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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

I first gained experience in the university sporting environment during my time at a college in Oregon. Playing basketball there, I learned what a great opportunity it was to train, develop, and compete on a daily basis. While the university environment in the United Kingdom (UK) can be a bit different from the United States (US) regarding facilities and funding, there are still some excellent athletes, and the demands of a season can be equally—if not more—challenging.

With the investment in scholarship athletes becoming more prevalent in the UK (beginning about ten years ago), universities also began to employ strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches to work with these few select individuals. Having worked in professional and international sport with large teams and witnessed the US collegiate environment, I wanted to do something similar in the UK and deliver a comprehensive S&C service to as many student-athletes as possible. These are my insights from a decade within UK university sport.

Develop a Vision and Mission

Having a clear vision is essential. It gives you an overarching philosophy that you can aim everything toward. You can link any decisions to your philosophy and understand and assess whether you’re progressing toward your ultimate goal or not.

University athlete health and wellbeing is the priority while performance is a related goal, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

In the university environment, athlete health and wellbeing should be the ultimate priority, with performance treated as a related goal. You’ll usually have at least three years in the UK to develop an athlete, sometimes longer. These are almost always young athletes, who are growing, developing, and learning, and this is the ideal environment and opportunityto develop them physically.

If you get this right, you can improve their strength, power, speed, and endurance, which should have a lasting impact on their sporting performance. You can also create robust athletes who have reduced injury risk and can enjoy life in sport.

The long-term impact of injury in collegiate athletes is clear. There’s a negative effect on long-term health and wellbeing as well as reduced participation in sport.¹Knowing that well-implemented S&C support can help reduce this risk,²our priority in an S&C setting is to help guard against injuries. The university administration should also take this risk seriously. The university has a duty of care to look after its athletes competing for the university, and they should understand how sport influences long-term health and wellbeing.

Understand the Unique Constraints and Opportunities of the University Environment

In university sport, and indeed in any large organization or professional club, there are a variety of priorities. As S&C coaches, we like to think that we’re the most important aspect and that our influence is vital. While there is no doubt that well-implemented S&C can have a great lasting impact on student-athletes, it’s not always the case that management or people in other departments instantly and instinctively understand this.

For example, there could be financial implications. At my previous university, the sport department sat within the commercial services department. While there was some understanding that sport was important, it was difficult to clarify what fell in the profit and loss columns. When I first arrived, the S&C facility had a fairly large number of external members, who were non-students and did not need a sports-specific S&C training environment. I soon discovered that this conflicted with our vision to enhance student-athlete health, wellbeing, and performance.

Making a case for a student-athlete only space was easy; covering the cost took an innovative plan, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

The arguments to create a student-athlete only environment were easy to make. We could support training for many teams and athletes, using evidence-based methodologies, in a controlled and professional environment. The issue was that this could result in a large reduction in income if we discontinued the external membership.

I proposed engaging a large number of teams and athletes who would pay for the service. I had no previous examples to give as evidence that it would work, but my experiences within the American university system led me to believe that we could develop a service that teams and athletes would buy into. Luckily, the management agreed and took the risk.

Within the first year, we doubled the student-athlete membership and went from working with three performance teams (who received free services) to nine teams. Five years down the line, we now work with 35 sports in 65 team sessions, supporting over 1,000 student-athletes. The incredible thing, from a sustainability perspective, is that close to 900 of these athletes pay for the service.

Match Facility Design to Meet Your Mission

Designing a facility that can cater to your aims is important. After I was in the department for a year, we looked at redeveloping our facility. At the time, we had four racks, a few platforms, and some dumbbells and other bits of equipment dotted around the room. During the tender process, which was linked to the regular fitness gym facility, five companies competed for the bid. Most of the companies offered some great equipment, but the designs and layouts would not cater to the team and athlete delivery that I envisioned.

I drew up a proposal based on what I’d seen at universities in America. The team training area was a priority. It had six racks (three opposite each other) with a good amount of space and platforms in between. I thought this could easily cater to a total of 18 athletes. In the rest of the facility, I figured we could fit five more racks and then squeeze in some dumbbells, spin bikes, and a leg press.

 

That’s pretty much it: 11 racks, 5 benches, 3 bench pull attachments, some dumbbells, spin bikes, and a leg press. Simple but incredibly effective. Absolute Performance provided the equipment to match this design and did a great job installing it.

Another key factor was the integrated flooring. We went for 40mm rubber floor tiles that we could use for any type of lifting, eliminating the need for separate platforms. It made the area a great multi-purpose facility.

Tailor Your Communication for the Desired Effect

The value of your communication is judged by its outcome. You may have the best intentions and make a lot of valid points, but if the outcome is that the athlete does not buy-in or you don’t get the desired investment, your communication failed. It’s easy to try and shift the blame and say they did not understand you or they just didn’t get it. And there may even be some truth in these statements, but that’s not the point. The point is that your communication was unsuccessful, so you should try to figure out how to do it better.⁷

There are difficult decisions to make when coaching. Some people say they never tell athletes the truth about what they’re doing. Instead, they lie to the athletes, making bolder claims than they know are likely. I feel somewhat uneasy about this as an empiricist.

I prefer to try and sell the truth as effectively as possible. Research has shown that the same information can be delivered in different ways to have greatly differing effects. The work by Kahneman and colleagues has shown that we are all subject to bias in many ways.⁸Therefore, it might be beneficial to communicate in ways that enhance the likelihood of a positive outcome. Confidence is one of the obvious examples of this: if you deliver something with confidence and clarity, it’s more likely to be accepted as true.

The research on bias and heuristics gives us further rationale to embrace scientific thinking and methodologies. We are prone to confirmation bias and are likely to attribute errors elsewhere. Therefore, we should always be open to the fact that we may make mistakes, prepare to review our programs and testing results carefully, and then be willing to admit when we are wrong. It is, in fact, one of the main virtues of scientists—to be skeptical, to question, and to be objective rather than subjective.

While a person's thoughts can be interesting, their anecdotes can never overrule empirical evidence, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

In some ways, there seems to have been an increase in the value of subjective reasoning and personal evidence. While the thoughts of one person can be interesting, anecdotes can never overrule empirical evidence. I would advise all coaches and S&C professionals to consider these factors when reviewing evidence, designing programs, and communicating with stakeholders.

Foster a Team Culture that Reflects Your Vision

Of course, a department like this can only be successful if the teams and athletes turn up and are willing to buy-in. To do that, you need to ensure a quality service that’s engaging and effective. We must find a difficult balance between giving the teams and athletes what they think they want and ensuring that what we do for them is impactful.

I’ve found the best way to accomplish this is to engage teams by helping instill good team culture. The term culture is often thrown around without really explaining what it is or how to achieve it. For me, good overall team culture involves everyone working toward a common shared goal. It means every individual is accountable for their actions in every situation, all based on whether they’re helping or hindering the common goal.

A strong culture and team spirit can emerge once everyone buys-in and believes team goals, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

Attending S&C and working hard should impact athletic performance and be part of the common goal of a serious team. All the players should be accountable for this. You can enforce it through team rules and behaviors, which is where athlete leadership fits in. Successful teams tend to have a strong leadership group, consisting of key players who help hold others accountable for their actions. Once everyone buys-in and believes in the team’s goals, a strong culture and team spirit can emerge.⁹

Respect the Fundamentals of Science

Much of my programming and the philosophy I try to instill in the S&C department is to use “real training” and stay away from gimmicks and trends. We try to stick to the basics and develop all physical qualities in a simple way. A saying that always sticks in my mind from science education is Occam’s razor—always try to answer a question with the most simple answer possible.³

As a biology graduate, I’m passionate about science and the scientific method. I often view topics in S&C a little differently than what’s currently in vogue. An example is the common use of categorical thinking in S&C textbooks. Stemming from the ideas of Aristotle and Plato, categorical thinking aims to put everything into discrete groupings so we can consider them easily.⁴ It’s a common heuristic people use that can be very practical in certain circumstances.

For example, the electromagnetic spectrum is exactly that—a spectrum. However, we conveniently put groupings and names to different wavelengths of light and call them colors. Despite there being no actual boundaries between the wavelengths in the spectrum, we easily depict them as separate colors. But just as the distinction between red and orange can be useful, there can also be a blurring of these categories where the distinction is not so easy, and the colors become ambiguous.

In an S&C context, we see the same ambiguity when dealing with the changing force and velocity of muscle contraction. We often struggle with ambiguity, and viewing things in categories doesn’t help. The strength-speed continuum of muscle action is an example.

Muscle contraction occurs on a continuum from slow to fast; there are no actual separate categories of mechanism (obviously there is the increased recruitment of high threshold motor units, but this is not important for the point I’m making here) despite our insistence on saying “at this percentage we’re training max strength, and at this percentage we’re training strength-speed,” etc. With this thinking, as we approach the boundary between categories, a 1% change suggests a larger difference than is actually present.

This also opens questions about the physiological rationale for our training methods and philosophies. The mechanism of muscle contraction is an obvious area that informs program design. When a muscle contracts, we need the actin-myosin cross-bridge formation to impart a force. This force directly dictates all other outcomes.

