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We absolutely can teach speed—contrary to what the color commentary guy on Monday night football may spout for effect to the masses. High school sport coaches work with athletes at a very important time in their athletic careers when they often come into our hands extremely raw. With proper coaching and consistency, our athletes can rise from the most inauspicious of beginnings.

But coaching means more than having a few drills and exercises in our repertoire. It is multimodal, and we need to be comfortable with an array of tasks. Giving explicitly clear cues, for example, or sometimes saying nothing at all. Filming and giving athletes feedback at their level is tremendously useful to help them understand the changes that you’re hoping to take place. Certainly, drills that are very close to the task of sprinting can prove useful.

While these ideas go a long way to help athletes develop, the process is not instantaneous. Coaching is often an exercise in patience.

Speed Evaluation: Whole Movement Observation and Feedback

For this post, I opted to highlight my work with a developing athlete who has real potential entering his junior year. He’s on the cusp of the varsity lineup and somewhat mirrors the reality of our day to day experience as high school coaches.

During our first two sessions, I filmed his running at maximum velocity and during his acceleration phase. The sessions were free of feedback to prevent any premature influence, so I centered my efforts around some very simple cues based on what the video told me. I noted the athlete needed two very simple things.

First, he needed to learn to relax at maximum velocity. Using a kinogram and the five positions of maximum velocity, especially at maximal vertical projection (MVP) and touchdown, I observed his lack of peacefulness. He was straining, and his strike segment lacked hamstring extension, which possibly contributed to a reduced stride length.

His issue was simple but very important. In a post about the ALTIS Kinogram Method, Stuart McMillan and Dan Pffaf wrote:

Neutral head carriage, with eyes looking directly ahead. The human body is an inverted pendulum subject to imbalance through improper head position, and that impacts weight distribution further down the chain. Therefore, if the head is out of position, there will be an impact in lower-body joint dynamics. Athletes who throw their head back or push their chin forward create imbalanced forces. In the upright running cycle, the head should be held in neutral alignment with the cervical spine. Understand that any deviation from this will also negatively affect lumbar vertebrae position, and possibly pelvic alignment.

Indeed, at full speed, my athlete’s pelvis was rotated too far forward because his head moved out of position further up the chain.

Video 1. A flying sprint is a cornerstone of running mechanics as it serves as a reference goal for acceleration and submaximal locomotion. Video and constantly audit technique over the course of a career.

Second, I had to address his acceleration phase, which lacked violence, or “splitting without the rip.” His rear arm extended very long and slow while his heel dropped excessively upon ground contact. His neck was bent forward to create the illusion of driving forward. I opted to start with a remedial two-point start to rework accelerations from the ground up so he could learn how to push.

Derek Hansen has said, “Poor arm swing can quickly weaken posture and negatively impact the delivery of both horizontal and vertical force into the ground. Having the arms free to swing powerfully is critically important for proper sustained acceleration on the way to top speed.”

Video 2. Errors in arm action may seem to be problematic, but wait until those flaws actually cause efficiency issues to address it. How the upper body connects to the lower body depends on the athlete, so individualize as much as possible.

Thoughts on Cues

Cueing is an oft-debated topic on social media. It’s easy to dismiss or argue the validity of certain cues depending on your own experiences. No matter what the cue is, if it elicits the desired response, it’s always correct in that scenario with that athlete. Cues are sometimes taken too literally by people for whom they are not intended.

For example, I’ve recently seen the cue “run tall” debated. The argument is that running too tall will reduce ground reactive force and lead to slower running times. However, if an athlete flexes at the waist too much or leans back at max velocity, this cue could correct the problem. If you don’t think this is an issue with your athlete, the cue to run tall could be redundant and change something for the worse.

I recently cued an athlete to pretend they were riding a bike when performing dribbles. Another athlete didn’t respond to this cue; he needed “pretend it’s a rainy day, and you don’t want to get your sneaker toes wet in the puddles.” Silly? Perhaps, but each created positive changes in the respective circumstances.

Admittedly, I’m guilty of over cueing athletes at various points in my career. Those cues pushed some athletes into a conscious state of running and, thus, some level of “paralysis by cueing.” Even if cues are correct or near and dear to your heart, they don’t guarantee immediate change. I’m getting better at using consistent cues even if they take time. One of my favorite cues lately when doing plyometrics is “high as possible, as fast as possible.” Nothing fancy, but easily understood. Sometimes asking questions such as, “Can you go higher for me? Can you go faster?” are excellent cues.

Most athletes respond better to simple, repeatable cues to keep them confident and allow for better rehearsal, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Language is complex, and any given utterance might be interpreted in different ways. There are specific things you can say to athletes that put them in the best position to “get it” and succeed. With the athlete who is the subject of this post, I opted to keep the cues very clear and simple. I find most athletes respond better to simple and repeatable cues to keep them confident and allow for better rehearsal. If they can use a cue readily without being any less automatic in their rehearsal and effort, it’s probably a successful, or at the least, useful cue.

To help my athlete keep his head more neutral in hopes of running with a more relaxed, upright posture, I rolled with “Eyes in front on the hunt.” I have used “Eyes to the horizon,” but on the hunt felt more appropriate as it conjures an image of relaxation with a quiet intensity. Peacefulness, in this instance, is more akin to a predatory cat stalking prey than a yogi.

For acceleration phase cues, I used combinations of the following:

• Bang-bang. This cue implies pushing without over pushing and employing violent arms and quick hands. His arms tended to be long and slow backside, which is the antithesis of the violence needed during acceleration.
• Aggressively push your hips and sternum toward the finish line. The cue helped this athlete displace his hips without over flexing at the waist while keeping a long spine throughout.
• Give me some violence. I used this cue if his start seemed to lack some “umph.”

After all of this, he showed noticeable improvements.

I find, however, that we need to exercise some patience here. For all of the aggressive, bang-bang, violence cues spoken, we could have solved many of these issues by putting some weight on a bar. He’s definitely not strong enough yet. We addressed his squat mobility in the summer program I run at Crossfit133 in Georgetown, MA. We were slow to have him increase the loads on traditional strength exercises like the squat and deadlift because of these issues.

For all of the aggressive, bang-bang, & violence cues, we could have solved many issues by putting some weight on a bar, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

I know there has been much debate online recently. It’s easy to cherry-pick examples of elite athletic freaks like Kevin Durant or a sub-10-second 100m runner and say that weight room strength doesn’t work or isn’t necessary. But stride lengths get longer when sprinters apply more force to the ground.

In my experience, increasing strength is one of the factors to increasing force against the ground in developing athletes. This is especially true when:

• an athlete sprints routinely
• lifting doesn’t impact the sprint work (using low reps on main lifts, great technique, and lots of rest)
• the goal is not gaining mass
• correct posture is prioritized when performing all sprint tasks

Indeed, it would be hard to convince me that this athlete, who sprints several times a week, would not also benefit from increasing his mass-specific force. I’ve found that improving upper body strength experience helps to counterbalance out of the blocks and gives athletes confidence to project violently. Moving ahead, I encouraged my athlete to get back in the gym and work on adding general strength while continuing to sprint two to three days a week.

Hybrid Exercises for Proficient Movements

Again, saying something doesn’t necessarily make it or so. Rather than simply speaking things into existence, I often pair drills that are equal parts drill and actual movements. These hybrid exercises get us away from timing every rep and put the focus on performing movements with the most proficiency possible on a given day.

For my athlete, I switched up the acceleration and max velocity main sessions and potentiating exercises every two weeks and implemented some ideas from Christian Thibaudeau’s Neurotyping work. Without going too deeply into it, Christian advocates matching an athlete’s neurological profile to the training program they perform.

From observation and personal experience as a teacher, I decided that my athlete best reflected the 2A type. Thibaudeau has said, “With a type 2A everything works, but nothing works for a long time.” Variety did seem to be our best friend during our work together. Doing things in two-week blocks was just enough time for him to realize improvements while staying motivated by variety.

I prefer to include items that push athletes close to—or at—motor skill failure periodically as a challenge and also provide a subtle ego stroke for the athlete. An athlete who feels good is more open to trying progressively harder things and is more motivated to push through even when they’re not initially successful.

Here are some of the items I programmed for my athlete in addition to my typical doses of dribbles and wicket runs.

Board Acceleration to Overhead

This is a great way to work on lower body mechanics without the arms. The board (hurdle top), or in this case a broomstick, serves as a great tactile cue to keep the spine long during acceleration. It also encourages athletes to feel themselves rising in a rhythm. With every step during acceleration, the shin angle changes until the shins are vertical during max velocity.

I often have athletes who keep the same torso position on multiple steps and create an illusion of staying low but end up really off balance. Others are fully upright by the fourth step but keep their neck bent to create an illusion of driving forward.

This exercise makes it easier for them to avoid early vertical shins and flat foot contacts. It also lets me see if they’re transitioning appropriately from their start to upright running. Indeed, I liked the improvements I saw with my athlete and found it was a useful drill to help both acceleration and maximum velocity.

Video 3. Removing the upper body or challenging the athlete with and without arms requires experience. If an athlete has technical problems, adding challenges or changing the dynamics may or may not work for them, so be vigilant.

Skip and Switch Flys

To set up a peaceful entry into the fly reps from the start, my athlete often used a skip and switch fly. The skip is a good way to force an athlete to bring good posture into the rep. As speed is built and maintained, the skip lead-in combined with the rhythmic transition and leg switch adds another challenge. The more powerful the skip, the easier it is to switch the thighs into a fast sprint because of the increased vertical displacement. I cue an athlete to think about making a well-timed step over a wicket hurdle and continuing with a seamless transition from the skip. Although we usually did not time these, a timing system could be worked into the practice.

Video 4. Skipping can look good, but may not transfer unless the athlete is aware of what is happening in time and space. An athlete who fails to get their knees up is not necessarily weak or deficient in hip flexor strength, they could have a coordination issue.

Downhill Buildups

There have been studies on the effects of combined downhill and uphill sprinting and how effective they are on top speed, and I devoted two weeks of training to the downhill portion. It’s a valuable teaching tool for handling high-speed travel rather than any peaking or stride length trick.

Obviously, the over-speed aspect of these runs could positively influence step length since the ground is coming at the athlete faster and in a different way. Chris Korfist has talked about plyo-soidal training and how changing surfaces can challenge the lower limbs to become stiffer and perhaps allow the athlete to bust through plateaus.

I continued to use the “eyes in front, on the hunt” cue as well as “fast as possible, smooth as possible.” I encouraged my athlete to start in a rhythm and build up fast while staying in control. To get the point across, I pantomimed a basketball on my finger then progressively spun it faster and faster until there was nothing left to do but maintain the control. The sound and cadence of the build-up were important so that the last ten meters were near peak, controllable velocity. After doing a few reps, he was ready for the ground and running fast on the track.

Video 5. Strange environments often wake up athletes or strain them psychologically, perfect for those that need to execute on-demand. Be creative, as athletes need to get out of their comfort zone.

Standing Triple Jump

The standing triple jump (STJ) addressed a huge need for this athlete. In our first week together, his standing triple measured at 18′-8.” By the end, his best was still only around 20′-7,” and we can attribute some of his improvement to learning the movement and becoming more proficient through repetition.

We slowly built a tolerance to controlling downward velocities in addition to scaling to more difficult reactive strength index jumps, such as drop jumps. Indeed, one study found that drop jumps were more closely linked to VMAX performance, and “such forward cyclic horizontal jumps would develop effective specific strength in the extensor muscles of the legs for the drive phase of the sprint stride.”

While horizontal jumps don't correlate much with maximum velocity running, the shin angles achieved at the jump's start could help with a block start. Share on X

So while horizontal jumps might not correlate heavily with maximum velocity running, it does seem that the shin angles achieved at the start of the jump could help with a block start. Carl Valle has said, “I see a strong relationship between this test and early acceleration because the takeoffs from both the dual leg jump and the bounds afterward include forefoot projections of the ankle complex and deep knee angles in general.”

When we first started using the STJ, this athlete had a lot of trouble pushing off both feet and would step out like he would in his two-point start. By the end of our work together, he was marginally better at using both legs. In the second of two pictures above, his arms are timed to contribute more to the jump. Perhaps improvements in timing here can have a more global effect on his sprinting.

I did not overuse this test, and I laid ground rules that he had to land and stick the landing in a squat. I cued him to imagine “jumping into the ski boots on a snowboard” when landing safely on the foot tripod. Moving forward in his training, I prescribed more mobility, general strength, and hip extension work. His lack of violence and hip extension at the start seems to correlate strongly to his acceleration phase, where we initially had a more difficult time moving the needle.

Video 6. Jumping or plyometrics are more than just power. Those that struggle to control the timing or range often show similar issues at full speed.

Rhythmic Rise Drill

This a stationary drill, and to be honest, I don’t love pure arm drills. Many other drills let athletes experiment dynamically and self-organize with cheek to hip arm action. However, I would say this is more of a torso drill than an arm drill.

I told my athlete to assume a starting posture similar to a block start with a parallel stance. Once in the athletic posture, he slowly extended while rising in a rhythm. For every arm swing, the torso rises. I cued him to keep a long spine and not to rush the rise nor maintain the same torso position during the arm swings.

This is definitely a case of a concept in isolation rather than an authentic application, but it gave him a reference point. He would often get ready for an acceleration rep by rehearsing this drill. Toward the end of our work, I started seeing a slightly stronger post-up position during the start with a more powerful arm drive.

Video 7. The athletes you train may just need rudimentary drills to get an understanding of what they need to do if they are new to a concept. Don’t be afraid to regress to make progress.

Learning to Learn

One of the first things I want to do with all of my athletes is to improve their general athleticism, which includes skipping, hopping, and moving well generally in all planes. My best sprinters are usually my best general movers. With developing athletes, I find it best to sprint often while progressively pushing them closer and closer to failure with their motor skill exercises, as needed.

My best sprinters are usually my best general movers, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Whether on the track or in the weight room, I want to make the athletes as receptive to cues as possible. The more movement that the athlete is exposed to, the more options both of us have when attempting to fix something. It’s very easy to cue someone into a state of conscious confusion when they have not experienced the most rudimentary of tasks due to their low training age.

The foundation of acceleration and the concept of pushing starts with basic drills, such as the isometric post-up drill or a skip for distance. Teaching the athlete awareness of the ground’s interaction with the foot and how to use the big toe joint to let the shin drop and act as a lever to project forward doesn’t always happen at full speed. Some submaximal rehearsal seems to go a long way with my athletes, especially when paired in a complex with maximal work.

Submaximal rehearsal goes a long way with teaching acceleration, especially when paired in a complex with maximal work, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Likewise, for maximum velocity mechanics, there are plenty of drills that help my athletes run better. I’m not saying these items are a magic wand you can wave and instantly have a team of all-state performers. Yet, if good posture has proven to be important during sprinting, then it should become a habit because habits are hard to break. Skipping, bounding, dribbling, and even jumping jacks are all opportunities to get better. If your best athlete can run 10.5, this strategy may be unnecessary for them.

By all accounts, my athlete has made tremendous progress in this area. It was fun to see him become more confident and use the general drills as a motivator and learning experience.

Video 8. Drills can be a way for athletes to become a better learner or a sponge. Limiting drills as corrections to inefficiencies is a bad idea.

Case Study Update

After all of this work for eight weeks, we saw some improvements. His 10m average velocity went from 20.15mph to 20.53mph, and he looked much better doing it. Moreover, this speed was up from 19.28mph at the end of track season (about 15 weeks).

During this time, his rep consistency was the most impressive improvement. When we first started training, hitting 20mph was a possibility on a good day, and by the end it was a definite on every rep.

Looking at an updated kinogram, I could easily see why. Although at touchdown he’s not exactly hitting the vaunted position of four knees together, his head and pelvis are more neutral and relaxed. His arms do look better and have more of the parallel positioning sought in this phase. It probably won’t be until he attains significantly higher velocities that these positions will change.

We cannot expect or force developing athletes to hit the positions that Usain Bolt has. For now, this athlete’s ability to run faster with better posture without being overly conscious of it is a huge step as he develops the neuromuscular coordination necessary to run fast. In the past, it proved easy to accidentally cue and shift this athlete into too much of a conscious mode of thinking while sprinting.

Video 9. Various approach runs can help take an athlete from one stage to another. Working on cone drills works if you know when to allow a set of errors to clean up while others are in hibernation.

In addition to his maximum velocity, he also improved his 40-yard time. He began with a starting time of 5.23, and by the end of the eight weeks, he ran a 4.96. Both measurements were taken with the Freelap timing system. We can attribute some of this improvement to his maximum velocity improvement—when an athlete is getting faster, they’re also getting to top speed more aggressively and in a better position to run fast.

We need to consistently develop both maximum velocity and acceleration at the high school level, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

There has been some debate recently about the need for acceleration development in developing athletes. We need to consistently develop both maximum velocity and acceleration at the high school level.

Over the course of the sessions, it appeared he had a subtle change in the violence and displacement of hips, but to be honest, there’s still lots of potential for growth here. Moving forward, he needs to work consistently, watch videos, and celebrate his improvements, no matter how small.

Video 10. Young athletes need fresh acceleration runs and repetition. So long as an athlete is going fast and is making progress, don’t sweat specific angles and positions of higher performers.

Options Are Good

As I’ve said, coaching is not a one size fits all endeavor, as many roads lead to Rome. Best practices are just that—best practices until something breaks down and doesn’t work. Coaching high school athletes often requires us to be well-versed in simplifying concepts. Sometimes the most powerful things we can do are to keep our athletes confident and repeating things until they become better. The specificity principle holds true when it comes to speed. To get better at something, you have to do that thing.

Slowing things down for the athlete in the form of similar tasks or general drills can allow for adequate rehearsal of maximal concepts in a submaximal setting. I recommend these be placed as close as possible to the specific sprint tasks of the day where they can bring maximum subconscious intent.

