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In this three-part series, I explore 10 different research questions that I feel sports science could make a big difference by attempting to answer—and in many cases, is close to doing so. In Part 1 and Part 2, the questions I explored were:

1. Is a low-carb, high-fat diet effective for athletes?
2. Is caffeine really ergogenic for everyone?
3. Are isometric loading exercises as effective as eccentric loading exercises for hamstring injury prevention?
4. What effect does the gut microbiome have on athletic performance?
5. Can we develop real-time markers of exercise adaptation?
6. Can we use genetic testing to predict talent?
7. Do sports supplements have an additive effect, or is there a ceiling?

Obviously, I have my own biases, and some of these areas are from the fields in which I hold a strong interest, but I have tried to cast the net as wide as possible. For each question, I’ve provided:

• A brief review of what we know so far.
• Why it’s important to know more.

My expectation is that, over the next 10 years, we will get closer to more concrete answers in many of these.

Are the ‘Proven’ Effects of Ergogenic Aids and Training Interventions the Same for All Populations?

How science works is that you recruit a group of people—commonly termed “the sample population”—and then conduct your research intervention on them. Because researchers often require subjects who are somewhat similar in order to minimize sources of variation within the results, this often leads to certain groups of people being underrepresented within sports science research. As an example, men and women mightmetabolize caffeine differently, and females potentially metabolize caffeine differently at different stages of their menstrual cycles. As a result, most researchers tend not to recruit females into research exploring the use of caffeine, because they can’t easily figure out at which stage of the menstrual cycle their subjects may be at, or whether their use of oral contraceptives is affecting the results.

Is this a problem? Simply put, yes. Approximately half of the population of the world is female, and, accordingly, roughly half of all elite athletes are female. Yet, in many cases, we don’t fully understand how various interventions affect this sizeable population because they are so underrepresented within sports science research. Indeed, a recent study reported that less than 40% of subjects within sports science research were female.

Similarly, elite athletes are, by definition, quite rare. Very few individuals have the ability and luck to be able to perform at the highest level, and when they do, they’re unlikely to want to take part in research studies that may harm their performance. As a result, researchers find it very hard to conduct research, especially intervention studies, on elite athletes; consequently, elite athletes are comparatively underrepresented within sports science research.

Elite athletes are unlikely to participate in research studies that may harm their performance, says @craig100m. Share on X

Is this problematic? Well, we don’t really know as it hasn’t been extensively studied, but there is at least some research that suggests elite, well-trained athletes gain more of a benefit from caffeine, and less of a benefit from other ergogenic aids such as beetroot juice. This means that, if you’re working with an elite athlete, in many cases the research on which you’re basing your decisions is perhaps not valid in the athletes you coach.

This in and of itself isn’t necessarily a major problem; sports science doesn’t exist just to enhance athletic performance, but can also be a method to improve the health of a wide range of individuals by guiding training program design and nutritional interventions. But here, again, we can run into problems; because most researchers are based at a university, there is a tendency to recruit university students to exercise intervention studies—and these subjects don’t necessarily accurately reflect the wider population.

All told, we clearly need more research in underrepresented subjects within sports science. This is especially true for female subjects, notwithstanding the issues researchers face in controlling for the menstrual cycle, and elite athletes, again keeping in mind that the recruitment of such athletes can be difficult. By being able to understand these, and other, populations, we will be better able to make evidence-led recommendations, and support practitioners who work closely with these people, enabling them to (hopefully) make better decisions.

Why Does This Matter?

Many different populations of people, especially females and elite athletes, are underrepresented within sports science research. Crucially, some evidence indicates that both groups respond differently to certain interventions, suggesting a need for more targeted research on these populations in order to better extrapolate the data from current studies and enhance their performance and health.

Can We Predict Exercise Response?

When coaches give a training program to their athletes, they are essentially making a prediction, stating that “I believe this is the best training program for you at this time.” If the training program leads to improvement in the athlete, then the coach is seen to be successful—even though we don’t know if the athlete could have gained greater improvements from a separate training program. Conversely, if the athlete doesn’t improve, then the coach can alter the training stimulus for a second training block, with the updated prediction that “I now believe that this training program is the best for you at this time.” As a result, happening upon the optimal training program for a given athlete is often a process of trial and error, with many things tested, and the ones that are perceived to work sticking, along with a large helping of luck.

One of my interests is in trying to understand whether we can predict this exercise response; that is, can we determine how much someone will improve with an exercise training program before they undertake that training program? If we can gain the ability to do this, then we can remove the trial and error process, and match athletes to the training most suited to them.

If only it were that easy.

First, a little bit of background. Since the mid-1980s, it has been demonstrated through research that not everyone gets the same improvements from exercise. Most famously, this was shown in the HERITAGE Family Study, where researchers recruited 720 subjects to a 20-week aerobic training program, putting them through a wide variety of pre- and post-training tests. Here, the results showed that, while on average, VO2 max (a measure of aerobic fitness) improved by around 380 mL O2, some subjects improved by over 1000 mL O2, while others showed no improvement (and, in actual fact, appeared to get less fit due to training—which makes no sense and is most likely measurement error).

This was also true for various health markers tested for, such as fasting insulin; most people improved, but some more than others, while others got worse. Similar results have been shown following resistance training: after a 12-week training block in one study, the mean improvement in 1RM was 54%, but varied from 0% to 250%.

The cause of the variation between individuals in response to a training program is as yet unknown, says @craig100m. Share on X

It’s clear, therefore, that there is the potential for considerable variation between individuals in response to a training program. As a result, a big question that needs answering here is “What are the causes of this variation?” We can essentially boil these causes down to two factors: “true” and “false.” “False” factors refer to things such as measurement error and random biological variation, which make it look like there is variation, when actually there isn’t (if you’re interested, this is probably the best paper on the subject).

How much of the variation in response to a stimulus is “false” is open to debate. Nevertheless, we also know that there are a number of aspects that lead to “true” (i.e., real) inter-individual variation between subjects in response to a training stimulus. In a 2017 paper, I categorized these as genetic, environmental (i.e., non-genetic), and epigenetic, and I wrote about these for SimpliFaster here. Genetics play an important role in how much an individual responds to exercise, with studies tending to find that around 50% of the variation between individuals in exercise-related traits is due to heritable factors. The other roughly 50% is therefore down to aspects such as nutrition (getting enough energy, protein, and micronutrients), sleep, and psycho-emotional factors, such as the stress levels of an individual.

In theory, if we can ensure that everyone achieves the optimal environmental factors, such as getting enough sleep and adequate nutrition, then that should help to maximize adaptation to a given training program. This leaves us with genetic factors, which, explaining around 50% of the variance in response to exercise, are clearly important; if we could understand which genetic factors explain the variation in response, and we know the genetic makeup of a given athlete, could we use this information to predict the training response?

There isn’t a great deal of research in this field, which is why I’ve identified it as a potentially important route for future research. Some studies have looked at individual genes, such as ACTN3, the famous “speed gene.” Here, it appears that individuals with a certain type of this gene respond better to high-load resistance training (i.e., lifting heavy weights), and it may also play a role in post-exercise recovery and risk of injury. A few other studies have looked at the impact of other individual genes, but the relative effect size of any individual gene on training adaptation is likely to be small. Instead, we need to identify an increased number of genes, and combine them into a single score

This is what a study in which I was an author did; here, we used the results of 15 different genes to determine whether people would respond better to high- or moderate-intensity resistance training. We then gave around half the subjects the “correct” training, and half the “incorrect” training, for an eight-week period. After the training period was completed, those who had undertaken the “correct” training, as determined by their genetics, demonstrated around three times the improvement in a countermovement jump test than those who had undertaken the “incorrect” training.

These results were both praised and criticized in equal measure, and it’s important to keep in mind that they require replication. However, they do suggest there is promise to such an approach, especially when we consider that other researchers have shown the use of similar methods to predict the response to aerobic training. Like using genetic testing to predict talent (explored in Part 2 of this series), there are ethical concerns regarding the use of genetic tests for training prescription.

It’s not just genetics that holds promise in this area. A second potentially promising biomarker is that of microRNA (miRNA). In order to adapt to exercise, our body has to produce new proteins. These proteins can themselves drive adaptation, or form part of a new structure; for example, in skeletal muscle hypertrophy, the body produces proteins that form part of the muscle, allowing it to grow.

At the cellular level, these proteins are produced from DNA. Our body “reads” this DNA, creating messenger RNA (mRNA), which travels to the ribosome, which “reads” the mRNA and creates the new protein. miRNA appears to affect this process by breaking down or destabilizing the mRNA before it can be read (among other processes), altering the expression of a given protein from a given gene. miRNAs appear to impact the adaptation to training.

As an example, researchers from a 2011 study recruited 56 men to a 12-week resistance training program, comprised of five resistance training sessions per week. They then identified the top and bottom 20% of responders in terms of increases in muscle mass, and compared differences in miRNA signature between the two. They found that three miRNAs were downregulated in low responders, and one miRNA was downregulated in the responders.

The ability to predict the response to exercise is an area requiring further research, says @craig100m. Share on X

If we can better understand whether baseline (i.e., pre-training) levels of miRNA affect the response to a training stimulus, then miRNA profiling might be useful, although at present it requires either a blood test or muscle biopsy, which may not be palatable to all. Nevertheless, the ability to predict the response to exercise is an area requiring further research, as doing so should enhance the training process quite substantially. A further understanding of the contributors to variation in training response is required here, as is the development and validation of predictive panels utilizing this information.

Why Does This Matter?

Designing training programs is essentially a matter of prediction: Coaches match athletes to the training techniques they believe will yield the greatest improvements, and then refine via trial and error. If we can predict the response to a certain type of training before that training occurs, then we may be able to more readily match athletes with the training type that will promote the greatest adaptations, and hence improve performance to a far greater extent.

Are Low Doses of Caffeine Optimally Ergogenic?

I’ve already discussed in this series how caffeine is the most established, and most used, performance-enhancing drug in sport. And, best of all, it’s legal. However, even with all the research conducted on caffeine, and even with the wide use of this ergogenic aid, there are still a number of unanswered questions regarding the practical side of its use by athletes.

One of these is the impact of individual variation on caffeine, which I covered in Part 1 of this series, as well as in this paper. A second one is whether habitual caffeine intake reduces the subsequent performance-enhancing effects of caffeine (which I discussed in this paper); the surprising thing is, we don’t really know. Finally, we don’t necessarily know which dose of caffeine is optimum for performance—and we likely never will know, given how much variation there will be between individuals as to what an optimum caffeine dose is.

Nevertheless, most caffeine guidelines suggest that the optimum caffeine dose is roughly 3-6 mg/kg of body weight, with no additional benefit of doses greater than 9 mg/kg of body weight. In 2014, Lawrence Spriet published a hugely influential review paper on the impact of lower doses of caffeine—typically 3 mg/kg or less—on performance. The main finding was that these low doses of caffeine, while not as extensively studied as higher doses, likely did exert ergogenic effects, most notably in aerobic endurance events.

What I’m interested in understanding is whether these low doses of caffeine offer similar performance-enhancing effects as more typical higher doses of caffeine. This is a potentially important question; high doses of caffeine can exert a number of side effects that may negatively impact sports performance, such as increased anxiety, gastrointestinal discomfort, and poor quality sleep following training or competition, which may negatively affect recovery. If these lower caffeine doses are as ergogenic as higher doses, then athletes susceptible to these negative side effects can just take less caffeine for the same performance improvement.

Conversely, if any athlete is using caffeine to enhance their performance, then they want the caffeine to increase performance as much as possible. For example, a runner before a competition could choose between 2 mg/kg and 5 mg/kg for their caffeine dose. If both lower and higher doses are optimally ergogenic, then they can pick the dose based on preference. However, if 2 mg/kg, while ergogenic, is not as performance-enhancing as 5 mg/kg, and they can tolerate this higher dose, then they should choose that higher dose.

The optimal dose of #caffeine will likely vary from athlete to athlete and between events and sports, says @craig100m. Share on X

So, are there any differences between lower and higher doses of caffeine, in terms of their performance-enhancing effects? It’s hard to draw really firm conclusions from the research. If we return to Spriet’s seminal paper on the topic, I count 14 studies that used a low caffeine dose and utilized a performance test (as a brief aside, I always prefer it when caffeine studies explore the impact of caffeine on some aspect of performance, such as time to cover a distance, time to exhaustion, or similar, as opposed to measuring fat oxidation rates or ratings of perceived exertion). Of these 14, only four directly compared a low caffeine dose with a higher caffeine dose, and of these four, we get contrasting results—two find that increasing the caffeine dose enhanced performance to a greater extent, while two found that both the lower and higher caffeine doses enhanced performance to the same extent.

In short, there is a relative lack of trials comparing low and higher caffeine doses for their respective performance-enhancing effects, and these trials often have conflicting results. By increasing the number of studies exploring this question, we should getter a better idea of which type of caffeine dose is most optimal for athletes, allowing us to better inform their pre-training and pre-competition caffeine strategies.

Why Does This Matter?

Because caffeine is such as well-established and well-replicated (and legal!) performance enhancer, many athletes consume it. However, we’re not quite clear on the optimal dose yet, and, more realistically, it’s likely that the optimal dose will vary from athlete to athlete, and between events and sports. Recent research has shown that lower doses of caffeine—defined as 3 mg/kg or less—can be ergogenic, but it’s not yet fully clear whether such doses are as ergogenic as the more commonly recommended 3-6 mg/kg. Fully understanding this will enable athletes to be better informed as to the optimal caffeine dose for them, enhancing performance.

There’s Still Some Way to Go

While it is tempting to think that we pretty much know all there is to know within sports science, hopefully some of the points I’ve raised in this series demonstrate that we have some way to go before this is true. This is a good thing: The use of sports science has been instrumental in enhancing performance over the last 20 to 30 years, and has even spilled over into improving the health of non-athletes. Given the progress we’ve made so far, further enhancing our knowledge in these areas will allow us to improve health and performance to an even greater extent.

The use of sports science has been instrumental in enhancing performance over the last 20-30 years, says @craig100m. Share on X

Finally, this list isn’t exhaustive, and represents areas in which I have the most interest. I’d love to hear from you as to the questions you’d appreciate gaining some answers for from the field of sports science.

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

In elite sports, athletes maintain an incredibly hectic schedule throughout the calendar year. During the season, they spend the bulk of their time on competitive games, practices, and general maintenance, while during the off-season, top performers will spend upwards of 20 hours per week preparing for the physical demands of the upcoming season. For college athletes, you can add time required for academics, “voluntary” workouts, and team functions. It’s pretty easy to see why these high-level athletes are constantly teeter-tottering along the edge of overtraining.

To keep top players healthy and performing throughout the season takes an experienced coach who understands their athletes and knows when to push harder as well as when to pull back on the volume and intensity. With this in mind, here are a few suggestions I’ve seen of how coaches monitor their players to better understand when they should crack the whip to push their players or pull the reins and allow them to rest.

Wearable Technology

One of the most popular ways coaches monitor their athletes is using wearable technology. There are tons of different athletic wearable gadgets on the market today that track various markers of performance and recovery. Some of the most popular options are sleep trackers, GPS/accelerometers, EMG garments, and heart rate monitors.

Sleep Trackers

Assuming they’re feasible for your team, sleep tracking devices can be an important piece to understanding how your athletes approach recovery (or their lack thereof). One of the better products I’ve seen is Whoop, which analyzes recovery, strain, and sleep. If you notice one of your players underperforming on a consistent basis, this tracking device can help you isolate the cause. Generally, an athlete who averages less than 7 hours of sleep over an extended period of time is not going to perform at their best.

GPS Devices

GPS tracking data helps a coaching staff understand different performance metrics (miles run, speed, etc.) during a match or practice and can provide insight into the stress placed on their players since, theoretically, more distance equals more stress. There are several companies in this market, with Catapult Sports being the oldest and most well-known.