While people say something like Power = Force x Velocity, which is true, we must understand that the velocity we measure only occurs due to the force imparted. They are not mutually exclusive. As we approach 1RM, actin-myosin binding sites are mostly occupied at any one time, meaning that velocity has to be slow. As the load decreases, the number of actin-myosin binding sites occupied can lower, meaning that cycling is quicker and the velocity of contraction increases.⁵

Being able to view physiological phenomena as continuous variables greatly helps our understanding and appreciation of program design and exercise selection. It’s useful to have simple rules-of-thumb when designing programs quickly and when we’re trying to get our heads around an idea, but we should always be mindful of the traps we can fall into.

There’s also often confusion with science: people might say there is no exact scientific research showing that something works in a particular environment, so you can’t say what is right or wrong. Well, that’s absolute nonsense. Science is not just a set of facts and theories that we know about the world. It’s also the process of scientific thinking, clear thinking, or critical thinking. It’s using evidence and what we do know to make informed decisions with logic, rationality, and reason.⁶

By understanding #physiology, we make informed judgments & predictions about behaviors, adaptations, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

By understanding basic physiology, we can make informed judgments and predictions about behaviors and adaptations. If we keep this simple and closely analyze the outcomes, we can determine whether our inferences were correct or whether we need to adjust things and try something different. Again, simplicity is key because then we can be clear in our analysis of what works or doesn’t work. When we overcomplicate things with many variables and principles, we can’t possibly have a good grasp of what actually caused an outcome.

Create Programs that Build Resilient Athletes

To look at some of the programs I’ve found successful in the university environment, I present my full season of programs for the Men’s Hockey team. To give some context, the team plays in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Premier Division and National League 1. This means that most players have matches on Wednesday and Saturday/Sunday, with hockey training on Monday and Thursday.

It’s a fairly demanding and fatiguing sporting schedule, which is similar across most top-level teams at British universities. Alongside these hockey commitments, all the players are full-time students with different courses and timetables. We’ve found the best overall schedule for them is two S&C sessions each week on Monday and Friday.

Pre-season

The pre-season period is the optimal time to get a large volume of training completed. It allows us to build a solid foundation and work on areas that may be prone to injury. At the start of every session, players will complete a warm-up and prehab routine. After taking them through this for the first couple of sessions, I let them get on with it themselves for the rest of the season. This helps to develop some accountability among the players. It also gives me an opportunity to talk to the players individually to see how they’re feeling and understand their current wellness.

Once the players finish their warm-up, they perform a 5-repeated jump monitoring test, which can track neuromuscular outputs throughout a whole season. This is an adapted version of the 10/5 Repeated Jump Test.¹²

 

As you can see from Table 1, the volume of the sessions is fairly high. We aim to develop some work capacity and structural adaptation. I like to use a slow tempo: 3-second eccentrics and a pause on the bottom of the squat. This helps to ensure that we develop good movement patterns and lifting techniques and also places sufficient stress on the body.

The development of the hamstrings and soleus are key areas for injury patterns that we see in hockey.

At the end of this period, we carry out some 1RM prediction testing using GymAware to help track progress and to assign some estimates to work from each week. I’m very mindful that the players have different abilities, workloads, and schedules, so I only use percentages as guidelines.

Bryan Mann’s work has demonstrated the benefits of autoregulatory training.¹³When someone easily hits their numbers for a given week, I encourage them to lift a little heavier. If someone is struggling, we may reduce the load slightly or reduce the number of sets, which is my usual preference. Having a close working relationship with the players and an understanding of their needs helps with this daily monitoring and adjustment strategy.

In-Season Phase 1

The program for the first in-season phase is very similar. Percentages on the bench press are higher than squats because there are less potential performance impact and injury risk from overloading the horizontal press.

The overall volume is still fairly high, particularly since they’re now competing in fixtures and train on Monday night after having S&C in the morning. On paper, that might be a risk. However, we’ve built this through experience and analyzing the impact of my sessions over several years. I’m pleased to say that our injury rate is extremely low. During the past three years, players in total have missed only five games out of a total of 960. That’s an availability rate of over 99.5%.

Our player availability rate is more than 99.5% because we built robust athletes using overload, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

While injuries can be due to luck, programming and management inevitably have an impact. There’s also what I like to call the “spiral of fragility.” Athletes are often treated as highly fragile, and coaches believe they must do everything to protect them. The concept is epitomized in an elite sport such as the English Premier League (football/soccer).

The approach is understandable in some respects, as we’re dealing with huge commodities regarding the players’ value. If they get injured, that’s a loss of money, so everything possible will be done to protect them and wrap them in cotton wool. However, this may prove to be an ineffective approach and actually have the opposite effect than what we hoped for.

The data clearly suggests that developing robust athletes, who are resistant to injury, requires a constant loading and developing of a good foundation. If we don’t overload, and therefore create a positive structural adaptation, then the muscles, tendons, and ligaments will be weaker and at higher risk of injury. The reversibility effect ensures that if we don’t train, then we lose any physical qualities that we developed. A proverb that sums this up well is: “prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”¹⁴

University athletes are more robust than often thought and can withstand a good amount of loading, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

I’ve found that university athletes are more robust than we like to think. They are anti-fragile and can withstand a good amount of loading and adaptation. If you train them well from the beginning and continue loading them through the year, you can be hopeful for strong and injury-free athletes for the whole season.

In-Season Phase 2

In this block, we increase intensities and add a few more dynamic movements.

The squats include a “pop” out of the bottom, and the reverse lunges and step-ups are as quick as possible on the way up.

In-Season Phase 3

Phase 3 is the last phase before the Christmas break when we add power exercises such as jump squats and trap bar jumps.

When progressing to power training, I first train through all of the larger ranges of motion, looking at the concentric action (no countermovement) and a controlled landing (eccentric).

In-Season Phase 4

Phase 4 is the first block back after the Christmas break. Typically, we lose the athletes for around four weeks over the break, and it’s difficult to guarantee that they’ve done much training during that time.

I use a taper block to get them back to where we left off before Christmas. We also add in the next progressions in power training, using countermovement jump squats and trap bar jumps.

In-Season Phase 5

In phase 5, we look at repeated jumps and contacts, aiming to improve the reactivity of the muscles.

We include some loaded back squats and bench presses using bands to overload the top portion and allow acceleration through the whole movement.

In-Season Phase 6

Phase 6 is the final block of training leading into playoffs and championship games.

We add some multi-directional power work and continue with some squats, RDLs, split squats, and calf raises. This training format leads to some natural peaking as we’ve progressed from higher volumes at lower intensities to high intensity and power work with reduced volume.

With today’s trend of daily undulating methods, this block periodization method might not be the most popular, but I’ve found it the most successful in making progressions over a full season. Daily undulating methods might be good for experienced professionals who have many years of training background behind them and who are looking to stay fresh for every game.

The #BlockPeriodization makes successful progressions over a full season, says @Langford_Andrew. Share on X

But for these young athletes, who don’t have a great training background, undulating methods would be largely wasted on them. They don’t have the foundational qualities to just “top-up” and develop every couple of weeks. The best way to cause real adaptation and physical change is to overload a quality for a good block of training and then move on to another focus after that.^{10, 11}

Review Relevant Data to Evaluate Results

S&C is a field where we hope to have a real impact and see results, and our best evidence that we’ve done a good job and were successful is to review our data and test results. Physical outputs like strength and power are useful as well as injury data and feedback from coaches and athletes.

 

The graph covers the whole of the season. You can see the changes in power output throughout the year, with sharp fluctuations when we adjusted the emphasis of training. There was a large spike toward the end of the year when we focussed on the power and speed aspects of training to prepare for major competitions.

Summary

The university environment in the UK offers an excellent opportunity to develop young athletes over several years of engagement. My methods and examples demonstrate that you can set up an S&C department to be both sustainable and effective. I hope that other universities and administrations see the advantages and opportunities available to them and recognize the duty of care they have to their student-athletes.

For coaches and aspiring S&C professionals, I hope that this shows that using principles of science and scientific thinking can help develop effective programs, structures, and entire departments. From this, it would be progressive for the university S&C industry if other coaches and practitioners share their experiences and philosophies, helping develop standards and expectations, which in turn could be adopted by organizations such as BUCS.

