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Every single time you see an athlete do something superhuman, it is the summary output result of a multi-layered circuit of subsystems. These subsystems include the central nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, cardiopulmonary system, and more. This is key because, as practitioners, we can affect these subsystems via things like proper program design, exercise selection, nutritional programming and periodization, sleep hygiene interventions, and much more.

I take a holistic approach when it comes to assessing and fashioning solutions for health and performance. I realize the word “holistic” has gone the way of “functional” and has somewhat lost its meaning. When I say “holistic” approach, I mean approaching human performance as a constellation of systems that behave symbiotically.

The analogy I like to use is that the human organism is a series of decentralized economies that communicate for the betterment of the organism as a whole. In other words, your nutrition, sleep hygiene, recovery habits, immune system, allostatic load, and other factors all feed into one another in some way. If our role as practitioners is to optimize that organism, we need to truly understand the relationship among these functional systems.

It takes technology to truly get an accurate proxy of what’s going on under the athlete’s ‘hood’ says @coopwiretap Share on X

While there are plenty of levers to pull, some of these things can be best influenced only if they’re truly understood. Most of this understanding is built on an effective mix of relentless research and the right kind of experience, with some shameless experimenting and creativity along the way. While the art of coaching reigns supreme at the foundation, it really does take technology to truly get an accurate proxy of what’s going on under the hood. For me, this means the Omegawave System (Team edition).

Taking the Athlete’s Inventory: ECG and EEG Analyses

Instead of drawing up an extended product data sheet, I’m going to give a brief summary on what the system is and what it does. From there, I’ll move on to case studies and practical examples to provide real-world context—which is how coaches and athletes reading this will likely best learn.

For those unfamiliar, Omegawave is a field lab that allows you to gain professional-grade diagnostics in a convenient, mobile format. Omegawave takes measurements relevant to an athlete’s physiological condition, including:

• An ECG-based analysis, which provides HRV and cardiac/autonomic nervous system analysis.
• An EEG measure of “DC-Potential,” (slow cortical potential) and CNS analysis, which indicates the brain’s ability to regulate the central nervous system (and thus coordinate the multiple subsystems “beneath” it).

The system provides something of a dashboard for your athlete’s current functional state, as well as a means to plot progressive adaptations over time. This is profound because it not only helps us identify which physiological limiters are trapping an athlete’s health and performance, but it also enables us to take a program design model based on individual athlete physiology. By having the ability to validate adaptation and ensure that our plan is working, we’re able to not only engineer best results, but also guarantee we’re not wasting any time spinning wheels on the road to success.

The autonomic and central nervous systems govern biological adaptation to activity. They regulate the transportation of oxygen and substrate to the working muscle, mobilize energy resources, program hormonal expression, clear the by-products of oxidation, and control conditions for anabolic processes in muscle tissues. Therefore, an evaluation of adaptation processes requires the examination of the following areas, which we are getting professional-grade readings on here:

• Central nervous system status
• Autonomic nervous system status
• HPA axis regulation
• Neuromuscular potential
• Energy metabolism
• Cardiac system status
• Detoxification system (excretory) regulation
• Gas exchange regulation

Omegawave summarizes your current state and provides key “check engine lights,” focusing on the central nervous, cardiac, metabolic, hormonal, and detoxification systems. This starts the conversation to help identify any limiters to health and performance: diet, sleep, stress, poor training decisions, lack of recovery, and more.

I use Omegawave as part of an assessment process to identify limiters to make precise, data-driven decisions with athletes’ health and training programming. This allows us to understand how much stress and what types of stimuli to engage our athletes with in order to ensure adaptation.

#Omegawave allows us to measure each athlete as the complete system they are, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

Over time, we are looking at how our athletes adapt to our nutrition, training, and health-related choices in order to see where we may need to adjust, course correct, or validate our programming decisions. Simply put, Omegawave allows us to measure each athlete as the complete system they are and ensure that our long-term plan together leads to success.

Engineering Accountability

One of the absolute best things Omegawave has done for my process has been taking emotion out of the areas where we don’t want it. You see, when it comes to treating the body as the system that it is, most athletes just don’t get it. Instead, they focus primarily on their training in a “more is more” mindset and have a vague sense of a need to be healthy. In my experience, this doesn’t generally translate into even a sufficient baseline level of healthy habits to make the requisite difference and drive adaptation.

This is less a specific one-off case study and more of a research summary from a larger population sample size. On the whole, I’ve had many athletes who didn’t see the value in doing things like not consuming junk food ad libitum, being sure to cut the electronics off at a reasonable hour at night, and trying to look beyond typical “fitness supplements” when it comes to ergogenic needs.

You can argue that the reasons behind this vary from athlete to athlete—and some might think this “health first” model is just my own system that I choose to believe in, which is fair. The lack of preventative health measures that get media attention compared to other athlete rituals could also be to blame. For some, a lack of education is the main driver.

While the value of conveying how much you care organically will never be replaced (such as looking someone in the eye and simply taking the time), Omegawave has given me an effective slam dunk in the buy-in department that saves everyone time and winds up accelerating results.

For instance: two of my basketball players train together, but treat their bodies vastly differently around that window of their time in the gym. One eats a nutrient-dense diet, relatively free of pro-inflammatory agents, and in the requisite amounts to enable both health and performance. The other treats his body more or less like an amusement park.

Now, understand that both athletes have received the same level of focused coaching in the areas of nutrition, sleep hygiene, stress management, strength and conditioning, breathwork, recovery, and everything in-between. Although we were still relatively early on in our relationship at this point, Athlete A was clearly getting it while Athlete B was not.

Enter Omegawave: It took athlete B receiving a series of check engine lights following Omegawave screenings concurrent with differences in each athlete’s performance for him to understand. In general, I have athletes that test early in the morning (total adaptation and recovery trends) as well as pre-training (window of trainability for fluid periodization). This athlete’s Omegawave profiling featured the following:

• Severely “dented” CNS
• Poor energy metabolism
• Hypofunction in the HPA axis (brain neuroendocrinology proxy)

He then witnessed the following in his own training:

• Lethargy with accelerated onset of fatigue.
• Less neural potential in the form of less explosiveness than his training partner.
• Loss of minutes to Athlete A even though he (Athlete B) had been the better player with a higher minute load previously.

Afterward, I had buy-in as a coach and he began to take my recommendations to heart. Our targeted interventions included some fundamentals that made all the difference: simple nutrition tweaks minimizing pro-inflammatory agents, increasing overall caloric load in each area, increasing nutrient density of food, prioritizing sleep, decreasing blue light exposure, and proper breathing to manage stress. For an athlete who wasn’t taking everything around the gym as seriously as necessary, these simple changes made a profound difference in the long run.

#Omegawave lets me show athletes that they need to take everything seriously—not just their training, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

I use this as a key case study to show that not every coaching point is going to sink in with everyone immediately, and that’s okay. I believe that the involvement of Omegawave in my process has not only accelerated accountability, but also provided an objective means to meet athletes at their level. Omegawave helps me show them that they need to take everything seriously—not just their training.

At the end of the day, that’s what I’m really driving home to my clients: Health drives performance. Omegawave has given me the ability to do so in a precise, matter-of-fact capacity.

Functional Nutrition and Stress

For many athletes and coaches, nutrition seems to get boiled down into creating changes such as adding lean body mass, lowering body fat, and gaining a vague sense of getting healthier. This seems to have crept into the athletic and sport science world from the fitness industry. I feel it represents perhaps the largest area of deficit in both athletic program infrastructure and coaching on the whole.

Although not known as a metabolic analytics technology in the same vein as a respirometer, metabolic cart, etc., what Omegawave can do is provide insight into an athlete’s functional systems that nutritional interventions can alter for the better.

For this case study, let’s look at Chris. Chris is an entry-level, amateur combat sports athlete whom I’ve worked with for some time. Because Chris has multiple trainings (sport skill and S&C), as well as a high-stress supplemental job, he’s got a wide array of stress inputs. Due to this and afternoon training times, this meant it was usually more useful to profile him with Omegawave pre-training as opposed to first thing in the morning. Chris’ Omegawave profiling and our evaluation yielded the following results across introductory readings:

• Consistent high-arousal state (sympathetic fight/flight/freeze dominant)
• Poor metabolic “coordination”
• Chronic breathing irregularity
• Hypofunction of HPA axis

Our intake protocol using the Omegawave also dug out nutritional deficiencies (macro and micro), a high degree of allostatic load (stress), and the fact that he regularly consumed a diet that negatively influenced his autonomic nervous system. Let’s unpack each of these.

Like many Type A high performers, Chris leads a sympathetic-dominant lifestyle, both in terms of training load and life load. For optimal health and performance, we ideally want to see him live a predominantly parasympathetic life around his necessary sympathetic times (training).

We began with getting to know Chris as an individual—the importance of unpacking the human experience cannot be overstated. Our response to his allostatic, or “life load,” was to integrate athlete neurofeedback along with some lower-barrier-for-entry lifestyle swaps, including meditation protocols, decreased behavioral stimuli, and connected breathing. This helped alter his perception of stressful situations and helped him respond versus react to life. This is always where we start, and this shift alone often results in enhanced results; this situation was no different, as you’ll find out.

The importance of unpacking the human experience of an athlete cannot be overstated, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

Part of Chris’ perpetual high-arousal state was driven by his propensity for foods that provoked a response in the autonomic nervous system towards a sympathetic direction. Nutritional influence on the autonomic nervous system is something that is grossly overlooked. His diet was rich in foods that provoked an inflammatory response in the body. As has been established in research, the gut and the brain/nervous system complex are linked via the vagus nerve, a master regulator of the gut-brain axis. Certain pro-inflammatory, neurotransmitter-altering foods that are responsible for these high-arousal modifications (in this case, wheat, gluten, pesticides, excess dairy, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and refined sugar, plus artificial colors and sweeteners) were fairly regular indulgences.