One of my criticisms of GPS devices, however, is the implicit assumption that distance equals stress on the athlete, as different body types, genetics, and anthropometrics play a much greater role than a strictly quantitative measure of distance. For example, if a football lineman and a wide receiver each run a mile, the distance is the same, but the stress and fatigue each incurs is incredibly different.

EMG Garments

EMG garments have appeared on the sport technology scene over the last year or so and allow us to directly observe how much stress we’re putting on an athlete’s muscles both in real-time and from practice to practice. The previous scenario of a lineman and a wideout each running a mile shows how EMG is so valuable because it accounts for the differences in body type, genetics, and anthropometrics; it directly measures the stress that an athlete’s muscles undergo. Using GPS, we would not see differences in stress, but with EMG we see much greater stress placed upon the lineman as he fatigues as opposed to the wide receiver.

One of the most accurate and reliable companies I’ve seen and started using with my athletes in this space is Athos, which provides EMG compression apparel that mainly monitors muscular stress and muscular balance—think Under Armour and a medical grade EMG combined. I use it to establish baselines on my athletes from a stress and balance standpoint before monitoring them over time to either progress or regress my programming based on the goals for that individual athlete.

Also, the  real-time biofeedback helps my athletes self-assess whether they’re executing a movement correctly and then self-correct much quicker than external cues alone. Self-assessment and correction like this allow the athlete to build more efficient movement patterns, which in turn, helps them improve performance and reduce their risk of injury.

To get the most out of wearable tech, coaches must be realistic and have a plan. Share on X

Ultimately, wearable technologies are becoming a fixture in elite sport performance, but to get the most out of the technology coaches need to be realistic about what they want to measure and, most importantly, have a plan for how they want to implement the technology with their athletes.

I suggest coaches do some research before purchasing new technology to find the right equipment for their team and organization, as there are many companies out there that tend to overpromise and underdeliver on their marketing claims.

Subjective Questionnaires

Another great way to monitor athlete wellness—and one of the simplest—is a basic questionnaire that takes account of how your athletes feel at a particular moment. An old school method for sure, but it works and helps you get an idea of where your team and each athlete is on a given day.

The form will differ from program to program, but I suggest you have your athletes fill out a series of basic questions before every training session. Questions can include: “How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” “Do you have any areas of your body that are hurting?” and “How do you feel on a scale of 1-10?”

The questions should be specific and easily quantifiable. You don’t want an athlete just to say they’re “feeling okay.” Numbers are valuable and allow you to compare an athlete’s response from day to day. The questions should be the same every single day so you can monitor changes and trends over time to adjust training as needed.

I use questionnaires to decide if I should push an athlete on a given day. Share on X

I especially like to use these questionnaires for deciding if I should push an athlete on a given day. For example, if an athlete indicates they’re at a 9-10 or 10-10, I’ll talk with them to try to gauge the validity of that number before using that session as an opportunity to push their boundaries a little, depending on where we are in the season.

If we’re in an off-season strength and hypertrophy block, I might try to push the athlete by increasing the volume or intensity of the lift, whether by adding sets and reps, pushing a PR in a given lift, or progressing an exercise to challenge the athlete.

If we’re in an in-season maintenance block, I might use it as an opportunity to get some additional maintenance or skill-specific work done while keeping in mind the athlete’s upcoming game and practice schedule. How you push the athlete when they’re feeling good will always, first and foremost, depend on the individual athlete, where they are in their season, and their training priorities.

For tips on building questionnaires for your athletes, check out this article by Iowa assistant strength coach Cody Roberts where he dives into “Dos and Don’ts for Athlete Wellness Questionnaires.”

Performance Measures

Finally, a very common way to gauge how your athletes are feeling on a given day is by using established “baseline” metrics for different performance markers and then monitoring how far each athlete deviates from that baseline before or during a particular training session.

For example, if a football lineman with a 400-pound max bench is struggling with reps of 315 pounds, he’s probably feeling a little worn down—or worse, there may be an underlying injury. Either way, it’s an indication to back off the volume or intensity for the day and investigate further.

It doesn’t really matter what performance measure you use, only that the measure makes sense for your sport. A bench press, for example, probably wouldn’t give great insight to how a baseball player is feeling.

Resting heart rate is an easy performance measure that's useful across different sports. Share on X

A performance measure I like that’s easy to measure and can be useful across different teams regardless of sport is resting heart rate (HR). Once again, establishing a baseline and monitoring deviations is the key to success. After you’ve established a baseline resting HR, if an athlete shows up on a given day with a significant increase, they’re likely not in a good position to be pushed throughout the day’s training regardless of whether that increase is attributed to overtraining, dehydration, or general stress.

Here are some best practices from the Mayo Clinic for measuring and recording restingHR in your athletes.

Wrapping It All Up: Collect as Much Data as Possible

With any monitoring strategy, the goal is to better understand where your players are on any given day. The better you understand your players, the easier it is to gauge objectively how ready they are to train or play.

Ideally, we’d like to have as much data as possible, but more data does not always equal better data, and sometimes a “less is more” approach can be the key difference with the teams and organizations that use these strategies successfully versus the ones that do not. At the end of the day, our goal as strength and conditioning professionals is to find which data allows us to move the needle regarding player performance and availability in our individual sport.

By correctly implementing some of the monitoring strategies above, coaches better understand their players each season and, in turn, know how to more effectively adjust practice and training to win more games.

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

Many coaches might be aware of isoinertial training (horizontal) from the VersaPulley, which was introduced nearly 20 years ago. I was not aware of its popularity then, as I was training and not yet even considering coaching. More recently, the kBox helped put flywheel training back in the spotlight, and the systems from Sweden and Spain are huge here in the States.

Only use the #kPulley for an exercise after an athlete has mastered the traditional movement, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

At Exceed Sports Performance, we got our hands on a kPulley in the middle of the 2018 summer off-season, and after a few days it became a part of our training. Since we already had a kBox at our disposal and an idea of what we liked and disliked, we decided to whittle down a list of exercises to the ones that made the most sense and wasn’t just about adding isoinertial training to an exercise better suited for conventional barbells and dumbbells. Creating the list was a hard process, because choosing your favorites and what may be best for others isn’t an easy task. This piece covers my five top exercises, with ways to do them better and how to determine when athletes are ready to perform them.

How I Created the List

I briefly touched upon flywheel exercises in a couple of previous articles, but kept the information pretty basic and straightforward. This piece will outline a few less-obvious choices and some potential options with which we are currently experimenting. We are lucky enough to have some research-grade sports tech at hand and will use it more to determine the efficacy of these movements. For now, the movements have passed the look and feel tests and have taken up a useful spot in our programming. We don’t typically just throw in some flywheel exercises, as that would be fairly lazy in my opinion, but we aim to replace or alter movements because of a specific need, and the kPulley and other flywheel tools create a unique opportunity for us.

All of the exercises can be done using traditional cables and elastic bands if needed, but the training effect won’t be the same. Four of the five movements require the athlete to aggressively overload the eccentric portion with an inflated concentric force, while the fifth (shoulder) should be strict during the entire exercise. As always, I would encourage any coach to come up with their own list based on experience, clientele, and specific needs, but we are sure there is value in the movements I list here.

Single Arm Eccentric Cheat Rows

Although it will seem like there are only two lower body exercises on this list (the rest being spine and shoulder training or rehabilitation options), almost all of them incorporate the lower body to create the necessary force to make them worth doing. What really makes the kPulley special is its use in horizontal pulling exercises that triple as oblique and adductor training as well. Although an athlete can do a simple row, and that is likely valuable for some of them, we much prefer the flywheel cheat row.

You can use a #kPulley in horizontal pulling exercises that triple as oblique and adductor training, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

This exercise is great because it gives purpose to a movement that many athletes are already trying to do. How many times have we seen athletes do dumbbell rows with a little too much weight and somewhat “clean” the weight up? Plenty. Now we have a reason to let them cheat, assuming they know what an honest row should look and feel like. I believe this movement is actually much more of an anti-rotation/rotational core movement than just a simple row, and what makes this exercise special is that gravity isn’t limiting the technique and loading. “Cheating” can be taken to the next level and the forces acting upon the body are atypical of traditional weight training exercises.

Video 1. The amount of cheating can range from small assistance to total body exploitation of momentum creation. Coaches can experiment with how strict the eccentric portion of the lift is.

When an athlete performs the movement, they should use leg drive and a little bit of rotation to create the momentum and accelerate the handle concentrically. Then, they should control eccentrically using the lats, muscle groups surrounding the shoulder, obliques, and everything connected to the floor. Partial squat, half-kneeling, split stance, or any other method of ground contact will work, provided you can use the leg drive effectively. Most of the time, the exercise grooves into a pattern that is both safe and effective as a row and an anti-rotation pattern.

Rotational Chops with Triceps Ropes

The issue with most rotational movements is the lack of eccentric balance. Although the follow-through of rotational throws with medicine balls does have incidental eccentric contractions, the overload isn’t as high as you can create with flywheel training. In order to get a real bang for your buck, you need to cheat with skill and athleticism. Compensation cheating or fatigue-style degradation in technique is bad news, but a coordinated intentional cheat is what we are looking for with rotational chops.

Video 2. The goal with chops is to drive the force from the legs, so the receiving phase of the exercise is more demanding than traditional movements. The trunk is an excellent joint system to transfer force, but think ground up.

Receiving a true eccentric overload means athletes must create concentric momentum with a technique that uses the entire body. With most of the exercises listed, we want athletes to use a different technique to create momentum and a strict technique to receive the eccentric forces. If you’ve done your homework on baseball players or any rotational athlete, you’ll fully understand that forces are created from the bottom up. The ground is important and footing is paramount. If you need to add a wedge or a foot bar to create the force, go for it. The initiation of the exercise does start with a leg drive, but concentrically it finishes with a swing, so the athlete can be immediately ready to receive the forces in the proper body position.

Forces are created from the bottom up: The ground is important and footing is paramount, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Ropes are great attachments for rotational work. We use triceps ropes and prefer a single arm attachment using an overhand grip. We instruct the athlete to keep their hands close to them during the concentric phase of the movement and (usually) let the hands drift away during the eccentric portion. Similar to a Pallof press, the exercise has more torque as the hands extend farther away.

Once you gain efficiency in the strict chop, you can add a step or rotation during the concentric phase. You can step forward and to the side with the concentric phase as a conservative progression or alternative. Whether you stick with a strict movement or utilize the step, the chop is a great tool for tackling heavy eccentric force to the obliques and groin.

Eccentric Overload Hamstring Curl

We employ a lot of hamstring equipment at our facility, and most have a specific function and use. The same goes for the kPulley’s involvement in our hamstring work. I need to make the point that one exercise is never a cure-all or silver bullet for hamstrings. If you read the research, hamstring training seemed to be all about EMG years ago; now it’s about lengthening and eccentrically preparing hamstrings for sport. Don’t follow the leader: Diversify your program and train hip extension, knee flexion, and both simultaneously to ensure you cover the bases. As I mentioned before, we use flywheels to improve upon or replace a movement when it creates a better alternative than traditional options.

Video 3. Coaches should start off with the two legs up and two legs down before moving to two legs concentric and one leg eccentric. The rolling devices today are available from a few equipment manufacturers.

A popular technique in flywheel training is the “two-up and one-down” concept that most coaches are familiar with. Before isoinertial training became popular again, veteran coaches used two legs to lift the weight up before lowering the weight down with one leg when performing hamstring curls and RDLs. As with the row and chops listed above, adding technique variation to the concentric portion of the lift to overload the eccentric portion is just as valuable and effective as the two-to-one method, and the kPulley and kBox are perfectly set up for such.

I use #flywheels to improve or replace a movement when it’s a better choice than traditional options, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

I believe there are five major exercises (and a few variations of each) for the hamstring using the kPulley that are effective, and each has a different setup and function. For this piece, I focus on the supine bridge hamstring curl, as it’s one of the most popular methods for training hip extension (statically) and knee flexion (dynamically) in rehab or training settings. There are much better options for training true hip extension, but the supine bridge hamstring curl plays an important role in our training program and is worth exploring a bit. Supine bridge curls do have eccentric benefits, but lack a true closed chain quality, so we consider them a high-priority assistance exercise rather than a main option for performance.

Whether you use a slideboard (towel, slide disc) or a wheeled implement, there are four ways to train the bridged hamstring curl. No bridge, bridge after concentric, bridge during eccentric and concentric, and two-to-one lowering. As for the topic of eccentric overload, the concentric (no bridge) to eccentric (with bridge) is our method of choice, and if you try it I’m sure you’ll agree.

Shoulder Reconditioning with Eccentric Forces

Narrowing down all the shoulder-specific exercises to just one option or movement isn’t very fair, so it’s easy to get upset that I didn’t pick external rotations or another arm care flavor of the week. The shoulder is an interesting joint in the PT world, and every year sees a change as to the best exercises for preparing the overhead athlete for sport and reducing injuries. By the time this article is posted online, I’m sure the best practice with shoulder rehabilitation and training will have changed again. Yesterday’s rotator cuff exercise will fade into tomorrow’s scapular stability training and then to something else later. Just like the principles of good ACL prevention, good training will help keep the healthy prepared.

Video 4. The external rotation range of motion is based on skill and individual anatomy. Build the range of motion up carefully and gradually over time.

We don’t do much additional training to the shoulder, but we do know that the rotator cuff, even with a well-trained athlete, may not be fully maximized. There are dozens of exercises for the shoulder and arm, but the primary recommendation is that everything is performed strict and you only use the kPulley after an athlete has mastered the traditional movement.

We have a few movements that we tend to gravitate to the kPulley for, but the good old half-kneeling external rotation (ER) can be recognized by many and is still broadly accepted. The key here, as with the other exercises listed, is that you create a little more momentum/concentric force using a variation of the technique and then quickly get into the proper technique to control the eccentric portion. An added bonus of the flywheel ER movement is that the transition from a face pull or row to an ER involves a bit of dynamic stabilization, which most studies have shown to be more important than simply strengthening the cuff.

Prepare a program that utilizes appropriate methods—not just the methods that sell to the masses, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Athletes with great corrective exercise routines and poor prime mover strength never succeed in sport. The opposite is often found in the training room or on the surgeon’s table. Be smart and prepare a program that utilizes appropriate methods—not just the methods that sell to the masses. Giving lots of funky exercises is like giving out full candy bars during Halloween—it may make you popular around the block, but it’s not the best practice for your nutrition program. Make sure your shoulder diet follows the same principles as your eating: well-rounded and balanced, with less junk.

My last recommendation with external rotation and scapular retraction exercises is to make sure you work with a very good sports medicine professional who is involved with football, javelin, and other throwing sports, not just baseball. Having a therapist who isn’t afraid to do anything overhead, while having the responsibility for throwing athletes such as quarterbacks and track athletes, has helped us tremendously. Sometimes it’s good to put aside the therapeutic bands and light dumbbells, and load the shoulder group with enough fortitude that it’s actually trained.

Knee Extension

Since I mentioned ACL prevention above, it’s worth noting that we deal with plenty of knee issues and “rehab” at our facility. An absurd number of young athletes start training with general knee pain or are training because of a major knee injury. We know that strength is lacking and that is usually where we start, but general strength is not quite specific enough. We have included a lot more quad strengthening, directly, in our programs and add in sequenced work for using the knee in almost all of our knee pain or injury cases.

We use the #kPulley the most for seated leg extensions and standing terminal knee extensions, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

The two movements we use the most when it comes to the kPulley are seated leg extensions and standing terminal knee extensions (TKE). Both take some practice and setup manipulation, but the eccentric forces you can create using the pulley are invaluable. Specifically, the TKE movement: An athlete can use a little shift or body “English” to get the wheel spinning and then lock down the movement to control the flexion.

Video 5. Eventually, leg machines will grow in popularity, but for now a box works well. In the future, isometric and eccentric workouts will evolve to handle rehabilitation demands even better.

In almost every single “case” of general knee/patella pain we’ve come across, the affected leg has much less strength and control than the “good leg.” It’s probably a case of “chicken or the egg,” but we know that incorporating knee extension work directly before leg training has made a huge impact on our recovery times and long-term knee health success.