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. Hootman, Jennifer & Randall, Dick & Agel, Julie. (2007). Epidemiology of Collegiate Injuries for 15 Sports: Summary and Recommendations for Injury Prevention Initiatives. Journal of Athletic Training. 42. 311-319.
2. Talpey, Scott & Siesmaa, Emma. (2017). Sports Injury Prevention: The Role of the Strength and Conditioning Coach. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 39(3). 14-19.DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000301.
3. Rasmussen, C. E., & Ghahramani, Z. (2001). Occam’s Razor. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (pp. 294-300).
4. Mullainathan, S. (2002). Thinking through categories. NBER working paper.
5. Jaric, S. (2015). Force-velocity Relationship of Muscles Performing Multi-joint Maximum Performance Tasks. International Journal of Sports Medicine. 36(9). 699-704.
6. Russell, B. (2013). An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. Routledge.
7. Cialdini, R. B. (1987). Influence (Vol. 3). Port Harcourt: A. Michel.
8. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow (Vol. 1). New York: Farrar, Straus, andGiroux.
9. Fletcher, D., & Arnold, R. (2011). A Qualitative Study of Performance Leadership and Management in Elite Sport. Journal of Applied SportPsychology. 23(2). 223-242.
10. Haff, G. G. (2016). The Essentials of Periodization. Strength and Conditioning for Sports Performance. 404.
11. Painter, K. B., et al. (2012). Strength Gains: Block Versus Daily Undulating Periodization Weight Training Among Track and Field Athletes. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 7(2). 161-169.
12. Harper, Damian & Hobbs, Sarah & Moore, Jason. (2011). The Ten to Five Repeated Jump Test: A New Test for Evaluation of Reactive Strength. BASES Student Conference.
13. Mann, Bryan, et al. (2010). The Effect of Autoregulatory Progressive Resistance Exercise vs. Linear Periodization on Strength Improvement in College Athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 24(17). 1718-1723.
14. Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.

 

Throughout my years of coaching, a number of different training concepts have come and gone. Some have stayed longer than others. Some I have tried, while others I’ve never believed in enough to implement in the first place. One new method, however, really caught my attention and I thought it could be very useful: velocity-based training (VBT).

First off, I am not the premier expert in this area. That title goes to Bryan Mann. In fact, for more information on this type of training, Mann has written two or three books and many articles. My objectives here are to introduce you to the concept of VBT, offer a starting point, and present firsthand ideas on how I’ve used this concept successfully in both team and individual settings.

Choosing a Device

To apply the concept in practice, you first have to choose a device. Initially, there were only a few options to choose from, but nowadays there are a plethora of tools that work in various ways and are worn in different positions. I was first introduced to one of these devices in the mid-2000s while attending a Tibor Gecsek Hammer Clinic at the University of Georgia. Bert Sorin, of Sorinex Exercise Equipment, also attended and was walking around with a device called a Tendo Unit.

To introduce the Tendo, Bert would have guys attach a string to their belt loop; this string was attached to the device that measured the velocity at which the string was pulled. He would have some of the athletes jump to see at what m/s they were going in a vertical direction.

I tried the device, and to my surprise, I hit one of the fastest measurements ever. Witnessing this, Tibor could not understand how a guy like me could have a higher m/s than he had. And made me do it again—the result was even better. I may be short, but one genetic gift I had was the ability to jump out of the building in my younger, lighter years. I have no doubt this gift is what made me successful as a shot putter.

But I digress—back to the devices. Like I said, currently, there are many devices to choose from: some with a string, some attach to the bar, some attach to your elbow, and some attach to the wrist. A few of the brands available are the Tendo, Beast, Push Device, Bar Sensei, and GymAware. I’m familiar with all the devices except the GymAware, which is said to be the most accurate but is also the most expensive. Although I’m fortunate enough at the high school level to have a great budget, we can’t afford one of these.

Instead, we have a few Tendos, a number of Push Devices, and one of each of the Beast and Bar Sensei. I find that as long as you use the same device each session, you can accomplish the objective you set. In my experience, when doing slower movements like a squat, bench, and deadlift, the range of devices are very similar when measuring, if not the same. With more ballistic movements, however, the differences can be a little greater, though the results are still in the same relative area.

I suggest doing your research and finding the one that best suits you. If money were unlimited, my choice would be the Tendo. Keep in mind, Bar Sensei continually improves their product, and they’re a very close second and much more cost effective.

Training Team Sport Athletes

Using VBT in a team setting can be beneficial in many ways. I will describe a few ways I use it throughout the year with different teams of both male and female athletes.

As a beginning example, let’s use football during the season. Our lifts take place on Saturday (the day after the game) and Monday or Tuesday during the week. We tend to do our squat and bench type training on Saturday since it gives the maximum time for recovery before the next game. A coach must take into consideration that the athletes get beat up throughout the season, and everything they do adds up cumulatively. What I mean by this is the only time an athlete is truly fresh is for the first game, and even then they’ve had previous weeks of double days and hard training, depending on the program.

Therefore, an athlete’s squat max from the summer, while fresh, isn’t necessarily going to be the same on a Saturday morning at 8 am after a four-quarter war the night before. At this point, if you’re using percentages to assign intensity for the workouts, you could be setting your athletes up for failure and even nervous system fatigue.

This is where VBT comes in. Bryan Mann assigns specific speeds for the characteristic you’re training for, and the Push Device has a chart with a specific range of speeds.

These characteristics include:

• Absolute strength
• Max strength
• Accelerative strength
• Strength speed
• Speed strength
• Starting strength

Speed Strength

To keep it simple, let’s focus on speed strength. This is the characteristic I train for the most and is the most important characteristic for success in athletics. The Push chart lists that speed strength is trained at between 1.0 m/s and 1.5 m/s average velocity. Therefore, when the athletes come in on Saturday, the intensity is determined by speed rather than percentages.

If you use percentages to train, there’s a high probability that you’ll train a different characteristic than the one you planned for. This can result in overtraining and create a hole that will be extremely challenging to get out of during in-season play.

If you use percentages you'll likely train a characteristic different than the one you planned for, says @nick_g_garcia. Share on X

Let’s return to the data point for speed strength listed at 1.0-1.5 m/s average velocity on the Push chart. There are a few different ways to measure training when applying VBT. Besides average velocity, we can use peak velocity. I prefer to use both.

I use average velocity when doing the less ballistic total body movements, like the squat, bench, and deadlift, and peak velocity when using more ballistic movements like the clean and snatch. The reason is that, while performing lifts like the clean and snatch, many things can affect the average velocity: range of motion, small injuries, etc. Because movements like the squat, bench, and deadlift are less complicated to perform, they are not affected in the same way.

Although the Push chart gives us a starting point for each of the training characteristics, I tend to stick with Bryan Mann’s speed recommendations, which you can find in his book Developing Explosive Athletes: Use of Velocity Based Training in Training Athletes, 3^rd Edition. He lists speeds for many different movements, including various types of pulls.

Assigning speeds for lifts keeps the nervous system firing & the athletes ready for a long season, says @nick_g_garcia. Share on X

When athletes come in to train during the season, we assign them a specific speed as a measurable for each main lift rather than a percentage. Training in this manner helps keep the nervous system firing and helps the athletes endure a long grueling season.

Monitoring Team Readiness

Before we move on from the team aspect of VBT, let’s look at how we can use VBT to determine team readiness. Often in a team environment, the results of the pre-season and in-season will determine if you have an opportunity to move on to the bigger competitions, like regionals and finals.

If the in-season is not successful, then the chances of the team continuing into the post-season become very low. Taking all of this into consideration, how do you go about determining your team’s readiness for the season and, for that matter, week to week during the season?

Currently, Catapult can track many different training metrics for individual team athletes, including mileage and running patterns. I’m the first to admit that I am no expert on Catapult—I do not own the system, nor have I used one. I do, however, believe it’s a valuable tool if you have the budget for it. Since Catapult is still fairly new at the high school level, it was not an option during our football season. Therefore, I had to come up with a way to determine whether our training on and off the field was beneficial or detrimental to our performance on Fridays.

How can we determine our training is beneficial or detrimental to our meet performance? says @nick_g_garcia Share on X

And then it came to me. For a long while now in my own training (inspired by Dr. Bondarchuk’s methods), I’ve used bar velocity devices as secondary proof that I was in peak performance. I did this by comparing my daily throwing results with my bar velocity when I lifted. Simply put, when my throws were up, my speeds were up. When my throws were down, my speeds were down. Also, when I reached peak performance, my throws were always up as well as my bar speed—the patterns mimicked each other perfectly.

The idea, then, was to hold our first training session using VBT one week before our first game to produce speeds that I considered realistic since they were not completely fresh. I felt this would be more representative of the speeds we may see during the season based on fatigue from normal everyday practice.

I chose one athlete from each position to represent the different duties on the field: defensive back, linebacker, defensive lineman, offensive lineman, running back, and wide receiver. I also included two athletes who may not play much and not get as many reps during practice.

We established weights they were to use for the hang clean, squat, and bench based on the literature: 1.35 m/s for the hang clean and 0.8-1.0 m/s for the squat and bench (for the record, this was average velocity, not peak velocity). Throughout the year, we would continue to use these same weights week in and week out while charting the speeds of each set of each lift.

As expected, the athletes who participated in most of the plays saw a decline in their average velocity by the time we reached the middle of the season. The players who played less kept within the speed parameters since they had not accumulated weeks of playing fatigue.

In mid-season, the team must feel as good as possible to ensure a late-season run, says @nick_g_garcia. Share on X

When moving into the middle of the season, it is increasingly important for a team to be feeling as good as possible to ensure a late-season run. The data collected can help us, as coaches, determine how to attack the last half of the season. Do we need to back off, or can we go a little harder each day? In our case, we needed to back off from what we were doing every week. Our speeds were down each week and showing no signs of improving.

Having the data that proves you need to do something different, however, and getting the higher-ups to change something are two different things. Common sense may say if you’re unsuccessful at a task, the answer is to work harder. In reality, the best answer is to back off to keep your athletes fresh enough to perform the way you coached them to perform. I don’t have the answer on how to get the higher-ups to do something different, but this is one way to determine your team’s readiness throughout the season.