Above all, it’s important to be patient with athletes as they develop. You can’t force your athletes to hit world-class sprinting positions just because you know it’s correct. Professional athletes give us a glimpse into what the best in the world do, but at 11 to 12m per second, movement is a different breed. It’s foolish to believe you can always speak things into existence. Sprinting, like anything in athletic development, is a process—and a very individual one at that. Whether you say more or less, always meet the athlete where they are.

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By Derek Hansen

While coaches often spend a great deal of time and effort deconstructing and making sense of research, theory, and movement biomechanics, they often don’t have good information on how to plan and implement a basic speed session, let alone plan for a week, month, or year. They may have a few drills they like to use, along with some general ideas on the total volume of work. But they’re less prepared to integrate each element in an organized way that gets the most out of their athletes.

Unfortunately, efficacious sprint programming is not taught in a university exercise science program or—on the other side of the spectrum—YouTube videos. Even coaching certification courses offer generic examples for program planning. Rarely do coaching instructors spend hours and hours looking at every possible scenario, combination, and permutation of circumstances and identify appropriate progressions.

And, let’s be honest, many coaches fall back on what they did as an athlete. They don’t actually plan for the individuals under their charge. They simply regurgitate workouts and cross their fingers hoping that natural selection or dumb luck will make them successful. And this process perpetuates the disorganization and randomness of training.

I had the fortune of learning under some masterful coaches like Charlie Francis and Al Vermeil—wise individuals who had well-thought-out reasons for every rep they prescribed and every minute of recovery that separated individual runs. While it’s difficult to document the mastery of coaching in one article, we can describe some basic premises around planning an individual sprint training session for coaches.

In our Running Mechanics Professional courses, which I’ve been delivering over the past year, we spend a great deal of time outlining this process. The comprehensive courses explore running mechanics, sprint training, return-to-play protocols, and integration of running programming for various sports and are directed at coaches, strength and conditioning specialists, and physical therapists.

For those who have not had the luxury of attending these sessions, this post summarizes some of the key issues for implementing sprint workouts.

Identifying Your Audience

Just like a good stand-up comedian, you have to know your audience and plan your routine for the best responses. Your jokes may be a hit in one city, but if they start missing the mark on a college campus, you have to adjust and improvise on the spot to avoid being heckled into irrelevancy.

As a coach, you rarely work with just one athlete over an extended period of time. Hence, your coaching instruction must be adaptable to fit with varying group sizes and athlete types. Every athlete needs your attention. And it’s your choice on how to allocate that attention in terms of when, what, how much, and how frequently.

If you spread yourself too thin over every athlete in your group, no one person will get enough attention for appropriate feedback and prescriptive advice to allow for significant and sustainable results. If you focus too much on one or two athletes, everyone else will suffer from a lack of coaching. Knowing how to manage the individuals in your group is imperative for sustained success.

Group Size

One-on-one sessions. If you’re working with just one athlete, you can take much more time to explain technical details, field feedback from the athlete, and use rep-to-rep video review to document progress and solidify prescriptions. The downside is that it becomes very easy to fill the silence with too much information and grow fond of the sound of your own voice.

In these situations, it’s extremely valuable to give the athlete space between sets and reps to digest the work they’re doing and the cues offered to them. While there is a desire to maximize the “density” of the interaction in one-on-one scenarios, focusing on one quality or message usually goes a long way to realizing success over an accumulation of individual sessions. Periodic one-on-one sessions with athletes within your group can be very valuable to highlight technical issues or build a stronger connection with a specific athlete who may need a little more focused attention.

Periodic one-on-one sessions with athletes highlight technical issues and build a stronger connection with specific athletes, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

With team sport athletes, I’ve had success conducting “maintenance” or “refinement” sessions once per week in a one-on-one format—both during the in-season and off-season periods—to both maintain and build qualities. In today’s age of raging specialization, there is neither the time nor energy to hold more than one 60-minute session per week without blowing the minds of the load management gurus in the industry.

It is, however, just enough volume and frequency to accomplish some goals that carry over into the competition realm and minimize injury caused by inefficient movement and poor coordination at higher speeds. Knowing how much and how hard is the key to hitting the sweet spot for these athletes without putting them over the top.

Small group 2-4. Small group sessions with enough athletes to make the time socially stimulating and extremely productive can be had with a handful of participants. These numbers allow for appropriate recovery periods while one athlete per rep is being completed. Feedback is provided in much smaller doses than in the one-on-one sessions but still ensures enough constructive information for athletes to maintain steady progress. Athletes get the opportunity to watch each other’s repetitions and gain some insight into cues and lessons that may also apply to them.

Medium group 4-10. Moderately sized groups—often what I found myself dealing with as a track and field sprint coach—still can offer a great deal of value and high-density coaching if set up correctly. These arrangements can work well in a track and field setting because athletes have a good understanding of the dynamics involved and have developed a degree of independence and self-sufficiency during a training session.

Team sport athletes, in my experience, tend to expect instruction on what to do all the time: where to stand, when to start, when to listen, and when to be quiet. The coach puts much more effort into multi-tasking with different flights of athletes performing their repetitions than in the smaller group arrangements. Athletes can do starts all at once or subdivided into groups.

Video review might occur as a group with everyone looking at their own repetition, and the coach making comments only when they need to correct specific errors. But individualization becomes more difficult, as time is a factor and athletes need to complete repetitions in rapid succession.

Large group 11 or more. These sessions typically involve an entire team performing the work en masse with coaches only offering corrections when individuals make egregious errors. Drills, workout goals, and technical recommendations tend to be more basic and simplified in implementation to ensure everyone understands what the coach expects of them.

Although video analysis is much more difficult, it can be done by assistant coaches or interns and reviewed at a later date. We don’t advise showing athletes individual video clips during the session because this can be distracting and disruptive and ruin the flow of the workout.

Having the entire group perform technical drills or repetitions can be difficult for a coach because there are so many bodies to monitor. Creating waves or rows of 3-4 athletes per repetition is easier to manage and allows athletes to recover adequately before their next attempt. Waves also make it easier to monitor run times, whether you’re using a handheld stopwatch or an electric timing system. The one-on-one and small group scenarios obviously lend themselves to easier performance monitoring by timing during daily workouts that have not been set up as milestone testing sessions.

In any case, it’s necessary to lower your expectations of how much you can accomplish with larger groups to minimize coaching burnout and prevent you from losing your voice. Scaling your efforts reduces your stress and makes it easier for athletes to process the work you’ve prescribed. Goal setting introductions before the workout and debrief sessions following training help educate the athletes on the items they performed well and the areas that need work, without interrupting the rhythm and flow of the session while it’s happening.

Group size is only one major variable relating to planning and implementing your sessions. Once you scale your coaching delivery, you can focus on other key areas of instruction. Some significant factors that can influence how you carry out your sprint sessions may include:

Sport

• Court sports involve shorter sprint distances than field sports.
• Larger athletes (football, basketball, rugby) may only require or tolerate shorter distance sprints.
• Surface types that athletes are accustomed to may dictate your choice of training surface.
• Athletes that compete on or in other mediums (ice hockey, cycling, swimming) may benefit from sprinting on a hard surface.

Age

• Younger athletes may require more general fitness training than developed, mature athletes.
• Older, veteran athletes require or tolerate much less overall high-intensity volume than younger developed or developing athletes.
• Younger athletes may lose focus much quicker than more mature athletes, thus requiring shorter bouts of technical instruction.

Training Age

• Athletes with a younger training age may require more technical instruction despite their chronological age.
• Athletes with an older training age may require relatively low volumes of speed work to maintain or improve speed qualities.

Training History

• Strength athletes need instruction on how to relax, think of technique over effort, and take advantage of their elastic qualities.
• Endurance athletes need to be taught that quality over quantity can have significant benefits.

Injuries 

• A training population with a more significant injury history may require a more gradual progression and lower overall volume initially.
• Athletes with a history of soft-tissue injuries from running in their sport may not have accumulated enough sprinting volume in the off-season to sustain their movement requirements for their sport.

Goals and Objectives

Once you know the nature and size of your training audience, it’s easier to formulate goals and objectives for the sessions. Every session can have both general and specific goals, varying from athlete to athlete and group to group. Some goals are philosophical while others are purely and specifically mechanical.

In all cases, having explicit goals and objectives that lead to tangible results is critical for every coach and performance professional. Goals such as team-building and mental toughness only distract you from achieving significant physiological and technical gains through deliberate practice and careful execution of movement skills.

Technical Focus

Every sprint and speed coach has a technical model in mind for how they want an athlete to look during different phases of a sprint. We can characterize this as a general template or model for sprint mechanics that all athletes under their charge are aware of when entering a training season.

Once a coach understands the strengths and weaknesses of the athletes involved in the sessions, more specific technical prescriptions may be required from session to session to realize improvements in execution. Every coach should have an idea of what needs to be improved from session to session with all their athletes so they will progress over the long run.

Some common areas of technique refinement to highlight in a session are start mechanics, arm carriage, head position, step over height, and general relaxation as it relates to effort. Coaches often rotate their emphasis over several training sessions so as not to grind the athletes with the same feedback repeatedly.

Distances Covered

The individual distances covered in a sprint workout are determined by many factors, including sport, event, time of year, facility constraints, weather, athlete size, and the coach’s training approach.

Shorter distances may be associated with an emphasis on explosive starts or working with heavy linemen in American football. Longer sprint distances may be required specifically for 400-meter sprinters in track and field. Intermediate sprint distances may be appropriate for team sport athletes who must perform upright sprinting at high speeds several times throughout a game or match.

It's better not to combine a broad array of distances in the same session with your athletes, particularly with larger groups, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

In most cases, it’s not advisable to combine a broad array of distances with athletes, particularly with larger groups. If you decide to work on starts and shorter accelerations, the bulk of the session should involve repetitions in that range of distance. In a maximum velocity session, which should be a separate session, you can precede maximum velocity sprinting with some shorter accelerations—but not so much that energy is drained early in the workout. This would negatively impact the session’s main objective.

Track and field athletes may be more focused and experienced to handle a broader range of distances within one session. These training sessions tend to be longer in duration, though, and require longer recovery periods than may be possible with team sport athletes. It’s very easy to want to accomplish many goals within one session. However, simplifying your efforts, setting the “bar” an appropriate height, and identifying achievable results are always more productive in the end.

Multi-Directional Activities

“Fake-sport-specialization” has led to a trend toward making all locomotion activities multi-directional and agility-laden. Apparently, straight lines or even slightly curved arcs do not exist in high-level sports—as though the shortest distance between two points remains elusive.

Simply watching a sporting activity, particularly at the higher levels, will yield some movement truths. Multi-direction work is certainly required to prepare an athlete for many sports, but at volumes that are far lower than what is done currently by many sport coaches, strength and conditioning professionals, and even do-it-yourself parents.

Let's not forget that much of the sport-specific work gets done in the sporting practice sessions, says @DerekMHansen. #SprintTraining Share on X

Hence, coaches must be organized and deliberate in their prescription and implementation of multi-directional work. Let us not forget that much of the sport-specific work gets done in the sporting practice sessions, and too much of a good thing can yield nagging overuse injuries.

Planning

One of the most valuable means of determining the length of a training session is examining the constraints over which you have no control. You may only have a facility for 60 minutes, your athletes have classes to attend, or a sporting body only allows a certain amount of training time for your team. Much of our training is determined by conventions that have nothing to do with optimal training methods. For thousands of years, the days of the week have dictated microcycles, not physiological parameters or accurately determined circadian rhythms.

Once you have determined your time allotment for a given session, you begin to examine the amount of time required for equipment setup, warm-ups, individual repetitions, and the recovery times needed for maximal effort and adaptation. Time and recovery determine the work, not some magical physiological formula or coaching intuition. Understanding that leaving some work on the table is not only necessary but also keeps a coach from overdoing it in most cases.

The job of the typical track and field coach is a little more flexible when planning loads. The track facility is rarely booked by numerous sports and groups that share time and fight over start and finish times. Even good track coaches, however, typically impose minimum and maximum times on the track to ensure their athletes have energy and motivation to fight another day. Understanding that athletes have a finite capacity for many tasks and qualities will yield better performances and more durable athletes.

Many coaches struggle over ordering the types of work in their sessions. Some are still wildly mesmerized by ridiculous concepts such as muscle confusion and planned variability, rarely understanding the necessity for repetition, redundancy, accumulation of quality, and well-thought-out work. As Bruce Lee stated, “I do not fear the man who has learned 10,000 different kicks, but more the man who has mastered one kick 10,000 times.”

In general, it’s always advisable to carry out the more energy demanding and complex tasks earlier in the session. Starts require more energy to set the body explosively into motion and also involve significant technical requirements. While one can argue that maximum velocity sprinting is more demanding from both a central and peripheral perspective, it involves more of a “flow-state” with cyclical execution and lower brain involvement.

A short-to-long approach to a #SprintSession yields positive results and also presents a logical progression to the athletes, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Starts can create greater anxiety and overall muscle tension—particularly with the anticipation of each repetition—and are best to address at the outset of the workout before tackling the longer efforts. Hence, a short-to-long approach to an overall workout session can yield positive results. It also presents a logical progression to the athlete as the distances build over time and we add more segments to the individual runs. Working in the reverse order is less intuitive and can also negatively impact technical execution.

Ancillary training activities like plyometrics, throws, and weightlifting work better after sprint training, says @DerekMHansen. #SprintTraining Share on X

It’s also advisable to follow your sprint work with ancillary training activities such as plyometrics, throws, and weightlifting. These noncyclical activities work better after the athletes complete the cyclical, high-speed work. Sometimes, coaches include medicine ball throws and plyometrics—in very manageable doses—before sprint training to try to facilitate a higher level of activation for starts or accelerations. The key is to use these modalities sparingly so as not to steal energy—both physical and psychological—from the main goal: speed!

Warm-Up

The training and competition warm-up protocols used by today’s coaches and athletes are some of the most overthought and under-evaluated aspects of physical preparation. Once again, we hear terms such as movement variability, activation and potentiation, functional, and sports-specific used in an ad nauseam fashion to justify ill-conceived approaches.

The whole point of the warm-up is to prepare athletes for the reality and intensity of what will take place in training and competition. If you expect athletes to accelerate and run fast in training, you had better include a progression of work that covers these qualities.

In its simplest form, a warm-up should include activities that physically increase heat and circulation throughout the entire body. The warm-up also must progressively simulate the activities and intensities the athletes will experience in training and competition. I’ve always said that the easiest way to warm up is to use a short-to-long sprint approach that gradually dials up intensity while moving from shorter sprints to longer sprints. Acceleration involves muscles that play a lesser role in upright sprinting, and vice versa.

A short-to-long warm-up gradually introduces all of the required muscles & increases velocity & overall muscle recruitment as part of the progression. Share on X

A short-to-long approach gradually introduces all of the required muscles and increases velocity and overall muscle recruitment as part of the progression. Drills can emphasize posture, limb movements, and specific qualities (hip range of motion, elastic ground contacts, rapid arm movements, etc.), but we don’t need to use them extensively. We can also intersperse flexibility and range-of-motion exercises throughout the process, often as a check of muscle status and general readiness.

With a large group of athletes, often a highly structured warm-up approach limiting degrees of freedom works best. Determine how much time you can dedicate to the warm-up and then fill in the blanks. With smaller groups of high-performance athletes, you may want to give a bit more independence over how they prepare to take into consideration their individual preferences.

With younger athletes, you’ll have to overstructure the warm-up to make sure they hit all of the key movements and intensities. In all cases, having a plan, identifying objectives, and sticking to a timeline must be part of the approach to ensure you don’t waste time and your athletes are ready to go.

Therapeutic Interventions

While it may not be within the scope of your work to carry out physical therapy techniques on your athletes, it’s always good to know what is possible so you can seek out a practitioner to help you with your athletes. Talking-the-talk may be vital in getting someone else to walk-the-walk for you.

Although most therapeutic interventions take place away from the training venue, many operations now have integrated facilities where athletes can train and receive treatment for injuries under the same roof. Other programs have physical therapy staff on-site during training sessions. Regardless, it’s good to discuss with your team of professionals how to work with athletes during a training session. Having athletes spontaneously and randomly drop out of repetitions to get “tuned up” can be risky if not done properly.

It’s very important to provide an assessment period at the beginning of the session to address issues and communicate information. Access to therapeutic professionals at training sessions is a luxury, and we must treat them as such to avoid the “distraction effect” from hijacking the main purpose of the session: training!

Application of Drills

All coaches use drills in their training progressions to break down larger, more complicated skills. Often, however, the drills become business-as-usual, and both athletes and coaches forget the primary reason the drills were introduced. Apathy takes hold of the exercises, and technique degrades very quickly. Drills also get thrown into a warm-up routine where focus is in short supply and movements become sloppy. While drills can be valuable and certainly have their place in a training session, coaches must be very careful with their application. Drills should be used strategically, precisely, and consistently over time to accrue the true and full benefits.

Drills come after the general warm-up to reinforce proper movement patterns and activate the muscles required for the tasks ahead, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Drills are helpful in the early portions of a training session—following a general warm-up routine—to reinforce proper movement patterns and activate the muscles required for the tasks ahead. Many drills involve specific strengthening characteristics that assist with the proper execution of full movements in sports.

While terms such as activation and potentiation are often used to prepare an athlete for maximal efforts in training and competition, drills also serve this purpose. When moved to the end of a training session, drills can reinforce the movement patterns practiced in the primary training session. Coaches must be careful to monitor technique and fatigue closely to avoid reinforcing poor movement patterns.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Subjective

Qualities that are difficult to measure by objective means often play a significant role in the coaching process. Detecting muscle tension, relaxation, movement efficiency, or perception of pain and effort should all be discussed with the athlete, albeit in small doses and only when warranted. We can then correlate these subjective measures with the objective data collected from session to session.

Even video review interventions can involve a conversation around the question, “How did you feel on this repetition, and does it look as though you thought it would?” Often, athletes have very poor perception and awareness of what they’re trying to affect in a sprint effort and what they demonstrate on video. While your job is not to make your athlete feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about their performances, you should work with them to affect their best biomechanical efforts and resulting outputs. This is certainly the goal of the coaching process.

