girls couldn't do a single perfect pushup when they first started training at SAPT. My guess is that if we had just resorted to having them do "knee pushups," they'd still be unable to do a proper pushup (not to mention received FAR less improvement in their preparedness for sport).

Below are some videos of a couple of our female athletes performing pushups. I'm sharing these for two reasons:

To show that it is definitely possible for a girl to do a full-range pushup after proper training (without them being eternally destined to do "knee pushups" as the media will often portray).
These pushups completely destroy 95% of the pushups I see performed by men across the country. Boys: you really aren't that cool! Let's be real here and save the bench press for when we can perform at least 25 perfect pushups without any technical breakdown.

Below is one of our volleyball players (13-years old, mind you), Kenzie, performing five flawless pushups, and then topping them off with some sandbag walkovers:

Note: when Kenzie first came to us, she had to do pushups with her hands elevated on a high mat, so she has come a long way!

Next is Kaleigh (a track athlete), performing them with a 25lb plate on her back.

Thirdly, is a video of Kelsey performing some awesome TRX pushups, with her feet elevated.

And, last but not least, is Lisa banging out some single-leg, foot-elevated pushups. Strong!

Now, what to do if she can't yet perform a full-range pushup? One option is to only perform the eccentric (the lowering or "yielding" portion of the movement) as Maggie is doing in the video below. Focusing on the eccentric portion is actually a pretty key factor in rapid strength gains, especially in beginners.

Now, if someone can't do eccentric pushups them from the floor (as most people can't, initially), then you could simply have them elevate their hands on a mat or bench to make it easier.

You can even have them perform PUPPs, in order to acclimate to the feeling of supporting their bodyweight in full pushup position.

There are many other tools you can use as well, but I trust this is enough to at least give the women in the crowd some motivation, and get you thinking about tools outside the knee pushup to work on your strength and movement quality.

Cheers!

Sarah Walls 9/15/11 Sarah Walls 9/15/11

What you’re not getting from your three easy payments of 19.99…

My main qualm with most “at-home-on-your-own” training protocols is that there really is no “quality control” component. As you’ve heard us reference countless times on this site, the intended benefit of an exercise is only realized when execution is correct. Improper execution of a movement will yield less than optimal results, and the potential for injury. Check-out the two video clips below of one of our distance clients, Frank.

You’ll notice in the first video he’s significantly more disjointed and off-balanced in comparison to the second (watch again). Well there’s a reason. After receiving the following feedback from me he was able to lock-in the form much better:

“Watch your video closely and you’ll notice that every time your back knee touches the ground heavy, your lead leg (the knee) shifts inward slightly, meaning the glute med didn’t quite fire on time to absorb the force. The reps that are beautiful, you’ll notice there wasn’t the slightest deviation of the knee. Think 'front-knee-out' every repetition.”

Watch the videos again, did you catch it?

Frank’s, reply:

Wow! I never would have seen that! It seems so clear now! I never understood why some reps seemed so hard…excellent feedback!

This is something that would have gone unnoticed by most, and certainly in a scenario where the only coaching feedback you receive is your dog incessantly barking at you while your knee slips into valgus…and the tape just keeps on rolling…

Start receiving the attention to detail you deserve by clicking HERE…

Chris

Sarah Walls 9/14/11 Sarah Walls 9/14/11

Peanut Butter and Accountability

Accountability. I can think of very few action steps that are more effective than this when it comes to inducing positive behavior change. Using myself as an example, I remember experiencing this first-hand back in 2008. I, believe it or not, took a trip over to the "dark side" and decided to compete in triathlon. I thought it would be a good challenge (I don't think I had ever run over 3 miles in my life at this point) and also give me a greater appreciation for the weekly stressors endurance athletes face in training. After all, it's difficult to really understand what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes unless you, well, step into their shoes.

The thing was, I hated the swim portion of training. I was in college at the time, and in order to have any hope of getting my own lane in the pool I had to be there at 7:00AM sharp when the pool opened. Given that, during college, I was less-than-responsible with getting to bed at a decent hour (curse you roommates!), and the fact I was a lousy swimmer to begin with (I think I've seen rocks swim better than I do), I was FAR from motivated to arrive for an hour of "controlled drowning" each morning.