Using Bondarchuk’s System with Individual Athletes

Let’s switch gears and look at how I use VBT with individual athletes. I mentioned using it as a second indicator of where my body is in relation to peak form using Dr. Bondarchuk’s training system. One of the cycles in this system is the Developmental Cycle (my previous article describes the program, “The Cycle and Exercise Classification of Dr. Bondarchuk’s System”).

For a Developmental Cycle, we want the lifting percentages to be roughly 60-70% of max. The objective is to move each rep of each set as fast and dynamic as possible. Ultimately, we’re training the speed strength characteristic. The Push chart lists speed strength at 1.0-1.5 m/s using average velocity. Therefore, we would find a weight that allowed us to be just under 1.0 m/s for every rep of every set (give or take), which according to the Push chart, falls into the realm of strength speed.

We chose these speeds because when we hit peak form, theoretically, our throws and bar speeds should be up, taking us into that speed strength realm. If we had begun in the speed strength realm and hit peak form, it may take us into training the Starting Strength characteristic. We will then risk not having enough of a stimulus in the weight room if the speeds are too high. This strategy has worked great for us.

Another way I use VBT with individuals is having a strength-oriented day and speed-oriented day. During the track season, we normally train twice a week: a strength-based lift on the first day of the week and a speed-oriented lift the day before or the day of the meet. Occasionally, our meets will fall on Fridays, including the Master’s meet and State Prelims.

I don’t comprise my program based on our meet schedule. Don’t get me wrong, we have a structured plan in place to peak at the proper time. If, however, we’re scheduled to lift on a Friday and a meet falls on that day, so be it. We’ll come in during the early morning and hit our speed-oriented lift, in which every rep of every movement must be in the speed strength realm.

A pre-meet speed-oriented lift session on the day of a meet can enhance race performance, says @nick_g_garcia. Share on X

Each time we’ve had a meet fall on the same day as a speed-oriented lift day, we’ve hit a seasonal best or personal best that same night. Therefore, I have no problem lifting for speed on meet days. In fact, this shows a pre-meet lift can enhance performance.

Training Female Student-Athletes

Finally, let’s look at how I use VBT with female student-athletes. In my experience, when female athletes first begin to train, the majority are intimidated by the weight room. We introduce them to kettlebell and dumbbell work to get them a bit more comfortable. Down the road 8-12 weeks, when we begin barbell lifts, these athletes tend to underestimate their lifting capabilities.

I then give each athlete an iPad and a Push Device. I tell them the speeds I want the bar moving between. Let’s use a squat variation as an example. I assign a speed of 0.8-1.0 m/s: any weight that moves slower than 0.8 is too heavy, and any weight that moves above 1.0 is too light. Ultimately, this range gives them an idea of where they should be, and since we’re training in the speed strength realm, the weight is not really heavy regardless.

This has helped the female athletes I coach progress much faster and have much more confidence in what they’re doing every week—not to mention, they feel a bit more special since they get to use a fancy device.

These are just a few ideas on how to get started with VBT as well as a few ways to apply it to your training. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at [email protected], or you can sign up to listen to the Hmmr Media podcast about VBT.

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

For athletes, achieving excellence requires not only talent, passion, and determination, but also an incredible amount of dedicated work. I’m sure you’re now quite familiar with the saying that it takes 10,000 hours for experts from many diverse fields to reach mastery. Even though this concept is not without its flaws, it reflects the reality that making it to the top requires an important time investment to develop the skills and physiological and biomechanical adaptations necessary for performance.

When working with young student-athletes, however, it’s necessary to consider not only the demands of training and competition but also academic and other commitments including exams, internships, and part-time jobs that are linked to this stage of their personal journey. Simply put, student-athletes need to excel both in sport and the classroom.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been fortunate to work with two female student-athletes who are full-time medical school students. One is completing her residency in pediatrics while competing as a short track speed skater. This article provides coaches a detailed look at some of the programming strategies we’ve used during her off-ice physical preparation, training she’s undertaken while also meeting requirements to complete on-ice skating sessions, different internships, and rotating work shifts during her residency. I’ll share some aspects of a coach’s decision-making process and thus stimulate further discussion about current practices.

Task Analysis of Short Track Speed Skating

Coming from a Canadian football background, I had little knowledge of short track speed skating when I was put in touch with this student-athlete. When an athletic development coach starts working with a sport they know very little about, their first step is to perform a thorough analysis of the physical and technical demands related to that sport.

My analysis started by sitting down and asking the athlete numerous questions about the sport and her performance. This gave me valuable information about her background regarding training and injury as well as insight into her strengths and weaknesses. As an example, she is relatively small in stature, which increases demands on her stability when she tries to position herself in the group and hold her position during races.

Short track speed skating consists of races over three distances with separate requirements and target time ranges for female competitors:

• 500 meter, with a race duration of 43-46 seconds
• 1000 meter, typically completed between 90-100 seconds
• 1500 meter, finishing between 143-155 seconds

In reviewing the literature, I learned that from a tactical perspective, a fast start strategy seems optimal for the 500m event, while the crucial portion of the 1000m is from the 6^th lap to the finish line.⁵ Emphasizing the start for the 500m race is crucial, as there are limited opportunities to pass an opponent during the race. For the 1500m, while a fast start strategy may lead to faster times, top skaters are faster during the last five laps. Therefore we emphasize pacing strategies and tactical decisions during the latter phase of the race.⁴

From a physical and physiological perspective, the 500m shares similarities with the 400m in track and field regarding both within-race strategy and energy demands.² Although, as the event’s duration increases, the crouched position adopted by the skaters puts them at a physiological disadvantage, as it may increase muscle deoxygenation due to static occlusion of blood flow in the leg muscles.³

The #TaskAnalysis helped us identify her main strength and the main area she needed to improve, says @xrperformance. Share on X

The task analysis and discussion enabled us to identify her main strength—her start—and the main area that needed improvement—endurance and capacity to resist fatigue in the late portion of the race.

Programming Strategies During the 2017-2018 Season

Following the initial task analysis and discussion, we performed a modified version of Kelvin Giles’ Physical Competence Assessment (PCA) to assist establishing her training age and “trainability” across a wide range of movements, including the overhead squat, single-leg squat, and side plank for time. We also did flexibility tests like the Thomas test and ankle dorsiflexion.

The initial assessment would progress over time to include more single-leg jumping movements to challenge her current athleticism. More importantly, it served as our starting point for her resistance training program. For programming, we adopted a progressive approach over the 2017 summer since we had close to 20 weeks to get her ready for the national qualifier in November.

Most training weeks consisted of two or three resistance training sessions, plus on-ice practices with her club. For the first three mesocycles, we used a simplified version of Joe Kenn’s Tier System in which we rotated total body, lower body, and upper body movements on a daily basis. At this point in her annual training plan, she had time in her schedule to complete all three training sessions during the week.

Day 1

• Plyometrics
• Total body exercise—Olympic lifting variation
• Lower body exercise—front squat progression
• Upper body pulling exercise

Day 2

• Plyometrics
• Lower body exercise—hexagonal bar deadlift
• Upper body pushing exercise
• Total body exercise—Olympic lifting variation using dumbbells or kettlebells

Day 3

• Plyometrics
• Upper body pulling exercise
• Total body exercise—jump shrug variation
• Lower body exercise—front squat progression

To focus on her start, most training days included compound multi-joint movements such as jumps (box jumps, Heiden jumps, and hurdle jump progressions), Olympic lifting variations (barbell high pulls from various starting positions), lower body exercises such as squats and hexagonal bar deadlifts, and upper body pulling and pressing movements. Accessory exercises such as lunges, step-ups, and core work completed the training sessions.

During the summer, she learned she was accepted to another university and would have to relocate to Montreal. This good news impacted our programming to some degree since she would be working at the hospital more regularly.

On certain occasions, for example, she was required to be “on call” and available for emergencies at the hospital or spend a full weekend at the hospital. This made it impossible for her to perform any training sessions we had planned during that weekend. I’ll examine a more detailed portrait of the commitments associated with such a schedule in the third part of this article.

As we got closer to the start of the 2017-2018 competition season, we started reducing the number of training sessions which involved her going to the gym. Moreover, we wanted to include exercises and methods that would somehow target her strength-endurance and power-endurance qualities while also increasing her work capacity.

For these reasons, we introduced various bodyweight and dumbbell circuits on the second or third day of training, depending on the number of training sessions in a week. With her access to dumbbells at home, we used different variations of Vern Gambetta’s dumbbell (DB) complex and lower body complexes before introducing Vern’s leg circuit. The DB complexes were comprised of four different exercises completed one after the other using 20-30% of her total body weight.

As for the leg circuit, we wanted to establish a base of strength and power endurance.¹ The exercises included different variations of squats, lunges, step-ups, and jumps at a tempo of one repetition per second. We started by using the half leg circuit (35 repetitions in total) for 3 to 5 sets with 1 minute of rest between sets. Then we progressed to no rest between sets before moving to the full leg version (70 repetitions) following a similar pattern of rest intervals.