Objective

Run times. Data collection for monitoring, feedback, and overall tracking of progress are critical in any performance domain. There are many ways to collect athlete efforts over various distances, and most track and field coaches use a conventional stopwatch. The stopwatch is portable, relatively inexpensive, and very convenient, but its accuracy is highly variable, depending on who is conducting the timing.

The stopwatch—particularly in the hands of those collecting 40-yard dash times—often enhances or diminishes a performance depending on the motives of the timer. Some experienced coaches have found the stopwatch quite useful for tracking progress daily, particularly over longer sprint distances where minute deviations in start and stop reflexes don’t make a difference.

Valid and consistent timing results over short sprint distances (less than 200 meters) require electronic timing says @DerekMHansen. #SprintTraining Share on X

Those of us who need valid and consistent timing results over shorter sprint distances (i.e., less than 200 meters) require some form of electronic timing. Accurate times can be had to the hundredth of a second by infrared beam systems, radio frequency chips, and high-speed video applications and cameras. The choice of direction depends on the budget, personal preference, athlete group size, frequency of use, and manual labor resources available to the coach.

While the scope of this article does not cover the intricacies of electronic and fully automatic timing systems, numerous options are available and have been discussed and reviewed online. Any serious performance professional should look at implementing at least one of these systems to verify athlete improvements accurately.

Ground contact times. Ground contact time data has become more and more relevant to performance evaluations, as research has shown that shorter, more forceful contacts correlate with faster running. Although it’s not as easy or economical to collect as sprint times, ground contact data can be caught using a variety of methods.

Anyone with a modern smartphone should have the capability to collect high-definition video at 120 frames per second, which offers accurate times up to a hundredth of a second. While some coaches and analysts resort to manually counting frames of video to calculate ground contact durations, you can import video footage into video analysis applications that do the work for you. Dartfish Express, for example, allows you to tag the initial contact frame and the moment at toe-off to calculate the duration of ground contact for the stance phase during a sprint.

Those who have access to in-ground force-plate technology can also scrape ground contact data. But this can be much more expensive, time costly, much less portable, and generally more complex to set up and implement with a large group of athletes. In-shoe force transducer technology may soon allow us to collect this type of information for groups of athletes at a reasonable price point. In the interim, video footage may serve as the most practical option.

Limb angles. The video analysis applications discussed above often can measure postural and limb angles. It’s imperative to compare apples to apples and not oranges in this case. You must take time and care to capture video from the same distances, angles, and, preferably, the same device. Different cameras, lenses, and smartphones have varying fields of view, depths of field, and even a degree of distortion at the outer edges of the frame. Keeping this in mind, exercise due diligence and create standard operating procedures around your video collection practices.

Velocities. Some video analysis applications can measure velocities, but short of having an expensive instantaneous velocity laser device on hand, it may not be that important to track this information if you can capture interval times over 5 and 10 meters using more conventional electronic timers. You can obtain average velocities using split times, and these may be enough to determine notable increases or decreases in velocity at various stages of a sprint effort.

Stride frequency and stride length. While many world-class biomechanical analyses involve measures of stride frequency and stride length, it may not be as imperative to capture exceptionally accurate data on these qualities, at least not regularly. Counting strides over a given 20-meter window—achieved with a flying start—is an easier way to estimate average stride length and frequency at maximum velocity. In most cases, it’s not advisable to let the athletes know you’re trying to capture this data, as they may alter their normal mechanics to try achieve a better score and corrupt the data. Even worse, they may hurt themselves.

Closing Thoughts

Clearly, we could discuss this topic over tens of thousands of words in multiple volumes and a companion video series. I want to get coaches thinking about the key considerations when planning their sessions. During many years competing as an athlete, coaching athletes, and now educating coaches and rehabilitation professionals, I’ve seen and heard many things.

Much of the information has been good, but much has been illogical and egregious. While it’s easy to point the finger from afar and judge coaches for their actions—even questioning their motives and character—it may be more appropriate to produce resources to guide coaches and make them think about their philosophy and procedures. As my good friend Mark Uyeyama often states, “Most people don’t even know what they don’t know.”

Not many people have had the opportunities I’ve had to learn from some pretty special coaches and human beings. Some of it was sheer luck, but it also involved seeking out the best and learning firsthand the techniques they used to produce champions. It allowed me to get into their heads and truly understand why they did what they did at any given time.

I followed this with a good deal of trial-and-error to experiment with their formulations and philosophies. And while much of what they told me worked, I was forced to come up with some new concepts and techniques on my own. Necessity is the mother of invention, and putting yourself in a situation where you have to deliver often yields positive outcomes and growth. So take this article with a grain of salt, put it in the back of your mind, and get out there and coach to the best of your ability.

I look forward to hearing about your successes and failures; we’ll continue to grow together. For more information on the Running Mechanics Professional courses on this subject and many more other areas related to performance and rehabilitation, please visit Running Mechanics Professional.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

The echo chamber of social media has created a hyper-sensitive environment in the world of athletics. More than ever, it is important to have every “t” crossed and every “i” dotted. It will only take one major incident to test your strength and conditioning program. Are you prepared for an investigation? A lawsuit? To be completely honest, I was not.

After an Incident – Are You Protected?

Many years ago, a spring conditioning session with a volleyball team provided me with a scary situation that is now always in the back of my mind when I condition teams. We were in the middle of the off-season, doing some on-court shuttles that the head coach had requested. They were not unreasonably hard, but they were indeed challenging. We had been doing them for several weeks, progressing volume slowly. Everybody was making the requisite times without incident.

On this day, after the second rep, one of the athletes dropped straight to the ground. She was breathing, but unconscious. She was one of the better-conditioned athletes and had never had a problem in the past. I knew immediately that I had to make the call that no coach ever wants to make: 9-1-1. She was unconscious for what seemed like an hour; in reality, it was closer to 3–4 minutes. The EMTs brought her immediately to the ER. After an overnight stay in the local hospital, the incident was blamed on a combination of low blood pressure, menstruation, and a less-than-adequate diet. Fortunately, the athlete quickly made a full recovery.

That incident sticks out in my mind. For the most part, there wasn’t much that we could have done to prevent it. We followed the emergency action plan successfully, and the student-athlete was ultimately fine. But what if she hadn’t been?

There are many variables in the lives of our athletes that are completely out of our control. If they don’t manage these variables—such as hydration, sleep, diet, medications, etc.—correctly, we could potentially create a harmful, and even dangerous, stimulus for the athlete. I don’t intend to have any more ambulance visits as part of our workouts, but we all need to be prepared in case it happens. My workout written on an Excel sheet was the only documentation I had.

In July 2019, the NCAA Sport Science Institute released a document outlining recommended policies and procedures. On page 8 of that document, it states: “All training and conditioning sessions should be documented. In addition, all training and conditioning sessions should…be reproducible upon request and be shared with the primary athletics health care providers (team physician and athletic trainer) before the session in which they are to be used.” I realized very quickly that I needed a system to not only document our training sessions, but also easily communicate with coaches, athletic training staff, and administrators.

I realized very quickly that I needed a system to not only document our training sessions, but also easily communicate with coaches, athletic training staff, and administrators. Share on X

Working at a low-resource university, we have a small staff with very limited time. I knew that there had to be a better way than using Excel. Sure, saving PDFs or paper copies of our training sessions was an option, but I needed to step outside my comfort zone. It’s a challenge to reproduce old workouts on Excel if you are constantly changing a floating 1RM or theoretical max. My old method of sharing workouts with a cloud drive was never as simple and easy as I would have hoped.

Upgrading from Excel to Athlete Management Software

I selected CoachMePlus for many different reasons. I liked the ability to create, share, and archive workouts, gather information with the athlete questionnaires, and integrate with the Bluetooth scale and hydration information (our school is in the desert).

I decided to start small, using the software with a small portion of our teams first. I have been a lifelong Excel user, and this first step was quite a big one. Entering the athletes into the system was quite easy and, after the video tutorials, very intuitive. There is a period of setup, but I found it was similar to using Excel at the beginning of every year. I started with the basic setup with each athlete. I really like that the software includes plenty of options for customization.

When I entered our athletes into the system, I also entered our athletic trainers and administrators so they would have access to each of our athlete’s workouts. This allows them to review the workout prior to training. This transparency is becoming more and more important in today’s athletic environment. Provided you give them plenty of time, this puts the responsibility in the hands of the administrators and trainers to voice any disapproval ahead of time. Since many of our medical examinations happen just prior to training sessions, the more information each party has ahead of time, the more it helps us make rational and logical decisions regarding training session modifications.

The more information each party has ahead of time, the more it helps us make rational and logical decisions regarding training session modifications. Share on X

The builder section of the software allows you to create exercises, circuits, and programs. My first step was to establish my own personal exercise library. When I had looked at first generations of strength and conditioning software, this was a rigid process consisting of a few dozen generic exercises. Each coach has their own nuanced set of exercises and terminology. The builder allowed me to include my own terminology with my own loading parameters. I used my own exercises with my own progressions and the ability to add notes.

For technology to work at the university level, it needs to be flexible and user-friendly. I was pleased to find that CoachMePlus was both. It was not only easy to program lifts in the weight room, but also sprint drills, plyometrics, and conditioning sessions. Parameters such as % of 1RM, load in pounds or kilograms, distance, time, etc. are variables that users can select when creating a new exercise. This flexibility is extremely important to me as a strength coach. The ability to attach your own videos to the exercises is especially useful for incoming athlete workouts and break workouts.

Putting the workout together was very straightforward and quite easy. Even better was the fact that it was simple to customize. Whether due to an injury or an athlete with a different training timeline, changing the exercise, sets, or reps was super easy. It is a quick modification for these changes.

If you have an athlete coming off a period of inactivity, such as with a major injury, you can easily customize remedial programs. Excel was woefully inefficient for this task. In the past, I made modifications on the fly or scratched them on the workout cards themselves. Again, in today’s athletic environment, this will put the coach and the athletic department at risk. Having this information available to your medical staff can further open communication silos.

The software lets you easily customize remedial programs for athletes coming off a period of inactivity, such as with a major injury. Excel is woefully inefficient for this. Share on X

Time is very limited in our environment. The ability to create and save warm-ups, recovery workouts, and conditioning sessions can be a real time-saver. You can tailor copy-and-paste workouts by day and by athlete if needed.

Documentation Adds a Layer of Protection

At CSU Bakersfield, we have basketball players coming from a variety of places. Many come from junior colleges, but others are four-year transfers or fresh out of high school. As a result, the incoming players arrive on our campus at different points of the year. I am a big believer in progression. You don’t teach a toddler to read by throwing a Tolstoy novel on their lap, and you don’t get a 7-foot basketball player to clean from the ground by trying it on day 1.

In the past, I had to write and keep up multiple, different Excel sheets until the new athletes were able to perform the returner’s workout. I will not progress an athlete who has not demonstrated a level of proficiency on an exercise. At one point several years ago, I had to keep four different Excel sheets for basketball alone. With 16 sports, you can imagine the amount of time I spent at the computer! My Excel workbooks were a mess, and I never really archived them properly.

This summer, I was able to take our new athletes through progressions without having to write entirely new workouts. For example, I had my returners do power snatches from block above knee (five sets of three reps), while several of my new athletes did muscle snatches from the power position (three sets of five reps). I was easily able to customize the program without starting from scratch. This saves time and documents the progression, just in case an issue comes up. The ability to program and document small nuances, such as player A pulling off a 4-inch block while player B pulls off an 8-inch block, becomes quite manageable. Our athletes start at different places and progress at different rates.

The workouts are then documented and archived, which is extremely important if you are ever going to survive an investigation. Every coach has the potential to be put under the microscope. This is one of the best ways to document your work and protect yourself and your athletic department. The best part is there are no file boxes of used paper workouts or endless PDFs saved through scans. Although I still print all our workout cards, at the end of the week they go into the recycle bin.

Your athletic training staff probably uses an electronic medical records system that documents much of their work. S&C coaches should adopt a software system that allows them to do the same. Share on X

Your athletic training staff probably uses an electronic medical records system that documents and catalogs much of their work. Strength and conditioning coaches should really think about adopting a software system that allows them to document and archive. There is no reason that you need to spend tons of man-hours keeping track of documentation. With all the advances in technology today, you owe it to yourself to streamline the process.

Tailored Questionnaires Lead to Better Communication

The daily wellness questionnaire provides yet another layer of protection through communication. Athletes can communicate RPE, sleep quality, soreness, and pain. This can help coaches and athletic training staff red-flag certain athletes. If you see high RPEs and high soreness levels for consecutive days, you may have to make an adjustment in your programming.

This is especially useful when working with new athletes. Many of our new athletes are being asked to work harder than they ever have, in combination with the fact that they are adjusting to life in a new location and on their own for the first time. I saw much higher soreness and RPE values for our new athletes even though their initial intensities were quite low.

If you have specific questions that are unique to your setting, you can include them on your questionnaire. The athletes access this questionnaire by app on their phone or tablet.

I am fortunate to have a good medical staff around me. We work well together: We have well-defined roles and communicate well with one another. That being said, we really could have used this app several years ago.

Back then, we had a basketball player who struggled with toe pain. It developed right before his final year of eligibility. Turns out one of the sesamoid bones of his big toe had turned necrotic. It was basically dead. The options were for him to have surgery to remove the bone and miss his final year or to try to play through it. He was a tough kid and opted for the second choice. We had to carefully manage his workload to keep the bone from breaking apart. Our staff did a great job of managing the load and, ultimately, he had a successful senior year.

A piece of technology such as this could be a great asset in monitoring soreness and pain. Not only to avoid further damage to the toe, but to avoid secondary injury as a result of a compensation. Athletes often don’t really start developing pain and soreness until several hours after a competition or practice. So, just because athletes leave your facility without significant pain and soreness, it doesn’t mean that it won’t develop later that day. Having the ability to communicate and document is a great asset in these situations.

A Multitude of Game-Changing Capabilities

The capabilities of the CoachMePlus software are vast. I have only begun to scratch the surface of how it can improve a program, but I think its greatest contribution is its ability to communicate and document our programming.

University administrators aren’t always well-equipped to evaluate a strength and conditioning coach. I once sat down with an administrator who admitted she was not quite sure how to evaluate my position. Ultimately, she decided to reach out to all my head coaches for feedback. I think this was a good move. We are support staff, and it’s important that the head coach feels good about their strength coach.

The ability of a coach to coach, communicate, and organize is fairly straightforward; however, these are all subjective measures. It would be nice if part of the evaluation process included performance metrics. CoachMePlus offers an easy snapshot of the improvement of key longitudinal measurements. The ability of a strength coach to visually demonstrate the value they create in their position is a game changer.

CoachMePlus allows a strength coach to visually demonstrate the value they create in their position. This is a game changer. Share on X

Don’t wait until the next big catastrophe in athletics. Protect yourself, your staff, and your athletes. We all know how important documentation is, but we struggle to keep up with our busy schedules at times. CoachMePlus offers your program a solution for what is sure to be an ongoing issue in the world of athletics.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

By Mark Hoover

“The gods love to toy with people who use absolutes.”—Josephine Angelini

This quote sums up exactly my sentiment about most things in life, but particularly about the field of sports performance and especially when it comes to working at the high school level. I write a lot about the “growth mindset” and how important I believe it is to attack life from an “I don’t know what I don’t know” perspective. If you believe in that concept, especially as strongly as I do, it becomes unthinkable to place much of what we do in the category of absolute.

One buzzword phrase that has caught my attention recently is game-day lifting. While it’s obviously not a very scientific way of polling, according to what I’ve been reading in the “Twitter-verse,” most coaches are on board with at least some form of weight training on competition days. A smaller but often vocal group seem to be dyed in the wool anti-game-day lifting proponents. They are absolutely sure it’s detrimental to performance later in the day. While I could dive into a rant about how this is a set mindset and is much more detrimental to the athletes those particular coaches work with, I won’t because I’ve already done my rant article for the year.

I could also write a comprehensive article about the pros and cons, but Coach Bob Alejo wrote a fabulous one, which I used as a reference when programming what we do on game days. Instead, I’ll focus on the anti-absolutes that influence how we plan and implement our game-day lifting at York Comprehensive High School (YCHS). I’ll discuss what variables go into our decision-making process and how combinations of these are reflected in our approach. I will also outline our general programming and review why we do what we do and when. Although I focus on football, the concepts hold true for all our school sports.

Using an Evidence-Based Approach

At YCHS, part of the mission statement for our sports performance program is “use an evidence-based approach.” Webster defines evidence as “an outward sign” or “one who bears witness.” It doesn’t say anything about “must come from extensive research and written in a journal.” So while I am not anti-research, we are not tied to that as the only way to use an evidence-based approach.

One of my favorite parts of the book The System is the author’s discussion about why American strength coaches initially found it so hard to communicate with the Eastern Block coaches. Paraphrasing, the author said the Eastern coaches used the term coach’s eye repeatedly. When asked a question by the American coaches, instead of quoting research, they replied “use your coach’s eye.” In the East, sports scientists and coaches worked as a symbiotic unit. Unlike in the West where those relationships were often at odds. So the Eastern Block coaches used research as a base to jump from, but ultimately the evidential proof came from actual real-time outcomes as judged by seasoned professionals.

That struck me as a very growth-minded approach. Because of that, I rely much more on our data collection and outcomes from the athletes I have in front of me than the ones the sports scientist or doctoral students studied and eventually wrote about. Coaching and the coach’s eye is a large part of our evidence.

Recently, I posted a 24-second video on Twitter of one of our football game-day lifts. I was shocked at the response. At the time of this writing, it’s been 36 hours, and I’m at over 600 likes. I also had one coach who replied that by doing what I was doing, our players would be fatigued and give our opponents an advantage. When I scoffed at the idea, this person replied “show me how I am wrong.” He pointed out that he had read over 40 articles to come up with his point of view. My direct answer to that challenge was simple, “I watched our players PLAY tonight with the same energy level they trained with this morning. They were not fatigued and played very fast.”