Fortunately, I had a few friends who came right along my side and told me that they would meet me at 7:00AM sharp each morning for a swim. And I better show up, because they sacrificed sleep in order to meet me there. Needless to say, this allowed me to consistently complete my scheduled swim sessions each week, and avoid looking like a complete idiot during the open water swim on race day.

Ok, so what does this have to do with peanut butter? Well, I recently received an email from a good friend of mine that reminded me just how powerful accountability can really be.

You see, my friend (for sake of anonymity we'll call him Sam) has been fighting a pretty intense battle with food for the past few years. After dealing with a number of severe injuries, he began face these irresistible urges to feast. No matter how irrational he knew it was, he'd wake up in the middle of the night and be so hungry that he'd (nearly unconsciously) devour boxes of cereal or even an entire jar of peanut butter.

Keep in mind: Sam is a very accomplished runner (holding a 6:39 mile split during a competition marathon...my legs/lungs hurt just thinking about that), so he's no stranger to perseverance, positive self talk, and working hard. However, upon sustaining injuries to the lower extremity - rendering him unable to run - it became near impossible for him to receive his "fix" each week through running. This is when the seemingly-impossible food battles began to really pick up and he gained roughly 30lbs. For an athlete and self-motivated individual, this was obviously devastating.

I did my best to support him, offer him strategies, give him recipes, have him over for dinner, etc. in order to help him through this tough time. I suggested he avoid buying ANY food that created an irresistible temptation, as I've found this strategy has worked for me personally as well as people I've coached.

After all, if it's not in your home, you can't eat it, right?

Here's where Sam actually became quite innovative. He took my advice and stopped buying cereal, peanut butter, and the other "problem foods." However, when he'd awake in the middle of the night, he would steal his roommates peanut butter and eat that! He'd then proceed to go out to the store the following morning and replace his roommate's jar. (Haha, even he laughs at this, so I know it's o.k. to share).

Making a long story short, nothing seemed to be working. Finally, and I have to give credit to Sam for this, he told me that he was going to email and text me every week to tell me what he ate, thus holding himself accountable. In fact, he would text me on Sunday, telling me that he would truthfully be able to write me "success" on Thursday, and this would push him throughout the week. This has been going on for a while now, and this is a recent email I received from him:

Again, the one day goal of texting you a success story worked again. I don't know what it is but even in my tired stupor I think "I have to tell Stevo that I did it because I told him I would and hes counting on me." I had only a cup of cottage cheese and some egg whites last night. (I am aware that a kitten dies every time a yolk is dumped in the sink, but had already had 6 whole eggs throughout the day). For the next week I'm going to allow myself the cottage cheese and an egg for compliance purposes. I did wake up at 4 and had a little bit of rice chex, but quickly stopped myself and had some pistachios before going back to bed.
I can't thank you enough. This is the furthest I've come since I can remember with my eating battles. I know that just one bite of peanut butter is a dangerous slippery slope. As good as it tastes (same with sugar) it's nowhere near worth how I have felt and the changes I've been able to see since I stopped it. I can think clearer, I feel more confident, and I don't feel a slave to food. Last time this happened I relapsed after about a week. I am now over 2 weeks without peanut butter and going for a month, and then on.

When I got this email, it literally made my day. I mean, it had been each and every day throughout a couple years that Sam had been battling this, and just making that step of accountability made all the difference. At this point in time, he has lost 25-30lbs (weighing the least he has in 2ish years, and near his ideal body weight) and is only continuing to improve.

What we can all learn from Sam is that if we're serious about obtaining a goal, we need to tell others about it. In fact, it'd be best if we have those close to us BADGER us about our goals; keeping us on track each and every day no matter what external circumstances appear to be dictating.

Need to lose weight? Hold yourself accountable.

Want to add some lean body mass? Tell your friends/spouse/co-workers how much you're going to put on over the next month. THEN we'll see how often you reach for the muffin instead of the egg omelet for breakfast.

Want to squat 405? Tell people about it before it happens, and then see how frequently you skip your next lower body session. (Someone I know recently took this step...*coughcoughWayToGoRYANcough*).

Now go tell someone your next goal.

Sarah Walls 9/13/11 Sarah Walls 9/13/11

7 Days of Insanity

Over the past 7 days I’ve had multiple experiences every day that I think most Strength & Conditioning Coaches would kill to experience with NCAA Division 1 athletes. Last week was one of those special weeks when I’ve got a couple of my teams in-season, a couple teams in pre-season, and several teams just getting started for the semester with testing. The last week was extremely rich with everything from recovery sessions for soccer, 1RM squat testing, conditioning for two teams, and working out the details of a new research project. I even saw an ACL completely tear and another one we thought tore, but – thankfully – did not. My point in this post is to give you a weeklong peek into the life of a college strength coach… and let me tell you, it is WAY different than the private sector.