During the 2017 competition season, we didn’t move away much from what we did during the preparation period. With most training time dedicated to on-ice practice sessions, we agreed to plan for one gym-based training session per week if possible. Otherwise, she could complete the circuit-based training session that required limited equipment.

In summary, during the 2017-2018 season, we followed a progressive and sequential training program. First, we emphasized improvements in general strength and power qualities and then progressed to include more circuit-based programming strategies while providing training sessions she could do at home.

Programming Strategies During the 2018-2019 Season

After taking the month of April off from dedicated training, we approached her preparation for the 2018-2019 season from a different perspective. Indeed, her coaches on the national team told her that her physical qualities were no longer a limitation in her on-ice performance.

Her physical qualities no longer limited her on-ice performance, says @xrperformance. Share on X

During May and June, one of her major obstacles was limited on-ice training time because of school compared to the other athletes in her club. During those two months, she interned in the intensive care unit, working 17 shifts per month and starting her day by 7:00 am and leaving the hospital between 8:00-9:00 pm. During this time, the other athletes at her club would complete an average of six on-ice training sessions per week on weeknights.

Because she lacked the energy to do the on-ice sessions, she either completed a short training session at home after work or went for a light jog. During her off-days, when she could have been resting, she often completed one or two daily training sessions on back to back days.

Not exactly the ideal scenario, and it meant training with suboptimal readiness. She would often complete a resistance training session at the gym and run back home as her conditioning. During this time in her on-ice training sessions, she would often hit a wall and feelings of heavy legs would appear after only a few laps. The intense internship period was starting to take its toll, and we had to find a solution to help her accumulate more training volume.

An intense internship was taking its toll and we had to help her accumulate more training volume, says @xrperformance. Share on X

During July and August, we re-introduced DB complexes and leg circuits to her training program on the second day of training. We also started introducing more intense lower body complexes during her gym-based training session to replicate some of the sensations she experiences during a race, especially during the 1000m and 1500m races.

She completed these complexes after performing a plyometric and an Olympic weightlifting variation and involved three types of muscle contractions or speeds of movement:

1. Dynamic
2. Isometric
3. Explosive

For example, she would hold a position for a certain time, then perform a squatting variation followed by a type of jump. The different parameters of the complex (exercise order, types of exercises, rest intervals, time under tension, etc.) were manipulated based on the objectives we wanted to achieve.

We put this strategy in place because, by then, she was then interning in pneumology and her more normal work schedule (9:00 am to 4:00 pm) allowed her to complete more training sessions both on the ice with another club (because her club was training in the morning at that time) and off the ice.

During August, for example, even though she was completing another internship in intensive care, her work schedule allowed her to skate in the morning, train in the early afternoon, and take a nap before going to work (8-hour shifts, from 4:00-6:00 pm to 12:00-02:00 am). This was nowhere near the hectic schedule she was working earlier during the summer.

To address her conditioning, we talked to our local speed skating club’s strength and conditioning coach here in Sherbrooke who suggested we add a stationary bike to her training. We added low box quick steps in a HIIT format on Day 1 and short intervals on the stationary bike on Day 3.

Over the following weeks, we progressed the low box quick steps from 15 to 30 seconds using a work-to-rest ratio of 1:1. For the bike intervals, we started with two sets of 5-6 intervals of 15 seconds with 45 seconds of recovery and progressed to 30-60 seconds of work with a 1:3 work-to-rest ratio and finally sets of 1 minute with a 1:2-3 work-to-rest ratio.

As we got closer to the start of the 2018-2019 season in September, she was able to complete most on-ice training sessions with her club after her daytime internship in dermatology. She performed the prescribed resistance training session before her on-ice training. If she needed to, she would modify the volume of the program to make sure she could complete the on-ice work prescribed by her coach and respect the training theme for the day. She was able to make modifications because she has a very good understanding of her body and the type of training she needs to perform at this level of competition.

The following graph illustrates her training loads collected using the Session-RPE method and an online monitoring tool as she completed her various internships leading up to the national qualifiers in Montreal and the US Short Track Fall WC Qualifier & AmCup 1 in Utah. The graph provides a nice overview of the challenging demands she faced over the months and how we managed her training accordingly.

Key Takeaways

My main objective for this article was to share the coaching decisions I’ve made in the past 18 months to help and support a young medical school student-athlete reach her goal of making the Canadian Top-20 in short track speed skating.

When working with athletes who perform at a very competitive level while also balancing high-level work or study demands that are time-consuming and stressful, it’s imperative that your training is very time-efficient and centered around what you consider to be the best “bang for your buck” training exercises, strategies, and interventions.

It’s also important to remain flexible when planning the different training sessions and training cycles. Work commitments such as night shifts at the hospital for multiple nights will have a huge impact on an athlete’s energy levels and, thus, motivation to go to the gym.

It’s often best to acknowledge these realities, find different ways in concert with the student-athlete to adapt their training, and look at key moments in their agenda where they can dedicate more time and energy to training. Although many young student-athletes have high aspirations, in the end, they need to find balance in the other important aspects of their lives.

References

1. Gambetta, V. (2006). Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics.
2. Haug, W. B., Drinkwater, E. J., Mitchell, L. J., & Chapman, D. W. (2015). The Relationship Between Start Performance and Race Outcome in Elite 500-m Short-Track Speed Skating. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 10(7), 902‑
3. Konings, M. J., Elferink-Gemser, M. T., Stoter, I. K., van der Meer, D., Otten, E., & Hettinga, F. J. (2015). Performance Characteristics of Long-Track Speed Skaters: A Literature Review. Sports Medicine, 45(4), 505‑
4. Konings, M. J., Noorbergen, O. S., Parry, D., & Hettinga, F. J. (2016). Pacing Behavior and Tactical Positioning in 1500-m Short-Track Speed Skating. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 11(1), 122‑
5. Noorbergen, O. S., Konings, M. J., Micklewright, D., Elferink-Gemser, M. T., & Hettinga, F. J. (2016). Pacing Behavior and Tactical Positioning in 500- and 1000-m Short-Track Speed Skating. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 11(6), 742‑

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

Track athletes want to run faster. As a track coach, I really want all my kids to run faster. However, it seems we often hear the same excuse from coaches, parents, and athletes: some kids are born fast, and some are not.

I haven’t found this to be true. Yes, some athletes are born with a genetic predisposition to run faster than others. Speed, however, is a skill and we can teach it. Acceleration and running workouts designed for speed are very important, but so is the weight room. That being said, this article is about how to lift for speed.

Mass Specific Force (MSF): The Amount of Force Applied in Relation to Bodyweight or Mass

“Faster top running speeds are achieved with greater ground forces not more rapid leg movements”—Barry Ross

(Be sure to check out Barry Ross’ fantastic book, Underground Secrets to Faster Running. It’s hard to find but worth the read).

There are three components for speed:

1. How often you contact the ground
2. How much muscular force you can deliver during ground contact
3. How much ground contact time is available to deliver that force

When combined, these three factors dramatically impact stride length and stride rate (frequency). The ability to generate and transmit muscular force to the ground is why someone runs fast. You want to encourage this in all your training efforts. In the weight room, the goal is to get strong without adding mass. It might be the only time in the weight room when “swole is not the goal and size is not the prize.”

To break it down in very simple terms, when you add more mass, you add more gravitational pull. Someone who wants to run faster needs to focus their weight room efforts on lifting with the right exercises so they don’t add mass. Instead, they want to specifically increase the strength of the muscles called upon to apply as much force to the ground as possible.

If you add mass (weight) to your body, the amount of force applied to the ground must increase proportionately to maintain the same rate of speed.

Physiology: Muscle Fibers

There are three types of major muscle fibers:

1. Type 1: slow twitch or slow oxidative—respond best to lighter training weights and a higher number of reps. Type 1 fibers are aerobic because they’re fueled by oxygen.
2. Type 2: fast twitch oxidative—both aerobic and anaerobic and used in all activities.
3. Type 3: fast twitch glycolytic—maximum force production fibers and largest potential to increase in size and strength. This is sprinting. These fibers are largely anaerobic. Those who want to increase their speed want this.

How do we increase type 3 muscle fibers?

Lift heavy often. This will increase your myofibrils, also called myofibrillar hypertrophy. The goal of the sprinter in the weight room is strength without mass. We find our one rep max (1RM), then work off that. Greater strength allows the athlete to run with greater economy since less energy is required to move the athlete’s mass.

Physiology: Rest

In the weight room, stay away from the burn that comes with extra reps—this is good for a bodybuilder but not a sprinter. The burn stems from lactic acid, which builds mass in addition to strength.

How do we program rest?

It is important to spend five minutes resting between sets because the phosphagen pool regenerates in a relatively short period of time—this is crucial to the creation of significant strength with minimal mass.

Athletes' muscles must be completely idle during the rest period. Our athletes sit and wait, says @coachjtayers. Share on X

For the phosphagen pool to adequately regenerate, it’s imperative that the athlete’s leg muscles are completely idle during this rest period. Our athletes will sit on the ground and wait. The rest period results in the athlete experiencing little-to-no muscle fatigue (from lifting) in the subsequent hours or days. To keep track of their rest, we have a clock on the wall, or they can use the timer on their cell phones.