Additionally, Chris consumed a surplus of foods that potentially threw off his GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid) to glutamate balance. For those who don’t know, GABA is a primary inhibitory neurotransmitter that is a relaxant in nature. Glutamate is the opposite in this context—an “upper,” if you will. Many of us consume an excess of the latter in modern nutritional templates with the food supply being what it is.

At any rate, our nutritional interventions sought to remove sympathetic drivers, as well as promote more GABA-glutamate balance. We also sought to further down-regulate Chris in the evening to promote more sleep since he noted that sleep quality was a recurring issue. I adjusted his nutritional programming to back-load his carbohydrates to later in the day. This is because cortisol is generally inhibited in response to an insulin spike, helping to downshift his nervous system ahead of resting hours. This cortisol-insulin opposing relationship is also a reason why carbs are craved as an allostatic load stress response. You could also argue the reversal supported his focus and training time to be necessarily sympathetic.

Something else to consider is the overall systemic effect these issues would have on an athlete or individual. Parasympathetic is affectionately known as the “rest and digest” state for a reason. If we are living in a perpetual sympathetic state, we cannot properly digest, absorb, or cellularly transmit nutrients. Excess sympathetic states are also upregulators of the immune system, which generally creates the scaffolding for a global inflammatory state and its consequences. These consequences include preventing the flow of nutrients in the bloodstream to tissues in need. This underpins the relationship between food and autonomics. Because autonomics govern the other organ systems and their processes in the body, this is validation of the old adage, “what you put in, you get out.”

The breathing irregularity, which was double-detected, was interwoven with all of this—if the brain is the master puppeteer of all of these subsystems, breath is the remote control of this software. Our mindfulness interventions helped to take care of this, which granted us greater global endurance, supported autonomic profile, metabolism, mood, and more.

On the whole—from assessment to program adjustment—Chris added lean body mass, oxidized more body fat, improved his performance in sport, increased his explosive strength, augmented his conditioning, shortened his recovery, and subjectively reports an overall improvement in his quality of life. This was all concurrent with improved Omegawave markers.

#Omegawave’s metrics served as canaries in the coal mine for physiological limiters, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

Omegawave really helped start the conversation, with the metrics serving as canaries in the coal mine for physiological limiters. Our further conversation then dug up the origin story of these issues. Without Omegawave as a piece of the intake, some of these areas would have surely gone unnoticed…or perhaps not been identified until later on.

Physiological Program Design: Get in. Get out. Adapt.

Because the brain first processes all inputs, it’s critical to take inventory of its status. I’ve continuously found that Omegawave provides a noninvasive way for me to see the status of the brain, physiological subsystems, and its response to inputs. These inputs can include what I refer to as “deposits” or “withdrawals.”

Deposits are positive inputs to the system that promote recovery and facilitate the adaptation process to drive results. This includes proper nutrition, sleep, stress management, recovery and regeneration processes, breathing, and more.

Withdrawals ideally consist of positive hormetic stressors. Hormetic stressors are loads that are strategically induced to provoke an adaptive response and nudge the organism more towards resiliency, strength, and long-term performance. This ideally consists of the strength and conditioning sessions, practices, and games, and potentially certain programmed-in stressors like cold therapy, heat stress, and intermittent fasting.

Unfortunately, the modern athlete often deals with a higher proportion of withdrawals than is ideal. Poor sleep hygiene, diet deficits, lack of strategy in organizing the training process, life stress, and the modern environment all combine to create a bank statement in the red.

We’ve established that health drives performance. So it follows that in order to create the right environment for adaptation, we as coaches need to create the right foundation for our athletes’ physiology to be primed. This essentially ensures the athlete has the biological foundation from which adaptation and performance can be expressed. It’s not a reach at all to position program design as not only an exercise in performance-building architecture, but also in effective management of these functional systems. Omegawave can assist both coach and athlete in getting a readout on this inventory and provide critical insights into where withdrawals and deposits can be balanced strategically. This can have a profound impact on program design.

It’s not a reach at all to position program design as effective management of physiological systems, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

My template for this involves perhaps the best use case for this type of physiological fluid periodization: the mixed martial arts athlete. For those who don’t follow, allow me to set the scene. Mixed martial arts might be the most complex sport to program for. You’re dealing with a population who use a full Rubik’s Cube of energy systems, display a diverse portfolio of strength types, and feature a full suite of neural and structural adaptations. This already-complex foundation can then be complicated by the fact that an individual fighter’s skill set can alter this needs analysis. It’s been said that CrossFit athletes, NFL linemen, and Strongman competitors are like building tanks whereas sprinters, basketball players, and NFL wideouts are like building sports cars. MMA is both.

From here, you’re also talking about athletes who are already likely sporting far too many withdrawals from skill work, blunt force trauma, and every other typical deficit (e.g., sleep, nutrition, etc.) you might find stuck in a team sport athlete’s bike spokes. Don’t forget that if you’re in camp, you’re dealing with the hormetic stress of caloric deficit and water manipulation.

My best experience to date with Omegawave came from working with an MMA athlete—Jon—who fights for a major fight promotion. Jon came to me with 12 weeks of prep time and needing to drop to a full new weight class. Jon’s skill coaches also insisted on a certain inarguable level of volume dedicated to skill work, as expected. Our evaluation also teased out major deficits in various types of explosive strength, maximal strength, reactive strength, and the kinesthetic system/propriospinal qualities.

My job then (for those keeping this wild score) was to build up certain precise adaptations in this time, get the fighter on weight, healthy, and ready to fight. Again, if ever there was a use case for fluid periodization and athlete monitoring, this was it.

With Jon, we routinely used Omegawave to take advantage of the system’s “Windows of Trainability.” According to Omegawave co-founder Val Nasedkin and Dr. Roman Fomin (now of the UFC Performance Institute), trainability is defined as the capacity to receive training loads (input) and adequately adapt to them (process), thereby producing a positive training result (output). The input is everything thrown at the athlete—not just training loads. Output is the result of the input. If we walk the line, we should expect to always secure a positive output. If this process is not well-managed, training inputs can have a detrimental effect rather than a positive one—this can also become chronic, leading to maladaptations over time. Safe to say we don’t want that.

This spotlights the importance of assessing the current functional state of the athlete. So far, I’ve spoken mainly of using Omegawave in the on-ramp process, in evaluation, and in looking at long-term trends. The truth is that every athlete, at each training session, has a unique internal environment. This under-the-hood status is a summation of the interaction of all subsystems—the stress reservoir, if you will. That reserve is physiological currency in the bank that an athlete can spend in the form of withdrawals. These currencies can be specific.

An open Window of Trainability represents an ideal functional state of an athlete—meaning that the athlete’s physiological systems are primed for any reasonable volume of any training input/load needed. This spans endurance work, maximal strength work, explosive strength and high neural output exercises (e.g., plyometrics), and motor learning. A closed Window of Trainability may point to a non-ideal day/time to apply any load or certain loads.

 With Jon’s inputs and needs, this meant using this Window of Trainability approach to both program and pivot based not only on needs, but current levels of readiness. Throughout camp, we had to be careful to ensure we weren’t just beating the hell out of him and sending up a prayer to hope he improved. Our goal is adaptation at the end of the day and full adaptation cannot occur without a bedrock of health beneath it. At the same time, Jon also needed to build up requisite levels of conditioning and strength to meet the demands of his sport. We couldn’t send him into battle ill-prepared.

We used Omegawave to get a proxy on each subsystem of the body to get regular readouts on which training load should be applied when. This meant thinking on our feet. For example, if Jon slept poorly and was pushed too hard in wrestling, then perhaps his body was only ready to go for various types of conditioning work and strength work.

This Window of Trainability was closed for motor skill acquisition and high-order explosive movements. For us, this could mean abandoning all or parts of the planned workout and hitting them later in the week, swapping sessions. Sometimes this meant still testing certain higher order explosive movements, but shaving down the volume. Lastly, given a couple bad readings, this may also have meant we programmed in a spontaneous recovery day.

Jon’s training program included plenty of higher order “CNS training” ala Marv Marinovich, Nick Curson, Frans Bosch, Verkoshansky, Innosport, etc. His program also included needed energy system development. All of this was layered on top of a high cost (high input) load from all of his training and cutting weight. From here, we had to navigate complex schedule circumstances. With Omegawave, we were able to get in, get out, create the useful adaptation we needed, and avoid detrimental training effects.

In the end, Jon improved a variety of transferable training qualities, including CO2 tolerance, overall conditioning, breathing, maximal strength, explosive reactive strength, kinesthetic system qualities, cognitive processing, rate of force development, and more—all while making his new weight class without suffering in the sauna/bath.

To layer everything else on the table, we also took labs for additional biomarkers—this helped guide our decisions. We programmed in additional recovery modalities, including light therapy, direct current electrical stimulation (also for performance), mindfulness installations, breathwork, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, and more.

Safe to say, Omegawave served as our compass to appropriately load Jon. The timing of a training load has as large an impact on adaptation as the volume and intensity of that load. If all loads are slapped onto a foundation of your physiological systems, an inappropriately timed load can be highly detrimental while the opposite can truly optimize adaptation. In other words, you can’t pour perfume on a pig.