Video 6. It takes a while for coaches and athletes to get the handle of this exercise, but EMG biofeedback may help. Basically, the athlete is doing a reverse leg extension and uses the friction of the ground and momentum to challenge the quads.

Respect Momentum Before You Start

Most of the exercises listed use a little body English to overload the eccentric portion of the lift and, in doing so, require a little more focus and attention. There is an associated risk with any exercise that overloads a joint or body movement. With anything that will yield results, risk must be worth the reward.

Some exercises should be done one on one, while other exercises are fine to do without supervision at all when an athlete is highly trained and experienced. Other exercises are sure to be popular with the kPulley, but for our program, we know this list works well. Try each exercise and judge for yourself, as every facility and team training environment is unique enough to warrant you spending the time and thought to decide what is ideal for your situation.

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

Shailah Thornton arrived at Chapin High School as an 18.58 100-meter hurdler—she left Chapin with the second fastest time in school history (14.06) and a bronze medal at the UIL 5A State Meet (14.57). Shailah’s work ethic, focus, and determination were the top factors in her posting such dramatic improvements over the course of two years. They were further evidenced in her breaking her personal best during the indoor 60-meter hurdles (9.09) in her first year at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (West Point).

Over the course of three articles, I’ll discuss Shailah’s practice plans, including drills, skill work, specific hurdle rhythm development, and other factors that led to her improvement. I should also note that many of our hurdlers at Chapin have improved using the same type of skill work and three basic hurdle drills. While the development and skill levels of hurdlers have improved at different rates, the focus of the training program has remained similar throughout. Finally, I’ll address the difference between coaching athletic freaks like Shailah and beginning hurdlers, and how we approach coaching different hurdlers of varying abilities, height, experience, and other factors.

This first article will address instilling speed for the 100/110 meter hurdles and why speed plays such a significant role in the sprint hurdles. As always, there are an infinite number of ways to coach any one event in track and field, but we choose to place a high priority on speed development for the 100/110 hurdles because, despite the barriers, it remains a speed event.

Early in the season, we test an athlete’s fly 10 or fly 30 time to measure absolute speed. Shailah ran a 3.67 timed with Freelap, which demonstrated that she was capable of running a high 12 or low 13 in the 100-meter race. This allowed us to understand that, while she didn’t have speed that would allow her to medal at the Texas state meet, she definitely had the natural speed to be able to three-step between each hurdle. Because of her power, Shailah was also a great accelerator; and because of her athleticism, she developed great hurdle rhythm and coordination.

Last year, I coached a hurdler with a fly 30 time of 3.63, which is faster than Shai, but the hurdler was only able to three-step through eight hurdles because she was only 5-feet tall, and ultimately ran a PR of 15.58. I also coached another hurdler last year who, despite having a slower fly 30 (3.85), ended up with a PR time of 15.35 because she is 5’6” and was able to three-step the entire race.

Speed in the 100/110 Hurdles

Because distance is predetermined in the 100/110 hurdles—including the distance to the first hurdle, distance between each hurdle, and distance to the finish line after clearing the last hurdle—working speed for hurdlers requires a very specific pattern. The first specific hurdle speed drill we try to develop is acceleration to the opening hurdle. Before we even begin to approach the hurdle, we spend a lot of time (twice a week during the general prep phase) working on pure acceleration without a hurdle. As I mentioned in “How to Create a Base of Power and Speed,” we practice acceleration in many forms, but accelerating to the first hurdle is a very specific skill that needs to be practiced early and often throughout the year.

Accelerating to the 1st hurdle is a very specific skill that needs to be practiced early and often, says @mario_gomez81. Share on X

About accelerating to the first hurdle, Boo Schexnayder says: “The hurdle race begins with driving strides. These driving strides are strong steps with less than maximal frequency, and should give the athlete the same sensation one gets when sprinting uphill.” When trying to determine the best accelerating pattern for any hurdler, we spend a lot of time observing proper acceleration mechanics and looking for the most effective setup for the remainder of the race.

The variation of driving/pushing strides is dependent upon the athlete. Shailah pushed out hard for four strides before feeling tall and attacking the hurdle. The 5-foot hurdler pushed for five or even six strides because of her height. There are several tables that show how far each stride should be with proper mechanics, but ultimately the goal is to arrive at step 8, the cut step, between 1.9 and 2.1 meters before the first hurdle with proper acceleration mechanics.

Regarding height difference, Coach Ron Grigg, (Director of Cross Country/Track and Field at Jacksonville University) said, “[The] simple answer is that the shorter the hurdler, the farther away they need to take off in order to raise their center of mass in the correct flight parabola. Conversely, they will land closer to the hurdle they just cleared. It isn’t a significant amount, but there is a difference.”

Video 1. Zoee Huerta eight step acceleration to first hurdle in 2.65. Posted PR 15.58 as senior after a season best of 16.00 as a junior.

Video 2. Shavontee Harris eight step accel to first hurdle in 2.81. Posted PR 15.35 as a junior after posting a season best of 16.74.

For example, Shailah would consistently take off right on the 2-meter mark, while many of the other short hurdlers work on taking off father away. One interesting note to share here is that all of the shorter female hurdlers I have coached tend to overstride by casting their foot and essentially braking all the way to the first. They overstride because they do not think they will arrive close enough to the first hurdle. The overstriding often happens in the later steps to the first hurdle (step 5/6/7), which in turn decreases the velocity of the hurdler.

Wicket Spacing for Hurdlers

Because spacing between each hurdle is predetermined (8.5 meters for females and 9.14 for males) and three-stepping needs to be a learned pattern, we set up wickets with equal spacing when working with hurdlers. For example, the ideal stride length between barriers should be around 1.83 meters (approximately 6 feet) for female hurdlers and 1.94 meters (6’4”/6’5”) for males. Based on height, landing, and technical execution, the stride patterns will obviously differ.

Video 3. Zoee Huerta working on turnover using wickets set at average stride length for hurdler at six feet after acceleration.

Getting athletes to three-step properly and maintain speed is extremely crucial in the #hurdles, says @mario_gomez81. Share on X

However, getting athletes to three-step properly and maintain speed is extremely crucial in the hurdles. Therefore, when working wickets with hurdlers, we often set the wickets progressively up to 6 feet for females and maintain that distance and do the same for males up to 6’4” or so. We treat this as a part-whole-part progression, so that athletes can understand the frequency and speed between hurdles. This establishes the stride pattern needed to three-step between each hurdle. Obviously, the height difference between a hurdle and wicket is significant, but the main purpose for the drill is for the athlete to feel the stride pattern.

In the upcoming articles, I will explain the other three drills our hurdlers use, and why we rarely, if ever, use one-half hurdle drills.

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

In this three-part series, I explore 10 different research questions that I feel sports science could make a big difference by attempting to answer—and in many cases, is close to doing so. In Part 1, the first three questions I explored were:

1. Is a low-carb, high-fat diet effective for athletes?
2. Is caffeine really ergogenic for everyone?
3. Are isometric loading exercises as effective as eccentric loading exercises for hamstring injury prevention?

Obviously, I have my own biases, and some of these areas are from the fields in which I hold a strong interest, but I have tried to cast the net as wide as possible. For each question, I’ve provided:

• A brief review of what we know so far.
• Why it’s important to know more.

My expectation is that, over the next 10 years, we will get closer to more concrete answers in many of these.

What Effect Does the Gut Microbiome Have on Athletic Performance?

The human microbiome—the collection of bacteria across our bodies, but primarily centered within the digestive tract—has been the subject of increased interest over recent years. The gut microbiome has a number of roles to play in the maintenance of optimal health, including the production of nutrients such as vitamin K₂, the neutralization and breakdown of pathogens and carcinogens, and the regulation of the immune system. Even more recently, research has shown that the gut microbiome can influence the levels of brain neurotransmitters such as dopamine, via the gut-brain axis, as well as the control of inflammation and oxidative stress during endurance exercise.

Because our gut microbiome clearly has a host of important roles, both in terms of general health and exercise performance, and is highly modifiable by diet, interest has grown in trying to harness this knowledge as a means to enhance performance. At present, we know that an increased amount of diversity within the gut microbiome is positive; obese people tend to have reduced bacterial diversity compared to lean subjects (and, in mice at least, transplanting the microbiome of a lean individual to an obese one can drive weight loss). Elite athletes also have an increased gut microbial diversity relative to non-athletic subjects (the main drivers of this being an increased amount of exercise, as well as an increased amount of protein intake).

And that, in essence, is where we are now: We know that we want diversity, and we know that consumption of a varied diet and exercise promote that diversity. If we were to test the microbiome of athletes, we likely would struggle to give more in-depth and personalized advice than that, at present. This is why we need additional research in this area; it would be worthwhile to be able to understand how we can utilize the information from a microbiome test to identify key areas for change. This, in turn, should drive performance enhancements.

These changes could be driven through the targeted use of particular bacterial strains through the consumption of probiotics, the recommendation of specific dietary changes, and even—potentially—the modification of training. We already have promising evidence that probiotic use can support immunity within athletes undergoing heavy training, and so further insights in this area should prove worthwhile.

Right now, we’re at the starting line of being able to utilize #gutmicrobiome info within sport, says @craig100m. Share on X

To that end, the main questions I feel need answering within the sporting sphere in regard to the human gut microbiome are:

1. Can we utilize gut microbiome testing to provide specific interventions aimed at improving performance?
2. Do changes in gut microbiome act as markers of overtraining or excessive training load?
3. How does microbiome diversity change across the course of both the training and competitive periods, and can we use this information to target key changes within the microbiome?

As such, I feel that, right now, we’re very much at the starting line of being able to utilize gut microbiome information within sport. We require further developments to drive the field forward and enhance our understanding—which, in turn, will hopefully lead to performance enhancements.

Why Does This Matter?

The human gut microbiome has interested scientists and the general public for a number of years. We know that an increased diversity is important, and we know the basic building blocks of what drives this diversity, but outside of that we struggle to make specific recommendations. By increasing our knowledge in this area, we may be able to use the regular screening of the gut microbiome in athletes to develop personalized recommendations for nutrition and training practices, and use it to serve as a marker of training load.

Can We Develop Real-Time Markers of Exercise Adaptation?

When we set training programs for athletes, we hope to improve their sporting performance, in part by improving their physiological abilities. Therefore, coaches have to set training that provides sufficient stimulus for adaptation to the given exercises to take place, and select exercises that drive the correct adaptations. A second important issue is that of recovery: Coaches must program training so that the sessions promote fatigue, but not too much fatigue that the athlete under-performs at the next training session or competition, or becomes injured. As such, there is a fine balancing act between sufficient workload to drive adaptations and not too much so the athlete becomes overly fatigued and/or injured. This is, of course, difficult.

The development of effective training programs has an additional challenge: It is often hard to determine which adaptations have taken place until weeks or months later. This is due, in part, to the improvements derived from training programs occurring in tiny increments on a session-by-session basis. As a result, coaches and support staff often have to rely on trial and error, selecting sessions and exercises that they think may drive the relevant adaptations and hoping for the best.

However, given that we now know there can be considerable individual variation in response to a training stimulus—both between athletes (i.e., what works for athlete A may not work for athlete B), and in the same athlete across time (i.e., what works for athlete C in year 1 may not work for athlete C in year 2)—selecting these exercises can be difficult. A potential solution may be the development of real-time markers of exercise adaptation; basically, can we develop a test or tests that tell us how well the athlete is adapting to the training stimulus, and indeed whether the specific required adaptations are occurring, in (or close to) real time.

The development of real-time markers of exercise adaptation would lead to more effective training, says @craig100m. Share on X

There are a couple of leading candidates in this area. One is cell-free DNA, which refers to circulating fragments of DNA found within the blood. At rest, small amounts of cfDNA can be found in our blood, but following both acute and chronic physiological stress, the concentration of cfDNA increases rapidly. As exercise represents a source of physiological stress, increases in cfDNA occur following both prolonged endurance exercise and resistance training sessions, as well as following a 12-week training block. Perhaps even more importantly—from a biomarker perspective—cfDNA changes appear proportional to both exercise intensity and duration, and are transient, often returning to baseline with 24 hours, even after highly exhaustive exercise.

In addition, cfDNA may also be a potential marker of fatigue; in a 12-week resistance training program, increases in cfDNA correlated with increases in mean training load within each three-week sub-block, with the highest concentrations associated with a decrease in physical performance. Furthermore, some research has demonstrated that the correlations between cfDNA and rating of perceived exertion (RPE, a subjective—but reliable—marker of training load) are stronger than those for lactate and RPE. It also showed that increases in cfDNA concentrations are greater than any other biomarker, potentially suggesting enhanced sensitivity compared to more traditional biomarkers.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll discuss the prediction of training response; looking at how miRNAs may play a role, with specific miRNAs associated with an increased chance of being a responder to a certain type of training. miRNAs may also act as a useful biomarker of exercise response. For example, a number of studies have demonstrated that specific miRNA concentrations change in response to a single aerobic training session, as well as a longer-term aerobic training program.

Similar to cfDNA, miRNA concentrations appear sensitive to training intensity and duration. Potentially even more important, miRNA concentrations can plateau if there is insufficient training progression, demonstrating miRNA’s potential as a method to monitor training. Finally, the extent of miRNA changes following aerobic training are proportional to the training load, with specific miRNAs associated with post-exercise inflammation—information that may potentially guide recovery techniques.

Alongside miRNA and cfDNA, which appear to offer promise as markers of how well the athlete is adapting to and tolerating a training load, there is the potential that we can measure specific adaptations. There are a number of ways that this may be possible, including measuring the proteins produced by specific genes (proteomics), along with measuring specific epigenetic changes at particular points within a gene. As an example, the body is able to add a type of tag to certain points within DNA, which make that specific region of DNA harder to read. These tags are methyl (-CH₃) chemical groups; hence, this process is termed “methylation.” DNA methylation can potentially be passed from generation to generation, although the majority of methylation markers are transient, and can be added and removed (termed “de-methylation”) according to different stimuli.

One potent stimulus of DNA methylation and de-methylation is exercise. For example, sedentary individuals are far more likely to have methylation markers on a gene called PPARGC1A, which is involved in the promotion of mitochondrial biogenesis—an important aspect of improvements in aerobic fitness. If these sedentary subjects start to exercise more frequently, however, this methyl group gets removed, allowing the subsequent exercise adaptations to occur. This raises the potential for monitoring of specific DNA methylation patterns, which may be indicative of the types of adaptation that are occurring, so that training can be adjusted to target the specific adaptations that are required.

A limitation, at present, is that these tests are likely to be highly invasive. Epigenetic changes, such as methylation, histone modifications, and miRNA concentrations, tend to be tissue-specific. As such, if you want to understand what is occurring in the muscles of your athletes, then you need a muscle tissue sample. You get this through a muscle biopsy—a somewhat invasive procedure that has the potential to cause damage, making its adoption by elite athletes unlikely. Furthermore, cfDNA testing appears to require the collection of blood almost immediately following exercise, which again has practical issues. Ideally, we will be able to develop saliva collection techniques for cfDNA, miRNA, and similar; at present, there are some methylation markers that can be collected via saliva.

Ideally, we will be able to develop saliva collection techniques for cfDNA, miRNA, and similar, says @craig100m. Share on X

Of course, the danger with such an approach is that coaches become over-reliant on the data, seeking to derive specific, very narrow adaptations, such as increases in mitochondrial biogenesis or type-II muscle fiber hypertrophy. While it is tempting to go hunting for these adaptations, training as a whole is often more than the sum of its parts. So, while a different exercise may not drive the specific adaptation required to the same extent, it may enhance competition performance to a greater extent. As such, if these real-time markers of exercise adaptation are developed, then coaches and support staff will need to take a holistic, pragmatic approach to such information, using it to guide their decisions, but not making it the sole basis of what they do.

Why Does This Matter? 