The Weight Room Workout

A sprinter could incorporate as many as three sessions (heavy weight with low reps) per week since they do not work muscles to exhaustion and both lactic acid production and the need to rebuild muscle fiber are minimal. We strive for three lifts per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) in the off-season; however, with teenagers’ schedules, we’ll settle for two. In season, we continue to lift two times per week until the competition phase, when we move it to one.

You can lift all season when you do it intentionally for #speed, says @coachjtayers. Share on X

A few years ago, one of the top hurdlers in the state lifted the Monday before the state championship. When Allyson Felix was in high school, she maxed on May 3 and then ran the best race of her life May 5. You can lift all season when you do it intentionally for speed! (See Why In-Season High-Intensity Strength Work Is Better Than Maintenance Programs)

Our weight-training goal for speed is superior strength with minimal additional mass, says @coachjtayers. Share on X

Our weight-training goal is to create superior strength in the right muscles with minimal additional mass—not to increase muscle size. The only way to maximize MSF is through a high-weight, low-rep, and long-rest routine.

In summary, in every sport that requires running or jumping, we must offset the effect of gravity. Increasing MSF helps offset gravity.

Fall in Love with the Deadlift

We deadlift. There are many benefits to the deadlift when lifting for speed.

Muscles involved in deadlift:

• Quads
• Glutes
• Hamstrings
• Abdominals
• Calves
• Lower Back
• Trapezius
• Latissimus dorsi
• Scapular retractors

We also use Hexagon deadlift bars, where athletes step into the bar. We’ve found this helps a great deal with form. Note: it is very important that no athletes deadlift with heavy weight until they can deadlift with perfect form using light weight.

Benefits of the deadlift, especially with a Hexagon deadlift bar, include:

1. Limb speed improves more by lifting heavy weight, not by moving lighter weight faster.
2. The weight moves slowly, but the motor units fire as fast as they can.
3. By limiting reps to no more than 5 in a set at 85-100% of max with a 5-minute rest, the regeneration of the phosphagen pool can perform at 95% capacity after 5 minutes and then at 95% of each succeeding set.

Rest by sitting down.

The movement that we utilize in the deadlift is concentric (the up movement), where we build explosiveness and not mass, and we skip the eccentric movement (the down movement) where we build mass. This means the athlete will push up with the bar and drop it at the top.

After each set of deadlifts, we add single leg stabilization (really works the athlete’s core) and a plyometric. Plyos include box jumps, depth jumps, tuck jumps, and rocket jumps. If an athlete fails to complete the rep in any set, that becomes their new 1RM.  If the lift begins to stall, where there is no movement for more than 2-3 seconds, abort immediately or drop the weight.

Here is an example of a great 60-minute workout.

• Dynamic stretching and warm up
• Deadlift warm-up: 3 sets at 50%, 55%, 65% of max (2 reps each set)—use the eccentric and concentric movements or go up and down with the bar
• Deadlift (followed by plyo immediately after each set, then sitting rest)—drop bar immediately upon completion of each rep and do not raise your shoulders or hyperextend your back     
• Core and single stabilizing exercises circuit
• Push-ups
• Static stretching

Force Number Formula

Strength training in the weight room is the best method to increase MSF. We use this to encourage our athletes to increase their strength while not attempting to gain weight. So the next time another coach at your school tells one of your students they need to gain weight, have your athletes ask them about the science behind that statement.

Our Force Number Formula: Take their deadlift and divide by their weight.

For example, Jared F. deadlifted 395 and weighed 119lbs: his force number was 3.31. That’s the highest I’ve ever coached. Anything above 3 is insane. Most varsity male sprinters will need to be around 2.5 or above.

Force number is not a clear indication of the amount of force your athlete can generate and put into the ground based on their weight, but it’s pretty close. At the very least, every athlete will gain new insight into their improvement and set new goals while watching their force number rise month to month. We even have a Hall of Fame Force Number chart where we rank the marks of previous athletes.

Conclusion

Most athletes in high school athletics who want to be fast do not lift for speed. Faster top running speeds are achieved with greater ground forces, not more rapid leg movements. It’s vital to lift for speed. I’ve never been someone that does something because everyone else does it. Prove to me that it works, and I’ll adopt it.

I understand that some of the preceding might sound unconventional, but it works. In my last five years at this high school, we’ve seen eight of the top nine 100m times in school history. This past season, the 4×100 team broke the All-Time Orange County Record at 41.24; athletes have broken 29 grade-level and 7 school records; and the team has been ranked number one in Orange County three different years (2015, 2016, 2018). The last five years, Trabuco Boys Sprinters have been in the top five sprinting teams in California in the 100, 200, and 400. We also have our strongest sprinting group returning this upcoming season.

Lifting for speed with MSF will make you faster (learn more in my course here). Our training attitude is voiced routinely to our athletes: “I don’t know how fast you are going to run. But let’s find out together.”

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

If you have been in sports for a while, you know that recovery and regeneration matter. Half of the equation in sports is the ability to perform at your best, and sound recovery balances training and competition stressors. Unfortunately, a lot of recovery practices and methods simply don’t work. When you put time and money into recovery and the science and results are not there, it’s beyond frustrating—it’s disenfranchising.

As a former athlete and a professional specializing in athlete regeneration, my entire day focuses on helping those involved with athletics support regeneration to its fullest potential. The sole purpose of this article is to cover misconceptions about recovery and regeneration, and offer better solutions than there have been in the past. Much of what I say will be riddled with controversy and points that are hard to swallow, but if you do take time to read the evidence I provide, you will certainly be persuaded that a better option exists.

Sound recovery balances training and competition stressors, letting athletes perform at their best. Share on X

I have two major points of contention to share that are important when working with athletes, and those are the theories of regeneration and what the current methods actually provide. The first need for coaches is to define what recovery and regeneration are today, and determine what tools and methods can bring about the outcomes that coaches and athletes are looking for. I am the founder of FlowDyn Recovery, a regeneration device that brings a medical-grade solution into the hands of those involved with sports at all levels.

Athlete Regeneration – Beyond Rest and Nutrition

Honestly, sleep and nutrition are responsible for most of the recovery for athletes. There are very few other methods that actually work. Getting athletes to sleep better and eat a diet that fuels and repairs their bodies is the foundation of recovery. Managing soreness or training light and easy is also popular. Scientific reviews have not been very supportive of sports massage and other methods. Current studies are likely limited by the right measurements being inaccessible to sport science. Research is improving, but the designs are still based on the old ways of evaluating recovery. Today’s research calls modalities into question, and some of the science is observing an impairment of the recovery and regeneration process.

For years, coaches have experimented with heating, freezing, stretching, and even placing athletes on vibration platforms. The results have not been anywhere close to effective. Outside of waiting patiently, not much is available to get coaches and athletes ready for the next session. It’s very conservative to say most of the technologies and gadgets out there are for managing soreness, and nearly all the research concludes they are nothing more than placebo.

Outside of sleep and nutrition, coaches have placed a lot of effort into muscle recovery. It makes sense that if an athlete uses their muscular systems day after day, they’ll need to do something proactive. The problem is that, outside of time and the basics of rest and diet, massaging or rolling muscles isn’t that effective in restoring power and performance to athletes. Active recovery with light exercise is also questionable, mainly because it’s possible that the antidote isn’t strong enough because—ironically—it requires more training to help recovery.

Based on the science, it looks like Mother Nature beats human ingenuity, for the most part. Still, there are a few opportunities to help athletes recover, including passive assisted regeneration that combines modulating blood flow and light shear stress to the body. It sounds complicated, but I will cover this in exact detail in the next part of this article.

The Paradigm Shift of Microcirculation and Regeneration

Coaches strongly believe that breaking a sweat and increasing blood flow will help an athlete. They are half right. It’s not that blood flow improves recovery, it’s that an increase in circulation leads to a few adaptations to the body later. A temporary increase in heart rate and blood flow isn’t going to repair a tendon or remodel a bone—it’s the stress that stimulates the adaptations coaches desire so much. Also, if athletes are actively working hard, the real triggers are the by-products that message the body to adapt to the stress.

For years, the PRP injections that athletes have spent astronomical funds on have failed to live up to the expectations of science. Passive blood flow helps, but rapid pulsing actions need to be high velocity and high pressure or they will do little to a human’s physiology. Here is the difference below.

The lymphatic system responds favorably to exercise and external support in some patients, but athletes who manage everyday soreness don’t see a restoration of power from compression garments or recovery devices. The same disappointment that we see with passive blood flow studies happens with lymphatic movement, called lymphatic kinetics. Edema may be reduced with pneumatic compression or with the use of garments, but those same systems are not increasing blood flow significantly enough to create adaptations. Lymphatics and circulatory systems are slightly stimulated, but slow continuous squeezing or twitching isn’t enough to rebuild a body. Squeezing or compression that is not fast or intense fails to create shear stress, the strain that triggers adaptations that athletes need. Light therapy feels good, but it doesn’t enhance a body.

Research on angiogenesis and exercise is well-established in science, but the benefits to athletes are not clear. The most common injury in basketball is an ankle sprain, where circulation can be a major problem immediately. Active exercise may be limited, and this specific circumstance is a perfect illustration of what medical-grade compression can do.

