Program Design « Matt Hank

Archive for the ‘Program Design’ Category

Recovery Between Strength Sessions

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Adaptation doesn’t take place during a training session, it is during the recovery. Knowing this, is makes sense to plan your workout routine with hard days (higher intensity) and follow those up with easier days (lighter intensity). It seems like some people feel they need to go at it hard every time they train. This can lead to over-training and decreases in performance in the weigh room or on the field/court. Here is an example I use with college athletes during a typical week of training:

Day 1
Medium Intensity

Day 2
High Intensity

Day 3
Low Intensity

Day 4
Medium Intensity

Train Hard – Train Smart
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Posted in Program Design, Strength Training | No Comments »

Hip Mobility

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

There are powerful muscles in the hip that work to produce many athletic movements. The hips need to be strong and stable to transfer energy during sporting movements such as hitting, pitching, and kicking (soccer). However, the hips can not do their job effectively if they are locked up or restricted in their range of motion.

Hip mobility is extrememly important to help protect the lower back and knees. There is a limited amount of motion that takes place at the lower back, so the hips actually need to be the area where the greatest range of motion comes from in the core.

Shown below are a few simple stretches that will definitely help improve flexibility of the muscles of the hip and enhance mobility of the entire joint.

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Posted in Exercise Demonstrations, Flexibility, Injury Prevention, Program Design | 1 Comment »

Muscle Fiber Adaptations

Monday, January 11th, 2010

This is a follow up to one of my recent posts titled Purely Genetic or Hard Work & Dedication.

In that post, I noted that certain physical characteristics such as muscle fiber composition (type I and type II muscle fibers) is predetermined or genetic. I made that statement to inform you that you cannot convert all your slow twitch muscle fibers into fast twitch muscle fibers and start winning gold medals. However, there is actually more to the story. Type I and type II muscle fibers have different capabilities (type I fibers has a greater aerobic capacity and able to produce less force at slower velocities, while type II fibers have a great anaerobic capacity and are able to produce more force at faster velocities). Now the theory that many of us have heard is that you are predetermined with the number type II fibers at birth (the fibers all athletes want so they can be fast and explosive during sport). However, there are hybrid fiber types that have the capacity to change based on the stimulus provided to your muscle. A well-designed training program (weight, speed, agility, and power training) actually has the ability to change muscle fiber composition in hybrid fibers! Training can actually alter the ratio and percentage of type II to type I fibers that leads to increased strength and power-generating capacity. This really strengthens the argument that great athletes become “great” because of hard work, dedication, and a well-structured training program throughout their entire life.

Every athlete has the capacity to improve based on the stimuli provided to the body.

Source:
Bompa, Tudor and Haff, Gregory. Periodization – Theory and Methodology of Training. Illinois: Human Kinetics, 2009

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Purely Genetic or Hard Work & Dedication

Monday, January 4th, 2010

This post was inspired after reading the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

Being heavily involved in the athletic community you hear comments all the time like “This kid was born to play baseball. Her jump shot is smooth and natural. This guy was born to a professional quarterback.”

First off, I do understand that genetics play a role in athletics (especially at the professional level – you can’t be 5’6 and be an NFL lineman or a 7’2 middle infielder). Your height, fast twitch muscle fiber composition, limb length (including hand/foot size), some other physical characteristics (tendon attachment, bone articulations, etc.) are genetically predetermined. However, when it comes to athletic skill it is hard to argue that individuals are born with greater genetic abilities to swing a bat, hit a volleyball, or kick a soccer ball. When you start to understand that genes give way to certain characteristics and human physical traits, it is also important to understand that does not directly equate to athletic skill. Humans do not come out of the womb with pre-wired neuromuscular pathways to hit home runs or run the 100-meter dash under 10 seconds.

Athletes become great because of the stimulus provided to them over the course of their life.

Many times what happens is, a child (or usually parent) realizes that they enjoy a sport and are pretty good at it. Now this child starts to enjoy practice and has the motivation/internal drive to improve their skills even more (improve their neuromuscular pathways). Now they live and breathe the sport so much that they spend all their free time watching it on TV (obtaining that visual stimulus to the brain). Maybe the child doesn’t obsess over the sport, but they are given positive verbal stimulus from coaches and parents letting them know how good they are at the sport. All these stimuli strengthen the child’s athletic skill set.