This ensured we were always measuring and being surgical in our vision rather than simply guessing based on cookie-cutter templates. In fact, I’m not sure how I would program for combat sports athletes without athlete monitoring technology due to the physiological Bermuda Triangle at play.

Health and Performance Compass

Omegawave helps coaches and athletes alike get invaluable insight into big-picture decisions, such as program design, validation of adaptation, and fluid periodization. Going deeper, Omegawave is a portable lab for the brain, central nervous system, energy supply system, cardiac system, HPA axis, cost of training, and more.

#Omegawave is a portable lab for the brain, #CNS, energy supply system, cardiac system, and more, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

As holistic human performance models continue to become validated, the need to be able to measure and make a difference in key areas within and around training are only going to come to the forefront. Omegawave was years ahead of its time and should only continue to gain popularity beyond simply being known as just another “me too” stress index device.

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When we analyze our training programs, we should focus on the individual athletes and the specific adaptations we want to induce rather than the arbitrary rules of thumb that they satisfy. This way of thinking will help us dig deeper into our programming and the impact we have on our athletes.

A question interns and other coaches ask me all the time—and one I come across more and more online—is simply: What is the best strength and conditioning (S&C) program?

It’s a great question in one sense, but it’s also so context-specific that it’s incredibly difficult to give a straight answer. Many people have come up with inventive tools and philosophies to help answer such questions, and many of these provide good examples of how to program.^{1, 2, 3}We cannot treat these, however, as absolutes. There is no definite, best way to program, and we should recognize that these are all just rules of thumb. The key question, therefore, is: What is the correct level of analysis for programming?

The good thing about rules of thumb is that they help us make decisions quickly and easily by skipping some of the difficult details involved.⁴The downside is that by skipping the details, by definition we miss out on a level of analysis that may be vital.

Some common examples of programming rules of thumb are:

• The number of sets and reps—3×10, 4×8, 5×5, etc.
• The percentage of intensity—80% for 8, 85% for 5, 90% for 3, etc.
• The split to use—upper and lower, push and pull, squat and hinge, etc.
• The order of the exercises—large muscle groups first, etc.
• The number of days a week—2, 3, 4, etc.

These can be great tools in some ways because they follow the basic rules of thumb that have been developed through experience and research. Consider, for example, having an athlete who is only available to train twice a week. They only have 45 minutes with you and little training history. You can use these rules of thumb to generate a program that should hit all the main areas. So, you decide to train on a Monday and a Thursday with squats on Monday and RDL’s on Thursday. You do a vertical push on Monday and a horizontal push on Thursday. You continue building your program according to these rules of thumb, and it all looks good.

This probably would be a fairly successful method of programming, but it’s not optimal. The reason? You’re using tricks to generate your program, bypassing the real question at hand. That question, of course, is: What is the adaptation caused by these training methods?

Exercise Categorization vs. Exercise Adaptation

Exercise selection is a common area of confusion regarding programming. Again, the topics of the best exercise for this or the best exercise for that come up. We should be asking: What is the adaptation that occurs due to a given exercise?

For example, I’ve seen arguments over whether an exercise was a squat pattern or a hinge pattern. It’s commonly assumed that a deadlift is more of a hinge exercise, and therefore automatically gets categorized into the hinge pattern box. But we know that the deadlift can vary massively by technique.⁵

Take a trap-bar deadlift, for example. Depending on the starting position of the hips, it can be a squat movement or a hinge movement. It doesn’t particularly matter that it’s from the floor. If the hips are lowered and the knees bent, then it’s more of a squat movement. Instead of the bar being on the back, it’s gripped in the hands. (This bar position might have a minor effect on muscle activation, but not enough to be worth worrying about in most cases. The major difference would be with the potential unloading phase on the floor, but this could also be achieved in the squat by using pins.) Ultimately, we should consider which muscles are stressed and the training method’s long-term effects on structure and function.

Exercise selection: consider the muscles stressed & the long-term effects on structure & function, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

We can also think about this when we look at performing a hip-dominant exercise as a key lift on Day 1 of a training program and a knee-dominant exercise on Day 2. This is good advice overall, as long as we think about it properly and consider the outcome. Performing a heavy hinge may result in a great deal of fatigue in the posterior chain muscles, such as the hamstrings. If we train these a lot in one session, then the next day it’s probably not appropriate to train them heavily again. Perhaps a knee-dominant exercise on Day 2 would be better because it should stress the anterior chain, such as the quadriceps, more than the hamstrings.

This rule of thumb seems useful here, as long as we remember that even if we normally classify one exercise as knee-dominant, there still may be a significant amount of posterior-chain recruitment and training effect. Our mental picture of the training week should incorporate this to determine the levels of fatigue our sessions are causing and their long-term effects.

Another common example is the argument over whether cleans, clean pulls, or some other exercise such as jump squats are better. The term better requires far more clarity and must be considered in terms of adaptation. Even the question about which is the best power exercise is poorly formed. There is no part of the body that we label as the power muscle. Power is the observable outcome of force expression. To produce more power, we need to produce more force in the minimal time possible.

In S&C, the term better requires clarity and must be considered in terms of #adaptation, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

Our bodies can do this when we increase the number and recruitment pattern of high threshold motor units and improve the movement’s coordination. The question we should ask is: What adaptation does this exercise cause compared to a different exercise? We can then easily see that the clean, clean pull, and jump squat will offer slightly different benefits depending on what we want to overload, and therefore what adaptation we can obtain.

We should also consider where to place other aspects of training. I’ve seen people try, with difficulty, to determine where to put plyometric exercises or sprinting activities because they can’t quite determine whether they are knee or hip dominant, etc. In these cases, I always advise to once again think about the training effect and the potential adaptation.

Sprinting is likely to place a large stress on the hamstrings.⁶Do we want that stress before or after a hamstring-dominant session? The important factor here is that we’re getting caught up in the specifics of the rule of thumb—knee or hip dominant—rather than concerning ourselves with what’s important: the adaptation occurring.

We can say the same for using percentages when training. I know many coaches who would never use a 4- or 7-rep strategy, but they couldn’t give me a good rationale why not. Similarly, if we prescribe 85% for a bench press, does it matter if the athlete ends up doing 84% or 86% instead? It’s frustrating when I see a coach notice a change of 1-2% in an exercise and say that they’re looking at a different quality, say strength-speed instead of speed-strength. Again, our confusion is that we’re being very specific with the rule of thumb instead of simply using it as intended—to serve as a rough guide.

When programming S&C, consider the effects of your options on #adaptation, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

In all of these instances, we should look at what the actual differences mean in terms of the effect on adaptation. We would surely all recognize that a 1% change in any one area would have a small effect on any intended adaptation. So we can see that a 7-rep strategy may not be vastly different from an 8-rep strategy. Likely, it’s just a slightly higher intensity, which would mean slightly higher recruitment of high threshold motor units and slightly less fatigue and structural damage if the same number of sets are performed.

We can then consider what effect this would have throughout a block of training, such as a slightly higher force production and slightly less hypertrophy. I like the graphic below, which highlights reps and intensity on a continuum, showing how the gradual change in intensity contributes to different effects.

We can use the same thought process throughout a block of training. We know that the adaptation effect of one training session is minuscule. But the effect of many training sessions can be substantial because the adaptation process is gradual and cumulative.⁷  We must understand that, even if we use perfect technique and plan a single session well, if we then focus on something totally different for the next session and don’t stress the same factors again for a long time, there will be no adaptation response.

This is where our testing and reviewing protocols are important. We can use some of these tools to evaluate our outcome measures, such as strength and power, to see if our training aims have been successful.

Programming at the Level of the Sport

A major common error is looking only at the needs of the sport and not the needs of the individual. As a result, we may neglect the individual qualities of the athlete we’re working with, failing to understand what they specifically need to address to become better at their sport.⁷  We know that being able to jump high is important for basketball. But purely focussing on a beginner athlete’s jumping drills from Day 1 of a program is likely to lead to injury.^{6, 7}

It’s also difficult to ensure there’s a transfer of training to sports performance. Transfer of training is commonly considered the gap between the physical changes we make during the athlete’s S&C training and their performance in their sport.⁸The difficulty is that performance occurs in seconds and milliseconds, whereas adaptation occurs through gradual accumulation during weeks and months.

We must consider how much time to spend trying to ensure that a given movement, specific to their sport, is overloaded to the extent that an adaptation will occur. And how much time is better spent elsewhere. It’s not possible to train every possible movement that may occur in a given sport. Even sports coaches can’t train for every possible scenario. But they can create examples that mimic likely scenarios and drill their players, so they become comfortable making decisions in these scenarios.

Similarly, if we want to improve someone’s jumping ability in basketball, the S&C coach is probably not going to spend a lot of time looking at every possible jumping strategy with and without the ball. Rather, they’ll improve the muscle qualities that allow an athlete the potential to jump higher in any given scenario. As S&C coaches, we’re giving athletes the prerequisites to performance. These prerequisites are trainable, and we can determine the specific adaptations that need to occur to improve them.

S&C coaches give athletes performance prerequisites & decide which adaptations will improve them, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

I often see this thinking error regarding programming with speed and agility drills. A good example is the use of speed ladders. We may be able to get an athlete to move their feet very quickly and perform movements that look something like the sport in question, but we won’t be replicating, or indeed overloading, the forces required to improve the movement and therefore won’t induce any meaningful adaptation.