The FlowDyn device, our recovery system, provides the benefits of a light aerobic session without the baggage of the pounding or additional soreness of exercise. The place that most recovery pumps end is where our technology starts. Intense but comfortable mechanical stimulations enhance growth and actual regenerative processes. Anything less is too weak to signal the body, and active stress such as blood flow restriction and exercise is too challenging to be recovery. It’s a little oversimplified to say that our compression training is passive and somewhere between blood flow restriction and pneumatic compression, but it’s easy to visualize the concept.

Managing the aches and pains of training is a first step to recovery, not the final destination. Share on X

Coaches and sports medicine professionals need to leave with this important take-home message. Most of the popular products marketed as recovery are not battling difficult problems in the medical field. Our company is worried about saving limbs from amputation and cares about growing vessels; most of the other systems attempt to manage soreness. While our product does help with the aches and pains of training, those are the first steps to recovery, in our opinion, not the final stop.

Pneumatic Compression and Electrical Stimulation Shortcomings

Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) might help athletes for performance. Pneumatic compression feels good, and it sometimes helps manage the aches and pains after a workout. Neither are truly recovery devices, as they don’t restore a muscle or physical system back to where it was. A lot of companies use the term “recovery” in their product offerings, but they can’t offer strong evidence that it does more than make a muscle twitch or squeeze your legs for half an hour. Recovery is a wide-open term, but if the body isn’t back to where it was originally or better than it was before the application, it’s not really recovery.

Pneumatic compression, often called intermittent pneumatic compression, was originally designed for lymphedema patients. Lymphedema is a medical condition that causes swelling to the extremities from excessive fluid. The condition is usually uncomfortable and manual massage, compression socks, and pumps have been used to fight the problem.

It’s not really recovery if the body isn’t back to where it was or better than it was before. Share on X

The main issue with pneumatic compression for athletes is that not much evidence exists that it restores an athlete to baseline. Two research studies on pneumatic compression demonstrated that the intervention post training or competition was ineffective in restoring leg power or speed. The scientific evidence is conflicting for soreness after training and competition, but it’s conclusive that the pneumatic compression devices don’t restore athletes. While the entire pneumatic compression market for sports more than doubled, there is no supporting research that the devices actually change or improve the body. Temporary relief from discomfort is a fair synopsis of what pneumatic compression systems provide, but beyond that, not much.

Electrical muscle or nerve stimulation is marketed as a way to facilitate recovery, but like pneumatic compression, it does not restore strength or power back to their original states. Muscle stimulation is even less effective for symptom recovery than pneumatic compression, and while research is promoted to assist with lymphatic support, the influence is small. Those struggling with air travel and prolonged sitting may benefit slightly from electrical stimulation, but the results are barely meaningful to an athlete. While a wearable EMS patch is a convenient option for athletes on planes to prevent blood clots in the veins, the increased volume of blood flow is just a trickle and no physiological adaptations have been found, even with funded research.

Athletes deserve something powerful and effective that offers more than temporary relief. Share on X

The overarching summary of electrical stimulation and pneumatic compression devices is that their results are very small and short-lived. It’s perfectly fine to use the equipment to help cope with the collateral damage of training and performing, but athletes deserve something more powerful and effective. Recovery should not be limited to temporary relief; it needs to demonstrate that it enhances the body and creates physiological changes that mean something.

Medical-Grade Recovery and Regeneration

If you demand high-performance recovery, then medical-grade products are the first step. What separates an approved device from one that can fulfill the demands of elite sport or sports medicine is the physiological power of the equipment. If you want regenerative circulation, you should consider investing in a system that can actually grow vessels and trigger adaptations.

The difference between pneumatic compression or electrical therapy and blood flow and medical-grade solutions is like the difference between a leaky faucet and a fire hose. It’s not even a fair comparison. As mentioned in detail earlier, real medical-grade regeneration creates changes to the body that are measurable and actually functional.

When I played football at the college level, I had a difficult time recovering from Saturday games and frequently missed Monday practices—I was simply trying to make it from day to day without getting injured. I tried ice baths, I tried electrical stimulation, I tried conventional pneumatic compression. None of them helped at all.

From the moment I started using our early FlowDyn device, I noticed a significant difference in the way my legs felt the following days. They felt extremely strong in every rep I took and honestly gave me a lot of confidence in my body. Going from my junior season missing nearly every Monday practice, to my senior year not missing a single rep the entire season, I experienced the benefits that the science was proposing. Even on the coldest winter nights in Oregon, I give complete credit to the FlowDyn device helping me not only recover, but become stronger throughout the entire season. I was able to lift before and after practice every day and recovering became the very least of my worries.

Real medical-grade regeneration creates changes to the body that are measurable and functional. Share on X

After college, it was time to offer the same experience to all athletes, not just those who happened to be in the family business of medical technology. We invested years and major resources into our recovery solution, and using it regularly gives the same benefits that other devices claim, but with far more potency. It’s bold to say that we are the most powerful on the market, but the statement has the advantage of being perfectly accurate. In summary, users of recovery devices should seek out physical adaptations that are meaningful and not just settle for something temporary.

Don’t Be Satisfied with Temporarily Feeling Good

A lot of topical creams and recovery devices provide quick relief, but don’t actually regenerate the body. We know that athletes who train and compete hard need help, but if a solution doesn’t work, they need to do more than just hope a placebo bails them out. Essentially, the best chance for recovery is to know the potential of a product and start there.

If you are interested in taking sport regeneration to the next level, the FlowDyn device is leaps above consumer compression offerings and slow-frequency electrical stimulation. The system is not for everyone, as it’s a professional model meant more for elite sport, not for casual fitness. The FlowDyn device is travel-friendly, and best used by medical departments doing everything they can to get an athlete back on the field.

Essentially, the best chance for recovery is to know the potential of a product and start there. Share on X

We may appear new to the sports market, but our parent company has helped thousands of people with circulatory support for over three decades. You can continue doing what you know helps athletes cope with aches to the joints, muscles, and tendons, but don’t just be satisfied with what may work—use the most potent system available.

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

Years ago, I took on the role of sprint coach at Triton Regional High in the small town of Byfield, Massachusetts. I had volunteered sparingly the year before and enjoyed it enough to give it a real try. Four years removed from competing collegiately in the 400m, I came in armed and ready to go. Unbeknownst to me, my grasp on training and athletic development concepts was tenuous at best—true “unconscious incompetence.”

It’s funny how inheriting a fairly talent-laden squad can disguise the truth: My athletes were succeeding in spite of me. However, I’d like to think that my heart was in the right place and I tried my best to maintain good relationships with the athletes during these “new days.” At the end of the day, some school records were set and some individual championships were won, but I can now say that I was standing still as a coach.

I read sparingly on issues related to training and my use of speed work was something to be desired. I was giving workouts, but not developing athletes. These are two very different things. Soon, the athletes with some talent who I had inherited were seniors and the thought crept in that, while I was doing okay, these kids deserved even better. Looking back on it now, I often have a severe case of the “what-might-have-beens.” They say that you coach what you know, and what I knew was not always applicable to 14- to 18-year-olds.

I was giving workouts, but not developing athletes. These are two very different things, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

There was soon a dearth of raw talent, and for whatever reason, a mass exodus of male multi-sport athletes. The “cats” had, in effect, gone away. Every once in a while, I heard a voice in my head asking, “Did you have something to do with that?” If I am honest with myself, I don’t know. Maybe. That “maybe” is all I need.

I know that training could have been more fun and I could have gotten out of the way more. So I did what I had done throughout my entire childhood—I read. I tried to understand energy systems at play in the sprinting events. I purchased programs from coaches who had forgotten more than I knew. I stumbled across blogs and read the musings of other coaches who seemed far more honest with themselves than I had ever been. I got back into doing sprint drills and plyometrics myself.

Since then, I have been slowly adding pieces to our sprints program in a way that makes sense without overwhelming myself or the athletes. Four years into my own paradigm shift, I think I have read enough to move the stage-of-learning needle to “conscious incompetence.” I know that I know nothing and years from now I’ll hopefully know something. Author Pam Allyn says: “Reading is like breathing. Writing is like breathing out.” After lots of reading, it is time to breathe out. Here are three changes that I am currently working through.

The Warm-Up

I post a lot of our warm-up drills on our Triton Sprints Twitter page. I want the kids to be proud of their athletic development. I am hard on them, but the reality is that they move better than I did at their age. One of my college coaches once referred to me as a “biomechanical nightmare,” and he wasn’t wrong.

My thinking used to be that the warm-up was just that: A chance to increase body temperature before we got to the real meat and potatoes—the workout. But the thing with “biomechanical nightmares” is that they can still be fast. Their limbs may fly all over the place, their arms may cross the midline, and they may exhibit knock-knees with every jump, but they are still fast. Accepting this fact presents as lazy.

Speed in the presence of this dysfunction is something that makes me nervous because I don’t think it is sustainable over time and it leaves seconds on the track. I never want to assume that puberty and maturation will fix the issues. Our warm-ups typically start with 90/90 or alligator breathing—roughly two minutes for athletes to pause and hit reset on their day. I don’t always know everything that went on in their day, but I do hope that track practice is a chance for them to deal with it in at least one way.