What about the kids that are “genetically” coordinated and fast/quick. (Again fast twitch muscle fiber composition aside for this argument) If you really start to analyze it from an early age, you begin to see that many of those fast kids play multiple sports. They also spend all their free time outside playing with their friends – even if it’s just hide and seek, riding bikes, kicking the soccer ball around, playing hopscotch, or playing on the playground. All these events provide a stimulus to the body and this child becomes more coordinated at controlling their body and improves their spatial awareness.

Was Tiger Woods born, I mean actually genetically predetermined to be the best golfer in the world? My thought is no way! How about the fact that he started hitting a golf ball when he was 2 years old, or that fact that his dad was an avid golfer (that’s a whole lot of stimulus provided to young Tiger Woods). He took golf lessons and played in golf tournaments his entire life – he was preparing his body (the neuromuscular pathways) for greatness.

Let’s begin to look at athletic talent as something more than “genetic ability/potential”. Understand that your body has the ability to adapt and change based on the stimulus you provide it whether it is physical, visual, emotional, or mental. Hard work and deep/deliberate practice make an athlete great, not their chromosomes.

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Posted in Mindset, Program Design, Research | 2 Comments »

A Call Out To All Coaches

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

The great coaches have goals for their teams/athletes and devise a plan that will accomplish those goals. For example if the goal for a basketball team is to win a championship the coach will put together a strategy for each opponent, teach technical and tactical skills, create a season long practice schedule, and motivate/inspire his athletes. This leads me to my main topic…This same approach (guiding athletes to success) should be taken by strength and conditioning coaches as well. A game plan needs to be in place if the athletes are going to consistently improve throughout the training program. I see too many coaches (many times it’s the head coach because the team doesn’t have a qualified strength and conditioning coach on staff) take the approach “no pain, no gain” or “100% intensity every time”. Of course you want your athletes to work hard, but it should be a planned routine consisting of high, medium, and low intensity days. There should be days were you teach your athletes (low intensity) and days where you condition the heck out of your athletes (high intensity).

Going along the same lines…Soreness is not necessarily a sign of great workout. Anyone can make an athlete sore (literally anyone that knows how to talk – just say “run 100 sprints uphill” or “do 500 push ups and sit ups”). I love to hear athletes say things like “my coach has the hardest workouts” or the “the training sessions are so intense”. I ask the athlete what they did during the training session and usually their response is something like this “first we did a mile run, 100 sit ups, bench press and lat pull downs and finished with the leg press/leg extensions/leg curl for 5 sets. I couldn’t move my legs for 3 days”. There are definitely ways to make the training routine more sport specific. If an athlete only has only X number of training sessions before the season starts, the coach should make the workouts as sport specific as possible. There are times to work on general fitness and conditioning, but make sure it follows your yearly plan. Every training session should follow the game plan and help the team/athletes accomplish their ultimate goals.

Remember “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Posted in Conditioning, Program Design, Strength Training | No Comments »

Recovery Methods

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

I have posted numerous blogs on how counterproductive low intensity/long duration cardio exercise is for athletes who compete at fast speeds and require explosive movements during competition. This does not mean I never recommend low to moderate exercise for athletes though. In fact, after an intense training session, hard competition, or tournament I encourage my athletes to speed up their recovery process. One of the most effective means to speed up recovery is taking an active approach. Active recovery includes easy to moderate cardio such as jogging, biking, using the elliptical machine, or swimming. Lower intensity exercise actually helps with lactate removal (by product of high intensity training), muscle soreness, and cools down the core temperature a slower rate. Most importantly, many researchers have shown that active recovery improves the next bout of performance more than taking a passive approach (no exercise or activity) to recovery.

Other forms of recovery are just as important and beneficial. Proactive recovery methods would also include stretching, massage, myofascial release (self-massage), hot or cold bath, and proper nutrition strategies. These methods also help with lactate removal, muscle soreness, and improving future performance.

Passive recovery (no exercise) is important and worth discussing. I am specifically speaking about quality and quantity of sleep. Athletes require more sleep than the average person who sits around all day and does not push their body to their limits. All other recovery strategies do not mean anything if an athlete is not getting enough quality sleep.