Programming at the Level of the Team

An extension of the sport-based programming issue is programming at the level of the team, which means designing a program purely for the benefit of the whole team. Obviously, this is common within team sports and often somewhat necessary due to time constraints and access to facility space and similar issues.⁹

We can take into account key adjustments, however, and should individualize when necessary. To ensure that our training is as effective as possible in a group scenario, we often use supersets—paired exercises that might not be optimal—and order sessions to suit the group dynamics. While this is often unavoidable, we must understand how it affects the adaptations we are trying to achieve.

This is where we can see the skill of experienced coaches. They’re able to pair together individuals with similar needs and structure the program to minimize the deleterious effects of group training. The coach can also allow a level of individualization within the program by tailoring the sets, reps, and intensities accordingly.

Research and experience tell us that individuals are unique in how they respond and adapt to training. Five sets for one person may work well, but may make another person sore for a week and not able to make the next training session. By building a good picture of the individual athlete, including their weekly schedule and personal needs, we can adjust the program or allow some autoregulatory training to take place.¹⁰It’s also where tools such as GymAware can be useful, as they give real-time feedback and allow greater opportunities for individualization.

A training program is only as effective as its #outcomes and the adaptations that occur, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

Don’t get caught up in the idea that the group or team is the most important factor when programming. We must remember that the training program is only as effective as its outcomes, which are dictated by the adaptations that occur.

A New Way of Looking at Programming

The purpose of this article is to address some common mistakes and oversights when looking at programming and to offer examples of how to think differently. The argument I’ve made is that the correct level of analysis should focus on the individual athlete, or strictly speaking, the level of the specific adaptation we wish to induce. This is not to say that any of the training methods and program templates out there are useless. They’re actually very good, and some of them take many factors into account that all help us program effectively.

Rather, the value of this way of thinking is to help us dig deeper into our programming and truly consider what impact we’re having on our athletes. This thinking also applies to analyzing new exercises we see posted online and when designing a new exercise. Using this rationale, we can state that we should always judge our programming based on the adaptation that occurs, rather than the arbitrary rules of thumb that it satisfies.

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. Boyle, M. (2016). New Functional Training for Sports, 2nd Edition. Human Kinetics.

2. Fleck, S. J., & Kraemer, W. (2014). Designing Resistance Training Programs, 4thEdition. Human Kinetics.

3. Strength Card Builder 4.0

4. Baumol, W., & Quandt, R. (1964). Rules of Thumb and Optimally Imperfect Decisions. The American Economic Review,54(2), 23-46.

5. Bird, S., & Barrington-Higgs, B. (2010). Exploring the Deadlift. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 32(2), 46-51.

6. Yu, B., Queen, R. M., Abbey, A. N., Liu, Y., Moorman, C. T., & Garrett, W. E. (2008). Hamstring Muscle Kinematics and Activation During Overground Sprinting. Journal of Biomechanics, 41(15), 3121-3126.

7. Haff, G. G., & Triplett, N. T. (Eds.). (2015). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, 4th Edition. Human Kinetics.

8. Young, W. B. (2006). Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 1(2), 74-83.

9. Gamble, P. (2006). Periodization of Training for Team Sports Athletes. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 28(5), 56-66.

10.Mann, J. B., Thyfault, J. P., Ivey, P. A., & Sayers, S. P. (2010). The Effect of Autoregulatory Progressive Resistance Exercise vs. Linear Periodization on Strength Improvement in College Athletes. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(7), 1718-1723.

When it comes to speed drills, the jury is still out on their transfer to actual speed. Due to the limited time at high school practices each day, coaches should carefully consider the reason behind each drill. Too often, drills are looked at as a warm-up to get athletes loose and sweaty.

I don’t believe they make you faster by themselves. To get faster, you have to get stronger and/or more neurally efficient. I think they are corrective measures so that the athlete gets more out of their speed workouts. Looking for answers in the form of “cool drills” is not the way to go.

Drills are corrective measures so that the athlete gets more out of their #speed workouts, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Sometimes, similarly themed shallower drills can serve as reinforcement or potentiation for developing athletes. Drill selection at the high school level should cut out the fluff and aim to be as specific and basic as possible. Maximize the time and space that you have. Too much teaching of one specific drill is not a good use of time, but there is always a place and room for the fundamentals. Here are six simple drills that I think go a long way without complicating things needlessly.

Skip for Distance

These are easy to do and easy to cue. However, it doesn’t mean that athletes will do them correctly right away.

Look for maximal projection here, with purposeful foot contacts and pushes. This makes the concept of acceleration just a bit more understandable for high school athletes. Another cue is to use big, open, violent arms. Couple this with a nice, stacked vertical posture and they will work on max velocity concepts as well. Look for athletes to not “sit” into the skip or round their backs. These athletes get no height and are lazily pushing horizontally—almost falling, rather than projecting fully. The general strength acquired through these skips is also a nice bonus.

These can be used as a drill in warm-ups or in an acceleration complex. They work really well paired at the end with an event-specific start at the athlete’s level of development. This keeps the body ready and the CNS primed to be explosive on the next successive start. Large groups can also do these, and they can be done anywhere. Given the reality and constraints that most high school coaches face, this also makes skips an attractive option.

Video 1. Skips for distance make the concept of acceleration a bit more understandable for high school athletes. Look for maximal projection here, with purposeful foot contacts and pushes.

Dynamic Wall Post-Up

Block starts are really hard for most high school athletes. So are two- and three-point starts. Every athlete may have a different point of entry when it comes to their menu of acceleration items. The dynamic wall post-up drill teaches the concept of projection in isolation.

Video 2. The dynamic wall post-up drill teaches the concept of projection in isolation. The entry-level drill looks like this, without a med ball.

Start with 6- to 12-inch spacing between the feet and roll the knees, hips, and trunk together over the toes. Athletes should end up with pretty good shin angles that are parallel. The shin of the leg driven up should be parallel to the other shin, without casting out (toe should stay behind knee).

I like doing these on acceleration themed days.

These are also quite fun, and we have begun experimenting with some variations. The variety keeps the drills from becoming stale without straying too far from the basics. Fun can and absolutely should be a goal.

• Kneeling (more strength needed to overcome inertia).
• Post-up to boom-boom wall drill (watch for athletes butt-kicking or cheating the full thigh punch).

Look for athletes who display too much hip flexion or extension on the wall. You should see a nice straight line from the foot up through the shoulder and head, creating a powerful line ready to strike down and back behind the center of mass.

Video 3. We use variations of drills to inject both variety and fun. With this post-up to boom-boom wall drill, watch for athletes butt-kicking or cheating the full thigh punch.

Overhead Dribbles

I came across these years ago when watching Loren Seagrave on YouTube, and I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. After completing two ALTIS modules (which I highly recommend), I realized there is huge value in, and a place for, dribbling at the high school level.

The overhead variation takes the arms out of it and lets the athlete focus on the cycling of the legs. Like wickets, you can use these as a maximum velocity teaching tool or as a support, depending on the athlete.

Younger athletes could use marching and lower amplitude dribbling as a full session to train good movement early in their training. Before throwing them into a race car, make sure they take a minivan for a spin first. For older varsity athletes, it is a nice way to bring the muscles and nervous system slowly to life after sitting in chairs and at desks for the six hours before practice.

Starting with ankle marches, cue athletes to step over their ankle, calf, or knee. (We haven’t used ankle dribbles). They should stay tall and “bounce” while rolling through the entire foot, heel to ball of foot (keep the toe up and don’t let it touch). Upon foot contact, vertical force should be applied to limit the ground contact.

It also helps to correct athletes who overstride or cast their foot out. Athletes should display some proficiency in regular marching drills before progressing to dribbles. Keep an eye out for athletes overly plantar flexing and striking with the ball of the foot first.

Once they get better at the overhead dribbles, they can progress to full arm and speed dribbles. These have bigger concentric circles, as opposed to the overhead variations, which focus on rhythm. When space or time is an issue, these can be a nice substitute for wicket runs if done correctly.

Video 4. The overhead dribble variation takes the arms out of it and lets the athlete focus on the cycling of the legs. Like wickets, you can use these as a maximum velocity teaching tool or as a support, depending on the athlete.

Stair Marches with Hands on Hips

Acceleration is commonly referred to as “running up the stairs,” so it makes sense that stairs can be a nice teaching tool to remediate postures. Use hands on hips as an external cue to keep the hips hiked and pelvis neutral to maintain good posture. The value of the most basic drills cannot be overstated. Early in the season, especially indoors, these are a staple at our practices.

The value of the most basic drills cannot be overstated, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Latif Thomas uses the cue of tracing the shin with the opposite foot. The leg tracing should have the knee and toe up while stepping over the opposite knee to limit backside mechanics. This is what max velocity sprinting looks like.

Doing this in conjunction with some wicket flys on max velocity days is a good way to program stair marches. I have also programmed these on regeneration days, seeking to restore movement and reinforce proper mechanics. An athlete returning from injury may also work on these as they scale the ladder back to maximal work before taking the next step.

This is a great foundational drill and a chance for the coach to see things at a slower speed. You can do these with a large group at the base of a set of stairs with four athletes in line. After each rep, give and reinforce feedback before the next wave begins.

Video 5. Acceleration is commonly referred to as “running up the stairs,” so it makes sense that stairs can be a nice teaching tool to remediate postures. The hands on hip stair march is a great foundational drill and a chance for the coach to see things at a slower speed.

Single Leg Skip Variations

These are great for basic coordination and posture. They highlight the kids that move well and reveal the athletes that are still developing. Cue athletes with “Knee up, toe up.” The stance leg knee should have minimal flexion during the transitional hop and the leg that is punching should always land under the hip with a stiff ankle.

Athletes can start on the wall for an introduction to the rhythm and timing.