We usually go into dynamic stretches/drills after that and then sprint drills. I am blessed yearly with terrific captains and this year is no different. They take charge and, for the most part, move extremely well. We have five different warm-ups employed for different types of workouts. It seems excessive, but I work under the assumption that they forget everything once the next week comes along.

I treat warm-ups like an audition. Who is focused? Tired? Who does something they couldn’t before? says @grahamsprints Share on X

Acceleration days feature sprint drills that focus on pushing; max velocity days have a cycling- and posture-centered theme with small ground contact times. Lactate days focus on more of a technical buildup. On circuit days, I try to back off and let the captains decide. I treat the warm-ups like an audition. Who seems focused? Who looks tired and like they have regressed? Who can do something that they previously couldn’t? I think we try to keep the intent on everything high. Some days our warm-ups are longer than the speed workout itself. At this age, skill acquisition matters more than working out.

We have two lines, one behind another. I have a captain demonstrate everything and the group gives them a round of applause because athletic development is a cause for celebration. I typically follow up with an incorrect demonstration. Another captain is then called out and demonstrates it again. It can be high pressure, but they always rise to the occasion—this transcends the sport, and matters in real life.

Line one goes. I offer my critique of line one to line two, which is usually comprised of underclassmen. Sometimes they get it and sometimes they don’t, and I can live with that because it’s part of the process. There isn’t time to do this on every drill, but deciding which ones are important to you as a coach and then coaching the heck out of them is a good place to start.

Decide which drills are important to you as a coach, and then coach the heck out of them, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

The group warm-ups serve as a chance for everyone to work together on drills to promote the movements that pertain to the context of the day’s theme. The general strength created through these warm-ups is underrated, especially for the athletes who have never done a sport before. If they couldn’t A-march in December and they can in February, they got stronger. As Dr. Ken Clark says, “If you can’t hold this position isometrically, you can’t do it dynamically.”

The warm-up is also a chance for me to hit reset after completing my day at the elementary school just 15 minutes away. I get to practice the cues and language, and shine up the figurative language that will no doubt be abundant in the workout of the day. The use of specific language and cues makes the athletes more coachable over time. Give them options. I usually end with a challenging drill predicated on a bit of “violence” to see who is connecting the dots between everything.

After nine years, I can say that I am finally developing athletes. I take pride when a freshman improves from 8.0 to 7.5 in the 55m in two months, and looks exponentially better doing it. With consistent training, there will be a place for him one day on our team to compete in some event.

Timing Speed Training

People say speed is the hardest biomotor quality to train and they aren’t lying. I used to believe that speed was largely either something you had or something you didn’t. A few years ago, I stumbled across Tony Holler and the “Feed the Cats” mentality. I was intrigued instantly, but didn’t dive in entirely. I didn’t have a timing system, so I was running flys and accelerations for years without feedback. They were flys alright, but they lacked purpose and competitiveness.

#Feedback ensures that improvements are quantifiable long before meet day approaches, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

People talk down about today’s kids, but most of them like being timed and they like knowing they are getting better even more. Improvements are now quantifiable long before meet day approaches. Having to perform in practice almost daily is (slowly) making meets somewhat commonplace. We often use hallways (still no shin splint bug) and have only sneakers on, but the intent is there until we are graced by sunny weather. They are used to competing long before the starter’s gun fires.

I wish I had done more of this when I started. I think most of the athletes I coach now know roughly what 10m time they need to enter or move up from their current “mph club.” T-shirts have been ordered (thanks to The Medina Bees Track and Field Twitter page for the great idea). I hope they continue to strive and feel a sense of pride as they earn their shirts. I don’t care what anyone says: Being fast is cool, and the rest of the student body needs to know about their hard work. Moreover, speed is the greatest indicator of success in any track and field event, and in all sports.

I have become intrigued with the math behind the speed. Take a look at the data below.

Avg. Speed
22 second 200m= 20.33 mph
23 second 200m= 19.45 mph
26 second 200m= 17.21 mph
27 second 200m= 16.57 mph
50 second 400m= 17.9 mph
55 second 400m= 16.3 mph
60 second 400m= 14.9 mph

These are the average speeds needed to hit certain times in the 200m and 400m dashes. Just take the race length in meters and divide by the time. Then multiply that number (meters per second) by 2.237 (1 m/s = 2.237). I am recording each athlete’s personal bests in their events this year and comparing them to see if there is a range of how many mph you need to be above your event goal time to actually hit that time.

For example, our best 55m female this year has run 7.54 seconds (16.32 mph average) but has hit 19.28. This is a difference of almost 3 mph from her 55m race average. Our best 300m male has run 36.45 (18.41 mph) in the 300m dash. He has a peak mph of 21.10 mph in practice (granted, sneakers in a hallway isn’t the best testing condition). That leaves a speed reserve of about 2.5 mph.

Regardless, the speed has raised their respective ceilings. Exploring this further could help identify obvious deficiencies in certain training blocks. If there is a female who can run 19 mph but struggles to break 60 seconds (14.9 mph) in a 400m outdoors, that is something to be reflected upon. Why can’t she do it? Fear? (Not everyone can take themselves to the dark place.) Poor race model? Subpar performance on lactate workouts (again, fear)? Is it possible a minimal amount of aerobic work can help her? Or maybe the 400m was never a goal for her, and deviating from the current training takes her away from becoming great in other events.

If you’re last to the ball, how strong you are or what sport-specific skill you have doesn’t matter, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

I know I will never regret prioritizing speed, especially in the early stages of their career. I hope, in the fall, that the field sport coaches notice their athletes are moving just a bit better and more swiftly. If you are last to the ball, it doesn’t matter how strong you are and what sport-specific skills you have. When it comes to high school athletes and speed training, intent takes the cake over the volume that they do. They have to get there before they can go anywhere.

Changing the Weight Room

In college, I lifted like a “bro.” So, for the first several years of my coaching career, I let athletes chase numbers, as football players often like to do. I failed to get them to check their egos and most prescribed exercises were in the hypertrophy rep range. Everyone lifted and it was chaos. I am sure some of them doubled up at their morning lifts.

Things are greatly simplified these days. We do not have many kids capable of lifting huge amounts of weight and that’s fine. Strength is a skill that needs to be developed. If the technique is there, with consistency they will get stronger. At their age, lifting helps posture and speed. After a certain point, I am not sure it continues to do so.

Most freshman don’t lift. First, because we don’t want to add any more to their plate. Second, they are getting stronger through bodyweight and general strength circuits. The weight room coach is actually our throws coach, Katelin Invernizzi. I may be a little biased because she is my fiancée, but she gets them moving better quickly. I read somewhere that sprinters don’t need to have too much mobility. I get that, I really do. We don’t need pliable ballerinas, but in my experience if a kid has a poor front squat technique, his block start is a mess as well. Strength lifting is done on acceleration days. Squat mobility is a focus. Again, the focus is the movement patterns, not the weight.

If athletes check their ego and look like they are engaged, I will post them on Twitter. Prep is usually done with Katelin in the middle, cueing them through each drill and fixing technical errors. They are done in 15-20 minutes. On lactate days, they do a giant hypertrophy set, in and out with good technique. Hypertrophy is great for tendons and joints. It’s a slower, less technical day, so the kids can look stronger and listen to music.

The third day of lifting is an introduction to Olympic lifting on max velocity day. It is broken down well and again in a circle, while they are cued through each drill. The last thing we want is to end up on the wrong side of Twitter because a video of one of our athletes doing a back-breaking clean went viral. It is our job to protect them and to develop them.

Let me be clear: Olympic lifting doesn’t supplant sprinting. Our message to our athletes is that the weight room is a support but not the answer. At the end of the day, being able to accelerate and decelerate under a bar is an athletic movement. Improvements here are often best expressed as the athlete being more receptive to cues outside the weight room, and being coachable is a good thing. Plus, it is fun and sometimes fun is a goal. We want our kids to leave Triton knowing how to work out, because working out feels good. Some of them will never run a step again, but options are a wonderful thing to have.

Moving On

Making mistakes is a natural part of the coaching experience. At some point, the things you have always done no longer work. The “adapt or die” mentality is very real. Facing that fact head on is often not an easy task. It’s 2019, and there is a plethora of information available. I can’t imagine not taking advantage of that.

I am a product of every coach I have ever met, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

I am thankful for the programs I have purchased over the years that allowed me to enhance my coaching knowledge. Spending money is a necessary thing to become better at your craft. Connecting with all of the amazing coaches on social media has allowed me to continue to strive to be better for my athletes. I have learned from sprint coaches, distance coaches, sports coaches, CrossFit coaches, bodybuilders, and powerlifters. I am a product of every coach I have ever met.

“Stealing” ideas and making them your own in a way that makes sense to you is what learning is all about. With this variety, I think our program has gotten better even if we don’t set records every week. With consistency, more records will fall soon—I am sure of it—and that cats will come home. After a track practice, I am exhausted and take comfort in knowing that I am slowly rectifying some of my earlier gaffes. Movement quality is king and speed always kills.

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