The purpose of training is to enhance performance, and so coaches have to develop training plans that they believe will do so. This can be difficult—if the training load is too high or too low, optimal adaptation will not occur, and injury or fatigue is more likely. As such, if we can develop sensitive, real-time markers that allow us to better understand the impact of specific sessions and training programs on an athlete, then we can make small adjustments to training sessions on the fly, hopefully improving performance to a greater extent.

Can We Use Genetic Testing to Predict Talent?

Let me ask you a question: If, on the day you were born, you moved to Jamaica to live with Usain Bolt, eating the same foods as him, living the same lifestyle, and doing the same training, do you think you would break the 100m World Record? Most people would answer no (I’m always surprised by the people that answer yes), which illustrates something that we all understand: Elite athletes are intrinsically different than “normal” people.

Research tends to back this up, too: A study from 2007 reported that the heritability estimate for being an elite athlete is around 66%, which we can roughly interpret to say that the difference between Usain Bolt (the elite athlete) and your dad (probably not an elite athlete) is approximately two-thirds due to inherited factors, and these factors are primarily (but not exclusively) genetic. More recently, researchers found that your chances of winning an Olympic medal are higher if you have a family member who has already done so.

Interest in this area has led to the identification of a number of genetic variants that appear more common in elite athletes. An example of one of these is ACTN3, with research showing that variation at a particular point in this gene is more common in elite sprinters than non-elite sprinters. This genetic variant in ACTN3 appears to modify muscle fiber type, with the “sprint” version of this gene associated with an increased proportion of type-II fibers, something that is obviously advantageous to elite sprinters. These findings have been well replicated, and ACTN3 may even have an influence on training adaptations, post-exercise recovery, and injury risk, as I explored in a paper back in 2017. There are other genes that have been shown to impact the attainment of elite athlete status, such as ACE and PPARGC1A, but of them all, ACTN3 appears to lead the way.

So, if we know that genetics play a role in the development of elite athlete status, and we know some of the genes that cause this, can we use genetic testing to predict those individuals who will go on to become elite athletes? At present, no—and there are a number of reasons for this.

The first is that the effect of any individual gene is likely quite low. For example, ACTN3, the gene which likely has one of the largest impacts on elite performance, explains roughly 3% of the variance between individuals. This is not an insignificant amount, but it’s also not huge. Secondly, while individuals with a certain version of ACTN3 are more likely to be elite speed-power athletes, roughly 80% of the population of the world have this same genetic variant. As a result, the vast majority of people on this planet with the “sprint” version of this gene are not elite athletes. Furthermore, research has shown that even if you don’t have the “sprint” version of this gene, you can still be a successful athlete (in addition to this study, I know of two Olympic sprinters—one of whom is an Olympic medalist—who do not have the sprint version of this gene).

We don’t know enough about which genes impact the attainment of elite athlete status, says @craig100m. Share on X

This means that we cannot use a single gene to identify future elite athletes, because no single gene exists with the required predictive ability. Instead, a better approach may be to combine a number of genes into an algorithm. There’s a problem here too—we actually don’t know all that many genes that influence the attainment of elite performance. This is a problem common in medical research, whereby researchers know that genetics explains much of the variance between individuals that get a disease and those that don’t due to the heritability estimates gained from previous research. However, at present they have been unable to identify those specific genetic variants; this is termed the “missing heritability problem.”

A great example is that of height: research suggests that genetic variation explains around 80% of the variation in height between individuals. However, while scientists have discovered around 1,185 genetic variants associated with height, these variants “only” explain around 25% of the difference between individuals. This means that the remaining 55% of variance explained by genetics remains uncovered. We see this with elite athlete status: At present, around 155 genetic markers have been identified to contribute to the attainment of elite athlete status. This likely does not explain enough of the variance between athletes to be used in any predictive capacity. (At the time of writing, I have a paper under review testing this in a small sample of elite athletes.)

Right now, then, the main issue is that we don’t know enough about which genes impact the attainment of elite athlete status. In order to improve the predictive ability of genetic tests for talent, we need to discover a lot more. The problem here is that the discovery of new genetic traits associated with elite athlete status is difficult; because the effect size of any single variant is likely to be very small, researchers require very large sample sizes, well in excess of 1,000 subjects.

Now, there aren’t many elite athletes around, so recruiting 1,000 to a study can be very difficult. This issue is hindering research at present. Nevertheless, if additional genes are discovered, my personal belief is that we will (eventually) be able to develop a threshold score for an algorithm that contains all the required genetic variants: a score above this, and the athlete is more likely to become an elite athlete; a score below, and they are less likely.

However, it still will be the case that some, and perhaps most, individuals with a score above this threshold will not become elite athletes, while some of those with scores below this threshold may. As a result, genetic testing for talent identification will likely never be completely predictive, but it may provide more information on which decisions can be based. It may also be used to guide training prescription in the future, as I wrote in a 2017 paper.

Even if we could develop a genetic test for talent, it’s not clear whether we should use it, says @craig100m. Share on X

A secondary issue around this is whether it is ethical to utilize a genetic test for talent, should one ever be developed. A number of prominent researchers in the field have expressed doubts as to whether such an approach is ethically justified, and there are certainly a lot of unanswered questions regarding the use of such tests. Here are a few:

• Can a club compel players to undergo a genetic test?
• What happens if an individual is found to possess a genetic variant associated with disease?
• Would such information be used to further discriminate against the player?

As such, even if we could develop a genetic test for talent, it’s not clear if we should even use it.

Why Does This Matter?

Because identifying the next Cristiano Ronaldo or Usain Bolt at a young age can be hugely profitable for sports clubs, there is an interest in methods that might be utilized to support such an approach. The use of genetic testing to identify future elite athletes is a scenario envisioned by many, and the technology is now available for such a test to take place. However, at present, such a test would not be accurate, and, furthermore, it’s hard to envision how it ever would be.

Additionally, such tests have serious ethical questions surrounding their use, and these would need to be rectified before the tests can even be considered for utilization. However, there is some evidence that genetic information could be used to inform training program design, supplement use, and dietary advice, as well as for managing injury risk. As such, this is an area to potentially keep an eye on in the future, to see how it develops.

Do Sports Supplements Have an Additive Effect, or Is There a Ceiling?

These days, we have a pretty good idea of which supplements have the potential to exert a performance-enhancing effect, or at least don’t negatively affect performance when the dosing is correct. For example, as I’ve explored previously, we can be pretty sure that caffeine is performance-enhancing for most people, most of the time. We can also add to that list common ergogenic aids such as sodium bicarbonate, beetroot juice, beta-alanine, and a handful of others.

Of course, when these ergogenic aids are researched, they are commonly studied in isolation: Give a group of subjects some caffeine tablets to see if their performance improves, and if it does, you can easily isolate what drove that performance enhancement. However, athletes rarely take a performance-enhancing supplement in isolation.

For example, many utilize caffeine-containing energy drinks for their pre-training and competition caffeine kick, and these drinks often come with sugar and taurine, two substances that also have ergogenic effects. Interestingly, a recent meta-analysis on the effects of energy drinks on sporting performance concluded that, as the taurine dose of these drinks increased, so too did the ergogenic effects, while this wasn’t the case for the caffeine dose. Additionally, an endurance athlete might consume both beetroot juice and caffeine separately, but close together in terms of timing, during their pre-race preparation. What we need to better understand—and precious few studies actually examine—is the effect of these ergogenic aids when combined.

We need to better understand the effect of ergogenic aids when they’re combined, says @craig100m. Share on X

When two supplements have a similar mechanism, there is the possibility that taking them together could exert no additional effects. For example, beta-alanine and sodium bicarbonate are both cellular buffers; does taking the maximum ergogenic dose of one mean that any additional intake of the second supplement provides no further effects? Or, because the mechanisms are similar but not the same (e.g., beta alanine is an intracellular buffer, while sodium bicarbonate is an extracellular buffer), does taking both together provide an additional benefit? Could ergogenic aids cancel each other, for example?

Similarly, is there a performance ceiling associated with ergogenic aids? If, for example, the most an athlete can improve with nutritional interventions is 3%, and a single ergogenic aid increases performance by 3%, then do additional ergogenic aids, even those working through separate mechanisms, provide no additional benefits? I’ve seen this covered briefly in a number of papers, including this editorial from Shona Halson and David Martin, but the most comprehensive review I’ve come across on the subject was authored by Louise Burke and published in the journal Sports Medicinein 2017.

In her paper, Burke reported on some of the more common supplement co-ingestion strategies, of which the most commonly studied was that of sodium bicarbonate and beta-alanine. The results showed a wide spread of findings: Some studies reported combined benefits, others no effects, and others negative interactions. In part, this is due to both a low number of studies and a low number of subjects in each study—demonstrating why further research in this sphere would be useful.

The short answer to this question, then, is that we don’t know. And yet, it is clearly important to enhance our understanding in this area, because athletes regularly co-ingest ergogenic aids as a means to enhance performance. We can, and must, better understand these potential interactions in order to drive athletic performance forward.

Why Does This Matter?

While we understand that ergogenic aids—when taken in isolation—enhance performance, athletes very rarely consume these ergogenic aids on their own. Instead, they more commonly consume them in combination with other performance-enhancing nutrients. However, the effect of this co-ingestion of ergogenic aids is poorly understood: The potential is that taking two or more such aids together may further enhance performance through additive mechanisms; have no additional benefit; or lead them to compete with one another, reducing the performance enhancement. This area has been very poorly studied, demonstrating a need for further exploration in the future, and for research to accurately mirror how ergogenic aids are used by athletes in real life.

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

What is a strength and conditioning pragmatist? By definition, pragmatism is an approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. Ideally, every strength and conditioning coach is a pragmatist at heart. Pragmatism is often seen as crude, as it’s minimally abstract. I’m of the opinion, however, that pragmatists often use abstraction to get things to work—it’s the key precept in their approach.

Due to a culture shift, performance “thinkers” often are ossified in their processes via ideologically driven and often dogmatic thinking. The to and fro of ideas can cause a great deal of polarization, personal attacks, sniggering, and taking of sides—it’s a problem that’s present in much discourse covering a range of topics, not just performance coaching and strength and conditioning.

Pragmatic coaches still coach and still get the outcomes they desire. This process incorporates applying objective information, subjective personal experience, and that all too nebulous term “culture.” The aim of the pragmatist lies in outcomes: Does what I implemented work satisfactorily? We can find the meaning of a proposition in the practical consequences of implementing it, and unpractical or unworkable ideas are to be rejected.

Quick Take on Pragmatic Coaches

• A pragmatic coach is a doer, and doers have scars.
• Pragmatic coaches value practice over theory—they value means to produce ends.
• They understand optionality and second-order effects.
• The risk of iatrogenic (harmful) consequences informs their approach.
• They prize precise speech, as good communication is about buy-in, not showing off.
• They are ultimately responsible for managing risk when employing ideas that academics and intellectuals have put forward.

Greeks vs Romans

To borrow an analogy from Nassim Taleb, who often relates lessons from classical antiquity: the Greeks put theory above practice while the Romans put practice above theory (as exemplified by Cato the Elder suggesting that introspective Greek thinkers be expelled from Rome).

In this respect, we must not become enamored by our own ideas, lest they are never actually employed, put into practice, and lastly, challenged. The Romans are considered the ultimate pragmatists in the western tradition; their implementation of what worked arguably built the greatest empire in human history. The Romans understood second-order effects and optionality—the value of additional optional investment opportunities available only after making an initial investment.

Squats

An example is understanding that the time initially invested in building a double bodyweight back squat for most athletes will allow for even greater investment in nuance and particulars further down the line. Despite all the arguments we can make against this investment—including its lack of sports specificity, soreness, and transfer—people still invest in squatting because they understand that its second-order systemic effects benefit athletes over time.

Consider this statement: Squatting may improve systemic strength, which for some may transfer to a potential for a specific application (optionality) of force production through many multivariate physiological effects including all its substrate, mechanistic factors, neurological, and psychological factors (second-order effects). If this seems nebulous, it is. It can keep some people second-guessing while others just get on with it. Pure academics struggle with shades of grey, as the variables of real-world practice don’t appeal to our innate need for categorization and absolutes.

The ability to navigate the nebulous with nuance comes with coaching maturity—and divides people who actually work in the industry from those who just talk about it on Twitter or in academic papers. To quote Brett Bartholomew: “Coaches are holistic problem solvers above all else. The role requires an understanding of social skills, dilemmas, power struggles, and people every bit as much as it does periodization and program design.”

Data and Monitoring

For instance, as highlighted in the Gabbett editorial for British Journal of Sports Medicine, the world of data and monitoring is where sports scientists’ solutions could potentially make performance coaching more difficult, especially when coaches have a preference based on gut feelings—a coach without monitoring systems may be considered a pariah of sorts. To quote Gabbett, “With such a range of monitoring tools available and no agreement on the most appropriate athlete monitoring ‘system,’ it is difficult for practitioners to evaluate the available evidence and develop a process to effectively monitor athletes.”

So what does the coach do to find a suitable monitoring system? Lack of agreement infers that the Greeks in this situation have no clear answer for the Romans. The answer lies somewhere in effectively disseminating existing information, examining the population, monitoring opportunities, resources, and appropriateness. An invasive system makes sense in an elite setting, more so if athletes are residential, but would be inappropriate in a small private setting without readily available resources and time.

Another example comes from my experience working in motorsport—specifically, superbike. There is almost no existing literature on superbike riders, aside from a few instances of injury prevalence and some small-scale research showing “moderate to high physiological strain during practice.” A fact I could have ascertained in simple conversation with the athlete. We know more about the effect of road cyclists following camera motorbikes than we do motorbike riders themselves.

In this situation, we need to look at evidence from the nearest adjacent disciplines: four-wheeled motorsports and non-motorized bike based sports. For instance, we know that weight loss and high-thermic stress due to flame retardant gear is prevalent in all motorsports. But, again, this doesn’t provide enough insight.

I’ve written before about having to base my approach on my personal perception in some of the notes originally included in “Adventures in Physical Preparation for Superbike Riding”:

Often training more like elite endurance athletes. Approach is typified by lack of qualitative strength work, or sporadic inconsistent strength training and usage of “strength circuits” as a sort of catch-all. The culture does seem to be moving towards more qualitative approach however which is great. Wrestling the bike against centrifugal and centripetal force for 30-40 mins requires…wait for it, strength.  Being strong helps with movement efficiency, which in turn reduces both systemic and local fatigue. Stronger riders combined with a good work capacity base will be less tired riders.

So by observing current practice among the athlete population and comparing this to established strength and conditioning theory, we can start building a best practice pragmatic approach.

What Is Real Matters More Than Feel

We all have implicit biases when it comes to how we work. This is natural, and in many cases, an important orienting reflex in any active workplace inundated with a never-ending flow of new and novel information. Guiding principles without the necessary analysis of our thoughts can become ideas we’re shackled to. The colloquialism, “feels over reals,” is the preference for one’s feelings or beliefs over the reality that they contradict.

This speaks to the pragmatic approach that accepting what gets results is more important than emotive ideological possession. It manifests in sport or strength and conditioning coaches alike, who cling doggedly to out-dated or inappropriate precepts, models, or exercises despite constraints making them hard or impossible to implement. In a relativistic world, athletes and coaches believe that what worked for them will work for others—such a structure provides security but excludes openness to change and nuance.

The Golf Swing

Conceptually, I’ve learned “feel vs. real” from golf coaches, philosophers, and essayists alike. I’m often told the greatest illusion or dissonance in golf is found between what you feel and what is real. The practice swings look great (simulation), but the actual swing (reality) doesn’t manifest the desired outcome (shanking the ball rather than driving it down the fairway, for instance). This phenomena occurs a lot in strength sport and strength coaching practice: a movement otherwise feels good for the lift, but it may be mechanically poor, leading to a reduction in the amount of force produced.

Olympic Lifting and Powerlifting

Olympic lifting and powerlifting often embrace the idea of being comfortable with the uncomfortable. At times athletes will complain about good positioning—feeling uncompromising and uncomfortable. The outcome of this good positioning, however, is hopefully what the coach desires.