You can add overhead variations to challenge trunk stability. Athletes that have an issue with normal trunk movement will often display a lateral hitch with this drill. Rhythm and timing, rather than speed, is the goal with this. Emphasizing speed creates a herky-jerky movement, and a breaking at the hips is often present.

Video 6. Single leg skips are great for basic coordination and posture. They highlight the kids that move well and reveal the athletes that are still developing.

Athletes can progress to full arms once they do the other variations. Being able to work on the contralateral movement of the arms and legs is a challenge with this drill, in the same way that sprinting is often a challenge for high school athletes.

This is also a drill that can help hurdlers with leading with the knee and you can blend it into a “rain dance.”

Improving overall coordination and athleticism will help multi-sport athletes as well.

Single Leg Drives/Alternating Drives

This is a more advanced drill. You can use it as a plyometric activity in a max velocity or multi-jumps complex. It emphasizes a violent splitting of the arms and minimizing the amortization phase. I like to see athletes getting electric here. It is not a drill that can be done while half asleep.

First, both feet always land simultaneously together under the hips. Cue athletes to stay “strong as steel, head to heel” to limit ankle, knee, and hip collapse. Done with alternating legs, it is basically a dynamic march.

Video 7. The single leg drive is more advanced. It emphasizes a violent splitting of the arms and minimizing the amortization phase.

Video 8. Nothing has as little ground contact timeas sprinting, but single leg drives also serve as a great way to work on ankle stiffness and getting athletes ready to bounce when doing fly work.

Upon contact with the ball of the foot, the opposite knee is driven upwards, while the contralateral arm punches up, slightly flexing at the elbow. I like this drill because it almost forces athletes to use their arms correctly and open the elbow on the downswing as the arm clears the hip pocket.

Nothing has as little ground contact time as sprinting, but these also serve as a great way to work on ankle stiffness and getting athletes ready to bounce when doing fly work.

Drill Selection

As stated before, consider the drills that you use and how they fit into your own circumstances. No two coaches encounter the same ability levels or have access to the same equipment. How one coach uses a drill may be vastly different from the way another coach implements it. All of these drills are modeled by me or the captains. In addition to the correct way to do the drills, we demonstrate incorrect ways to discourage faulty movement patterns.

Athletes should perform these drills with high intent and appropriate volume for the task, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Clear cues with a variety of language can also help to get the desired outcome. This is a good way to apply the John Wooden Correct-incorrect-correct model. “When Wooden saw something he didn’t like, and stopped practice to correct the incorrectly executed technique, he would immediately demonstrate the correct way to do the technique, then show everyone the incorrect way the athlete just did it, then model the correct way again. This correct-incorrect-correct demonstration was usually very brief and succinct, rarely lasting longer than 5 seconds, but making it very clear what his expectations were, and how to meet these expectations.”

Purpose should be the main focus. Athletes should perform all of these drills with high intent and appropriate volume with regard to the task. Drills are a support or prep for acceleration and max velocity work, not just a “warm-up.”

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

Wearable resistance (WR) allows athletes to train with natural patterns and rhythms of movement that are more likely to promote transference to their sport or event. The efficacy of that transference, however, really depends on your understanding of some of the guiding principles around micro-loading. In a recent article, “The Future of Fast Is Light: Wearable Resistance Load and Placement,” I introduced the effects of mass and load placement (distance from the axis of rotation) on adaptation. The focus of this current article is understanding how to optimize the effects of WR by modifying the orientation and velocity of movement.

Orientation of Micro-Loads and Rotational Inertia

Following mass and placement, the third guiding principle of overloading with WR is that of orientation, which is related to the concept of placement and rotational inertia. As a quick reminder on the concept of rotational inertia introduced in Part 1 of the series, the resistance of an object to a change in rotation is the product of mass and distance of the mass from the axis of rotation: (I = mr²).

In terms of the thigh loading as in Image 1, Image 1B has greater rotational inertia than Image 1A as the same load is further from the hip axis of rotation. So what? Well, if you increase the rotational inertia, it will take more muscular effort from the hip flexors and extensors to initiate and control the movement of the thigh. Therefore, one of the ways you progress the resisted overload that an athlete is experiencing during unidirectional and multidirectional movements is to shift the load from A to B.

The third guiding principle of overloading with wearable resistance is orientation. Share on X

Now let’s get back to orientation. Placement not only affects rotational inertia but also the orientation of the micro-loads. Have a close look at Image 2 and the shape of the loads on the right—the loads are in a fusiform muscle shape, with a head tapering down to a tail. So what? Well, since there is more mass in the head and less in the tail, how you orient the load will affect the rotational inertia and therefore the amount of resisted overload the athlete feels.

You can observe a case in point in Images 2A and 2B—what do you see in A and B with the 200 gm/7 oz micro-loading? If you take a moment and put your response into words, hopefully what you said was, “I am seeing pretty much the same load placement, but the orientation of the micro-loads is different.” Image 2A has more of its load further away from the axis of rotation. Consequently, as the tail has less mass than the head of the load, this orientation in Image 2A has greater rotational inertia.

There are many options for arranging the loads and these different orientations can be used to achieve a range of outcomes. For example, see below in Image 3A where 400 gm/14 oz is loaded anteriorly (wide ends of micro-loads at the front of the thigh) versus the head-to-tail loading arrangement in Image 3B (which we call a neutral loading, with the load spread evenly over the anterior and posterior aspects of the thigh). Or look at the next image, where the orientation of the loads causes an external (4A) or internal rotation (4B). This will require activation of the hip internal and external rotators respectively, to maintain proper alignment.

Make subtle changes in the stimuli given to the muscular system by adjusting the weight orientation. Share on X

So, the take home message here is that by adjusting the orientation of the weights, you can make subtle differences to the stimuli presented to the muscular system. I am sure for many of you this is intriguing because of the potential implications of this for performance, injury resistance, and injury rehabilitation in your specific sports.

What is really interesting about orientation is that you can start introducing a great deal of movement variability into a training session, which can increase synergistic and stabilizer muscle contributions and likely improve injury resistance. Let me give you an example:

Jess is a developing soccer player and, as her coach, I want to introduce this concept of movement variability and training different muscles to be stronger for kicking and sprinting. I know that striking a soccer ball can involve internal and external rotation, and if I can develop more strength in these muscles, they could contribute to better shooting and crossing, as well as unidirectional and multidirectional movement ability.

So, on Tuesday practices I decide to load Jess as in Image 4A, which promotes external rotation during the warm-up drills and requires the internal rotators to work harder to maintain proper alignment. During the Thursday warm-up, I load as in Image 4B, promoting internal rotation, which requires increased activation from the external rotators for proper alignment.

Changing the force vectors linked to the movement changes the contribution of different musculature. Share on X

With these simple changes in orientation, I’ve changed the force vectors associated with the movement, and therefore the contribution of different musculature. I am pretty sure if you take a moment to reflect on this, you will understand how you can change orientation of the loads to assist with injury prevention and rehabilitation, as well as improving performance. That is, strengthening the internal and external rotators would most likely improve kicking performance and injury resistance for Jess.

Velocity and Wearable Resistance

Moving on from orientation, the fourth way you can overload using WR is by simply varying the velocity of movement. Now, to really understand the effect of velocity of movement on WR, I am going to provide a rudimentary example of how squatting 100 kg/ 220 lbs requires similar additional muscular work at the hip as moving 500 gms/~17 oz on each leg during sprinting. Warning: If you are not into biomechanics, push fast forward and skip this next paragraph and get to the messaging of the following paragraph. However, if you want a deeper understanding of this loading parameter, tuck into this next bit.

Another first principles (established science and not assumptions) approach to discussing the overload provided by WR and the effects of velocity of movement is to look at the work-energy relationship. Most simply put, the amount of mechanical work performed by a muscle group is determined by the mechanical energy associated with the movement, or conversely, the energy determines the muscular work. In terms of the formula:

• Mechanical work = kinetic energy (KE) =1/2m.v²+ potential energy (PE) = m.g.h. As the net change in height for both squat and sprinting is zero, the PE need not be calculated.
• Squat: So, let’s look at the squat. Let’s say this athlete’s 80% 1RM is 100 kg/ 220 lb, the peak velocity associated with an 80% 1RM lift = 0.58 m/s (Zink et al., 2006). Note this is a peak velocity and, theoretically, we should use an average velocity.
• Squat KE: If you put the numbers into the equation (see Image 5), you see we end up with around 17 kg.m.s of KE.
• Sprinting:Now let’s do the math for 500 gms (17 oz) on each leg while sprinting. A well-trained sprinter’s hip extension angular velocity is ~1000 degrees per second (deg/s), whereas an untrained sprinter’s is ~400 deg/s. For this example, I took the middle ground and used a hip extension velocity of 700 deg/s, which I converted into a linear velocity = 6.1 m/s.
• Sprinting KE: As you can see, the KE for moving the 1 kg load is slightly greater (18.6 kg.m.s) than the 100 kg load, so therefore the work performed by the hip musculature is slightly greater for the 1 kg loading.

How can this be so? Well, let’s have a close look at the formula: KE = 1/2m.v².

What is more influential in producing KE—and therefore muscular work—is velocity of movement and not mass. This is because the effect of mass is halved, whereas velocity is squared. What are the implications and practical applications of this? Well, here are some key points to consider:

1. Light loads (WR) moved fast result in substantial overload/muscular work.
2. Such loading would seem ideal for sprinting, given the activity’s specific overload.
3. Performing a movement with the same load at 50% vs. 90% of maximum velocity has very different KE and therefore muscular work requirements.
4. Think about how you integrate WR into your sessions (e.g., you may well use WR in tempo runs that overload by % max velocity rather than changing mass, placement, and/or orientation).
5. Scrutinize how you progressively overload before sprinting maximally with WR given what you know about KE now. However, remember this is only important depending on the masses you use, and the placement and orientation of the loading. If the load is light and placed close to the axis of rotation, then you can be less cautious.