What drives change in our program? Data collected from our athletes & what my coach’s eye tells me is effective, says @YorkStrength17. #GameDayLifting Share on X

Now, many variables that led me to this conclusion (which I will discuss), but in the most simplistic terms possible: my coach’s eye told me we had done the right thing that day. It won’t be a research article or an opinion of a person with more letters behind their name than mine that will induce most changes to our program. It will be the data I collect from our athletes and what my coach’s eye tells me is effective. The minute I see that our athletes are sluggish or sore and it causes a drop in their ability to perform, we’ll adjust to make it the best it can be.

Variable One: Program Needs vs. Brain Candy

Two of the very first—and most macro—variables that go into our decisions about game-day programming are: What are the needs of the program and the wants of the head coach? Our job as high school strength coaches is not to set the culture for each sport. Our job is to support the culture of the overall athletic program and the individual teams within it. Clearly we must own our universe inside our facility, but ultimately the sport coach sets the tone for program culture.

I’m now in my second football season at YCHS (although I’ve had three off-seasons here), and the two years have been vastly different from the standpoints of culture, wants, and needs. In 2018, our head coach did not emphasize game-day lifts. Our football class was during the last block of the day, primarily so film and practice time could be earlier in the day. I was given Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for 30-35 minutes with our players. Friday, I had basically zero contact until our pre-game activation stretch and movement period following the pre-game meal.

This season we have a new head coach. One of his only requests for me was that we lift hard on Friday. He has an amazing win-loss record with multiple state championship game appearances with this philosophy. His goal was to establish a culture of no excuses for not working hard. He also had our class moved to the start of the day. I was given 45-50 minutes (if needed) 3-4 days a week with Thursday being the only day I’m not with the players. Our culture changed, and it is now my job to support that change. Coach wants us working hard on game day? It’s time to make the plan.

Coach wants us working hard on game day? It's my job to support the culture change and make the plan, says @YorkStrength17. #GameDayLifting Share on X

A second major difference from a program-needs perspective is the training age of our athletes. In 2018, the vast majority of our varsity contributors were juniors and seniors who had reached at least Block 3 in our layering program. By the time an athlete graduates to Block 3, their strength levels are approaching levels that we’re comfortable with. They’ve also become very proficient in technique and bar speed. By the time they graduate to Block 4, most of our athletes are no longer working off a 1RM but instead are using lower intensities with velocity based training.

Most of our guys were strong enough. This allowed me to get what we needed to be done in the weight room by training twice a week and using the third day as our mobility and recovery day. From a programming standpoint, our volume was kept very low, but we pushed intensity in those two days. By the time the bye week before the first round of the playoffs rolled around, we were hitting a couple warm-up sets and then a single at our pre-season 1RM in both trap bar deadlift and flat bench press and 91% on back squats.

Jump ahead to this season. We have a total of nine seniors on our roster. Most of our contributors are underclassmen. Well, once again, there are no absolutes. While most of our juniors last year had graduated to Block 3, this year was different. Our JV players were not in the class last season. They were scheduled to lift after school. The week before Labor Day was the last time they lifted as a team (football decision). I didn’t see them in mass until January when our second semester began!

So now most of our varsity roster is a full five months behind the previous year. Using the same training methods would not be the best practice for this particular group. Our team is in the development phase. In Coach Alejo’s game day article, he pointed out:

“With younger, typically less experienced lifters, there’s a greater margin for error when attempting this type of training. In other words, less can go wrong; they are more resilient to volume-based error and injury. So much so that you can program the intent of the game-day lift to add to the development. Perhaps, for example, small gains in hypertrophy and, of course, strength and power, which would not be your typical in-season program goal. Fatigue is unlikely given a common sense approach to the training.”

We needed to get three good lifts in with these guys. Friday would be our day. Our program needs analysis told me that our game-day programming needed to reflect this.

Variable Two: Year-Round Programming and Development

One huge advantage we have at YCHS is that we have a football class for our players both semesters. Essentially, I can be with them 180 times during the school year for 90 minutes per day. We also train six and a half of the eight weeks during the summer before the first official day of practice (three more days a week of lifting plus a fourth dedicated to speed and quickness), which brings me up to 206 days with them. Add in the three weeks between the start of camp and the first day of school, and I have access to our football athletes 224 days a year.

This allows me to program a true year-round calendar not just for lifting volume and intensity but also periodization of our conditioning, speed, quickness, and jumping. We wave our volume and use a monthly count of reps for our six major movements to increase volume by no more than 10% per four-week cycle.

As we get into spring, practice volume drops and then picks back up until we begin a decline at the end of July, which continues through the end of the season. Then after a 3-4 week work capacity cycle that runs us through the holidays, our athletes graduate a level (most of the time) and begin the process over with a little bit higher volume total goal as they age. This continues until they graduate.

By the time our athletes are lifting on game day, they've moved well past the point of anatomical adaptation, says @YorkStrength17. #GameDayLifting Share on X

By the time we’re asking our athletes to lift on game day (when they reach the varsity level in football; we do things slightly different with other sports), they’ve moved well past the point of anatomical adaptation. They’re used to a higher level of volume and working hard and fast-paced. This is imperative in this process; our whole goal is to improve long-term performance.

However, we don’t want to put a younger athlete in a situation where they may get sore or stiff from a lift. Once again, this is where experience and the coach’s eye come in. If I’ve not seen our volleyball players for two weeks and we have a game, we adjust our programming to compensate. Once they are in the flow, we begin to adjust again. When programming for multiple sports as we do, we need to be very flexible and understand the culture and fluidity of every individual situation.

Variable Three: Timing Nutrition and Reality

Another advantage was our switch from classes at the end of the day to the start of the day. I have our football guys from about 8:50 am to 10 am on game day. That’s almost 10 hours before game time. This gives me lots of time to not only lift but also get our mobility and recovery work done.

On Friday, our football players warm up and then get a 25- to 30-minute lift in. We spend the last 15 minutes of class doing meditation and recovery breathing. For many, this turns into a nice catnap. Following this, our players receive a bagged lunch and milk to eat before they change and go off to class. This is an enormous positive variable and one big reason we feel comfortable doing what we do with them in the weight room. Counting lunch and the pre-game meal, our kids have three full meals between lifting and competition. We also give them a second meditation and recovery breathing session for 30-35 minutes after the pre-game meal and before we do any warm-up or activations pre-game.

Our players are fully recovered and not fatigued when we step on the field at 7:30 pm, says @YorkStrength17. #GameDayLifting Share on X

Although I started this post preaching no absolutes, I can say with certainty that our players are fully recovered and not fatigued when we step on the field at 7:30 pm (despite the claims of my Twitter adversary and his absolute doctrines). Our non-football athletes don’t have the same timing and often don’t have the same nutritional advantages. They also don’t have as much time for recovery protocols on game days. That’s the variable for them that causes a variation in programming for me as the strength coach. Each team is programmed differently based on these variables. Once again, no absolutes.

Variable Four: Coach’s Eye and Athlete Feedback

This is possibly the most vital and also the most difficult. Not only do I watch how our athletes move, but I also talk to them. My athletes have no problem letting me know how they feel. We’ve built trust, and they know I will adjust for them individually as needed. There are no absolutes while lifting on game day. I may have 90% of the team lifting while the other 10% do a modified program or even recovery and mobility, depending on the needs of each player.

#GameDayLifting has no absolutes. 90% of the team may lift while the other 10% do a modified program or recovery & mobility, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

I also have them fill out monitoring forms where they color in the areas of the body that are sore or fatigued. They can write any issue on the sheet, and we also use it to monitor sleep. When we tumble and warm up, I watch bar speed and how they move. If they seem fatigued, we have a conversation.

On Friday nights, I’m with them from 6:40 pm to the end of the game. During the game, I don’t have any real duties, so I’m able to watch our guys play. It’s my time to view them as a team and informally assess how they look. I’ve not seen anything yet that indicates we need to make any adjustments. The second I do, we’ll figure out what tweaks we need and will make them.

To go back to my Twitter debate with the other coach, he said his study proved that fatigue was a near-absolute. My study of our team proved there were no absolutes. I watched our players, I stretched our players, and I talked to our players, and they presented no residual fatigue. That’s not to say that another coach may find a different result. I can only speak for my “study,” which is very fluid and adjustable.

Showcasing Programming

I won’t spend much time on this topic. The in-season program we use this year will likely become an article of its own. Our general game-day program, though, looks like this:

8:50-9:00 Mobility and Athletic Development Warm-up

9:00-9:40 Lifting

• 1A Elevated Trap Bar Power Shrugs (timed 1 second per rep)
• 1B Jammers (using gymnastic rings and bars as homemade jammers)
• 2A Bench Press
• 2B Unilateral Bent Over Rows
• 2C Scap Retractions
• 3A Neck
• 3B Band Pull Aparts

9:40-9:55 Recovery Breathing (no lights, laying down, meditation music)

9:55-10:14 Get food, shower, and change

Intensity for Tier 1 is pretty simple. I preload the bars for the team, and we group by trap bar deadlift max: groups with guys over 450 use 140 pounds, 350 use 120 pounds, and under 350 use 100 pounds. We time them with the goal of one second per rep. Every time we drop volume, we add 5 pounds per group.

For the bench press, we work up to 70% for 6 reps, 80% for 5 reps, 85% for 4 reps, 88% for the rest with a bar speed focus. We program our pulls to be +2 above the volume of the bench press for the day. As you can see, the volume starts moderately low and moves to very low by the post-season; it has an inverse relationship with intensity moving through the season.

No Absolutes: Just Play the Cards that Are Dealt

The theme of this article is that there are few absolutes in our profession. There are only variables that need to be adjusted to produce the desired adaptations. Again, I focused on football, but the ideas apply to all our sports at YCHS. I have been and will continue to plug these variables for each program to help keep our athletes strong and healthy.

Game-day lifting could absolutely become detrimental to performance if we do not stay focused. A cookie-cutter program in which one size fits all is just a bad idea. The variables I presented here are not only not the only ones I see (just the ones I had room to write about) but also will not be the same as you may have. Would we do something different if we had them on Saturday? Very likely we would. How about only after school? Yes, there is no way we would do the same if we trained four hours or less before the game. Must you train on game day? Nope, not at all. Why? Because maybe your situation prevents you from doing so.

Bottom line is you do you. Just make sure it’s the most efficient and effective process you can do for your kids. Last but not least, please do not listen or put stock in people preaching that the way they believe is right is the only right. It’s probably pretty absolute that’s not the case. Have a growth mindset. Chase knowledge but always see it through the perspective of the variables of your situation and strive to present your athletes with whatever practices get the closest to meeting them where they are at, not where your opinion says they should be.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Strength and conditioning coaches at every level face challenges. While many of these challenges are similar across the board, from the professional ranks all the way down to high school and middle school, there are also challenges many of us do not share. Collective bargaining agreements in pro sports and strict “hours” rules in the NCAA can limit a strength coach’s contact time with athletes, while a high school strength coach may have 30–40 beginner level athletes training at one time, year-round.

Every strength and conditioning coach has a different reality that shapes their views on training and organization. I believe we can all agree that small group training and working one-on-one with athletes is a different animal than working with 30+ athletes in a strictly limited amount of time and space. The latter requires a strict adherence to basic training exercises and progressions. I get it. Basics can be boring. Repeated efforts at low-level progressions on the basics is boring. But, I ask, what is the goal?

This article will highlight many of the real day-to-day challenges faced in a high school weight room. As previously stated, everyone’s reality is different, and some of these challenges may resonate while others may not.

Are You Not Entertained?

Teenagers need to be engaged. One of the biggest challenges in the high school setting is keeping kids engaged in the training program. Creating “buy-in” takes many shapes. Take the baseball-only kid who has been told by everyone that bench pressing is bad. I could bore him with all my fancy information on how that is misguided and how there is no scientific proof that bench pressing will destroy his shoulder. Or I can create buy-in and let him do push-up variations and dumbbell bench presses. The kid instantly feels comfortable and is more likely to listen going forward.

In many sports where weight training has not been traditionally accepted, you run into kids who are only in the weight room because someone told them to be there. There is no intent on their part to physically improve, and they are merely following the herd. The sports where this is prevalent are also the sports where the head coach is usually out of sight, and where strength training is more of a suggestion than a requirement. These are the teams that cause the most frustration, so they usually get pushed down the scheduling pecking order. Athletes in these sports attend inconsistently at best. Because of that, their training program is very vanilla and has to remain basic.

While carnival tricks and unrealistic exercise variations are becoming popular, strength training should never be about entertainment, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

Carnival tricks and unrealistic exercise variations are becoming popular and seem to draw a lot of attention. I suppose those would easily create more buy-in for me. But strength training should never be about entertainment. Time is limited, and high school athletes don’t train six days per week. If coaches run out of things to do, then it’s necessary for them to reexamine their training process. It is universally accepted that athletes need to sprint, jump, throw, push, pull, squat, and hinge. Basic training options are endless if you focus on those areas.

Exercise Performance Over Sport Performance

You can make an argument that strength training at the high school level is less about performance and transfer to sport and more about doing exercises correctly. Required physical education at the grade school level is dying out. Free play is becoming a thing of the past. Consequently, movement efficiency suffers, postural imbalances manifest, and overall general athleticism diminishes.

It is imperative to have a qualified strength and conditioning coach in the school teaching correct movement. Look at a child’s posture while they sit for 45 minutes at a time in class for 7+ hours per day. It’s a recipe for dysfunction. Add in the proliferation of the year-round club and travel ball scene, and you have little time for organized strength training.

We have many three-sport athletes in our school. Kids are perpetually “in season” year-round. A cross country runner who also plays basketball is at a disadvantage if weight training ceases the last three weeks of the cross country season. Use it or lose it—that athlete falls way down the physical capacity spectrum and actually begins to lose strength. Then they are asked to go from zero to 100 once basketball starts. Is it really a surprise that kids in that scenario pull up lame the first week of practice?

Bouncing from season to season requires a unified strength program across every sport in your school. Our training programs are nearly identical across all sports. This allows a smooth transition from one in-season plan to the next.

Social media is ripe with some neat exercise variations that make for a great selfie opportunity. I always ask, “How did you get to that (progression)?” and “How do you do that with 40 kids (practicality)?” Rarely, if ever, do we see actual athletes performing these variations in training. We talk about low force outputs when training in unstable positions or on unstable surfaces. If you are training to improve stability, then that’s great. But when strength is the goal, I prefer to pick exercises that allow the most weight to be lifted safely.

While variation may be a strategy to keep kids engaged, it can get out of hand. We are not trying to win the exercise variety Olympics. We may never progress past basic exercises like a front squat. If you have an athlete-centered program, then I believe your program allows enough flexibility to accommodate all stages of advancement.

While variation may be a strategy to keep kids engaged, it can get out of hand. We are not trying to win the exercise variety Olympics, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

Some of my kids will train in an eight-week concentrated in-season block and then disappear for the rest of the year. Then—surprise!—they show up again for that eight-week in-season block. Their program remains the most basic of basics. That is a problem that needs to be fixed, but it happens quite often.

Be Like Dave Ramsey

When programming, I prefer to think like Dave Ramsey. His concept of the debt snowball—pouring resources into your smallest debt first—is to me an ideal way to approach training high school kids. After you pay off the smallest debt, you move your resources to the next debt and then the next, until you’re debt-free. This snowball effect allows you to increase variability in your training program because you knocked out your low-level debts first.

Pick your most basic debts (exercises) first, pour your resources (coaching/teaching) into mastering them, and then move your resources (progressions) to the next. Bodyweight Squat–>Goblet Squat–>Front Squat. Seems simple. Mastering an exercise like the bodyweight squat increases momentum into your next progression, and these can begin to stack upon each other.

Every Day Is an Evaluation

Screening every athlete in our program is not feasible. We discover orthopedic issues and real medical conditions through an athlete pre-participation physical. Bona fide movement screens, however, are not currently part of our program. Because of this, we have to make assumptions. These are not “grab-bag” assumptions. They are educated assumptions based on years of working with young athletes.

Need a quick “movement screen” that you can do in 20 seconds? Have your kids jog to one end of the gym and back. Be observant. What is the worst thing that can happen if you wrongly assume a kid should goblet squat instead of back squat first? This is a serious question.

Most, if not all, of the following should come as no surprise to most practitioners in the field. In general terms, most of the athletes I encounter possess the following:

• Low relative strength.
• Low work capacity.
• Pronounced knee valgus.
• Limited thoracic spine mobility.
• Limited low back/hamstring flexibility.
• Increased ankle eversion.
• Overloaded sport-specific skills.
• Anxiety about training.
• Poor communication skills.
• Poor nutrition and sleep habits.

Recognizing that these are common issues regardless of sport helps lay the foundation for all of our training programs. It is critical with the high school-age demographic that you place emphasis on improving exercise form. What is more important for a 14-year-old female soccer player who falls into all or most of the above? If athletes can improve in all of these areas, there is a good probability that sporting performance will improve as well.

A quick word on testing. Strength exercises are the easiest and most feasible testing means for me to employ. I can have coaches in the room to help. It’s simple. You either pressed the weight or you did not. I do not have a laser timing system and I have ONE Vertec. Accuracy with hand-timed sprints varies wildly when you have a number of coaches trying to help, so currently I do not test speed and agility. I would like to, but validity and reliability would come into question.

Our strength testing battery varies from sport to sport. Our teams and athletes who train the most consistently are able to have more testing opportunities versus teams that only train in small concentrated blocks throughout the school year. Kids struggling with push-ups and chin-ups are not a high strength testing priority.

Linear Periodization Is Not Dead

Progressive overload works. Athletes need hundreds of repetitions, quite possibly more, to become competent enough to be trusted. For many, attendance is intermittent, which requires a very vanilla loading approach. The truth of the matter is that most high school athletes will not reach elite status in the weight room or in their chosen sport.