One pragmatic solution in both instances is brought sharply into focus when we film athlete movement and compare and contrast these clips to the athlete’s performance and models of proper performance by elites in the discipline. The aim here is not mimicry but mindfulness on the athlete’s part to be more aware of technical requirements.

The aim is not mimicry but #mindfulness on the athlete's part to be aware of technical requirements, says @WSWayland. Share on X

This demonstrates how simulated feedback from movement does not lead to the desired result. Or in a strength and conditioning context, the means don’t match the desired ends. In other words, doing what feels good and right over what does good, which brings us to our next subject.

Iatrogenics and Strength and Conditioning

The ugly side of strength and conditioning is summed up by the medical definition of iatrogenic: “Due to the activity of a physician or therapy. For example, an iatrogenic illness is an illness that is caused by a medication or physician.” Iatrogenics within the performance context can be the pursuit of strength, speed, flexibility, etc. to the detriment of overall athletic performance. It’s where being ideologically possessed or inflexible due to emotive, dogmatic, or sophomoric reasons can reap real negative consequences.

Early in my career, I attempted to implement a traditional linear block-type periodization with MMA athletes, working through the typical sequencing of a hypertrophy, strength, power, and speed type. I found this approach was iatrogenic, actually harming athlete performance, pretty much taking three steps forward and two steps back from the standpoint of quality accumulation. From a quality perspective, much of what we’d worked on had eroded by the time of competition.

The model works over long timespans, but for athletes who often only have 8-12 weeks (or less) to prepare, it’s sub-optimal. This experience motivated me to apply the compressed model I outlined in “Applying the Compressed Triphasic Model with MMA Fighters.” The compressed model also encourages the use of supramaximal methods which, under typical circumstances, would be derided for being too tough, too soreness-inducing, and too impactful on technical practice. My experience in its implementation runs counter to this, however.

The “anti-iatrogenic” ideal has an underlying influence in performance culture. The coach who takes things at face value probably perceives that their approach produces their intended results while they see their competition’s approach as iatrogenic. We see this a lot in social media commentary, especially with shared videos and statements that have little to no contextual information.

The “anti-iatrogenic” ideal has an underlying influence in sport performance culture, says @WSWayland. Share on X

For example, Dan Pfaff has stated previously that “movement expression trumps rate of force development. I’ve coached three guys to sub-10-second 100’s who have never lifted weights.” While this seems to contradict my earlier statement about squatting, this is where pragmatism in approach shines—Dan clearly understands when to apply (or in this case not to apply) the appropriate means to achieve desired outcomes. Remember, you can make all the cases for weight training you want (emotive, feel), but three of his athletes still run sub-10’s (real). No one called out Dan’s well-known performance approach for being potentially iatrogenic.

Also, consider the recent example of Chelsea’s football club manager, Maurizio Sarri, and the statement about his athletes “not lifting weights.” It caused spectacular online blowback from strength and conditioning coaches; the assumption was that Sarri was an absolutist who was just a sports coach with no understanding of the iatrogenic effect of his statement, which then led to absolutist responses.

The response should have been “it depends on what you mean by lifting weights,” followed by “it depends on what you mean by not lifting weights,” followed by asking the Chelsea FC performance staff their interpretation of this diktat. Yes it’s nebulous, yes it’s multiple shades of grey, but what we lack from the initial statement is any real nuance. Whether or not Sarri’s approach is iatrogenic or false attribution via subtraction will be seen. At the time of writing, Chelsea remains unbeaten. Absolutists will await their answer.

These overlapping grey areas mean we are seeking sweet spots for progression and attempt, to the best of our knowledge, to keep athletes improving, optimizing, and being robust enough to handle their sports. Sometimes, what you do won’t look like what others expect of you—this is also the nature of being truly pragmatic.

Strength and conditioning coaches, however, make mistakes—and I’m sure early in their careers commit interventions that in fact may hamper performance. Most of the best coaches I’ve met are highly neurotic, self-critical, and thankfully self-correcting. Coaches that fall on the inexperienced-yet-confident end of the Dunning Kruger curve are the ones who will commit such mistakes. And if they repeat them often, they’re clearly consumed by hubris and not working in the private sector.

It’s the role of more senior coaches and mentors to make sure these lessons occur with minimal impact on the coach’s careers but have maximal impact on their development. If you’ve never made such errors, I commend you and wish you well on your unbroken win streak. The rest of us will purposefully agonize to the end of our careers.

 

Constraints and Adaptability

This seems self-explanatory: we all have constraints and we all have to adapt to the athlete, the available resources, and our surroundings. The vast majority of coaches do not get blank cheques or unlimited power within their programs. Consider, however, that many often seek to get the world to move around them rather than learn to take the stoic precept of changing that which can be changed and discarding the immovable. This extends to ideas and presuppositions.

One example is Olympic lifting within a constraint-limited context. For instance, touring golfers who have a risk for wrist issues and use hotel gyms. These gyms have a bevy of issues such as low ceilings, no chalk, bent bars, no bars, no bumpers, and no coach’s eye. Which means I can put all the cleans and snatches into a program I like, but my athletes need to implement derivatives with a can-do attitude when confronted with only a dumbbell rack rather than spin on their heels and hit the hotel bar instead.

When we do have the resources at hand, pragmatic solutions arrive like the European Tour Performance Institute’s truck, which overcomes this issue by offering a performance center on wheels and travels 30,000 km a year.

It’s also a problem with coaches who either compete in or build a culture around a specific strength sport. If expectations aren’t met, an outside effort to protect a universal generalization will be made (see the Sarri debacle)—known as the no true Scotsman fallacy. Consider the statement: If you don’t power lift or Olympic lift or at least have a program containing these, are you really a strength coach?

The hand-supported split squat, for instance, meets the need for intensity in a movement that exists outside of competitive lifting. Split squats have never been contested, so I don’t understand why a hand-supported variant could be considered cheating, something about which I’ve received numerous DMs. Until someone starts a hand-supported split squat competition, I suggest we often need to go outside the ground that strength sports have trodden for so long. Sometimes what you do won’t look like what others expect of you. The hand-supported split squat is merely an adaptation that meets a need.

The real application here is not just being adaptable but also teaching adaptability to athletes and colleagues. Personal adaptability loses its worth if you’ve done nothing but foster co-dependency in athletes.

 

Culture, Communication, and Precise Speech

Coaching is a function of communication; without communication, the coach cannot do their job. Pragmatists need to speak in a fashion that makes their teaching easily understood, interpreted, and disseminated. Gone are the days when coaches were isolated to their specific practice and culture where they only needed to be understood by their most proximal group athletes. Now, sports coaches, administrators, parents, Twitter followers, and athletes all expect coherent communication—the age of social media and increasing transparency from all invested parties is upon us.

Social media has globalized performance training, and we are steadily navigating the cultural waters that come when mixing voices that come from a range of backgrounds. The predominant one is the strength and conditioning Anglosphere where Americans, Brits, Aussies, Canadians, and Kiwi’s make natural friends via a shared language, which is both terrific and terrifying. While academia functions in English, there is much good out there from coaches who don’t have the same reach as the Anglosphere.

For instance, practitioners need to put greater thought into their lexicon, especially when we have scientific language plundered from neurophysiology and even quantum physics. I’ve come across coaches who often use idiosyncratic wordplay or obfuscation when naming things to otherwise disguise simplistic concepts or exercises in nebulous language. I always ask myself “if I can’t understand it, how can their athletes?” Am I speaking merely to make myself seem smarter to my peers to bolster social standing?

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson articulates this well:

“Listen to yourself talk, as if a stranger was talking. Try not to identify too much with what you are saying. Then, observe. See if what you are saying makes you feel stronger physically or weaker. If it makes you feel weaker, stop saying it. Try to reformulate your speech until you can feel the ground under your feet solidifying. Then practice only saying things that make you strong. Stop trying to use your speech to get what you want. Instead, try to articulate what you believe to be true as carefully as possible. Then, accept the outcome.”

As a coach who has always suffered a sense of impostor syndrome due to my introspective nature, I’ve worked hard to say what I mean and mean what I say.

Communication has become more important as I work more with athletes who are non-native speakers. Strength and conditioning uses a language that I sometimes grasp, so how can I communicate this to someone who only speaks on a conversational level?

In a world of DMs and cross-cultural communication, I’ve had to explain my own slang. Share on X

Language and culture are inherently linked, and I’ve said in the past (jokingly) “British coaches need more chest-beating pragmatism and Americans more sports science-based neurotic introspection.” Jokes aside, there is much we can learn from each other culturally. Americans deal in the language of hyperbole, the British in understatement—this can be a minefield in cross-cultural communications. In a world of DMs and easy accessibility, I’ve been guilty of having to explain my own slang. Be casual carefully!

The US enviably does strength and conditioning on a scope that is impressive, with high school strength and conditioning facilities that are often better than many UK elite training centers. Does this assure good outcomes? Not necessarily, but it certainly makes for a fertile training environment. It’s something I’ve spoken about with colleagues from across the Anglosphere as we collectively work to share ideas.

Romans Need Greeks, Greeks Need Romans

Out of all the possible Greek philosophical schools the Roman pragmatists could have chosen, Stoicism seemed to fit the bill. Romans could have embraced Epicureanism (seek modest pleasures to attain a state of tranquillity) or maybe Cynicism (rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame). Neither are particularly appropriate options for running an empire but are options nonetheless.

The point here is practitioners need open-minded intellectuals to put forth propositions, which can then be disseminated and acted upon. Without these types of thinkers, we end up with a utilitarian dulling of possibilities. On the same hand, while we need to test ideas, there is a risk in vapid philosophizing—academic, online, and efamous “experts” transfer the risk of their ideas because they are often not accountable for the practices implemented from the flawed theories they teach.

Practitioners take the calculated risk with implementation, hopefully with careful dissemination of the ideas they are acting upon. Some people manage to operate in both realms, obviously, with the means to assess, propose, implement, and reassess.

It’s difficult, however, for the overburdened strength coach to do. Working with multiple teams in a limited space provides an overwhelming challenge to implement a myoelectric potentiated oscillatory Bolivian cluster restriction training method fresh from the newly minted pdf that a “Twitter famous coach” just released, and not discount all the training aids that come along with it.

The Death and Rebirth of Strength and Conditioning

Strength and conditioning is a fantastic industry at the moment, with the situation shifting as the discipline tries to find the mixture of hard and soft skills that will allow future generations of coaches to do better. Some are quick to declare strength and conditioning dead, that its application is overstated, and the fundamental precepts of strength are DOA. Given statements like Dan’s, this pleases absolutists who seemingly loathe the industry and the notion of conventional strength training.

#Pragmatists are running programs, weight rooms, and gyms all across the world despite contrarians, says @WSWayland. Share on X

Contrarians exist in all industries, and being reflexively contrary on social media seems to be a fashionable choice for some. The thing is, despite these practitioners, the pragmatists are still running programs, weight rooms, and gyms all across the world and won’t stop because a controversy broke out on social media. I make an effort to read the works of strength curmudgeons who live and die by barbell training as much as I read the work of weights-free avant-garde thinkers.

The answer, as always, lies in mediation among many approaches that are appropriate for the group or individual in front of the coach. I’ll quote Stuart Mc Millian, who paraphrased Nassim Taleb, “we often over-estimate our ability to influence the process and determine the outcome—when all we can do is try to influence the distribution of possibilities.”

Again, this returns us to my earlier point about options: invest so that we can build possibility and opportunity. What you can invest in varies and can be discussed ad nausea. To quote another philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius “stop arguing what it means to be a good man and just be one.” Swap man for coach, and you can see what I’m driving at here.

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

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2018) Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. Penguin Books.

Peterson, Jordan B. (2018) 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Penguin Books.

Brearly, M. et al. (2014) “Responses of elite road motorcyclists to racing in tropical conditions: a case study.”International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance.

Wayland, W. (2016) “Adventures in Physical Application in Physical Preparation for Superbike Riding.”

 

By Craig Pickering

Sports science often gets bad press, and I’m not entirely sure why. Recently, Wayne Goldsmith published an article titled “Sports Science: You’ve Still Got it Wrong,” in which he detailed 10 points where he felt sports science was failing. While there were many problems with the article—including the fact that he appeared to be conflating people who do sports science (i.e., sports scientists) with the discipline of sports science—it’s always important to try and take criticisms of your field seriously, especially when they come from the people you want to help: athletes and coaches.

Sports science research can do better in some areas to help athletes & coaches improve performance, says @craig100m. Share on X

Though there were some good rebuttals of the original article, including this from Queensland University of Technology senior lecturer Vince Kelly, the article got me thinking about areas in which sports science research could do better in order to assist athletes and coaches in their quest to enhance performance. In this three-part series, I explore 10 different research questions for which I feel sports science could make a big difference by attempting to answer—and in many cases, is close to doing so. Obviously, I have my own biases, and some of these questions are for the fields in which I hold a strong interest, but I have tried to cast the net as wide as possible. For each question, I’ve provided:

• A brief review of what we know so far.
• Why it’s important to know more.

My expectation is that, over the next 10 years, we will get closer to more concrete answers in many of these.

Is a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet Effective for Athletes?

Though it is often easy to forget, athletes are normal people too, which means that the internet—especially social media—is a major source of information for them. Athletes are always looking for ways to gain an edge over their competitors, and they tend to focus on nutrition because this is often something directly under their control (as opposed to coach-directed training). Plus, they consume food multiple times per day (as opposed to training, which often happens just once or twice per day). Consequently, research demonstrates that athletes are increasingly susceptible to diet fads, something that I can attest to on a personal level, having followed various different diets—including paleo and keto—during my athletic career.

Athletes looking for an edge tend to focus on #nutrition because it’s something they can control, says @craig100m. Share on X

Recently, we’ve seen a rise in “biohacking,” in which both the ketogenic diet and fasting are very popular. Furthermore, many of these biohackers, such as Tim Ferriss and Ben Greenfield, have maneuvered into the athletic performance realm, making athletes even more likely to discover their work. Additionally, Tim Noakes, an acclaimed sports scientist responsible for a number of important breakthroughs within the field, has also fully endorsed a ketogenic-esque diet. Ketogenic diets typically require individuals to consume less than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, which is the equivalent of around 30g of oatmeal. A slightly more relaxed version of the ketogenic diet, which is the type more commonly promoted, is the Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) diet, which tends to be a bit less strict on the upper thresholds of carbohydrate intake, but still requires significant carbohydrate restriction.

A Bit of Theory

During prolonged, lower-intensity exercise (around about 65% or less of VO2max), the body can utilize fat as its main source of energy. This is a good thing, because even a very lean individual has extensive fat stores on their body; more than enough to see them through a marathon or ultra-endurance event. If you consume an LCHF diet, then your body becomes more efficient at utilizing fats at these lower intensities, and potentially even a bit more at higher intensities. This means that (in theory) you could:

1. Exercise for longer; and
2. Do so without having to consume additional energy (i.e., eat or drink) during a competition, which could reduce feelings of gut discomfort.

What we need to remember, however, is that most sporting events don’t give gold medals to the athlete that can exercise for the longest, but to the one that covers a given distance in the shortest amount of time. As such, even elite endurance athletes are required to reach high levels of exercise intensity in their events if they want to win, such as the final sprint seen in most endurance races.

So, in theory, there are certain situations where an LCHF diet may be advantageous. But how does this hold up in practice? Some studies do show an advantage to LCHF diets in a number of populations. Last year, researchers demonstrated that an LCHF diet (and in this case, a ketogenic diet) did not significantly harm performance in a 100km cycle time trial, and improved the participant’s peak power output in the sprint. This study was widely shared as proof of the effectiveness of LCHF/ketogenic diets, but, alas, the analysis was somewhat misleading, as I pointed out in a letter to the editor of the publishing journal. Essentially, the performance benefits were due to decreases in body fat. In a test where performance output is divided by weight, this obviously skews the results—especially for elite athletes, who often don’t have much body fat left to lose.