Wearable Resistance Is the ‘Real Deal’

It is my hope that you now understand why the future of fast is light and how to use WR micro-loading to provide movement-specific resistance training. Just use it as part of what you are doing, but progressively overload based on feedback from your athletes using the four principles of WR overload.

Wearable resistance works and is a bonafide method of resistance training for speed. Share on X

I have taken a first principles physics approach to show you how WR works and why it is the “real deal” in terms of a bonafide method of resistance training for speed. Remember, the effectiveness of this technology in changing speed capability is based on your knowledge and its application. In these first two articles, I have shown how to overload for speed by manipulating mass, placement, orientation, and speed of movement.

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

Too many athletes “float” through practices and entire seasons. They have no direction or purpose. They show up, most of the time, and get through whatever the coaches have for them that day. And their coaches become more and more frustrated by their athletes’ lack of focus toward the end of a season.

Bestselling author and leadership guru Michael Hyatt once wrote: “You have a choice in life. You can either live on-purpose, according to a plan you’ve set. Alternatively, you can live by accident, reacting to the demands of others. The first approach is proactive; the second reactive.”

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not a coach who sits idly by and lets a season happen by accident. You probably have goals for your team. Athletes, however, are not solely motivated by the goals their coaches create for them. They need to have ownership of what they believe they can accomplish. As coaches, we can help our athletes set better and more meaningful goals, where they’re motivated by the process of achieving their desired outcome.

Why Set a Goal?

To use Brian Tracy’s words (from his book Goals! How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible), “You become what you think about most of the time.” Goals are effective because they influence psychological states (such as self-confidence), direct attention to improve aspects of the tasks, mobilize effort, and increase persistence. A goal gives you a desired destination, gives you purpose, communicates expectations, helps you plan, communicates vision, and keeps you focused.

A good #goal is measurable, practical, shared, planned, and motivating, says @trabucotrack. Share on X

A good goal is measurable, practical, shared, planned, and motivating. A bad goal is not measurable, not specific, too short, too complex, and not shared.

When leading my team in creating meaningful goals, I always start with the previous season. I show them what we created together and remind them of what they accomplished. It’s important to begin in a group setting and then have the athletes individually create their own goals. Teenagers are highly impressionable, and their peers’ judgments are very powerful. I use this force as accountability in their goal setting. Teammates will keep one another accountable day to day, eliminating the need for the coach to do it.

How Do You Write A Good Goal

• Think about where you want to go or what you want to accomplish
• Share with someone else and gather feedback
• Write your goal with a specific date and a deadline

  When writing a goal, do this:

• Begin with the word To
• Add an action verb
• State the result
• Write your deadline (very important)

Examples:

• To run (verb) 10.9 in the 100m (result) by league finals (deadline).
• To complete over 70% of all passes to 5 different receivers before the end of the game.
• To vault 15’0 in the pole vault by state finals.
• To average 90% of made free throws this season.
• To bat over 0.300 with at least 10 home runs by the end of the season.
• To win league finals as a team by the end of the season.

It’s About the Process, Not the Destination

Goals give a destination and reveal where you want to go. But without a deadline, when are you supposed to arrive? This is why so many athletes float through their practices—without a deadline, there’s no accountability to stick with the plan. In athletics, procrastination in one’s training leads to undesirable results.

Without a deadline, athletes have no #accountability to stick with the goal plan, says @trabucotrack. Share on X

Coaches, we need to teach our athletes how to create clear goals with the proper expectations on what the process of their progress will look like. The right perspective leads to clear expectations.

I highly recommend going through a weekly meeting on how to fall in love with the process of becoming great. Chop Wood, Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great by Joshua Medcalf is an excellent resource for this endeavor.

I use these charts for goals, and you can find similar illustrations in Chop Wood, Carry Water.

Every competition will not yield a new personal best. It’s unfortunate that many athletes believe they should improve every time they work hard. It’s important to educate athletes that having good goals is great, but the process of getting to those goals is what matters most. I find my athletes are unmotivated and discouraged after the first meet of the season if they didn’t see their lifetime personal best happen. As their coach, it’s imperative to change their perspective and help them see growth happen in the process.

As they move through the season, athletes think it’s less and less likely they will ever reach their goals when they feel so far away from them. The process of their training matters. Do they see themselves moving in the right direction? As the coach and leader, are you following along with them in their journey to give them a proper perspective?

Left alone, athletes will feel unmotivated, and resentment can build because they believe obtaining goals shouldn’t feel this way. Typically, this is where they question the coach and abandon plans because of impatience and the wrong perspective.

Casting this vision at the beginning before training begins will give long lasting perspective to the process. Perseverance in all moments will allow the athlete to take it one day at a time and feel like any setback will not determine the final goal. Grit is passion and persistence over a long period of time. We want to create athletes with grit, and grit is only developed in moments of adversity. It’s hard to live on a plateau of eventual success, yet this is not the time to give up or change the game plan. A clear understanding of what to expect from the process will yield athletes with grit. 

Problem with Motivation

Any goal requires, if not demands, that athletes stay motivated in their pursuit of the desired destination. It’s vital that we, as coaches and leaders, understand those we lead. Today’s generation of young people is easily bored, socially connected to their peers, and proficient in technology. And they truly want to be challenged by their leaders. For more reading on similar findings, look into Motivating the Modern Athlete by Dr. Marty Durden.

I have interviewed over 2,000 students and athletes in 5 years about the effectiveness of servant-leadership coaching and how it impacts the motivation level of high school athletes. The survey was designed to determine which coaching traits served to motivate the athletes best. The seven traits surveyed were (listed alphabetically):

• Altruism—giving to others with no motive to gain something in return; kindness.
• Empowering others—developing and mentoring others; teaching you how to play the game.
• Humility—focusing on other people rather than oneself; meekness.
• Love—placing unconditional value upon the individual as a person and not what they offer to enable the coach to win more games; maternal or paternal affection.
• Service—willing to assist others; helpfulness.
• Trust—demonstrating confidence in others to succeed; keeping promises.
• Vision for the followers—helping team members to imagine their potential to succeed; helping others to establish goals.

The results of the survey indicate the coaching traits that provide the greatest motivational value are:

• Trust (41%)
• Love (17%)
• Empowering (15%)
• Vision (11%)
• Service (6%)
• Altruism (5%)
• Humility (5%)

An interesting conclusion from this study: young people are motivated by people they trust, who demonstrate love toward them, and who see their worth and seek to develop them.

By setting goals with your athletes, encouraging them throughout the entire process of a season, and helping them create a sense of self-accountability, coaches will see more athletes with grit reach their desired goals.

Publish Goals Publicly for Accountability

Goals need to be created by the coach and athlete together, not made by the leader and said to the athlete. When the coach and athlete both contribute to the process, the athlete feels like a collaborator, and motivation in the process is long lasting. When they don’t collaborate, athletes feel unmotivated in the process and lost in their pursuits.

Conclusion

It’s worth our time to develop meaningful goals that we create with our athletes. With this process, we’ll begin to see athletes become accountable for their own progress. Their perspective will focus on perseverance in the process of the goals they created. Because their good measurable goals with a deadline are public and published, sustainable motivation will flourish. We then get to encourage our athletes in the day-to-day training because they trust us as co-collaborators who seek to develop them under a framework of goals they believe in.

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 is seemingly no end to the articles and videos by sports coaches, personal trainers, and strength coaches who contend that partial Olympic lifting exercises are just as good, if not better, than the full movements. As a weightlifting coach, I’m here to tell you that their opinions cannot be backed by science and they are doing their athletes a disservice by promoting such nonsense.

The first ridiculous argument I’ve heard is that most athletes cannot be expected to perform full squat cleans (and certainly not snatches!) because they lack the flexibility to achieve these positions. Seriously? What they are saying, in effect, is that they have identified flexibility deficiencies in their athletes and their solution is to avoid exercises that can fix them! Let me expand on this point.

Weightlifting and Flexibility

In the field of corrective exercise, one of the most popular tests to assess flexibility and muscle balance is the overhead squat. In fact, in a class on corrective exercise for my master’s degree, we had to complete a modular about the overhead squat. We learned how to use the overhead squat as an assessment tool and how to correct deficiencies. Let me give you a few examples.

Weightlifting is a sport that not only requires exceptional flexibility, but also develops it. Share on X

If the knees buckle inward, this could suggest tightness in the thigh adductors or weakness in the glute medius. If the knees flare outward excessively, this could suggest tightness in the piriformis (a muscle involved in hip rotation) or weakness in the thigh adductors. Using this information, the trainer could resolve these faults by having the athlete stretch the muscles that are tight and strengthen those that are weak. Rather than prescribing a laundry list of stretches and corrective strength training exercises, how about simply performing overhead squats!

I’ve been involved in the sport of weightlifting for over four decades, and I can assure you that most weightlifting coaches will simply start new lifters with overhead squats—that’s it! After a few sessions, they will progress into power snatches and then full snatches; however, exceptional athletes can often hit good positions in the full lifts during their first training session. The takeaway here is that weightlifting is a sport that not only requires exceptional flexibility but also develops it.