Of course, there are a handful every year across all of our sports who move on and play at a higher level. It just so happens that those are also the kids who have devoted ample time to physical improvement, in conjunction with their technical and tactical training, through organized weight training and conditioning. Consistently increasing (and decreasing) training load week to week, month to month, and year to year will yield the highest results. Think of it as a slow cook.

Too many people think we have to fit four years of training into the first six weeks of freshman year, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

I like to use percentages as a guide for our older kids who actually have established a 1RM. All first-year athletes are in our development program for months before we approach an appreciable load on our main movements. It’s a guessing game initially with those kids, but who cares? Show me proficiency with a 15-pound training bar. Then 20 pounds. Then 25 pounds, and so on. Too many people think we have to fit four years of training into the first six weeks of freshman year because “I play baseball” or “my club coach needs me ready for spring.” No offense, but I do not work for your club team.

Logistics Can Hurt

Facility limitations are a factor when designing programs and selecting exercise progressions. We are the only Catholic high school in our county. Our school day is 7:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. We have kids who commute 30–40 minutes one way to get to our building every day. We currently do not offer a weight training or strength and conditioning class as part of our curriculum. That leaves for a tight window after school to get all of our first-year developmental kids, in-season sports, and off-season sports through their training programs.

After-school training sessions can be quite crowded because, if we ask a kid to wait two hours before they start training, there is a good chance that kid will just leave and go home. As a consequence, I have to try and get as many kids in at one time or risk losing them to go off and train elsewhere, usually unsupervised. Mom’s Orange Theory class does not count as training.

Safe and effective programming is critical, and it trumps anything that may be intrinsically rewarding to an athlete, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

Safe and effective programming is critical and trumps anything that may be intrinsically rewarding to an athlete. Before school is an option, but it is usually only reserved for teams with a strong attendance record and, quite frankly, a strong culture and commitment to the weight room. I am an advocate for sleep and recovery, but the reality of our situation requires some teams to have early morning training sessions. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to support this, but thus far we have not created any Walking Dead zombies or witnessed a decrease in academic performance because of once-a-week early morning lifts.

We offer 16 sports and within many of those sports are separate freshman, junior varsity (JV), and varsity rosters. Of those 16, only five practice on our campus, so getting kids back and forth from practices to the building for training becomes a challenge. Some practices are a 20- to 30-minute drive from the main building. Asking parents to get their kid back to lifting at 6:30 p.m. for 30–45 minutes and then to commute 40 minutes home is a tough order.

I have had parents tell me point-blank that if their kid does not train right after school, then they won’t bring them back later. It’s a difficult situation with not many realistic solutions. Some coaches make it optional for the kid to return and lift after practice. Some kids do and some do not. Each sport is different. It’s not ideal, but it’s real.

We are fortunate to have two full-sized practice basketball/volleyball courts in addition to our main competition floor. This facility is great for large group warm-ups and speed and agility sessions. We can transition easily into the weight room from there. However, when lightning strikes, literally, the football team is moved inside to the practice gym and our warm-up and speed space is gone. The speed program takes a hit that day because of space.

On a one-off basis, you can live with it. You adapt. But there are too many reasons to list in this article why, on short notice, the training space can be eliminated, and we’re left with figuring out how to get 30 kids in and out before the next group. At times, the program becomes disjointed.

Compressed game schedules make in-season training very difficult. Our volleyball programs play 16 regular season games over the course of five weeks. Training time is reduced to once a week. The decision then has to be made to continue progressive weight training or focus on recovery.

Combine poor sleep and nutrition habits, and I am not sure that “recovery” sessions implemented by the strength coach are all that effective, especially when there is a practice immediately afterward. The argument can be made that the strength training will not be all that effective either. At least with the strength training, there is a stimulus present that can help drive some form of adaptation, even if it is not the most optimal.

Working with Coaches and Parents

While working at the college level, my interaction with parents was usually limited to recruiting visits, an occasional home game, and prolonged road trips when we were in the same place for a number of days for a game or tournament. We were dealing with young adults and, for the most part, parents did not try to speak and/or answer for their kids.

High school is different. At every school function there is interaction with parents. Our school hosts many fundraisers and social gatherings throughout the school year, and parents cannot wait to speak to me about their child, both good and bad. It is a delicate balancing act of being honest about kids with their parents without being disrespectful. I try to avoid most conversations about kids at these types of events to save myself the trouble of upsetting someone.

At this age, kids barely learn how to effectively communicate on their own behalf. Seriously, you just found out today that you are leaving after school for a 10-day family vacation? Some parents are great about advocating for their child to open the lines of communication, while other parents would rather handle it all themselves. As coaches, we also have to work with kids to develop their verbal communication skills. It goes beyond asking “how do you feel today?” I often tactfully answer parents’ emails and explain to them that their child needs to communicate directly with me.

The real challenge is helping parents to understand where their child is “right now” on the physical capacity spectrum. Unfortunately, that is a reality that is difficult for parents to grasp. If they have their minds already made up, no amount of information or advice you give them will sway their opinion. Tell a parent why their kid should take the club season off. The reaction will probably not be a positive one.

The “more is better” mindset is prevalent, and you end up with kids who show little to no improvement. The truth of the matter is that kids and parents will choose a club/travel team over a high school team nearly 100% of the time. We have kids miss varsity games to attend club team games, tournaments, and practices. It’s delicate, and since these are teenagers, their parents, rightfully, have the final say.

The truth of the matter is that kids and parents will choose a club/travel team over a high school team nearly 100% of the time, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

My experience working with high school sport coaches has been tremendous. They are glad to not have to worry about designing their own lifting and conditioning programs. A full-time strength coach is a luxury for any coach, as it takes an item off their plate that, truthfully, many of them are not comfortable with to start.

Education is a big piece of this, and it is definitely a challenge. In terms of training, coaches are like many consumers who read the latest fitness trends and equate that as being the same as an organized strength program. Old dogmas are prevalent and the “we did this when I played” mantra is alive and well. Apparently, all of our 500-pound squatters graduated before I got here.

Increased 1RMs are the easiest way for coaches to see improvement, so the difficulty is in showing how chasing numbers in the weight room does not necessarily transfer to sporting performance on the field. Sure, strength matters and we always want to improve it. It looks great during the lift-a-thon at the end of the summer. But improvements in range of motion and sprint ability are not sexy.

At the college level, it was pretty much “keep your coaches happy” or you’d either be reassigned or lose your job. It is not like that here. Our coaches are not coaching as their primary source of income, and there is definitely an increased level of respect for what I do from the coaches I work with. I work hard to keep them happy, and they are respectful of the job I do. I consider myself a resource for them and dialogue is easy.

A big difference is that, as the strength coach, I have to work with the good and the bad. A sport coach can take a bad player and set them on the bench or put them at the back of a drill and forget about them. In the weight room, I cannot hide players like that, and they deserve the same level of coaching I would give to an all-star.

Having administrative support is also critical to the success of the strength and conditioning program. Being a full-time strength coach at a school our size shows that our school administration and coaches are committed to kids first. My vision for the strength program aligns with our school mission. When in doubt, I can always go back to what our mission is as a school to re-center myself.

Don’t Worry – The Kids Are Alright

Working with teens is rewarding, fulfilling, and downright fun. It is also frustrating. All at the same time. Kids will skip. Kids will make poor decisions. Kids will lie. They will miss lifting for the most mundane of reasons. It has taken me a while to realize that doctor’s appointments, apparently, can only be made during one of the two scheduled training times kids have for the week. Oh, and that it is impossible to change the appointment time.

The reality of a quick four years of high school means that they do need some constants. Strength coaches can be a steady, constant presence in an otherwise chaotic and socially distorted world for teenagers. They need structure. They need steady. Kids need mentors. Kids are very malleable at this age, and we have to nurture the good and the bad. We all want to win. But what is winning if your kids have no respect for themselves or for others?

High school strength coaches can be a steady, constant presence in an otherwise chaotic and socially distorted world for teenagers, says @built_by_craig. Share on X

I believe our job is to provide an environment where they are set up to succeed and fail. A place for leadership development. A place for accountability. Without failure there is no growth.

The strength program should be no different than any other learning environment. We cannot complain about lack of leadership if we don’t do anything to teach kids how to lead. You would have to look far and wide to find a high school freshman who naturally displays what you want in leadership. We cannot complain about the lack of accountability if we don’t teach kids what that actually looks like. Working with young people is a huge responsibility, and it is on us to provide the tools and structure to help them succeed and surpass anything we could have imagined.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

As the winter season approaches, so does the emergence of various illnesses (i.e., upper and lower respiratory infections) that are associated with gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. When faced with this type of disorder, athletes usually seek care from their family or team physicians, who often prescribe an antibiotic for the treatment of these bacterial-related infections. A familiar prescribed medication is the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics, which includes medicines such as Ciprofloxacin and Levaquin. When there is a preference for the prescribed fluoroquinolones, it appears that it stems from their excellent gastrointestinal absorption, superior tissue penetration, and broad-spectrum activity.

At the time of the athlete’s pre-season team physical or when presenting with illness, a medical evaluation is essential, including the athlete’s prescribed medication history from present and past illnesses, injuries, surgeries, pathologies, etc. The athlete’s prescribed medication history is an integral part of their medical profile and should be discussed during the time of any medical assessment. This is especially true of the athlete who has been prescribed a medication from the fluoroquinolone classification of antibiotics.

An athlete’s prescribed medication history is an integral part of their medical profile and should be discussed during the time of any medical assessment. Share on X

The athletic team rehabilitation staff, strength and conditioning (S&C) professionals, and sport coaches should all be made aware of the potential risks of prescribed fluoroquinolones such as Cipro and Levaquin with respect to both cause and potentiation of tendinopathy, which is described as the presentation of pain when associated with tendon loading¹. In recent years, medical professionals have a much-improved awareness and appreciation of the concerning association between fluoroquinolones and tendinopathy. However, I’ve noticed that our physical therapy facilities continue to receive referrals with active patients and athletes taking this classification of medication for their illness. This is also true of some of the recreational and competitive athletes who we train at our athletic performance training center.

The Achilles Tendon

The gastrocnemius and soleus (calf) muscles converge to form one strong band of fibrous tissue that emanates as the Achilles tendon at the distal aspect of the calf. The tendon then inserts distally into the posterior aspect of the calcaneus (image 2). The Achilles tendon is the largest and strongest tendon in the body. Its anatomical integrity is essential for not only activities of daily living (ADLs), but for ideal athletic performance as well. This tendon plays a critical role in the athlete’s elastic abilities, resulting in maximal propulsion (i.e., linear velocity, jump height, etc.), reactive competences, deceleration, and change of direction.

Twenty-five percent of all athletic injures, irrespective of the specific sport of participation or level of play, involve the foot and ankle.² Although ankle sprains are the most common foot and ankle classification injury, Achilles tendon ruptures represent a subset of athletic foot and ankle injuries that have potentially serious future implications with regard to the athlete’s future ability to return to play. It is important to note that an Achilles tendon rupture is a devastating injury (image 3), and it may often be career-ending.

It is important to note that an Achilles tendon rupture is a devastating injury, and it may often be career-ending. Share on X

For example, from 2009 to 2014, there were 80 reported Achilles tendon tears in National Football League (NFL) players with an overall return to play rate of 61.3%.³ It has also been reported that 79.4% of all NFL athletes return to play after an orthopedic surgical procedure; however, 72.5% return to play after an Achilles tendon repair, with an average recovery time of 375 + 130 days⁴. Those NFL athletes who returned to play had significant decreases in performance postoperative season 1 when compared with preinjury values.^3,4 This is not to insinuate that these Achilles tendon injuries were due to prescribed fluoroquinolones, but to express the significance of this type of injury.

Regardless of the sport of participation, the concern persists that Achilles tendon injuries may result in not only diminished athletic performance, but potential tragedy for an athlete’s career.

The past few decades have witnessed an increase in the number of Achilles tendon ruptures, which, unlike other tendon ruptures, are commonly associated with sports participation.^5–7 This increase in Achilles tendon injury has been attributed to an escalation in recreational sports participation by an increasingly sedentary population.⁵ However, elite athletes are also at increased risk of tendon rupture and tend to rupture their Achilles tendon earlier in life compared to non-elite athlete controls, due to the increased demand put on their tendons.⁶

Fluoroquinolones and the Achilles Tendon

Fluoroquinolones are an effective antibiotic that are well absorbed when taken orally and have an extended half-life; thus, dosing once or twice daily can be very effective.⁸ Fluoroquinolones display a high affinity for connective tissue, particularly in cartilage and bone. The first fluoroquinolone-associated tendinopathy was reported in 1983⁹, with many additional subsequent scientific studies demonstrating the concern for Achilles tendon pain and, at times, rupture. The most common presenting symptom of fluoroquinolone-associated tendinopathy is pain. This tendinopathy pain is usually of sudden onset and may be accompanied by acute signs of inflammation and swelling.¹⁰ Achilles tendon ruptures may be preceded by pain, but half of tendon ruptures have occurred without warning.¹¹

Scientific publications have also demonstrated the Achilles tendon is the principle tendon affected in 89.8% and 95% of cases of fluoroquinolone-related tendinopathy and rupture, respectively.^11,12 The high stress applied to this tendon due to its weight-bearing role is thought to be the foundation for the high prevalence of injury to this anatomical structure. Compared with the use of other prescribed antibiotics, the use of fluoroquinolones carries a 3.8-fold increased risk of Achilles tendinopathy.¹³ These related tendinopathy symptoms can be present within hours of the initiation of treatment and last up to six months after the cessation of treatment. Withdrawal from fluoroquinolones after the initial onset of tendon pain and inflammation does not immediately restore tendon integrity, as the affected tendon(s) can become symptomatic and still possibly rupture many months after the completion of treatment.

Compared with the use of other prescribed antibiotics, the use of fluoroquinolones carries a 3.8-fold increased risk of Achilles tendinopathy. Share on X

Over time, sustained scientific evidence continued to elevate the concern of the commonly administrated medications of the fluoroquinolone synthetic antibiotic drug class for increased risk of tendinopathy and possible tendon rupture, resulting in the eventual placement of a stated medication warning on the label itself (image 4).

Adverse Fluoroquinolone Consequences Are Not Limited to the Achilles Tendon

Although I have placed the emphasis of this discussion on the Achilles tendon, the adverse effects of fluoroquinolones have been reported in other tendons of the body as well. These include, but are not limited to:

• Peroneus brevis
• Patella tendon
• Adductor longus
• Rectus femoris
• Triceps brachii
• Finger and thumb flexor tendons
• Supraspinatus and subscapularis tendons of the rotator cuff
• Tendons of the hip

Recently, a published study investigated the effect of the use of fluoroquinolones in patients following arthroscopic rotator cuff repair of the shoulder.¹⁴ A total of 1,292 patients were prescribed fluoroquinolones within six months postoperative arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, and they were compared to 5,225 matched negative controls and 1,597 matched positive controls. The fluoroquinolones were prescribed to the 1,292 patients as follows:

• 442 patients within 2 months post-surgery.
• 433 patients within 2–4 months post-surgery.
• 417 patients within 4–6 months post-surgery.

The subsequent revision rate of rotator cuff surgery was found to be significantly higher in the patients prescribed fluoroquinolones within two months of surgery (6.1%) when compared to matched negative (2.2%) and positive controls (2.4%) (figure 1). There were no significant differences in the rate of revision arthroscopic rotator cuff repair when fluoroquinolones were prescribed to the patient at greater than two months post-surgery. The authors concluded that, “Early use of fluoroquinolones following rotator cuff repair was independently associated with significant increased rates of failure requiring revision rotator cuff repair.” 

Precautions in the Performance Enhancement Training and Rehabilitation of the Athlete Presenting with Illness

If the athlete has been prescribed a fluoroquinolone class of antibiotic for their present or past illness while participating in a performance enhancement training program for their sport of participation or during rehabilitation for a particular injury or pathology, there are apparent concerns that arise under these circumstances.

During the performance enhancement training of athletes, high levels of exercise intensity are to be avoided during weight room activity, plyometric training, and sprinting velocities. High-intensity and high-impact exercise performance correlates to high levels of tendon stress. Exercise execution also results in a tendon response, as the loading of tendons during vigorous athletic enhancement training and sport participation has been cited as the principal pathologic stimulus for tendinopathy¹. Special precautions are to be taken under these specific fluoroquinolone medication conditions to avoid the possible inducement of tendinopathy and perhaps even tendon rupture.

My anecdotal experiences have demonstrated that it doesn’t require relatively high levels of stress to induce a tendon injury when prescribed fluoroquinolones. Share on X

My anecdotal experiences have demonstrated that it does not require relatively high levels of stress to induce a tendon injury when prescribed fluoroquinolones. For example, one of my professional peers had completed a prescribed dosage of ciprofloxacin for an upper respiratory infection. Shortly after completing his medication, he was in the weight room performing the bench press exercise and, unfortunately, ruptured his pectoralis major tendon with a barbell weight of 185 pounds. He certainly didn’t perceive this barbell weight as high intensity, because the weight was programmed as a “warm-up” set intensity. However, this applied stress was undoubtedly ample enough to result in a tendon rupture.

Over the years, I have also rehabilitated recreational and competitive athletes diagnosed with fluoroquinolone-induced tendinopathy who, although they were cautioned to avoid aggressive exercise and/or physical activities, did so on their own accord and eventually experienced an Achilles tendon rupture.

Physical Rehabilitation for Tendinopathy

At the time of the acknowledgement (diagnosis) of the athlete’s tendinopathy, it is likely that physical rehabilitation will be recommended. There are rehabilitation professionals who approach the treatment of tendinopathy with an emphasis on eccentric exercise application. These rehabilitation treatment regimes in which the tendon is subjected to sustained physiologic load are popular in addressing tendinopathy¹⁵, as eccentric exercise performance has been reported to be 90% successful in active individuals or sport participation athletes with tendinopathy¹⁶, as well as the documented successful management of tendinopathy with the application of heavy loads¹⁷. Loading a tendon with eccentric exercise and/or heavy load may be appropriate for the treatment of tendinopathy, but it is not likely suitable for the care of those individuals with the distinct condition of fluoroquinolone-induced tendinopathy.