Other studies have reported a negative effect of an LCHF diet on anaerobic exercise performance (which is to be expected, given the primary energy system utilized); a decrease in training capacity in endurance training (but a decrease in body fat); and poorer strength training adaptations (but reduced body fat). One of the popular criticisms of these studies is that individuals must become adapted to LCHF diets (which is true) before they can realize the benefits, although the exact duration of such an adaptation phase is unclear, with no definitive answer given by LCHF proponents. This leads to my favorite joke of 2017: How long does it take to become fat-adapted? At least one week longer than the time period in the most recent study disproving LCHF for athletes. It must take a long time to become fat-adapted, given that this athlete followed an LCHF diet for 32 weeks, culminating in his worst performances ever.

Analyzing the Research

So far, the majority of research in this area has taken place with non-elite athletes, with the majority of performance improvements, if any, coming from reductions in body fat. Elite athletes are a different kettle of fish, however, and often have little excess body fat to lose. A series of studies from researchers at the Australian Institute of Sport on elite race walkers—exactly the type of athletes you’d expect to get a benefit from LCHF, given the (relatively) low intensity of their event—illustrated this nicely. The LCHF diet led to no improvements in a 10km time trial performance following a three-week training block, while those athletes consuming either a high carbohydrate or periodized carbohydrate diet did see improvements.

As such, for now, it appears that an LCHF diet has little to offer the majority of elite athletes, but may be useful for recreational athletes—particularly if they have higher levels of body fat. There is the potential that some periods of LCHF eating around training sessions, in the form of carbohydrate periodization, may enhance some specific training adaptations, although whether these adaptations manifest as performance improvements is unclear.

For now, #LCHF diets have little to offer most elite athletes, but may help recreational athletes, says @craig100m. Share on X

The best approach for elite athletes may, therefore, be a mixed approach—as suggested in the most sensible paper I’ve seen on the subject. One area where a low carbohydrate diet may potentially be useful is in managing weight (and by this, I mean losing weight fairly quickly) in weight class sports, such as Olympic weightlifting and various combat sports. While we don’t yet have a definitive answer as to the impact of an LCHF diet on elite athlete performance, we are, in my opinion, getting close. However, further research in this area is required to answer the following:

1. 1. After sufficient adaptation to low carbohydrate feeding, are there any performance advantages to elite endurance athletes following an LCHF diet? At present, the fairly limited research suggests no, but the main argument is that this is due to insufficient adaptations.

 

1. 1. After sufficient adaptation to low carbohydrate feeding, are there any performance advantages to elite speed-power athletes following an LCHF diet? Given the energy system requirements of these sports, I would suggest that the answer is almost certainly no, outside of reductions in body fat.

 

1. 1. What is the impact of ketone ester (a supplement that can rapidly mimic the effects of a ketogenic diet) when ingested by elite athletes?

 

1. What is the impact of LCHF diets on training adaptations in elite athletes? At present, the research suggests that some periods of low carbohydrate intake may enhance training adaptations in endurance athletes (although, at present, this is largely theoretical), while other research suggests a prolonged LCHF diet during heavy training may negatively affect immunity, which could be problematic.

Why Does This Matter?

Athletes are always looking for an edge, and they often focus on the trends seen on social media and promoted by biohackers. At present, the use of LCHF appears to be potentially harmful to elite athlete performance, and so by increasing the body of evidence in this area, we will get a better idea of whether an LCHF plan is ever appropriate for elite athletes. We will also see how factors such as athlete event and training status alter the use of LCHF, along with whether and how to utilize periodized nutrition approaches to performance that involve short- and long-term LCHF use.

Is Caffeine Really Ergogenic for Everyone?

Caffeine is one of the most well-established, well-replicated performance-enhancing substances in sport—and the best news of all is that it’s completely legal. Athletes are fully aware of this, which is why roughly 75% utilize caffeine either immediately before or during competition. However, while, on average, caffeine demonstrates performance-enhancing effects across a variety of exercise types, when studies report individual subject data, we tend to see variation in how much performance benefit an individual gets from caffeine.

A famous example of this comes from a study published by Jenkins and colleagues. Here, the researchers gave subjects three different caffeine doses (1, 2, and 3 mg/kg), along with a placebo, and got them to undertake a 15-minute maximum cycle time trial. On average, although there was no performance enhancement from 1 mg/kg of caffeine for the majority of subjects, four of the 13 did show a performance improvement at that dose. Comparatively, while there was, on average, a performance-enhancing effect from 3 mg/kg of caffeine, two subjects performed worse with that caffeine dose than with no caffeine at all, and seven experienced less of a performance benefit than at lower doses of caffeine.

Based on this, and other studies reporting variation in caffeine’s ergogenic effects, it appears that caffeine can have a different effect on different people. This was the subject of a paper I wrote last year, exploring inter-individual variation in caffeine response. One of the factors that may affect how much caffeine enhances performance is an individual’s genotype.

An individual’s genotype is one factor that may affect how much #caffeine enhances their performance, says @craig100m. Share on X

A gene called CYP1A2 determines how quickly you metabolize caffeine; as a result, people are termed “fast” (AA genotype) or “slow” (AC/CC genotype) metabolizers of caffeine. A study from 2012 explored the impact of this gene on the ergogenic effects of caffeine. In this study, the authors got subjects to undertake a 40km cycle time trial under two conditions: with 6 mg/kg of caffeine, or placebo. They found that caffeine had a greater performance-enhancing effect in AA genotypes—improving performance by almost 5%–than C allele carriers, whose performance increased by around 2%.

Since that initial study, there were a handful of others, mainly reporting no effect of that gene. However, these studies tended to be underpowered, which may have made them unable to detect the small changes we would expect this gene to have. Then, earlier this year, a research group from Canada published a large-scale study on 101 athletes, exploring the impact of CYP1A2 on the effects of caffeine in a 10km cycle time trial. This is important because it:

1. Had a sufficiently large sample size to detect the potentially small effects of the gene.
2. Had a decent amount of CC genotypes.

On this second point, most previous studies have combined AC and CC genotypes into the “slow” metabolizers group, in part because the CC genotype is quite rare, occurring in only around 10% of people. With smaller studies, this means that there are often only one or two CC genotypes; this study had eight. The authors utilized two caffeine doses—2 and 4 mg/kg—along with a placebo. The results from the study as a whole were that 4 mg/kg, but not 2 mg/kg, of caffeine improved time trial performance compared to placebo.

What the authors then did was stratify for genotype, with some interesting findings. For AA genotypes (fast metabolizers), both caffeine doses enhanced performance compared to placebo. For AC genotypes, neither caffeine dose improved performance compared to placebo; caffeine appeared to be neutral for these individuals. For CC genotypes, 2 mg/kg of caffeine did not enhance performance compared to placebo, while 4 mg/kg made their performance much worse compared to placebo. These findings, therefore, suggest that for around 10% of the population, higher doses of caffeine (in this case, 4 mg/kg) can be harmful to performance, while for around 40% of the population (the expected frequency of AC genotypes), caffeine potentially has no beneficial effect when compared to placebo.

Since this study, a second paper from an Iranian researcher was published. In this study, the author explored the influence of CYP1A2 and caffeine on resistance training, specifically muscular endurance. The main finding of this study was that 6 mg/kg improved muscular endurance only in AA, and not in AC/CC genotypes (they were grouped together due to a lack of CC genotypes).

These results caused some significant cognitive dissonance for me. I used caffeine a lot during my career, and yet I possess the AC genotype for CYP1A2. Was I just wasting my time? Reflecting on this, I started to question the applicability of both the previous caffeine studies discussed above. What the first researchers found is that 4 mg/kg harmed performance in CC genotypes when consumed ~60 minutes pre-exercise—but what if they consumed either a different dose of caffeine, or the same dose but much earlier prior to exercise?

Time—and new research—will tell whether everyone can get the performance benefits of #caffeine, says @craig100m. Share on X

This potentially makes sense: One of the proposed mechanisms for why slow metabolizers see a reduction in performance is that the downstream metabolites of caffeine are also performance-enhancing; slow metabolizers, therefore, perhaps need longer periods of time to metabolize caffeine to these by-products, and therefore harness their performance-enhancing effects. In a letter to the editor, I proposed this theory, and I know of at least one research group that is seeking to test my hypothesis. Time will tell whether everyone can get the performance benefits of caffeine, or whether, as the current results suggest, for some people, consuming caffeine prior to exercise may well harm performance.

Why Does This Matter?

A very high percentage of athletes consume caffeine, both pre-training and pre-competition. Based on the results of recent research, up to 50% of these athletes may not be getting a performance benefit from caffeine, or worse, may be harming their performance by consuming caffeine. Given that caffeine is a widely utilized, well-established ergogenic aid, uncovering the impact of CYP1A2, along with other genes, on the performance benefits of caffeine has the potential to massively affect performance.

Are Isometric Loading Exercises as Effective as Eccentric Loading Exercises for Hamstring Injury Prevention?

Hamstring strain injuries are very common in sport at all levels. During my career, I suffered serious, season-defining hamstring injuries across four separate years. One of them prematurely curtailed my 2010 competitive season, and another left me facing an uphill, but ultimately successful, battle to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. Research shows that hamstring injuries are common in pretty much every sport that requires high-speed running. During the 2016-2017 Premier League soccer season, for example, 27% of all injuries affected the hamstring muscle group; separate research has shown that hamstring injuries represent the most common form of non-contact injuries in athletics, rugby union, cricket, basketball, Australian Rules football, and American football.

#Hamstring injuries lead to significant costs, as well as an increased future risk of other injuries, says @craig100m. Share on X

Clearly, hamstring injuries are common, but they also exert significant costs. At the elite sport level, even if a player is unavailable to compete, the team often still has to pay him. In individual sports, such as athletics, if you can’t race due to injury, you don’t get paid. But the financial implications are not the only costs of a hamstring injury; previous injury appears to increase the risk of both a future hamstring injury and injuries of other kinds, as well as reducing future physical performance.

As such, over the last 20 years or so, there has been an increased interest in understanding the causes of hamstring injuries. Over the last five years or so, there has been a war declared on hamstring injuries, with numerous research groups exploring different exercise modalities as a means to reduce the risk of such an injury, leading us to have a pretty good understanding of what is going on. When we injure a hamstring muscle during high-speed running, it most commonly occurs during the late swing phase, where our hamstrings act to reduce the forward movement of the lower leg, in preparation for it to be moved forcefully towards ground contact. In general, this process is thought (more on this in a minute) to require an eccentric contraction of the hamstring, where the muscle lengthens under load.

Eccentric contractions are uniquely damaging, as they occur under high loads, forces, and speeds, which can often lead to damage at the z-discs, the areas that delineate each individual portion of a muscle fiber. Indeed, lower levels of eccentric strength have been shown to increase the risk of hamstring injury, and increasing the eccentric strength capabilities of the hamstring reduces the risk of future injury. Additionally, one of the adaptations commonly seen following a period of eccentric loading is an increase in muscle fascicle length, with shorter muscle fascicles a second risk factor for hamstring injury. As such, we can be pretty sure—and indeed, almost certain—that eccentric loading exercises are a useful method to reduce the risk of hamstring injury, which has led to the popularization of exercises such as the Nordic Hamstring and Yo-Yo Hamstring exercises, both of which have demonstrated effectiveness at reducing the rate of hamstring injuries.

We can be pretty sure that #eccentric loading exercises are useful to reduce hamstring injury risk, says @craig100m. Share on X

However, eccentric loading exercises, including Nordics and Yo-Yos, are often associated with increased muscle soreness, which can reduce their uptake. Indeed, even though we know eccentric loading exercises are effective, compliance to them is often poor, which means that they don’t reduce hamstring injuries as much as we might hope.

Over the last couple of years, some research groups have become more interested in the use of isometric loading exercises as a means to reduce hamstring injuries. This school of thought is primarily driven by two researchers from the Netherlands, Frans Bosch and Bas Van Hooren. They suggest that, in actual fact, the hamstring muscle acts isometrically, not eccentrically, during the late swing phase of sprint running. It is very hard to either prove or disprove this theory in humans, because no one has yet been able to develop a method of observing the muscles inside the leg (most likely via ultrasound) during high-speed running.

As a result, most of the evidence underpinning Bosch and Van Hooren’s hypothesis is based on animal studies and predictive modeling—which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong, but it is something to be aware of. Based on their belief that the hamstring muscle acts isometrically, and not eccentrically, during the swing phase of sprint running, Bosch and Van Hooren logically believe that isometric, and not eccentric, loading exercises are likely to be more effective at reducing the risk of hamstring injury. Examples of these types of exercises include the single-leg Roman chair exercise, which has some early evidence demonstrating its effectiveness.

An additional potential advantage of isometrics over eccentrics is that isometric exercises promote much less muscle damage and soreness. Given that one of the main reasons eccentric hamstring exercises are poorly adhered to within sport—and therefore don’t reduce injury prevalence—is due to the high levels of soreness experienced, this makes isometric hamstring exercises a viable alternative.

So far, the evidence underpinning isometric hamstring exercises is limited, especially compared to the high-level evidence, including randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses, supporting the use of eccentric exercises. As such, from a strictly evidence-based perspective, we should be programming eccentric hamstring exercises as a method to reduce hamstring injury rates. However, from a pragmatic standpoint—and remembering that much of real-life coaching and sports science support has to be pragmatic—we have to consider whether isometrics would hold more real-world effectiveness if their uptake and adherence rates were greater, and whether the exercises themselves are effective.

As such, we need studies exploring the use of isometrics, both as a “predictor” of hamstring injury (i.e., is lower isometric hamstring strength associated with an increased risk of hamstring injury, and is this association stronger than with eccentric hamstring strength?), and as a means to reduce hamstring injury prevalence. Additionally—and this will be a major challenge—we need to attempt to better understand whether the hamstring muscle operates isometrically, as Bosch and Van Hooren claim, or eccentrically during the late swing phase of high-speed running.

Finally, if isometric exercises are effective at reducing hamstring strain injuries, we need to view their adherence rates within the real world: Do teams utilizing isometric exercises have greater adherence and, as a result, fewer hamstring injuries than those utilizing eccentric exercises? Getting closer to the answer could have a large impact on the reduction of hamstring injuries, but, in the meantime, it’s probably best to program both into your injury prevention work.

Why Does This Matter?

Because hamstring injuries are so prevalent within sport, researchers have long attempted to understand how to reduce their occurrence. A great body of research suggests that eccentric hamstring exercises reduce the risk of hamstring injuries by increasing eccentric muscle strength and muscle fascicle length. However, recently some researchers have suggested that the hamstrings primarily act isometrically during the late swing phase of running, and as a result, we should be utilizing isometrically focused strength exercises to mitigate the risk of hamstring injury.

#Isometric hamstring exercises tend to cause less soreness, which should increase athlete adherence, says @craig100m. Share on X

This is an attractive option, because isometric hamstring exercises tend to cause less soreness, which will likely increase their adherence. As a result, a better understanding of the real-world effectiveness of isometrics versus eccentrics could have important implications on the risk of hamstring injury.

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 work in the sports industry, chances are you started with a passion for training, either on your own or through your background as an athlete. Whatever the case, turning a passion into a business requires different knowledge and a solid plan of action. Whether you’re a strength coach, a personal trainer, or a gym owner, if you’re in the training business, it’s because you have more than just the passion for it. And it is possible for you to make a living—a profitable living.

I spent my early years as a strength coach trying to define myself and to get any client I could to make a few bucks. It was a rough time, and building a clientele was a difficult process. Opening a gym was always in my mind, and I had a clear image of what my facility would look like. Unfortunately, the financial means to get there always seemed impossible to achieve.

I’ve now been in the business for over 20 years. I went from a personal trainer to strength coach to owner of a high-performance training center. As the last 20 years certainly defined who I am today, it surely also defined how I think about making my training business a profitable one. While I spent my early years dreaming about a gigantic premium facility built a certain way, I quickly realized that optimizing square footage had to be my number one priority.

Since operating costs set the foundation for profits, an entrepreneur must clearly define which type of clientele their business will serve, how to serve them, how many you can serve, and most importantly, how to retain them.