Shearing Force and Injury Risk

Now I’d like to address the belief that full cleans should be avoided because the knees should not extend in front of the toes during squats and that only weightlifters should bounce out of the rock-bottom catch position in the clean. One reason I hear is that both of these practices create harmful shear forces that try to pry apart the knees.

First, having the knees extend past the toes is a characteristic of natural human movement. Take a big step forward and freeze in the split position. Now look down at your back knee—unless you’re a centaur or were raised by kangaroos, your knee will be positioned in front of your toes. That settled, let’s move on to the argument that squatting all the way down and bouncing out of the bottom position is harmful.

When I starting writing training articles in the ’80s, I had to continually address the myths that full squats were bad for the knees and that only weightlifters should bounce out of the bottom position of the clean. Some of this misinformation could be attributed to a controversial study published in 1961 that said full squats—in contrast to parallel squats—could increase knee injuries by creating instability in the joint.

The study was done by college professor Karl Klein and medical doctor Fred L. Allman, Jr. To test for knee laxity, a device was placed on the subject’s knees and the examiner applied pressure and took a reading from a gauge attached to it. The subjects included some who did parallel squats and some who did full squats.

Two of the subjects in the study were Bill Starr and Tommy Suggs, both elite weightlifters. Terry Todd, in an article about this study, noted: “Suggs recalled that the apparatus Klein used to measure instability in the knee contained no device to determine how hard Klein pushed or pulled to establish a reading on the gauge over the knee, which registered the knee’s looseness. Suggs also confirmed that Klein asked the lifters whether they were deep squatters before testing them.” There’s more.

In a letter to the editor that was published in the August 1963 issue of Strength and Health magazine, Starr said many lifters stopped letting them experiment on them “…since he was exerting so much pressure that he hurt their knees,” and “…he always asked the subject beforehand, not afterward, whether he did full squats.” Further, Todd said subsequent research using a copy of Klein’s testing device “failed to observe significant difference between the full squat and the half squat in their effects on the knee.”

Does bouncing out of the squat cause high shearing forces that can, in extreme cases, rip the tendon off of the patella? First, consider that there is an inverse relationship between compressive and shearing forces—the deeper you squat, the higher the compressive forces and the lower the shearing forces.

A former competitive weightlifter, Dr. Arron Horschig holds a doctorate in physical therapy and has written extensively about squats. Horschig says the stress on the ACL is greatest during the first 4 inches of the squat descent (about 15-30 degrees), which is the angle that lifters often receive the bar when catching a power clean. When you add to this the technique often employed by many athletes of jumping their feet out hyper-wide such that the knees buckle inward, the stress on the knee ligaments increases even more.

It’s also important to realize that fascia tissue such as tendons are not rigid, fragile bands that need to be reinforced with athletic tape and braces to deal with the high stresses of athletic competition. Tendons act as biological springs that elongate and shorten to assist the muscles in producing movement and to protect the joints. If you limit yourself to powerlifting-type squats or partial Olympic lift movements such as the hang power clean, these tissues may lose their elastic qualities. They become stiff, like an old rubber band, and may make the athlete more susceptible to injury.

Think about it—why are the majority of ACL and ankle injuries non-contact? Did your favorite NFL or NBA player rupture their Achilles or tear knee ligaments when they did a sudden cut because they didn’t have an extra layer of that space-age sports performance tape? Contrast this to weightlifters who put their Achilles tendon under high levels of stress with heavy loads.

Despite lifters wearing low-top shoes that provide little lateral support, the prevalence of ankle injuries in the sport of weightlifting is nearly zero—I’ve never seen one. Is it possible that such artificial reinforcement affects the ability of the tendon to function properly, and thus puts more stress on the joint? And, as Jud Logan will tell you, there is also the issue of improperly performed exercises.

Logan is one of the most decorated hammer throwers in the U.S., having made four Olympic teams. At one point in his career he had severe tendinitis in his knees and was advised to squat high to decrease the shearing force; Logan said these partial squats made the condition worse. He ended up resolving the problem by simply performing full squats. It’s great to be strong, but it’s equally important not to practice strength training methods that adversely affect the elastic properties of the connective tissues. This is not to say that an athlete should never perform partial-range exercises, but that they need to keep their joints healthy by also performing full range exercises.

Don’t use strength training that adversely affects the elastic properties of the connective tissues. Share on X

Staying on this subject a bit longer, Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky was inspired to create his system of classical plyometrics because he found that overloading the quads with partial squats caused back problems with his jumpers. Using gravity as the primary form of resistance during depth jumps, he was able to overload the legs. Consider too that in his Block Training System for volleyball players to improve their vertical jump, the fourth (and most intense) level of training consisted of depth jumps and the Olympic lifts, whereas resistance exercises such as squats were relegated to the second level.

How Pulling Techniques Impact the Lumbar Spine

Another point to consider is that the pulling technique used by non-weightlifters to perform hang power cleans seldom resembles the technique used during the full lifts. Most often, those who practice only hang cleans tend to start with the shoulders well in front of the bar so they can use the back as a lever to produce force. The usual result is that the bar follows a large arc, such that the weight loops back towards the athlete, creating large shearing forces on the spine. This technique would be fine if you were training horses.

A horse’s spine rests horizontally on the animal with a structure that resembles a cantilever bridge, and this suspension system enables us to ride them without causing damage. A human’s spine is a column-like structure that is better suited for handling vertical compressive forces (think about this if you are considering resting a heavy barbell across your pelvis to do hip thrusts). Compound that with the stress of heaving extremely heavy weights over a short range of motion and creating a sudden shock on the spine and, well—ouch!

If you look at the Russian weightlifting manuals translated by sports scientist Bud Charniga, you’ll see that these coaches taught a pulling method in which the shoulders move in front of the bar after it passes the knees. This style increases and prolongs the loading on the lumbar spine, and is why the Russian lifters needed to perform a high volume of work to develop the erector spinae muscles to compensate.

In contrast, many elite Chinese lifters (especially the women) use a spine-friendly technique. Not only do the shoulders not extend in front of the knees during the pull to the knees, but they are actually behind the bar when it reaches mid-thigh (i.e., the start position of the hang power clean). Perhaps, as a result, such modifications in pulling technique is one reason the Chinese have become the dominant force in weightlifting for the past several Olympic cycles, whereas the once powerful Russians have suffered a gold medal drought? 

Absorbing Force in Contact Sports

Since most athletic movements don’t require athletes to drop into a full squat, what is the advantage of doing a full clean? The answer is that part of athletic performance is not just being able to apply force, but to also absorb and redirect force—in effect, training the athlete to be able to bend, but not break.

Part of athletic performance is not just being able to apply force, but also absorb and redirect it. Share on X

An example of the need to be able to absorb and redirect force would be the skills of an offensive lineman in football. These athletes don’t just apply force in a forward direction, but are also required to absorb the forces imparted on them by defensive players who are trying to get to the quarterback and other players. Training with a football sled would certainly help a lineman apply a greater amount of force, but full cleans will also train the body to absorb such forces—putting on the brakes, so to speak.

Another good example of the need for such “yielding strength” is boxing. There is much more to the sport of boxing than just being able to throw punches—you have to be able to take a punch. Watch a Floyd Mayweather highlight video. With a 50-0 record, Mayweather is one of the greatest fighters of all time. One reason for his success is that it is extremely difficult to hit him, and when his opponents manage to do so, the blows are often redirected or reduced in impact.

As an apparent compromise, some strength coaches say that they can ensure complete muscular development by supplementing hang power cleans with heavy deadlifts. Sorry to disappoint, but increasing strength at slow speeds doesn’t necessarily mean that strength can be demonstrated at fast speeds. Isokinetic studies have shown that increasing strength at fast speeds improved strength at fast and slow speeds, but increasing strength at slow speeds only improved strength at slow speeds. This is one reason why studies comparing Olympic lifting exercises to powerlifting exercises show that the Olympic lifts are superior for improving jumping and sprinting ability.

Increasing strength at slow speeds doesn’t mean that strength can be demonstrated at fast speeds. Share on X

Of course, there are many weightlifters who perform power cleans from the floor in training, but they consider them more of an assistance exercise (and to give them a break from the monotony of performing just the classical lifts). This is a much different approach than only performing power cleans, or worse, power cleans from the hang. Also, consider that these weightlifters might be successful not because they do power cleans, but in spite of it!

Athletes in many sports have embraced explosive exercises with resistance, along with hardcore fitness enthusiasts involved in “boot camp” workouts. But rather than getting partial results with inferior versions of the Olympic lifts, such as the hang power clean, consider doing the lifts the way they were intended.

Header image by Bruce Klemens.

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

Terry, T. “Historical Opinion: Karl Klein and the Squat.” (June 1984). Strength & Conditioning Journal. 6(3): 26-31.

Horschig, A., Sonthana, K., and Neff, T. (March 2017). The Squat Bible, pp. 97-100. Squat University LLC.

Verkhoshansky, Y. and Verkhoshansky, N. (2011). Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches, pp. 134-135, Verkhoshansky SSTM©

Hoffman, J., et al. (February 2009). “Comparison Between Different Off-Season Resistance Training Programs in Division III American College Football Players.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 23(1): 11-9.

Todd Lyons, Dynamic Fitness Equipment, Personal Communication, January 2019

I would like to start by saying that my situation and experiences are in no way unique. It is quite the opposite, really. Most track and field coaches encounter less-than-stellar situations daily and are forced to problem-solve on the fly. (No pun intended.) Triton Regional High has no fieldhouse, no indoor track, and not much in the way of equipment. Often, the lines between general prep, specific prep, and competition cycles of training are completely blurred.