Loading a tendon with eccentric exercise and/or heavy load is likely not suitable for the care of athletes with the distinct condition of fluoroquinolone-induced tendinopathy. Share on X

Take Precautions When Prescribed Fluoroquinolones

The performance enhancement training of athletes, as well as the rehabilitation of various pathologies, often requires the appropriate application of aggressive high-intensity exercise execution. These applied intensities will not only stress a tendon, but they require a significant tendon response that is often reactive in nature upon the ground surface area. Athletes who present with illness or a history of illness should be medically assessed, including a review of all prescribed medications. The prescribing of fluoroquinolones may present the athlete with the risk of tendinopathy, as well as possible tendon rupture.

Special consideration and precautions should be taken during the application of the performance enhancement training and rehabilitation program design at the time of the prescribed fluoroquinolones and up to six months from the time of the athlete’s completion of the medication. When an athlete presents with winter illness, a discussion about possible alternative antibiotics excluded from the fluoroquinolone classification of medications is recommended.

References

1. Manfulli, N., Sharma, P., and Luscombe, K.L. “Achilles tendinopathy: aetiology and management.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 2004; 97(10):472–476.

2. Garrick, J.G. and Requa, R.K. “The epidemiology of foot and ankle injuries in sport.” Clinical Sports Medicine. 1988; 7(1):29–36.

3. Yang, J., Hodax, J.D., Machan, J.T., et al. “Factors Affecting Return to Play After Primary Achilles Tendon Tear: A Cohort of NFL Players.” Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. 2019; 7(3):1–8.

4. Mai, H.T., Alvarez, A.P., Freshman, R.D., et al. “The NFL Orthopaedic Surgery Outcomes Database (NO-SOD): The Effect of Common Orthopaedic Procedures on Football Careers.” American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2016; 44(9):2255–2262.

5. Möller, A., Astron, M., and Westlin, N. “Increasing incidence of Achilles tendon rupture.” Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica. 1996; 67(5):479–481.

6. Schepsis, A.A., Jones, H., and Haas, A.L. “Achilles tendon disorders in athletes.” American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2002; 30(2):287–305.

7. Kujala, U.M., Sarna, S., and Kaprio, J. “Cumulative incidence of Achilles tendon rupture and tendinopathy in male former elite athletes.” Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. 2005; 15(3):133–135.

8. Oliphant, C.M. and Green, G.M. “Quinolones: a comprehensive review.” American Family Physician. 2002; 65(3):455–464.

9. Bailey, R.R., Kirk, J.A., and Peddie, B.A. “Norfloxacin-induced rheumatoid disease.” The New Zealand Medical Journal. 1983; 96(736):590.

10. Lewis, T.G. “A rare case of ciprofloxacin-induced bilateral rupture of the Achilles tendon.” BMJ Case Reports. 2009;2009 doi:10.1136/bcr.08.2008.0697.

11. Khaliq, Y. and Zhanel, G.G. “Fluoroquinolone-associated tendinopathy: a critical review of the literature.” Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2003; 36(11):1404–1410.

12. Akali, A.U. and Niranjan, N.S. “Management of bilateral Achilles tendon rupture associated with ciprofloxacin: a review and case presentation.” Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery. 2008; 61(7):830–834.

13. Chajed, P.N., Plit, M.L., Hopkins, P.M., Malouf, M.A., and Glanville, A.R. “Achilles tendon disease in lung transplant recipients: association with ciprofloxacin.” European Respiratory Journal. 2002; 19(3):469–471.

14. Cancienne, J.M., Brockmeier, S.F., Rodeo, S.A., Young, C., and Werner, B.C. “Early postoperative fluoroquinolone use is associated with an increased revision rate after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.” Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy, 2017; 25(7): 2189–2195.

15. Khan, K.M. and Cook, J.L. “Overuse Tendon Injuries: Where Does the Pain Come From?” Sports Medicine and Arthroscopic Review. 2000; 8(1):17–31.

16. Fahstrom, M., Jonsson, P., Lorentzon, R., and Alfredson, H. “Chronic Achilles tendon pain treated with eccentric calf-muscle training.” Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy. 2003; 11(5):327–333.

17. Beyer, R., Kongsgaard, M., Hougs Kjær, B., et al. “Heavy Slow Resistance Versus Eccentric Training as Treatment for Achilles Tendinopathy: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” American Journal of Sports Medicine.2015; 43(7):1704–1711.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

There’s nothing like a well-oiled machine. When things run smoothly and the bumps are low, it seems like a more successful day. When you deal with clients, especially in a group setting, you’ll find that there are a number of questions that get asked repeatedly. After you answer the same question for the fifth time in 20 minutes, the light bulb should go off and the solution to that problem should be the next thing on your agenda. Imagine saving 10 minutes a day for the next 20 years because you solved that one little hiccup.

There are plenty of ways coaches try to save time and get more work done, but I’m not sure all of them make sense. Yes, of course you could pair your bench press with three other movements and save a few minutes, but what are you sacrificing by doing that? I can assure you that pairing a squat or deadlift with chin-ups and core drills will definitely save you some time, but it will also save you the hassle of becoming stronger. You can’t expect a great effort on a compound lift like a squat if you spend your rest period fatiguing the back and core muscles that will keep you rigid and locked in during the next squat set.

Instead of the conveyer belt quad sets that don’t help anyone, spend some time creating more efficient processes and use some life hacks to help you and your clients shave off a few minutes of nonsense every time they are in the gym. In this article, I will outline a few ways we at Exceed Sports Performance & Fitness try to combat the monotony of repetitive “hiccups.” Many of the concepts might not apply to you directly, but I would imagine the solutions could give you some ideas on how to disrupt your own problems in a similar way.

Save Yourself Hours with a Strip of Colored Tape

We have over 20 different types of bars in our facility, and, of course, they all have different weights. With bars ranging from 5 kilograms all the way to 82 pounds, I can fully understand why athletes get confused. Not only do they have trouble remembering how much a particular bar weighs, they often need confirmation on what bar is best suited for each movement.

A few years back, I decided it was time to solve this issue and create a better system. If you have experience with weight lifting, you know that each weight has a color associated with it. I piggybacked on that concept and created a bar tape system that instantly identifies a bar for its weight and function.

Use different colors of electrical tape to create a bar tape system that instantly identifies a bar for its weight and function, advises @ExceedSPF. Share on X

We bought a cheap pack of assorted electrical tape and added a small strip of colored tape to each barbell. Along with this, we created a small chart that we posted where the barbells are kept at different points across the gym that identifies the weight in kilograms and pounds and also gives the primary and secondary function of the bar. “Blue tape,” for example, lets the athlete know that the bar weighs 20 kilograms (44 pounds) and is primarily used for Olympic-style weightlifting and platform movements.

It’s not an easy task to describe or explain the different bars to people during a busy time of the day, but telling a client to “grab a blue-taped bar” is quick and rarely gets screwed up. If you have bars or other types of equipment with similar functions and appearance, do yourself a favor and make some identifying marks to save yourself a lot of time. This also makes it easier for the athletes or clients to navigate the facility.

Use Standard and Simple ‘Prep Series’

We have used the same general warm-up and field-work prep series for years now, and it has saved us countless amounts of time on a daily basis. Not only does this expedite the warm-up process, but it gives the athletes some skill sets to “own.” When we do our large group warm-ups, we have a specific movement list and order so that no one waits around between drills.

The athletes who have been around long enough could do this process in their sleep and that helps in a number of ways. First, it allows the coaches to talk with parents or prospective athletes who are just looking to see the process. Second, it holds the athletes accountable for the simple things and provides them with a system they can use off-site, at practice, at camps, or when they go off to college or pro teams. Having these systems down gives them confidence that they know how to get themselves prepared for lifts or field training. Lastly, it provides a set standard for movements that allow the athletes to improve and perfect their own patterns.

After our general prep, we use a consistent—though slightly varied at times—set of prep series to begin any field work. For deceleration day, we go through the same few drills before getting to the more advanced movements. Our main objective changes fairly regularly, but the prep drills do not. Doing the remedial work first allows athletes to “get their bearings” and reminds the body where and how to put that foot on the ground so when we start cranking it up, they have a good chance for success.

Similarly, in the weight room, for example, we try to work with the athletes to find an individualized but consistent “warm-up” protocol for their main lifts. Bench press, squat, or clean warm-up sets should be the same each lift for a number of reasons. It helps eliminate the “what do I do next” time lags, and, more importantly, it gives them a comparable “feel it out” to each lift. After enough time under the bar, they’ll use their warm-up sets to gauge where they’re at for the day. That biofeedback disappears when they have a different warm-up every time they’re in the gym.

If every time you train you have different flows, different movements, and complicated drills, you’ll waste time trying to explain everything and do a disservice to the athlete’s adaption. Share on X

If every time you train you have different flows, different movements, and complicated drills, you will not only waste a lot of time trying to explain everything, but you’ll be providing a disservice to the athlete’s adaption. It’s hard to improve without consistent practice and repetition.

Do the Math for Them

Unfortunately, the Imperial system of units makes understanding kilograms impossible for some clients. It just doesn’t click. We use pounds for everything except our weightlifting platforms, so that can be confusing as well. Although converting kilograms to pounds is a waste of time if you will be using kilograms the following week, and in the programs to come, it is still a priority for a large majority of athletes to convert the numbers. If you’ve used kilograms enough, you start to understand the conversion. Even memorizing your main weights can be helpful, but we wanted to make it a little easier for everyone.

I created a kilogram conversion chart equipped with color-coded diagrams. If you have “a red and a blue plate” (110 kg) on a men’s bar, you can simply find that picture on the poster and it will tell you the weight in both kilograms and pounds. We have a women’s side and a men’s side (color-coded yellow and blue, respectively) to take it one step further, and I recently added a section that labels the “change plates” as well.

Posters and wall graphics can be incredible teaching tools and time savers. Some clients don’t care about learning a thing; they just want mindless training. However, the vast majority like to see the why and how of what goes on, and something as simple as a 16” x 20” poster full of colored boxes can really make a difference for both the coach and client.

Keep Athletes Honest and Free Yourself Up with Interval Clocks

We use two clocks that run constantly. One runs concurrent with the actual time so that kids can use it to keep themselves on pace to finish their programs if they have to catch a ride home. It doesn’t feature an hour mark, just the minutes and seconds. This makes it perfect for rest periods, as well as timing certain drills like long isometric work, tendon training, or maybe their energy system work to finish.

The second clock we have been using more recently is a programmable interval clock by Swimnerd. It has a few features that make it a perfect addition to many school/team programs or facilities like ours. Of course, the most important part of an interval clock is the ability to program work and rest periods. It runs on a mobile app and can be set up to “practice” in a variety of different ways.

Something we use a lot of are 10-second/20-second intervals for many of our athletes in early phases of their program. The clock makes it easy to implement these, and the coach can focus on the movement or coaching rather than staring at the clock. The numbers are big and bright green and loud enough for everyone to see and hear from a good distance. Most athletes are good about putting in the effort to finish each rep on time, but the audible beep is an added incentive as well as a real indicator of pass or fail performances.

Besides its mobile app, the Swimnerd clock has a unique waterproof feature that allows you to bring it outside even in poor weather, says @ExceedSPF. Share on X

Besides the functionality of the mobile app, what sets the clock apart from most of Swimnerd’s competitors are the unique “swim features” it brings to the table. The fact that it was intended for swimming pools means it has a unique waterproof feature that allows you to bring it outside even in poor weather, which we get a lot of in the Northeast. You can literally hose this thing down and it’ll run without an issue.

On top of that, an electrical cord laid across a pool deck would cause some concern, as you might imagine. The Swimnerd clock can run on a rechargeable battery so that you can take it outside or far from any outlets. We have an exterior turf at our facility, and, in certain months, the athletes do much of their interval and conditioning work outside. This clock is a game changer and saves us the hassle of making the kids grab their phones or stopwatches.

Replace the Belt for Group Sprint Training

We have experimented with countless tools and equipment types in regard to resisted running. For more advanced clients and some of our higher-level athletes, we are fortunate enough to have a Vertimax Raptor on the wall, but for the majority of high school and college athletes, we use chains attached to belts by a long strap. It has always been a tricky thing to choose the right belt. The type and function of the belt are hard enough to get right, but it can be a nightmare to share belts between large groups of athletes, logistically speaking. Different sized athletes have trouble sharing the belts, and if you’ve ever tried to run with a loose belt, you know how annoying it can be. We usually have 3–5 different belts of varying sizes set up, but they don’t always match up to our clientele.

Every problem needs a solution, so we recently began experimenting with some alternative methods and ditched the belt. We began replacing the belt with the strap looped through itself to create a noose-like knot that can tighten and loosen quickly, and it fits everyone. Now when athlete 1 finishes their sprint, they can just open the loop and drop the belt, and athlete 2 can simply step in, cinch it up around their waist, and go. It has not only saved time messing with buckles and sizing complications, it also seems to be a more comfortable and “tight” feeling fit for many of the athletes. You luck out when your time-saving solutions double as better options.

Choose and Implement Your Technology Astutely

Using technology can be a blessing and a curse. If you’re lucky enough to have any, it can really make a world of difference in your programming and testing processes. We have three “tech-based” jump tools that have been invaluable to our facility. However, it’s not always easy to implement these tools in larger group settings. The Hawkin Dynamics force plates and Ergotest contact grid are two amazing pieces of equipment, and we’d have trouble replacing either at this point. We use our force plates with dozens of athletes per day, and the contact grid is a staple in all of our rehab and elite training protocols.

But during our larger high school groups, we have to rely on our Just Jump mats to handle a lot of the volume. The mats have a few settings we use regularly. However, different athletes are on different programs and use different settings all day long. One way to combat the issue is to buy multiple mats and keep each one for a different setting. Having two or three jump mats will allow droves of athletes to roll through their programs without having to waste time switching back and forth between “jump one time” and “jump four times” over and over.

If possible, I’d recommend having duplicates of all of your important tools that get used frequently, says @ExceedSPF. Share on X

If you’re lucky enough to have three jump mats or multiple tools in your arsenal, a simple and effective way of providing efficiency is designating each piece for a certain role. This concept applies to most equipment throughout the gym. When at all possible, I’d recommend having duplicates of all your important tools that get used frequently or you’d like to program across a broader spectrum of clientele.

Use Those Walls Wisely

I’ve already listed a couple posters (bar tape and weightlifting conversion charts) that have helped us save some time and answer repetitive questions, but we have taken our poster game to new heights in the past year. We created a massive template to help fill in some gaps, educate some interested clients, and give a clear direction to some of our progressions and systems. I’d imagine that our system won’t work for everyone, but you could create your own template to allow people a little autonomy and freedom to make some “informed” decisions when appropriate.

We have a template with specific programs based on the focus of the day or phase (speed/power, hypertrophy, so on), as well as exercise “plug and play” lists with some progressions and alternatives for problematic or provocative movements for certain people. Another poster has a number of complexes and medleys that are used by our adults or for GPP phases or extra work. We have an energy system poster that breaks down different protocols that focus on more specific energy systems and gives athletes ranges for their work and rest periods, as well as suggestions on how many reps/sets to do. We have a few other posters, such as a specific progression of “shuttles” we created a few years back. Lastly, we have a poster with warm-ups, prep series, mobility/flexibility drills, and core patterns that people can use to fill in the blanks. For more intermediate or advanced clients, I can write “push-up pattern” on the program, and they will be able to select an option from that section of the poster.

One of the times these posters are most useful is when off-site college or pro athlete clients come back for break—maybe only for a day or two—and need something to do. We don’t have time to write out an entire program, but we do have a poster with 40 “workout” options that can be modified to fit the needs of the athlete in seconds. “Do ‘Strength/Power #4’ and do 6×3 for your main lift” is an example of how quick and painless that logjam can be fixed.

Not only does this system help the clients, but it also allows the coaches to spend time creating and fine-tuning their systems. As you write and create, you’ll recognize things that work well or don’t work well, and it can be a good learning experience. It will also provide your assistants or interns with a deeper look into how you program and how you categorize and prioritize movements. Last, but not least, it can spark your memory and remind you of the forgotten drills of yesteryear.

Reward Your Clients with Responsibility

Right from the start, I set up a promotion system with T-shirts (colors) signifying levels of achievement or recognition. It is something I adopted from another gym at which I previously worked, but I changed the criteria to promote effort and achievement rather than how many times an athlete shows up and goes through the motions. It usually takes more than a year or two to reach the second level, Orange (and many more years to get to the third and fourth levels), but in this time the athlete will have had to earn their stripes and prove that they have an understanding of the system and have gained some independence. They’ll need to show proficiency in the basics and intermediate movements, as well as the capability of leading some warm-ups or helping younger and newer clients on occasion.

Not a day goes by where someone doesn’t ask, “When will I get my orange shirt?” or, even more absurd, “When will I get my black shirt?” We have four total levels, with black being the pinnacle, and we do not give any of our shirts out easily—just ask our clients. With this system, we have many athletes buying in and pursuing something other than just a few pounds on a lift or any other arbitrary milestone. It helps us create an environment where people want to show that they take their training seriously.

In terms of creating a “life hack,” it also denotes a hierarchy that allows us to rely on our promoted athletes to handle some of the remedial tasks, like answering a question about a particular movement or explaining how to turn on the jump mats or how much a bar weighs. (Although the answer to that question, as we all know now, should be, “refer to the poster please.”) These tasks are clearly easy enough for anyone who has spent more than a year in the gym consistently, and when I need to, I ask them to take on those small jobs.