How to Evaluate Equipment Before Deciding to Buy

If I had to start all over, I would certainly do things differently. But since I’m now a business owner looking for profit, I must do things differently. Instead of dreaming of a bigger facility, I’m looking for ways to make more out of my actual square footage without compromising efficiency and quality. In other words, I want to add more equipment and services without compromising what works well already.

As a sports performance facility owner, here are the ten qualities I look for in a piece of equipment before I make a purchase.

1. Who will it serve, and what does it do?
2. Do the end results transfer to client goals?
3. Can it serve multiple types of clientele?
4. Does the equipment do what it claims?
5. How much space does it require?
6. Is it versatile?
7. Will clients benefit from it over a long period of time?
8. Is it durable?
9. Does it require maintenance?
10. How much does it cost?

You may be surprised to see cost listed at the end. The reason is simple. If I give positive answers to all the other questions on the list, the equipment has the potential to generate recurring revenue. Whether we can afford it or not is another question, but knowing a tool can generate recurring revenues also means we can build a business model around it. When you multiply your money-generating tools and optimize them according to how many clients can use them, you will start generating good profits from the tools.

Knowing a tool can generate recurring revenues means we can build a business model around it, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

Keep in mind that the business model of a sports performance facility is very different than a personal training studio or a large surface gym. Nonetheless, optimizing square footage must remain a priority.

In an athletic training-type facility, there are tools essential for making a profit. I mentioned earlier that if I had to do it all over, I would start with a different approach. Here’s what I would do first: based on the ten qualities listed above, I would only pick five tools to start my facility and build from there.

Below are my top five pieces of equipment that are essential to start a facility and generate results for my clients. And yes, profits come from our ability to provide results with the tools we use.

Squat Rack

First on my list is a squat rack. The “cage” is a strength tool that’s evolved extensively over the years. Since working the large muscle groups remains the most efficient way to improve performance and burn calories, it’s a must-have.

Although originally squat racks served a single purpose (developing lower body strength), the newer designs have responded to market demands by becoming much more versatile. Because they now have the capacity to develop both upper body and functional strength and offer multiple models of grip attachments, the cage allows us to target and assess some very specific areas of development. With both athletes and general population clientele, especially beginners, simple gains in strength can produce great results.

What I like the most about these strength gains are the corresponding increases in speed we see with young athletes. If your market is like mine, young athletes will be a major component of your business, and often their parents hesitate when it comes to strength training. With that in mind, I really enjoy flipping the conversation to explain their child will become faster with muscle development. With sports performance, to move quickly you need to be able to produce ground force—and that requires power.

When you’re starting out, the truth is that any rack will do as long as it’s solid. I’ve used different brands, and all get the basic job done. Having been fortunate to play around on different units, however, I can say that my favorite is the rack manufactured by Pendulum Strength. The quick release features and great handles help make for smoother sessions and results.

Dumbbells with Rack

I don’t think the dumbbell needs much of a sales pitch. As old as the cast iron, the bell remains to this day one of the most versatile tools for strength, function, and power. Selectorized (adjustable) ones are good for small facilities. If you refer back to my criteria list, dumbbells make sense in every way and are a must for a new facility. Only your imagination limits their use. Dumbbells are valuable when introducing young athletes to proper squatting form via the goblet squat while allowing experienced athletes to train their smaller stabilizing muscles doing auxiliary lifts.

Although it’s difficult to go wrong when it comes to this tool, remember that upgrades like rubber coating and solid pieces will save you trouble down the line. If you have a choice, avoid dumbbells with rubber grips as they tendto show wear and tear faster than any other component. Iron Grip offers a great product and is widely available.

Speed Development with a Motor-Less Treadmill

As speed is a main focus in a performance facility, we must ask ourselves how we’ll develop this quality and how we’ll measure it. We all know that top speed is very different than acceleration and that capacity to process information can greatly affect speed and power output. As coaches, we must ask ourselves not only how we’ll improve the different aspects of speed, but also how we’re going to measure it.

Ground work is always necessary, but for increased development and quantification, I turn to the motor-less treadmill. I avoid motorized treadmills because I don’t want my athletes only to develop their ability to pick up their legs quickly. Curve treadmills are great when I want my long distance athletes to do tempo, recovery, and endurance runs.

For athletes to make a difference on the field or court, however, I look for explosiveness and acceleration. I chose the HiTrainer because it’s non-motorized and puts the athlete in the drive phase, engaging the core, strengthening the posterior chain, and developing speed. It’s on my priority list because it’s an intelligent, self-propelled treadmill that only requires the space of a regular tread.

The HiTrainer’s measuring capabilities are unmatched in the market, and the versatility allows users to measure a 100m-sprint or push a sled for as long as they can stand it—all in the space of a closet. HiTrainer caters both to the most advanced athlete as well as the young beginner. Knowing you can keep an athlete progressing for years to come based on reliable data also means you can keep the client for the long run.

Our mission is to develop better athletes, and the HiTrainer is a great coaching aid in teaching how to accelerate on the field and how to improve that acceleration. If strength is the foundation of sports performance, speed will take an athlete to the next level. High-level competition is defined by tenths of a second, so we must be able to measure the different components of speed accurately. Top speed, acceleration, speed to deploy peak power, and cognitive speed are all very different, and we must be able to assess them in real time and during a max effort.

I also use the HiTrainer for rehab and return to play protocols. Its force sensors measure a lower limb’s left-right balance in real time as an athlete runs. This one function allows me to cater to a clientele with entirely different needs and can highlight whether an athlete has recovered from an injury.

Athlete Wearable

Increasingly, in sports performance and team facilities and unquestionably on social media, we see coaches invest in wearable measurement tools with varying price points and utility. Wearables are big and on trend as people are looking for ever finer edges over their competition. At a certain point, however, the information available becomes too much and doesn’t help with my decision-making as a coach. Especially in the context of the often lean start-up business, I’ve had to make decisions about whether a tool brought value to the athletes and me. If we don’t measure it, we can’t manage it, but too much data tends to lose meaning.

With that in mind, my athletes all train with Push. I work mostly with power sport athletes who play hockey and football, and a velocity-based approach ensures that we’re getting done what we need to accomplish in the weight room. Anyone can exhaust an athlete—making them better is another matter. Just like I don’t waste time conditioning an athlete for sport-specific demands by working with a HiTrainer, we don’t waste reps.

With power sport athletes, velocity-based measurements ensure we're accomplishing what we need to, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

When our goal is power and we factor in velocity, we can stay away from pure strength development, and I don’t have to watch every rep or guestimate speed. This is important for many reasons, including the demands of the sport my athletes are preparing for. At a certain point, an athlete will be strong enough, but an athlete will never manage to be too powerful.

Foam Plyo Boxes

We mainly use plyo boxes for jumping to develop power and because my athletes enjoy them and find them motivating. Although I do incorporate other uses, my athletes certainly love to jump. Before we get into the specifics, first a note on the boxes themselves—invest in the best ones and you’ll only cry once. While the stackable pyramid boxes save space and are certainly durable, they will be the reason your athletes sign up to be skin donors, as will wooden boxes. Fatigue, inattention, and accidents will inevitably lead your athletes to rip open their shins, and possibly worse.

Purchasing foam boxes eliminates a very real worry for your athletes and allows them to push harder and farther than they otherwise would. The flip side is that some foam boxes can deteriorate quickly and may not stand up to wear like a wooden box or metal pyramid, so make sure you get quality. While I certainly have a few brands I don’t recommend, I will say that I’m currently using PowerSystems Plyo Boxes and that, with two years of heavy use, they still look and perform exactly as they should.

So what do I use boxes for? They’re good for working power and body coordination. And depth jumping and jumping for height are some of my most programmed options. It’s also important to make sure athletes are fresh and don’t tax their CNS heavily before their jumps.

Apart from that, I use the boxes to do single leg squats instead of the usual pistol squats on the ground. These are excellent exercises for strengthening the knee joints, and the ability to execute them consecutively and with proper form reduces the risk of ligament injuries. This is especially important when I’m working with my female soccer players, who have a greater risk of ACL tears. For the same reason, I also focus on proper shock absorption and change of direction exercises.

Building Blocks

Looking at these five tools, I hope you see that the common thread is my original decision criteria. Most of the tools are also focused on the ability to create a solid baseline for our athletes, which leads to a foundation for development. Measure, measure, and measure. Strength is quantifiable, and so is speed in all its different aspects. To retain a client, we must provide them a roadmap with well-established stepping stones. The combination of these five tools allows for that.

Of course there are other great tools out there. But whether you’re a trainer, coach, or facility owner and just getting started, I encourage you to consider these five tools. They can bootstrap a simple facility that produces great athlete results while optimizing space and profit.

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 have the opportunity to work with a number of female athletes at the NCAA Division I level, specifically young women competing in softball, track & field, and rowing. Through this experience, I’ve gained a certain perspective regarding various groups of young women who are incredibly devoted to their sports—in some cases, they are competing at the collegiate level as the culmination of 10-15 years of commitment and dedication to their given event. With regard to rowing, they are often beginning a new athletic endeavor altogether!

All too frequently with these female college athletes, their sport-specific skills are highly developed, but take the glove out of their hand or the spikes off their feet, and the weaknesses in their athletic foundations are quickly exposed. (Many coaches will recognize that these observations are not unique to female competitors, either.)

Can You Learn to Train, Compete, and Win All at Once?

Young women’s athletic careers are often too quickly shunted into being competitive, with little time dedicated to developing fundamental movement skills, foundational strength training, or any sort of structured athletic development outside of sport-specific practice or competition. It’s as if they must constantly prove themselves, and are being tested to see what they can do and how they compare with one another. This leads to games, then tournaments, traveling across the state and across the country, and club season in the summer and fall, with their respective high school season in the winter and spring.

We need to give young female athletes the chance to maximize potential that we do for male athletes, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

From my perspective further down the line, it seems incredibly overwhelming and backwards. From a pre-teen age, we ask these young ladies to compete against one another with a high standard placed on winning, without ever engaging or prioritizing the ancillary pieces to performance enhancement and injury prevention through proper training, development, and education.

Don’t get me wrong—I understand that a sense of team camaraderie and competitiveness can be an important ingredient in this process. But then here on campus arrive 18-year-old young women who have little to no experience with strength training, or with having properly prepared their bodies and minds for the demands of practice, holistic training, and competition.

It may be a chicken-and-egg discussion, but I make this challenge to all parents:

• Are you making the time for your daughter to learn how to train?
• Is she playing other sports or doing other activities besides her primary sport?
• Is she allowed a true off-season?
• Does she have a true “off” day during the week?

As a strength and conditioning coach, I’m obviously partial to the mental fortitude that comes alongside the physical development from learning to squat, deadlift, lunge, press, and pull, with or under a load.

This is not to say that underdeveloped and overspecialized athletes are always the case: School districts often employ certified strength coaches (or contract out to private professionals), while CrossFit, social media, and more have all greatly increased the popularity of strength training and the use of the barbell. This can make a collegiate strength and conditioning coach’s job somewhat easier, smoothing the acclimation process of teaching an athlete how to lift properly and use free weights. (Properly can have different meanings to different people…but that is not the road I want to go down with this article.)

Overall, each individual teenage athlete will fall somewhere across a wide spectrum of experience that must be appreciated when they step on campus. Within the same group of freshmen student-athletes:

• Some may have been involved in structured strength and plyometric training since adolescence with a quality and experience professional;
• Some may have had a physical education class in high school and a football coach that let everyone do the program their football players were doing;
• Some may have been constantly playing their sport(s), traveling to tournaments, and participating in showcases, with a nonstop practice schedule and no commitment to proper or adequate strength training.

Let us focus our attention on that last end of the spectrum, with the athlete that has little to no experience in the weight room. They are possibly a victim of the youth and club sport system that puts a high priority on traveling to compete in tournaments every weekend, limiting the opportunity to dedicate time to enhancing performance potential and mitigating the risk of injury through basic strength training. Or maybe they simply never had the opportunity or encouragement necessary to step into a weight room with proper guidance? In the end, it is definitely not the student-athlete’s fault, as they are at the mercy of their environment and the system. I would encourage youth athletes to enjoy what they do and do a variety of activities (sports, exercises, games, etc.).

Too often there is this standard on competing, winning, and individual accolades. But this process can be very detrimental, because the athlete never puts in the necessary time for training and doesn’t learn to appreciate the work and commitment needed outside of game day. It is the work in the weight room, on the track, and outside the lines of the playing field that provides a foundation of both mental and physical development for a young athlete.

Things are shifting and evolving, but I hope we, as coaches, and especially at the youth level, provide an opportunity for young women to maximize their potential and development much as we do with male athletes playing football, basketball, wrestling, or baseball. A weight room can be a male-dominated environment and can be terrifying and intimidating for a young adolescent, and girls cannot be treated as boys that don’t lift as heavy. Fundamentals may be the same in the movements, but the approach needs to be adapted to the individual and personality.

It is our responsibility to bring guidance, welcoming women into the weight room at an earlier age, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

Science and research have shown that per unit of muscle, potential for strength is equal across genders (women can potentially make greater improvements in strength in the short term) and women can build muscle at similar rates to men¹. We may know this, but young athletes are not reading this research and it is our responsibility to curb these doubts or fallacies and bring guidance, welcoming women into the weight room at an earlier age. Further, the research and encouragement around youth strength training and the benefits, especially for a post pubescent female, are astounding when it comes to performance enhancement and injury prevention³.

Control the Controllable

Regardless of the youth system, as strength and conditioning coaches—especially at the collegiate level—we are left to assess, adapt, and adjust our training philosophy to quickly onboard and maximize the time and efforts of the student-athletes who are our responsibility. An effective coach is one that can rapidly acclimate an inexperienced athlete to the weight room. As Carl Valle wrote in a recent barbell squatting article: “We shouldn’t overcoach, but the blend of teaching and challenging an athlete with tasks is an art worth exploring.” Helping the athletes understand proper technique and educating them on how strength training can impact their ability, durability, work ethic, and commitment—this is the psycho-physical side to training. The physical actions and techniques are important, but more important is the psychological approach to the general process and each training session (and, when it comes down to it, each set and repetition).

Over time, the technical cues, progressions, and programming may become more simplified and more easily understood in the eyes of the strength coach. However, what never gets easier are the personalities and the people, as each individual presents new and unique trials and tribulations. Herein lies the art and science of being a strength coach, where it is challenging, but at the same time incredibly rewarding, to see the growth and maturation of any young student-athlete, male or female.

S&C coaches are responsible for molding not only an athlete’s body, but more importantly their mind, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

There is no recipe for success, and it takes time and effort to slow-cook an athlete to buy into training and simultaneously compete at the NCAA level. When all is said and done, strength and conditioning coaches are responsible for molding not only the body, but more importantly, the mind of the student-athletes they work with. There should be pride taken in how an athlete conducts themselves in the weight room, and the strength coach is the driver of that bus.

Teacher & Coach

Back to our freshman female athlete with zero “weight room” experience. The first responsibility is to meet her at her level with regard to exercise prescription and ability. The proper exercise progressions and regressions that help set her up for success will be a vital piece to building trust and confidence between coach and athlete. She may be intimidated by the barbell, the plates, the larger set of dumbbells—and even though her legs may be strong, her grip is not equivalent yet, so starting small and simple is important.

But even with the simplest exercise, there are still at least a handful of technical cues that need to be understood and appreciated. This is where the coach becomes a teacher, aiding and guiding the focus to keys like posture, foot pressure, and intent on each repetition. In a large team setting, a coach only has one pair of eyes and one voice and cannot actively coach every individual through each repetition. But what a coach can do is simplify the technical cues and set the athlete up for success, teaching her what to remind herself or her teammates to do while performing every exercise.