Earlier in my career, I lamented these challenges. I would walk into practice with one plan and become frustrated when it wouldn’t come to fruition. That was my coaching ego crying out, mistakenly thinking that my workout was going to be the reason these athletes did well.

In the end, the ‘what’ and ‘where’ seldom seem to matter as much as the ‘why’ in training. Share on X

As I deepen my understanding of the sport, I am learning to embrace this perpetual “sub-maxness.” It is still our job to provide the best experience that we can for the athletes and put them in a position to succeed, even if it is months down the road during the outdoor season. In the end, the “what” and “where” seldom seem to matter as much as the “why.”

The Problem: Weather

New England winters are notorious for being harsh. A 35-degree day in January or February is a blessing and often means that we are outside. Most coaches probably have a mental number when it comes to temperature, where they no longer care to venture out into the tundra for fear of injury. If our track is clear, we often have to battle the stiff, marsh winds that come blowing across it. The wind can easily make it feel like 25 degrees. It’s not exactly fun for a high school kid. There are a couple of days each week that it makes sense to be outside, but once the snow inevitably covers the ground and the black ice rears its ugly head, we are forced to look elsewhere.

The Cold and Snow Solution

One of our weekly staples is hill repeats done fast at their goal time for the day. Running on the hill in 35-degree weather adds a layer of strength and seems to prevent injury. I say “seems” because lots of coaches seem to differ on this thought, but I can say we have never had an injury doing a lactate workout on a hill. Anecdotal evidence aside, the hill helps our athletes keep their posture honest out of necessity.

On the rest interval, they gather inside the school’s cafeteria. The athletes have a menu of drills to do to stay loose once inside. Among the favorite choices are loose skips, single leg-A skips, ankle pops, and calf dribbles. At the very least, they stay warm and ingrain a little more awareness of their posture for their hill running. I also find that this prepares them for some of the invitational meets at the Reggie Lewis Center, where the officials gather them en masse for each event and they seldom get adequate warm-up space or freedom to roam.

If it is too cold to be outside, we will find some space inside, whether it be a hallway or basketball court. Most of our true speed workouts are done in hallways. If we can’t get on the hill for a lactate workout, we try to sneak in a “cone workout.” I set four different colored cones out at 10m (red), 20m (yellow), 30m (orange), and 40m (white). I call out a color and they sprint through each cone while decelerating safely. They walk back and do another rep. I grab a pen and keep track of the total volume.

Short sprinters might do 200-300 meters and long sprinters 400 meters. Sometimes I cut someone from the workout at a random time if things get too ugly. If we feel competitive later in the season, they might go head to head with someone near their race time in their event. We may do a second set if it is mid-season. So far, the most volume that the seasoned veterans have done is 400 meters and then a 200-meter set with ample rest between. It isn’t the fanciest plan, but it accomplishes the goal of going to the “dark place.” It also makes being stuck indoors a little less boring.

The Problem: Limited Space Indoors

As mentioned previously, Triton is not blessed with a fieldhouse. What we do have is a basketball court with lines painted around it. This means most of our speed work is done without spikes. This is essentially sub-maximal sprint training. Forty degrees or more and sunny means we are outside on the track.

As coaches, there are times we walk in with a great plan only to find that an eighth-grade basketball game has our time slot. For example, here is a workout plan I was fairly excited about. I thought every group would get in what they needed, with exercises to prime their projection, event-specific start work, and ending with a jump.

But it wasn’t to be. Here is a text exchange I had a short while later with one of my captains…

There was a moment of frustration and panic that followed. After regrouping, I realized my original plan wasn’t going to make or break our season. What actually ended up happening was something that looked like this.

It went okay. It was not exactly what I wanted, but there are simply too many unknowns to not be flexible. Our athletes got something in that moved them a little further along.

I had someone message me asking if my athletes have shin issues when we do this. The answer is no. Hallways are hard, sure, so we just keep it even more shallow. The first two exercises were 10 meters each, and I cut the block start from 30 meters to 20 meters and they survived another day. I coach the movement and skill free of concerns about the number of reps. If they dial in and look good, they will do less.

#Regeneration can be just a chance to slow down and let concepts saturate their minds and limbs, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

The next day we did an ankle, foot, trunk, and hip circuit that kept them from pounding too much, when typically, they would not have done those two days back to back. Sometimes regeneration is just a chance to slow it down and let some concepts saturate their minds and limbs.

When the time comes and we are outdoors permanently, I know our work indoors on the small things (which really are the big things) will carry over.

The Complex Solution

One of the biggest changes this year is using complexes to supplement a perceived lack of true maximal sprinting. I don’t profess to know as much about these sprint complex concepts as Gabe Sanders or the ALTIS coaches. Maybe I am way off base and you wouldn’t do it this way either, but if we only have 30 meters of space I might consider the following complex:

5 Rounds

• 20m wickets
• 20m overhead calf dribble or 3x overhead stair walks
• 5x max pogos in place (stiff ankles needed to sprint)

Maybe it makes sense to you to have the wickets second, not first. Or maybe you hate this exercise programming. I guess it depends on the athletes in front of you. The point is that there are options.

One of the challenges here is using a gradual spacing with wickets that most kids can do without kicking the wickets all over the place, overstriding, or being severely jammed. I call it “McDonald’s wickets”—one size fits all, like fast food. I usually start at 4’9” and add 3 inches every two or three hurdles depending on the group and time of year.

Dribbling is usually done with the arms overhead, holding a light bar. Kids that can’t dribble might find themselves walking stairs with a bar overhead. We safely use whatever space is available to get them a little more exposure to top speed concepts. At this age, simple will get results. I almost never plug bounds into a complex. My athletes are terrible at bounds. If I am going to have them bound, then they experiment and do a few reps in their warm-ups until I see something close to technical proficiency.

Conversely, if I suddenly see that gym space has changed and there is an opening, I may scrap what I had planned and maximize the use of the gym. This may mean reshuffling the entire week. In my mind, as long as the tasks for the week are accomplished, I consider that a bit of a win and the sequencing and modality take a backseat as long as common sense prevails.

The Problem: Limited Equipment

Having limited equipment has grown to be a problem that I enjoy solving. We have a small weight room with a few usable med balls (anything over 12 pounds, in my opinion, is not usable) and bands. This is pretty typical of most high schools, regardless of the region. We don’t have 1080s, run rockets, or Just Jump mats. Those things would be nice, but the reality is you can get around them. Simple is the way to go because simple things are repeatable and can be practiced regardless of constraints.

Simple is the way to go: Simple things are repeatable and can be practiced despite constraints, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

We do have stairs, walls, bands, body bars (could use PVC pipes or hurdle top), and hurdles. Consider it a return to the grassroots-style of training, using only what is in front of you. All of these can serve as means to do remedial drills or to teach acceleration. Stairs and PVC pipes/body bars are two pieces of equipment that can be used in many ways.

For example, I love using the 6-pound body bar for a variety of exercises. A PVC pipe section or a hurdle top could be used to add something different to the mundane. Marching with a bar overhead is often included in the sprint drills to remediate posture, trunk movement, and pelvic positioning. Bleeding that march into an A-skip is another progression athletes can easily do.

We frequently teach athletes the hip hinge using the bar as the dowel on regeneration circuit days. We have also used body bars to add a dimension to ankle pops and dead bugs.

Ten-inch stairs are the perfect height to work on absorbing and landing with proper mechanics, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Stairs are another overlooked training ground for the high school athlete. Most stairs are about 10 inches high. This is the perfect height to work on absorbing and landing with proper mechanics. An athlete who can handle a little more can do the same drill from the second step. We have about two boxes in our gym that are usable based on their height. The stairs are a nice alternative to have when working with a decent-sized group.

We have four sets of blocks. When designing workouts, the logistics are important. It sometimes becomes about who is using what equipment and when. Plenty of athletes never use blocks, so this makes it easier. Structuring or staggering the workouts ensures that one group of athletes is in one area with certain equipment while another group is in another location.

I always feel like my kids are not getting enough of the concept work behind the theme workout. I have tried eliminating mindless reps of blocks and flys without prior prep work. They can’t fix what they don’t understand. Based on my athletes, it is necessary for my repertoire of activities that support the theme of acceleration and max velocity to include items that are equipment-free or close to it. They need to feel postures and positions because they forget every week and need to constantly revisit these ideas.

An underclassman getting four years to work on these things, instead of just focusing on being fast and trying to make the varsity lineup, can set themselves up for success much later. Of course, trying to sell them on that is a topic for another day. Here are some of my favorite no equipment/no space substitutes for different themes.

Acceleration Activities

• Wall drill w/post-up drill (hold for 5 seconds, can use a med ball for additional challenge to the trunk)
• Wall drill switch callout (“1,” “2,” and “burst”)
• Boom-booms (Popularized by Tony Holler and Chris Korfist)

Max Velocity Activities

• Stair marches, hands on hips
• Banana hurdle dribbles
• Chalk lines for wicket spacing (same cues of “drive over and step down” or “bounce over” or “run through the tall grass”)
• 1-2-3-3s

Anticipate, Don’t React

Take stock of what you have and make it work. Training can be slow and boring indoors, but adding equipment to certain drills can spice them up. Using menu activities centered around certain themes can add more shallow reps without the pounding in the hallways. Choosing when and where to go outside can limit injuries and free athletes from the hallways once in a while. Volume and intensity may not be what you want, but skill acquisition can be.

You have plenty of equipment and space at your disposal if you look for different ways to use them, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

There is plenty of equipment and enough space at your disposal if you look for different ways you can use them. When the season is over, the athletes will still be moving better, and hopefully won’t have completely hated their experience.

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