Make It Work for You

Whether or not you use kilogram plates or have enough bars to create an issue of figuring out which one to use, there are many ways you can “hack” your facility to save everybody time and effort. Take a stroll through your facility and carry around a notepad for a day, jotting down the bottlenecks and logjams that pop up. That, to me, is all the incentive you’d need to try and create a solution to the problem.

Take a stroll through your facility and jot down the bottlenecks and logjams that pop up. This is all the incentive you should need to try to find a solution to the problem, says @ExceedSPF. Share on X

Hopefully, you can pull something useful out of these eight solutions we have found invaluable to our daily life in the trenches. I’m always looking for a better process or solution to even the most menial tasks. This list will evolve and grow larger over time. Feel free to help me out and send over your best life hacks that I may have missed.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

By Bob Alejo and Dr. Jordan Moon

I’m surprised, but not that much, that there is seldom any rhetoric or higher level of discussion about body composition. Granted, it’s all about sports performance results. But what about BETTER sports performance results? We can gain some insights on this by learning about norms. There’s a good amount of research on athletes that includes at least body weight, regardless of the purpose of the study. For some studies, body weight is crucial when scaling for strength and power. And, as we read more about running speed, we realize that mass is important to speed. Certainly, the engine producing that speed is important as well.

There are plenty of online photos showing “before” and “after” for athletes, as freshmen and then later, yet almost nothing showing “before” and “after” for lean mass, fat mass, and body composition changes. There is no argument that those physical changes could result in more lean tissue loss than necessary, which would certainly affect the efficacy of strength and power acquisition. Not taking body composition measurements during these transformations means that it is an all-out guess for caloric addition/restriction or protein intake. In addition to how much an athlete can squat, it would be great for practitioners to show body-weight-to-strength ratios, along with body composition information. Now that would be comprehensive! I know other coaches would love to see that.

Don’t kid yourself: Body weight and body composition matter! Here, as a follow-up to my last conversation on testing methods with body composition expert Dr. Jordan Moon, I ask him more questions about body composition for athletes.

Bob Alejo: What’s the general relationship between body composition and performance?

Does it even matter? Some would argue that it’s all about results, but that’s certainly a myopic view. How you obtain the information is probably more important than the results, of course. I’ve heard BOD POD testing horror stories: not testing for hydration, taking the test at different times of the day over a period, taking the test less than 24 hours after a hard workout. Sure, that’s no fault of the BOD POD—it just gives you a number—but, under those circumstances, you’d be better off getting your body composition guessed at the State Fair booth!

How often do you test? Both the method used and tracking over time can mean the difference between accurate and not accurate, within reasonable limitations. Most methods already have a standard of error, so there’s no use making it worse or making it so taking some tests overall is a waste of time. And remember, body comp is not just about performance, it’s about health!

Dr. Jordan Moon: In general, the simple answer is that “body composition is an apparent function of the physical task,” and the closer an athlete’s body composition is to the ideal body composition for their sport, the better their performance will be.¹

In general, the closer an athlete’s body composition is to the ideal body composition for their sport, the better their performance will be, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

Specifically, by looking at body composition differences between types of elite athletes, we can get an idea of optimal fat, lean, and total mass values for a sport and position. With more athletes now being measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), we can build a bigger database for professional, collegiate, and even youth athletes for all types of sports. Another advantage of looking at DXA data for optimal body composition comparisons is that you can look at lean and fat mass values of the arms, legs, and trunk, in addition to whole body. This allows for some unique comparisons between athletes. However, DXA manufacturers have not integrated athlete data or the capacity to compare measurements to other athletes into their software or reports. This limits the ability of athletes, coaches, trainers, nutritionists, physicians, etc., to make actionable decisions that help improve performance.

Fortunately, there are some new software programs/apps gaining traction that allow for the comparison of DXA data to other athletes. One such program is FitTrace, which allows you to:

• Track and report body composition over time.
• Provide access to results for nutritionists, trainers, coaches, etc.
• Compare with professional athletes by sport and position.

However, not all athletes or programs may have access to a DXA machine, which makes detailed and accurate comparisons to elite or pro athletes more complicated. There are some books and published articles that have data from elite athletes using other techniques such as underwater weighing, anthropometrics/skinfolds, and the BOD POD. However, the use of data from one method, such as underwater weighing, compared to another method, such as skinfolds, adds additional errors when comparing athlete data, and it may not allow you to make actionable decisions with confidence.

Another focus of body composition and performance should be on tracking changes over time. This concept is more accessible, as the only requirement is a reliable and valid measurement tool. In theory, as long as your method gives you correct measurements, you can use that data to determine potential improvements or decrements in performance. More importantly, tracking changes in fat, lean, and body mass allows for a quantifiable assessment of the success of a training and/or nutritional intervention. For example, if an athlete needs to lose body fat while preserving as much lean mass as possible, and they are following a strict off-season training and nutritional program, having accurate fat and lean mass measurements before and after the off-season is fundamental when assessing the athlete’s adherence to the program and/or the quality of the program.

Tracking changes in fat, lean, and body mass allows for a quantifiable assessment of the success of a training and/or nutritional intervention, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

Researchers and sports scientists are now focusing on identifying other relationships between performance and body composition. Some areas of current research on athletes and performance are directed toward body composition and injury risk, lean and body mass imbalances, lean/muscle mass loss after an injury, return to play after an injury, and optimal strength-to-lean-mass ratios for specific muscles and sports movements (bat swing, jumping, sprinting, etc.). The next several years are going to be very exciting. We will start to get a better picture of the direct relationship body composition has to overall performance and health in athletes.

Beyond the general idea of body composition being a function of a physical task, we are also becoming more aware of how specific body composition values, such as fat and lean mass, play a role in both performance and health. It’s intuitive that an offensive lineman requires a greater amount of body fat compared to other positions, because their task is to block heavy defensive linemen. The heavier they are, the easier it is to stop a defender, but there is also a need for speed and strength. Knowing the correct fat-to-lean ratio for optimal performance and strength is valuable here and also somewhat intuitive, but do you know the ideal ratios? You know you want a heavy, fast, and powerful lineman, but did you know offensive linemen in the NFL have 2.5 times more lean mass than fat mass? Compare this to wide receivers or defensive backs, who have a ratio of around seven.

Another well-documented finding is that the performance of speed and jumping athletes is directly related to their power-to-mass ratio. Those who can generate the most muscle power at the lightest body weight can run faster and jump higher, but this is also relatively intuitive. If two athletes have the same muscle power and one is slightly lighter, then that athlete can jump higher and run faster because they are moving less total body mass. The impact of body composition here is not only optimizing fat content to be low, but also optimizing muscle mass to be powerful without being too large, which can be altered by specific training and nutrition programs.

For distance runners, research has found that skinfold (fat) thicknesses in the lower body can predict 1,500-meter, 10,000-meter, and marathon times. Those with more lower body fat don’t run as fast and finish slower. Like sprinting and jumping athletes, distance runners can benefit from having optimal body-fat-to-lean-mass ratios (% fat). Also, when comparing the most elite sprinters and distance runners, there doesn’t appear to be any difference between fat values, which indicates that, at the elite level, all athletes for particular sports have almost identical body composition values.

What about body composition and injuries? Having the lowest possible body fat/weight for athletes who sprint, jump, or run moderate-to-long distances does appear to enhance performance, but there may also be a risk for more injuries and overall health concerns. Researchers have found that distance runners who have more muscle mass tend to have fewer stress fractures. Distances runners who have more muscle and less fat have better performances and are less likely to have fractures compared to similar runners with the same or lower body weight, but with less muscle and more fat. So, just having low body fat and a low body weight is not enough for runners to reduce injuries and perform at their best. Understanding the optimal lean mass and fat mass for the upper and lower body, as well as total body mass, is fundamental for the success of any training and nutritional programs for not only runners, but all athletes.

Understanding the optimal lean and fat mass for the upper and lower body, as well as total body mass, is vital for the success of any training & nutritional programs, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

Finally, there are several health-related and performance concerns for having too little body fat. This is a highly complicated area with several factors all impacting each other. In summary, lower-than-optimal body fat values can have just some of the following effects on an athlete:

• Unhealthy eating habits and malnutrition.
• Loss of energy and focus.
• Increased stress and impaired immune system.
• Abnormal hormone levels.
• Reproduction system problems (females).
• Reduced bone health and increased fracture risk (lower bone mass/density).

All of the above can significantly impact both performance and health, and they are specifically a concern for weight-sensitive athletes in sports such as:

• Gravitational: running, jumping, skiing, cycling, climbing, etc.
• Weight Class: wrestling, judo, boxing, martial arts, powerlifting, jockey, etc.
• Aesthetically Judged: bodybuilding, figure skating, diving, cheerleading, etc.

Body composition variables, such as lean and fat mass, and their relationship to athletic performance is highly dependent on the specific athlete, sport, and position, but also the athlete’s competition level/ability (recreational, collegiate, professional, etc.).

Bob Alejo: Should performance focus on body weight, fat loss, lean tissue gain, or body composition?

Dr. Jordan Moon: This is where research and application separate, and this is currently the largest gap in the field of body composition and performance. There are hundreds of great research papers and a recently published body composition book focusing on health and performance in exercise and sport. However, this information is not easily accessible for most athletes, coaches, trainers, sports scientists, nutritionists, physicians, etc.

Practitioners often look at body composition as something easy to do and utilize because of the simplicity and accessibility of measurements. However, over the last 15+ years, I have observed a significant lack of understanding and confidence from most practitioners when it comes to interpreting body composition data and using it in programming. What I see most often are practitioners simply looking at two variables, % fat and fat-free mass, and tracking changes to see if an athlete is losing fat, gaining muscle, losing muscle, or gaining fat.

Even with this basic approach, there are many practitioners who are still not sure what to do. However, this isn’t really their fault, as practitioners in the field don’t have the time or training to read hundreds of body composition research papers or interpret graduate-school-level textbooks to find actionable information that they can use for their athletes. So, what are their options, other than contacting researchers who work in this area?

As of now, the answer is to learn more about body composition, read the research and the books, and find the content you need to make informed decisions about your data and athletes. It’s a double-edged sword type of situation. There are very few expert practitioners who work with athletes and have a great handle on body composition and application. Most experts are researchers. There will be a good deal of work initially to understand everything, but if someone can solidify themselves as a true expert in the field by using scientifically supported interpretations of accurate data with developed protocols for training and nutritional interventions for athletes, they will be the leading edge of the sword, while carving a unique and needed position for themselves and others who follow.

Track body composition data often and with intention. Don’t just measure body composition because you can. Do it with purpose, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

As I stated earlier, there are some programs and apps that attempt to bridge this gap, but the actual creation and implementation of a program requires knowledge of body composition, as well as exercise training and/or nutrition. My simplest suggestion of what to focus on for performance and body composition includes the areas discussed earlier:

• • Compare your athletes to other athletes using published data and the same method used in the publication (article or book).1.
    • Create a training/nutritional program that will support a change in body composition to more closely match others in their sport or those who are the next level up (college, pro, etc.).

    2.

    Use caution when working with children and adolescents—that’s another discussion completely.

3. Utilize as much information as possible to compare. If you can get a DXA measurement, you can look at segmented (arms, legs, upper body, lower body) ratios of lean, fat, bone, and total mass, as well as utilize software/apps for easy comparisons, creating reports and graphs, and data management and sharing.

• • — Anthropometric measurements (skinfolds and circumferences) are also highly available for athlete comparison and you can take them from multiple locations around the body.

 

• — Limited data is available for athletes to compare themselves to other athletes using bioimpedance data, as well as having a wide range of machines and equations, making athlete comparisons questionable at best.

• • Track body composition data often and with intention. Don’t just measure body composition because you can. Do it with a purpose.1.
    • Sport-/athlete-specific transitional periods (pre-season, in-season, postseason, etc.).
      • — For example: Right before a season, mid-season, and right after a season.
        • • This can help identify any loss of lean or fat mass, typically observed due to highly competitive and energy-demanding activity. You can implement appropriate training and nutritional interventions to offset losses in lean and fat mass that may hinder performance.

     

2. You should measure at-risk athletes for low body fat often and interpret and share their results with caution.

• • — This is a highly sensitive subject for many athletes and using the wrong language and/or telling someone their results can increase their chances of developing an eating disorder and/or body image issue.

 

• — The lower limits for % fat depend on the methods used (DXA, skinfold, etc.), but the general acceptable lower limits are:
  • • Men: 1–9% fat
    • Women: 10–18% fatA.
      This is highly dependent on multiple factors and specific to each individual. You may have one athlete on the same team at the lower end and have no issues, while another athlete is closer to the higher end with multiple symptoms.

Bob Alejo: Can skinfolds be an accurate measure of fat loss or lean tissue gain? Personally, based on convenience and the error of measurements with poor protocols with other methods, I prefer skinfolds. At the least, I support performing skinfolds and perhaps one other test for sure. Changes in millimeters of thickness (mm) from test to test say something. Of course, good protocol makes it easier to discern what you are seeing.

Dr. Jordan Moon: The answer is yes and no. It all depends on the person conducting the measurements, the equipment, and the preparation of the athlete. Below are some guidelines when performing skinfold measurements:

• Use a quality caliper that is valid and reliable (calibrated and checked for calibration regularly).
• Use the same calipers every time for the same athlete.
• Measure the correct and exact same locations each time with the same approved technique.
  — This requires a trained technician (more on this later).

• Measure the athlete at the same time of day in the same conditions (before training, preferably).
  — If using body weight for any calculations (like fat-free mass), perform measurements with the athlete fasted in the morning and normally hydrated.

The biggest factor when it comes to getting accurate measurements for skinfolds is the training and quality of the person taking the measurements. The most comprehensive skinfold training is through The International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry. However, the training is expensive, with limited availability. ISAK has a great training program if you are looking to compare your athletes to other athletes around the world and/or want to learn how to take circumferences and other anthropometric measurements in addition to skinfold measurements. However, you may not need it if you simply want to track changes in fat and lean mass. Using the ACSM standards is also sufficient.

The other issue when using skinfolds for tracking lean and fat changes is the equation used to convert skinfold thicknesses to fat and lean tissues. I like using raw skinfold data when tracking changes because the units are raw measurements in millimeters. There are athlete-specific equations if you are looking to compare your athletes to others, but you would need to find the paper or book with the normative data and see what equation you should use to compare athletes.

However, when it comes to tracking changes, I always recommend the Jackson and Pollock three- or seven-site equations^2,3 because they don’t use anything other than age and skinfold thickness to calculate % fat, so changes in body weight due to hydration do not impact the % fat values, but they will alter fat-free and fat mass values. Thus, if you are interested in fat mass and fat-free/lean mass, you need to understand body weight variability and try to control for normal hydration.

I recommend this link, which calculates the data for you using the Jackson and Pollock equations. However, you will need to follow the ACSM guidelines and know what sites to measure if you only measure three. I always recommend measuring all seven because you can look at regional changes in fat thickness while having more comprehensive calculations of % fat and other variables. Seven sites may represent a more accurate overall change in fat compared to just three.

Body water, which is the largest and most variable component in your body, often causes changes in body mass and lean mass throughout the day and from day to day, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

Finally, skinfold measurements only represent subcutaneous fat, which is the fat under your skin that accounts for most of your total body fat. Lean tissue changes are not directly measured; instead, they are indirectly measured by subtracting your fat mass from your body weight. Therefore, detecting changes in fat may be more accurate than changes in lean mass. Lean mass also includes body water, which is the largest and most variable component in your body and often causes changes in body mass and lean mass throughout the day and from day to day.

Bob Alejo: Is there any value in using the body mass index (BMI) for athletes? Look, sometimes folks don’t fit in the BOD POD, and they can’t be skinfold tested. So, BMI might be your next choice. Keep in mind that you should most likely evaluate other measures (speed, strength, power, team/position athletic measure comparisons) because, as you will see, BMI is not what it’s cracked up to be for athletes.

Dr. Jordan Moon: Since BMI is just the mathematical expression of the proportions of height and weight, it doesn’t tell us anything about actual body composition, such as fat or lean tissue masses. It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to estimate fat or muscle mass accurately using only height and weight. The problem is that BMI is used to classify “normal” people as being underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. This is an issue for many athletes because they typically have larger lean mass values, which increases their total mass and, consequently, their BMI.

BMI is just the mathematical expression of the proportions of height and weight—it doesn’t tell us anything about actual body composition, such as fat or lean tissue masses, says @DrJordanMoon. Share on X

For example, all pro bodybuilders are considered obese, or even morbidly obese, due to their increased muscle mass, even though they have around 5% body fat when competing. Nearly all strength and power athletes have elevated BMIs that classify them as being overweight or obese because they have more lean mass than the “normal” population. Therefore, you should never use BMI to classify men or women who have greater than average muscle mass as being “overweight” or “obese” in terms of excessive body fat. In other words, if someone has ever regularly strength-trained, the BMI classification as the World Health Organization (WHO) defines it (below) is no longer applicable.

In agreement with this concept, the WHO states: “BMI values are age-independent and the same for both sexes. However, BMI may not correspond to the same degree of fatness in different populations due, in part, to different body proportions.”

Theoretically, BMI should represent body fatness, but only in nonathletes. Numerous research studies have proven this point by showing that BMI is a poor predictor of actual fat in athletes. So, is there any use for BMI then?

The WHO claims that: “The health risks associated with increasing BMI are continuous, and the interpretation of the BMI grading in relation to risk may differ for different populations.” Meaning, we still don’t know how BMI relates to health, but a higher BMI could increase health risks. Are athletes with higher BMI due to more lean mass (not fat) at a greater risk for poor health and disease? Is it not just about too much fat, but too much total mass, regardless of the tissue?

Research actually shows that the lowest (all-cause) risk of mortality (death) rate is in people with a BMI between 25 and 30, who are considered “overweight.” Research also indicates that cardiovascular disease risks are lower in those with a BMI between 25 and 30.