Tuesday, September 6:

8:30a – women’s soccer in weight room for a light total body lift, capped on either end of the session with active & static stretching and SMR (foam rolling).
10:30a – women’s basketball in weight room for an upper body lift. We then go over to the Patriot Center to begin conditioning by 11:15a. Post players ran routes on the court and guards ran stairs.
2:00p – on the field with women’s soccer to run their warm-up and conditioning routes.
3:30p – female sprinters and jumpers in weight room for power clean 1RM testing.
3:45p – throwers testing 3 vertical jump variations: counter-movement, static start, depth jump (from low box).
4:30p – male sprinters and jumpers in weight room for power clean 1RM testing.

Wednesday, September 7:

8:45a – women’s volleyball in weight room to lift. The start and finish of the lift involved active & static stretching and SMR.
2:00p – on the field to warm-up women’s soccer.
2:30p – women’s lacrosse testing on single leg broad jump, vertical jump, and 3RM front squat to BELOW parallel depth (we had a freshmen hit 170 x 3 – yikes!)
3:30p – female sprinters and jumpers in weight room to test 1RM bench press.
4:30p – male sprinters and jumpers in weight room to test 1RM bench press (one guy pressed 305lbs)

Thursday, September 8:

10:30a – women’s basketball in weight room for a lower body lift. We then go over to the Patriot Center to begin conditioning by 11:15a. Guards ran routes on the court and posts ran a low impact total body conditioning circuit.
2:00p – lead an on-field body weight only training session for women’s soccer (technically it wasn’t “on-field” due to the monsoon outside… we were in the Field House).
3:00p – rowing team in weight room for first day of training – big team with 15 new athletes means lots of instruction.
3:30p – female sprinters and jumpers in weight room to test ½ Squat 1RM
3:45p – throwers in weight room to test bench press 1RM and review lifts for following week.
4:30p – male sprinters and jumpers in weight room to test ½ Squat 1RM.

Friday, September 9:

10:30a - women’s basketball in weight room for an upper body lift. We then go over to the Patriot Center to begin conditioning by 11:15a. Post players ran routes on the court and guards ran stair sprints with full recovery.
2:30p – women’s lacrosse testing for seated MB Toss, Perfect Pushup Assessment for 1 set of 10, Yo-Yo Intermittent Beep test.
3:45p – throwers in weight room for 1RM back squat test with introduction of following week’s lower body lifts.

Saturday, September 10:

10:00a – on-field with women’s soccer for practice.

Sunday, September 11:

1:00p – women’s soccer game. Witnessed a member of the opposing team destroy her ACL during a contact situation. I’ve seen this before and I’ll see it again, many times I’m sure. It’s always terrible to see this type of season ending injury that, because of my background and experience, I know will affect her for the rest of her life.

Monday, September 12:

8:45a – women’s volleyball in the weight room for lifting. The start and finish of the lift involved active & static stretching and SMR.
10:30a - women’s basketball in weight room for a lower body lift. We then go over to the Patriot Center to begin conditioning by 11:15a. Guards ran routes on the court and Posts ran stairs for speed work with full recovery.
1:30p – Single lacrosse player in to lift.
2:30p – women’s lacrosse in for first lifting session. Lots of teaching.
3:45p – throwers in for first lifting session. We did some serious volume with some serious low rest periods. No one threw-up, amazing! They must have been ready for it!
4:30p – female sprinters and jumpers in for first lifting session.
5:30p – male sprinters in for first lifting session.

Congratulations, you made it to the end of my 7 days!!! I don’t have the time or the patience to convey the details that were left out of this recap, but trust me when I tell you I think I garnered an additional year’s worth of experience in just 7 days.

As I’ve seen many very talented strength coaches completely leave the field over my 7-years of experience, I have learned that being a college strength coach is not everyone’s cup of tea. But for some sick reason it seems to be mine. I thrive on the stress and intensity. If you’re thinking of stepping into the college environment, reread my week above one more time and factor in having a life (and in my case a business, too) on top of all that – can you handle it?