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Posted in Conditioning, Injury Prevention, Program Design, Research | No Comments »

ASAP On The Radio

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Be sure to check out last weeks on-air interview on KHTS about sports performance and the ASAP Baseball Academy. http://hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18658:lifestyle-fitness-december1-2009&catid=100:lifestyle-fitness&Itemid=173

khts_christmaslogo_greenoverred

Train Hard – Train Smart
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Posted in ASAP Teams, Conditioning, Program Design, Speed/Agility, Strength Training | No Comments »

Sport Specific Training

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

If you are an athlete or coach, analyze your entire training program to make sure it is sport specific. Check out this key sentence from Tudor Bompa and Gregory Haff’s book Periodization – Theory and Methodology of Training:

“The concept of movement pattern specificity reveals that the type of muscle action, kinematic characteristics (ie. movement patterns), kinetic characteristics (ie. forces, rate of force development, power output), muscle groups activated, and acceleration or velocity characteristics of the movement all contribute to the exercise’s ability to transfer to the sporting activity.”

Your movements in the weight room should never try to replicate sports movements (check out this blog for more on this topic). However, the exercises you choice should have characteristics similar to your sport. You want the exercises to carry over to the playing field otherwise why would you waste your time in the weight room to begin with. Once you begin to understand these scientific principles, it makes sense to incorporate ground-based training (exercises performed in standing positions), Olympic lifts and other high power output exercises, exercises in the full range of motion, and exercises in all planes motion. At the same time, it should begin to make sense why it is not as beneficial to train on machines that control only one movement and usually control the speed of the movement. Not to mention that most machines require the athlete to sit or lay on their back/stomach – that doesn’t look anything like sport!

Train Hard-Train Smart –> it’s not just important to train with intensity, it’s important to train with the correct knowledge too!
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Posted in Exercise Demonstrations, Program Design, Research, Strength Training | 2 Comments »

Bioenergetic Specificity

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Fancy term, but an easy concept to understand. Athletes should train to develop the appropriate energy systems for their sport. I still see way too many athletes (usually instructed by the coach) do aerobic exercise to “get in shape” for their sport (usually in the form of running laps or riding the stationary bike). The coaches’ philosophy is that this type of training will improve their endurance and help them during the latter stages of their match or competition. However, this is the furthest thing from what really happens. Remember – Your body adapts to the type of training stimulus you provide it. With aerobic training you are teaching your athletes to be really good slow runners. This would make a terrible baseball, football, tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer or softball athlete (just to name a few sports). In fact, aerobic training has been shown to decrease anaerobic power output. Any high intensity/change of pace sport would suffer from aerobic training (on a regular basis).

Intervals is where it’s at:
High intensity interval training has been show to increase metabolic enzyme activity (both aerobic and anaerobic), improve short-term power output, and increase maximal aerobic power. In other words, you will get all the aerobic benefits you need from high intensity interval training and important benefits needed for quick/high intensity movements.

Until I see this switch in training philosophy from coaches and players, I will continue to write posts on this topic.

Train Hard-Train Smart
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Posted in Conditioning, Program Design, Research, Speed/Agility | 1 Comment »

Athletic Core

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Many times core resistance training looks like this:

Sit ups BASEBALL/ Side Crunches

However, it should look something like this:

Read my previous post on core training for other great functional core exercises with medicine balls. Notice how the cable and medicine ball exercises have something in common – you use your entire body and you are in a standing position.

Take a look at these athletic movements below and notice the commonalities between each movement. With exception to the volleyball player, they are all standing on either two feet or one foot (however, remember the volleyball player jumped off two feet or one foot to get in the air). It is important to notice the amount of torque (rotation) throughout their core during these movements. Their core is not working in isolation – the big powerful muscles of the legs and hips or working. The muscles in the back, shoulders, chest and arms are also involved in the movement. If you are an athlete or coach looking to strengthen or enhance the power of these movements, I would suggest the exercises I demonstrated in the video or the medicine ball exercises. The medicine ball exercises are great because the athlete must generate force throughout the entire movement – even during the release of the ball which is extremely sport specific.

Tim Lincecum 030122-O-9999J-028 Tennis Volleyball