Research has even shown that a little extra fat is helpful. A case in point: During a fall, extra fat offers more protection for your bones. Additionally, research has found that individuals with a little more fat may heal faster after surgery and are less likely to get infections. An article in 2010 found that when controlling for health behaviors and sociodemographic factors, both overweight and Class I obesity reduced the relative risks (RRs) of death compared to a BMI of 18.5–24.9. There are many more articles that support these findings, but also studies that suggest an increase in mortality in people with a BMI under 20 and over 24.9.

So, what does this mean for athletes? For those with BMIs 20–29.9, we can’t really make a definitive conclusion about health and mortality since the data is not in agreement even in a “normal” population (nonathletes). So, it’s safe to say that athletes who have slightly more lean mass than normal people with BMIs in the “overweight” range shouldn’t worry about increased health risks, including cardiovascular disease. Still, research suggests that health risks associated with BMIs are nonlinear, meaning that deaths occur much more rapidly at both lower and higher BMIs (under 20 and over 30), implying a relationship between health and mortality and being obese and underweight. As stated earlier, many strength and power athletes have a BMI over 30.

However, there isn’t enough evidence or data using accurate body fat measurements along with mortality and health data in a normal or athlete population to determine if a BMI over 25, or over 30, increases someone’s health risk, regardless of their BMI being high due to either muscle or fat. Simply put, too much fat or too much muscle could lead to a greater health risk, but we really don’t know for sure because we don’t have accurate body fat and lean mass data along with health and mortality data in any population. With that said, there are known risks of being large, regardless of the mass being fat or muscle.

Sleep apnea, specifically “obstructive sleep apnea,” is a potentially fatal condition that can be caused by too much upper body mass (fat or lean). The larger mass in the neck and trunk puts more pressure on the airway and lungs, and it can prevent big athletes from getting a good night’s sleep and the oxygen their body needs to recover. Other symptoms can include fatigue, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular issues, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, medication and surgery complications, etc. Fortunately, larger athletes can reduce sleep apnea (and related symptoms) by using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.

Several, if not all, elite strongman athletes use CPAP machines. These athletes typically weigh well over 300 pounds, with many weighing in at 400 pounds or more. Even at a height of 6’9”, someone weighing 400 pounds will have a BMI of 43, which is Class III obesity, regardless of their body fat. BMI alone, in this case, could be useful for identifying athletes who may benefit from using a CPAP at night. I suggest using a BMI of >30 as a good starting point to begin watching for sleep apnea. For athletes with BMIs over 35, I would consider consulting with their doctors and having them use a CPAP at night, and both their health and performance could improve.

The use of BMI alone for athletes with low amounts of lean mass and body fat could serve as an easier way to track changes because you only need to measure height once and body weight. Share on X

Another suggested application for BMI in athletes would be for those who have lower amounts of lean mass and are at risk for low body fat, such as endurance athletes. As stated earlier, because there are greater health risks in these athletes, it is important to monitor their body composition. The use of BMI alone could serve as an easier way to track changes in these athletes because you only need to measure height once (if fully grown) and body weight.

Using BMI here could be valuable, but you are only looking at changes in body mass, so is there really an added benefit in calculating BMI? I would say yes, as several research studies looking at endurance athletes, from recreational to elite, have reported average BMI values no less than 19 for men or women. Therefore, I suggest for those at-risk athletes, as mentioned earlier, calculating BMI and using a low cutoff of 19 could serve as a simple and early detector for possible low body fat or lean mass.

If you need one, I recommend this online BMI calculator.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

1. Moon, J.R., Tobkin, S.E., Costa, P.B., et al. “Validity of the BOD POD for assessing body composition in athletic high school boys.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2008; 22(1): 263–268.

2. Jackson, A.S. and Pollock, M.L. “Generalized equations for predicting body density of men.” British Journal of Nutrition. 1978; 40: 497–504.

3. Jackson, A.S., Pollock, M.L., and Ward, A. “Generalized equations for predicting body density of women.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 1980; 12: 175–182.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Dr. Moon is an experienced researcher and advisor in the field of human body composition analysis and sports supplements. He has presented over 50 lectures at multiple scientific conferences and events both nationally and internationally, and has published more than 140 research articles and abstracts in dozens of journals. Additionally, Dr. Moon has written a book chapter and published a book in the areas of sports nutrition, supplements, exercise science, body composition, body water, and changes specific to age, fitness level, and type of athlete. Dr. Moon is also a co-founder and the Chief Science Officer at FitTrace.com, a body composition management and analysis app. He currently holds faculty positions at Concordia University Chicago and the United States Sports Academy.

In our current era of year-round sports, strength coaches are often asked about sport-specific training, and young athletes are inundated with the concept of sport specificity at an early age. Therefore, here is the question that we ask sport coaches who are curious about sport specificity: If the athletes play that sport year-round, why would we train those exact same repeated movement patterns? Inevitably, athletes will break down from continued overuse. Sport-specific training contributes to that overuse—so why do it?

Upon returning to the high school weight room almost seven years ago, I was somewhat uneducated about the state of year-round play. I knew year-round play existed, and I was aware of the nature of injuries associated with sport—particularly ACL injuries and shoulder injuries that plagued incoming freshmen at the collegiate level. I was also aware of athletes’ various training backgrounds, which range from no training to overtraining and everything in between.

When I was hired at Dorman High School, I had an idea of how I wanted to train my athletes—I wanted to follow the Keep It Simple and Safe (KISS) principle. I am a firm believer that the more we can develop our athletes with less complex methods, the greater the opportunity for adaptation and development down the road (with less likelihood of injury). We continually strive to develop a foundation of strength and power following the KISS method. There are multiple proven ways to train athletes, and I personally do not believe one way works better than others. For every program that does it one way and has success, there are other programs that do it completely the opposite way and have comparable success.

The more we can develop our athletes with less complex methods, the greater the opportunity for adaptation and development down the road (with less likelihood of injury). Share on X

With that said, we do not implement velocity-based training (VBT), accommodating resistance, or Olympic lifts outside of the power clean/hang clean and its variations. We also do not progress our athletes past what we term “Block 2.” In figure 1 below, you can see a guideline for how we progress through our quadrennial plan for our athletes. The table illustrates that football players are on a faster timeline compared to other athletes—this is only due to the commitment to training at an earlier age. Our goal is to have a commitment from all sports and athletes at an earlier age, and we believe we will accomplish that goal in time.

I want to be clear that just because programs utilize certain training modalities or progress their athletes differently, it does not mean they are wrong. Training programs that work are programs that the strength coach believes in and can create buy-in for from their athletes. How can a coach create buy-in if they have nothing vested in their own training philosophy?

Joe Kenn’s Tier System: Key Components and Functions

My programming philosophy is rooted in Joe Kenn’s Tier System—Athletic-Based Strength Training. Oftentimes, discussions about sport specificity lead to our philosophy here at Dorman—we program “athlete” specific. This simply means that we program to train athletes, not the sport. We train our athletes in a uniform manner through the Tier System.

Coach Kenn defines five key components of athletic-based strength training within the Tier System:¹

• Training movements rather than body parts
• Whole-body training sessions versus split training sessions
• Explosive versus nonexplosive movements
• Variety
• Tempo

While all five components are essential in the process of designing a tier program, when considering uniformed training for athletes, coaches must remember to train movements and implement whole-body training sessions.

The majority of sports are ground-based, meaning sport is played with feet on the ground. The Tier System is designed with ground-based sport in mind. The majority of exercises programmed should be ground-based, where athletes stand on their feet¹. Ground-based exercises are typically multi-joint movements, as are most athletic movements. Sport in general is considered to utilize the entire body. The Tier System structure is centered on whole-body training sessions while emphasizing multi-joint movements. Movements are divided into three separate categories: total body movements, lower body movements, and upper body movements.

Without going into great detail, the Tier System has four main functions:¹

1. Rotate the order of exercise based on movement.
2. Implement a variety of movements to train in numerous planes within a microcycle.
3. Prioritize movements based on big movements and functional movements.
4. Control volume by exercise order and emphasis on specific strength developed.

Below, you can see the general layout of a 3×5 tier system—3×5 meaning three days per week with five tiers. The table shows that each training session is a whole-body training session. The Tier System, at its core, represents uniformity in training. Every group or athlete that trains in the weight room follows a Tier System program—typically the same Tier System program. However, the uniqueness of the Tier System allows for exercise variations in each tier while continuing to train multiple athletes in a uniform manner.

Variations could be needed due to regressions, injuries, or sport seasons. Take, for example, if we are on Session T, Tier 1 (typically a power clean), and an athlete has a breakdown in technique on the first pull. Within the same group of athletes, we can regress the individual athlete to a total body variation (trap bar, shrug pull, etc.) without altering the Tier 1 rotation. Most importantly, we still train a total body movement.

Creating an exercise pool is an important aspect of the Tier System that allows the strength coach to substitute or vary exercises in each tier. An exercise pool places exercises into each category of total, lower, or upper exercise and allows for variety in programming.

Where to Begin?

With most things, a coach has to decide where to start. My introduction to the Tier System began in the fall of 2007, when I visited Coach Kenn at Arizona State. Initially, I planned to absorb as much as possible about the Tier System (which I did), but I was also introduced to Block Zero. The concepts of Block Zero made sense to me and I have been using it since 2007.

The high school setting presents a perfect opportunity to impact the development of young athletes. We believe that development starts with Block Zero, says @DormanStrength. Share on X

The high school setting presents a perfect opportunity to impact the development of young athletes. It’s our belief that development starts with Block Zero. Therefore, we expose all of our athletes who train under the supervision of the strength staff at Dorman to Block Zero. What is Block Zero? It is an introductory strength training program designed to lay the foundation for an athlete’s future training. Block Zero assumes that the athlete has a training age of ZERO in YOUR program.

As presented by Coach Kenn, the Block Zero daily setup follows a four-part design targeting athletic position, jumping mechanics, stabilization, and relative strength:²

1. Athletic position – the foundation for a large portion of future movements: jumping, landing, squatting, any type of hip hinge.
2. Jumping mechanics – emphasized early to promote mastery of the power position and landing position prior to plyometric training. We have found that the mastery of jumping and landing mechanics has resoundingly positive effects on the early stages of teaching the power clean.
3. Stabilization – built through the programming of isometric holds.
4. Relative strength – developed through the use of bodyweight exercises and isometric holds.

Some key points of emphasis are athletic position and the development of relative strength. As previously stated, athletic position serves as the foundation of Block Zero. It is our belief that, through athletic position, athletes will master hip hinge, learn to apply and absorb force, connect the dots between body position and injury prevention, and draw awareness to the posterior chain. When it comes to young athletes, it is our contention that an athlete who cannot master the athletic position cannot safely land a jump. Through the implementation of Block Zero with previously untrained female athletes, we found great success in the improvement of relative strength and dynamic knee valgus³.

Athletic position serves as the foundation of Block Zero. Through athletic position, athletes master hip hinge, learn to apply and absorb force, and more, says @DormanStrength. Share on X

We typically begin each Block Zero introduction to our athletes discussing injuries and gymnastics. Our goal is to have our athletes understand the importance of relative strength through comparison to some of the pound-for-pound strongest athletes in the world! The use of isometric holds to develop strength is supported by the use of the isometric flex arm hang and chin-up as measures of relative upper body strength by the FitnessGram and the United States Military.⁴ Isometric core holds have been used as a measure of core strength and isometric contractions have been used to measure hip adduction and abduction strength.⁵

Where Does Uniformity Come In with Block Zero?

The design of Block Zero displays uniformity—what young athlete does not need relative strength, jumping mechanics, stabilization, and development of the posterior chain? So, we implement Block Zero with ALL newcomers to our program.

At Dorman, we have found that in middle school, athletes still often play multiple sports; they haven’t chosen one specific sport yet. We start our eighth-grade football players in the spring semester before their ninth-grade year, but this covers a large number of our male athlete population. Our eighth-grade volleyball girls start in May before their ninth-grade year. During the summer, our numbers continue to increase with a female-only Block Zero group that consists of volleyball, basketball, and softball.

After two months of Block Zero with our eighth-grade boys’ groups, we progress them through the summer into our Block Zero intensification phase. Our girls’ groups continue to push through Block Zero for the summer, largely due to the amount of playing that our volleyball girls and basketball girls do during the summer months. We also introduce our boys’ baseball athletes to Block Zero during the summer months. As we progress into the school year, a large number of our freshman athletes are enrolled into our Freshman PE-S (PE Sport) classes, which they either take in the fall or spring semesters.

Freshman PE-S Classes (But Not Freshman Football)

We offer three Freshman PE-S classes that shuttle to our main campus weight room every day. Each semester, the new crop of freshman athletes begins with six weeks of Block Zero training. I am a staunch believer in the “slow cooker” approach when it comes to training young athletes. Some of our ninth-gradestudents in the fall semesters go through Block Zero during the summer months; however, following the slow cooker approach, they remediate for six weeks with the remainder of the class for six weeks.

As the numbers in our Freshman PE-S classes have continued to grow over the last six-plus years, more and more athletes are exposed to Block Zero. Various sports are represented in our Freshman PE-S classes—wrestling, boys and girls golf, boys and girls soccer, cheerleading, baseball, softball, volleyball, boys and girls lacrosse, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls swim, boys and girls basketball. The number of athletes in our classes is one reason we train in a uniform manner.

We also progress our athletes out of Block Zero together. After our initial Block Zero cycle, we progress into our Block Zero Intensification phase, where we begin to implement external loads on the athletes. We also continue to implement Block Zero concepts for reinforcement as we progress to more advanced movements.

During the Block Zero Intensification phase, we introduce the Tier System to our freshman athletes in a uniform manner—all athletes do the same exercises. Progressing from Block Zero, we want to build on the concepts of applying/absorbing force and developing the posterior chain. Therefore, our programming should reflect these concepts. As you can see below, we follow a true Tier System setup for our Block Zero Intensification phase with our Freshman PE-S classes: Day 1 is Session T, Day 2 is Session L, and Day 3 is Session U.

We follow a four-week cycle before we introduce the barbell to our athletes. The goal each semester is to complete a 5RM of a front squat, trap bar deadlift, and overhead press during the last week of the semester. Throughout each cycle, we continue to implement Block Zero concepts—stabilization, jumping mechanics, and relative strength.

The beauty of the Tier System is it allows us to use regressions with athletes who may need more work with certain movements, says @DormanStrength. Share on X

The beauty of the Tier System is it allows us to use regressions with athletes who may need more work with certain movements. For example, in a group of three: Athlete #1 will do a goblet squat, Athlete #2 will do a front plank, and Athlete #3 will do band abduction. If Athlete #3 rotates to goblet squat but has a drop in technique, we can simply do a banded bodyweight squat to a box and still fall into the Tier System rotation.

High School PE-S Classes

Our high school PE-S classes are set up a couple of different ways. First, any coach who is a PE teacher has the opportunity to have their sport in the PE-S class. For sports that do not have a coach as a PE teacher, the athletes are placed into PE-S classes with various athletes. In our non-football/basketball PE-S classes, we have 60+ athletes with baseball, softball, swimming, cheerleading, lacrosse, soccer, golf, wrestling, volleyball, and cross country represented. The football/basketball PE-S class is set up separately, due to the volume of athletes, with 100+ total. We also have a freshman and junior varsity football PE-S class—as previously stated, I will discuss how we set up our non-football/basketball PE-S classes with the Tier System.

We have a few multisport athletes, but at Dorman, the multisport athlete is almost nonexistent. For this reason, we use a uniform modified Tier System design in our PE-S classes. We lift four days a week—Monday (Session T), Tuesday (auxiliary day), Wednesday (Session L), and Thursday (Session U). We also incorporate two days of speed development and two days of conditioning. We develop speed on Session T and Session L days prior to training. We do conditioning on auxiliary and Session U days. Fridays are a free play day for our athletes.

This design is a classic example of doing what works. The Tier System is designed for a three-day setup, but a three-day setup will not work in our current class structure. With 90-minute classes (about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes of training time), 90 days a semester, and no sport coach, training can become long and monotonous. We also modify from a 3×5 tier system setup to a 3×4 system where we treat the fourth tier as a giant set with extra posterior chain work.

After School/Before School Training

For teams/athletes that are not in our PE-S classes, we offer training two days per week before or after school. Our before/after school training follows a 3×2 tier system design. We incorporate speed development for off-season teams prior to training. Due to the nature of sport being ground-based, we eliminate Session U and utilize Session T and Session L for our 3×2 setup.

Continuous Training for Success

We firmly believe that we should not rush the development of a high school athlete. That does not mean that we hold athletes back at the high school level with uniform training, less complex methods, or non-sport-specific training. Rather, the opposite is true—athletes continue to train through pushing, pulling, squatting, jumping, pressing, sprinting, and agility, which sets them up for success on the field or court.

We firmly believe that we shouldn’t rush the development of a high school athlete. That doesn’t mean that we hold athletes back with uniform training, says @DormanStrength. Share on X

Reinforcing Block Zero concepts throughout an athlete’s high school training career helps them continue to develop relative strength, stabilization, and posterior chain strength. If we hold true to this type of programming, ALL of our athletes will be prepared for the physical demands of ANY sport.

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References

1. Kenn, J. (2003). The Coach’s Strength Training Playbook. Monterey, CA: Coaches Choice.

2. Kenn, J. (2016). “Block Zero Concept: How to Develop Young Athletes.” Elite Athletic Development Seminar. United States: Robertson Training Systems.

3. Cash, E. (2018). The Effect of an Introductory Strength Training Program on ACL Injury Risk Factors. University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Greensboro, NC.

4. Clemons, J.M., Duncan, C.A., Blanchard, O.E., Gatch, W.H., Hollander, D.B., and Doucet, J.L. (2004). “Relationships between the flexed-arm hang and select measures of muscular fitness.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 18(3), 630–6.

5. Earle, J. and Hoch, A. (2011). “A proximal strengthening program improves pain, function, and biomechanics in women with patellofemoral pain syndrome.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(1), 154–163.