A coach should identify three standard cues with each exercise:

1. Stance/Setup
2. Grip/Bar Position
3. Bar/Body Action

For example, for a Goblet Squat:

1. Stance: Shoulder width
2. Grip: DB/KB at sternum, with forearms actively squeezing the weight
3. Body Action: Sitting hips between the feet, maintaining an upright posture and full foot pressure

Even simpler than a Goblet Squat, a Counterbalance Squat or Lateral Squat, where the arms extend out from the body and allow the hips to counter backward, keeping the arms parallel to the ground and the torso upright. This exercise is a great way to autocorrect position and action, allowing the coach to assess abilities and limitations with regard to movement quality. The simplest of activities in the weight room can help acclimate athletes and reduce the intimidation factor associated with the space.

Simple activities in the weight room can help acclimate athletes and reduce the intimidation factor, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

’Starting Strength’

The exercise end goals I reference in this article all center around the barbell—in my mind the primary static strength exercises. Multi-joint in nature, they are the “best bang for your buck,” allowing the athlete to handle the heaviest loads and having the tried-and-true greatest return on investment. These are the squats, deadlifts, and presses with a barbell. These lifts do not always start with a barbell (as is the case with squatting), but the barbell is the goal.

This is another nugget I appreciated from Carl’s barbell squatting article—“Heavy training is the ultimate teacher”—and in the progression of athletic development, there will come a time that it becomes a necessary piece. But with heavy barbells comes great responsibility, and what makes these exercises so potent is that if an athlete wants to truly embrace their greatness and reap their benefits, a solid mental and physical approach is necessary. These exercises create the strength and skill needed for an athlete to operate at higher levels with Olympic lifts (cleans, snatches, and jerks), and, ultimately, the ability to create force in other skills and sports.

Crawl, Walk, Run (Progression)

A coach can improve their ability to effectively coach and impact a group by controlling the tempo of each rep. Starting slow can be effective, and this accentuated eccentric focus has training benefits as well, especially for a beginner. This approach improves the neuromuscular connection and provides the mechanical tension necessary to create the desired adaptation and motor learning.

Controlling the eccentric phase of each rep allows the athlete to better feel the positions and actions she is going through: Connecting coaching cues with mindfulness and focus; learning to create tension and stiffness throughout the torso, upper body, and lower body; creating this concentration and appreciation for technique; and focusing not so much on counting repetitions, but on making each rep count. This is the first step toward developing maturity in training, instilling diligence and treating each multi-joint exercise as a skill—not to mention it also helps prevent putting too much load on the bar too soon.

Any variation of tempo, such as pausing prior to the concentric action, can be valuable. It continues to challenge the athlete and provide variety, and is all part of the pursuit of mastery in building a wide base of physical and mental understanding for a specific exercise.

I rarely say never, but I never promote an accentuated concentric action, as there are no benefits and it can confuse the athlete as to what the goal is regarding moving the load. There are always exceptions, and there may be a time that the athlete needs to go slower on the way up to build confidence and establish control, but I am not going to be the one to control or limit that. Let the athlete develop a sense of overcoming gravity on their own. When the time is right and in the effort of progression, add velocity-focused training after technical mastery and rudimentary strength is established. This can be very valuable, since it promotes intent, provides immediate feedback, and can be a way to take focus off of load and facilitate competition through moving moderate loads aggressively between teammates. But as I said, when the time is right…

Another way to increase use with a barbell while governing the load is to prescribe some sort of barbell complex (three to five different exercises performed consecutively without putting the barbell down).

Barbell Complex– RDL, Hang Clean High Pull, Hang Clean, Front Squat x2 – five each

This can be used as a warm-up at the beginning of a session or cool-down activity to help establish technique. At the end of the session, things can often be incredibly productive as minds and bodies are their most alert and mobile for this type of work.

Never Sacrifice Technique for the Weight on the Bar

Technique is always the priority, for safety purposes as well as the discipline and accountability piece mentioned earlier. We never want to fool ourselves or the athletes we work with into thinking they are getting stronger by increasing loads at the expense of either shorter ranges of motion, or sloppy technique. This is when we are driven by ego, and chasing numbers rather than focusing on the “Learn to Train” phase of development. Competition can be a great thing, but check your ego at the door and focus on the progress, not the performance under the bar.

Focus on progress, maintain perspective, and above all, stay true to the technique, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

For beginners, things will happen and progress quickly, and it is often too easy to bite off more than they can chew. Use your experience, knowledge, and maturity as a coach to help keep the reigns tight on these young and excited minds. Maintain perspective and stay true to the technique. Instilling this patience and appreciation will pay dividends, and most importantly, when the athlete trains away from your supervision they will have their concentration and effort in the right place.

As the basic technical cues are understood and loads begin to increase, there can be layers of technical cues that need to be added. The stance, grip, and body action that got them started will always remain, and you should work to connect consistencies to any and every exercise or sport-specific skill. As the loads begin to challenge posture and the position of the joints and spine, this is where we add in advanced components of bracing and positioning that initially happened on their own, but now need additional cuing and regard. This can be a focus on engaging or using the upper back, head/chin position, in maintaining a neutral neck, or position and focus on knuckles, wrists, and elbows. All are potentially one-inch adjustments that have incredible return on safety and performance in the respective lift.

Further, the use of diaphragmatic breathing and the Valsalva maneuver can also be learned during this time and should flow well, as philosophically the use and cuing of breathing through the diaphragm happens concurrently in warm-up, corrective, or torso exercises as well. This is in effort to avoid the use of a belt and to promote proper bracing. It may be a philosophical opinion, but I am not one to encourage wrapping a belt around an athlete to help them handle a heavier load. In the end, we want to progressively load and this is a technique and means to accomplish that which will have greater transfer to their sport (where they will not be wearing a belt either)—empowering the athlete from within to transfer strength and power from the lower body to and through the torso and upper body/barbell.

I measure my impact on athletes on the way they conduct themselves without my instruction, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

Ultimately, each set and every rep is a tuning process, developing physical proficiency as well as mental fortitude. Identify two to three cues that the athlete understands, and implement these as she sets up under or on the bar and attacks the set mentally and physically. This is training: the practice and rehearsal of a task that challenges the individual and helps facilitate change. In order for that change to stick, there has to be mental engagement. This is the “teaching” and “challenging” side to coaching that must be instilled in athletes. I measure my impact on athletes on the way they conduct themselves without my instruction and take great pride in how they operate and conduct themselves in a weight room.

Progress Is a Process

Strength and conditioning coaches have the opportunity to not only improve performance and physical output, but—more important and more impactful—the molding of the athlete’s mindset and approach to training. There is so much to be gained from strength training, and the barbell will never lie. Training, like life, is a place where you cannot cut corners, and the greater the investment, the greater the return. The investment is not measured in how much you do, but rather in the focus you do it with: “train smarter, not harder.”

As an athlete learns to train, it is the responsibility of the coach to encourage patience and a focus on progress over time, taking away the focus on load. Again, dipping to the “art” of coaching versus the science, but building trust with the athlete allows them to gain confidence in their preparation. When an athlete sees steady progress with the barbell, in their body, and on the field, then they will continue to become more mentally engaged in the process.

Progress with a Purpose

Once technique is established and the periodization of training ensues, a layer that helps to promote progress with our athletes is to give them purpose in how to load. I generalize my weeks of training into four categories:

1. Base: This is the introduction of the exercises and a feeling out for what loads can be handled.

• During this session, the athlete focuses on establishing technique as well as challenging reps per set, setting an understanding for the weeks ahead regarding how much she can handle.

2. Volume: This is where we stabilize the weights used in the base week and look to increase the amount of work being done.

• This is another opportunity to potentially add the RPE layer of training.
• Help the athlete understand Rate of Perceived Exertion, as during this week RPEs should be roughly an 8 (2-3 reps left in the tank, nothing to failure).

3. Intensity: This is where the athlete looks to increase the weights used and volume (sets or reps) decreases.

• Coaches need to pay the most attention here, keeping egos at the door and continuing to promote technique as the priority.
• Reinforcing the RPE concept, we can start to explain and understand RPEs of 9-10. 

4. Unload: Intensity is generally maintained during this week, but volumes (usually reps) are very low.

• This serves as a way to stabilize the intensity of the bar and gain confidence operating with the newfound loads and abilities from the previous session.
• As a coach, watch the speed and technique, and reinforce that the RPEs should be in the 6-8 range. Combine telling the athlete with allowing the athlete to feel and tell you how they would rate the sets they perform.

It is such a beautiful process as it unfolds and the athlete (female or not) comes into the room with an established understanding of proper technique, and knows how to appropriately apply that technique and balance the workload as it fits into the holistic picture of their sport, season, and development.

Facilitating Engagement

As much as the focus has been on molding the mind of the individual athlete, much of what we do in sport is team-related and team-focused. To be effective coaches, we must also facilitate the engagement, conversation, and interaction of our student-athletes during a session. What they are doing is difficult, and often not the most enjoyable (early mornings, at the end of a hard practice, etc.). The best way to not simply get through, but to truly get better, is to support one another. Hold each other accountable to the techniques everyone is collectively learning, ask questions, provide feedback, and be encouraging for each rep and set.

There needs to be an understanding that the time is now, and in order to truly benefit from the training, there needs to be an urgency, purpose, and motivation through the process. This does not mean that loud music, yelling, screaming, and slapping each other is the answer. But just as any artist would approach their craft, things need to be methodical. An effective coach helps the athlete and team navigate this system and approach, which can be done in part by leaning on the veterans and upperclassmen of the group to help continue the standard and on-board the freshmen.

The athletes I work with are technicians with the barbell, and I work to help the athletes develop a routine and checklist for how they begin each set and perform each rep. Even in the lighter/warm-up sets, no matter the week or session, there is an “act as if” mentality. So, psychologically, when the athlete begins to handle loads that are 85%+ their 1RM, they already have the mental maturity for how to operate and what to think about, and they are set up for success and progress.

More than telling athletes they should care, create an environment that makes them wantto care, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

There is a mental switch that gets flipped as soon as they grip the bar, and a focus that carries over into their sport and life. It is much more than simply telling them they should care, it is creating an environment that makes them want to care. They care because they see the results of others before them, they see their own results, and they have dreams and goals of success. Help them unlock their potential and aid in the maturation process from learning to train to training to win.

Timing Is Everything

The primary piece to be understood is that this is not a recipe where you can simply mix all the ingredients together at once and have everything come out of the oven as you envisioned. We must add each ingredient at the right time and in the right way to get the product and reaction we wish. This is where the art of coaching outweighs the science, and is what truly makes a coach effective in their craft. The best training program is the one that athletes believe in. The psychological feeds the physical—the greater their investment, the greater the return.

The best training program is the one that athletes believe in, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

A coach must first know where they are going: meaning, what exercises they ultimately want to get to and what qualities they want to develop. Use the proper exercise regression that allows progression to the barbell exercises you are working towards. Establish technique and continue to add layers of understanding and mastery as the confidence of the female athletes increase, along with the weight on the bar and in their hands. Show them the transfer of training as performance in other areas begins to grow (speed, vertical jump, etc.); develop their trust and buy-in. Make them feel as welcome and important as their male counterparts.

Ultimately, give them purpose and ownership of the process as they fully engage both mentally and physically with their time and efforts. We are not looking to create weightlifters or powerlifters in this process, but we are developing values and skills that they can implement in all areas of their life. Iron sharpening iron, tough and 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

References

1. Best Strength Training Articles – Stronger By Science

2. Long-Term Athlete Development Framework, Sport For Life Canada.

3. NSCA Position Paper: The Squat Exercise in Athletic Conditioning: A Position Statement and Review of the Literature National Strength & Conditioning Association Journal – 1991

Aspiring athletes between the ages of 5 and 12 need to be exposed to and perfect a wide variety of movement challenges in order to develop effective coordination and movement skills. Proper coordination and mobility—and the joy in executing these in a free-flowing, creative environment—set the foundation for learning more complex sports skills later on. As author Jozef Drabik puts it: “…without good coordination the full motor potential of a person cannot be realized. Mastery of sports technique is impossible without good movement coordination.”

A common complaint among sport coaches today is that many young athletes lack fundamental coordination and movement skills. These traits were found in abundance years ago, when children were more likely to play outdoors, compete in multiple sports, and have access to physical education class more than once a week. Children today spend most of their school days seated in a classroom, while their free time is also often sedentary as well: Fortnight, anyone?! Even those who do actively participate in sports tend to be heavily involved in playing one sport year-round.

All this #specialized practice in one sport should lead to a generation of superstars, but it hasn’t, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

Over the last 20 years, there has been a push in youth sports to spend any and all available practice time on developing specific sport skills at the expense of developing all-around athleticism. You would think that, with all this specialized practice in one sport, we would be seeing a generation of superstars. In fact, it’s just the opposite: Injury and burnout rates are at an all-time high.

Proper general movement training can go a long way toward helping improve overall athleticism. Movement sessions for children should be fun, engaging, challenging, and most importantly, semi-organized. Between school and sports, children spend their entire day in an organized setting being constantly told what to do. A good training program will let young athletes develop their own style of movement to be able to solve movement problems in their own unique way. Children develop this movement sense by practicing, exploring movement, and trying things out.

Back to the Basics: Educational Gymnastics

In my experience, the implementation of basic gymnastic exercises can greatly enhance a developing athlete’s all-around movement skills. As mentioned earlier, the best age to implement these types of exercises is between 5 and 13, with the most sensitive periods from the ages of 6-11. The exercises involved ask the entire body—fingers to toes—to move in a coordinated manner, defy gravity, and, in turn, develop a number of fitness- and skill-related components like flexibility, strength, balance, and coordination. They explore the basic foundational positions of squat, lunge, step, supine, prone reaching, and rotation. With a little creativity, these movements can allow for unique movement challenges in multiple planes, levels, and directions.

Training for a sport doesn’t always have to look like that sport, and kids appreciate fun movements, says @JeremyFrisch #LTAD. Share on X

Training for a sport doesn’t always have to look like that sport. For example, climbing on monkey bars is not only fun for kids, but it develops a tremendous amount of shoulder/arm/grip strength that can carry over into sports that involve throwing, catching, blocking, and tackling. When it comes to training youth athletes, the following are some of my go-to ideas for all-around athletic development.

Basic gymnastic exercises can be broken down into the following subsets:

• Animal Movement
• Rolling and Tumbling
• Jumping and Landing

Bear and Crab Series

1. Bear series
   • Bear one-arm reach
   • Bear opposite arm leg reach
   • Bear rotate

Video 1. Bear series exercises.

2. Crab series
   • Crab one-arm reach
   • Crab cross
   • Crab rotate

Video 2. Crab series exercises.

We often do this series as a challenging warm-up activity. The benefits of the Bear and Crab Series include:

•  Static and dynamic balance
•  Trunk stability
•  Strength development through the hands/arms/shoulders
•  Mobility through the hips and thoracic spine

The sequence follows one-arm, opposite arm and leg, and then a rotational component with each exercise increasing in difficulty. This could benefit almost any developing athlete. When training youth baseball players, for example, this series can improve shoulder function and build strength and rotation through the trunk and core, which aids both throwing and hitting. For youth soccer players, these same qualities mean better coordination of the arms and legs, which translates into better sprinting and cutting efficiency. It takes tremendous effort to balance and maintain position on three and two points of contact. This is the reason the series starts with simple holds in a static position for a short period of time, and then moves on to more dynamic movements.

Rolling/Tumbling Series

3. Rolling/Tumbling series
• Forward shoulder roll
• Back shoulder roll
• Star roll
• Butt roll

Video 3. Rolling/Tumbling series exercises.

Very young children love to do somersaults and other tumbling actions. It’s the perfect opportunity for them to explore their environment and learn how to control their bodies. For some reason, as we get older we stop doing these movements, which is not a great idea. As we grow taller and heavier, our center of gravity and base of support change significantly from early childhood.

During growth spurts, children’s balancing abilities can often be negatively affected for a short period of time. Out of nowhere, kids can suddenly seem clumsy and uncoordinated. An easy ground ball at shortstop one season is suddenly a bit more challenging the next season because the athlete grew two inches over the winter. The athlete has never explored that new range of motion in different movements and scenarios, and will need time to adjust. This is why general movement training is so effective for the developing athlete, because even as the athlete is growing rapidly, they continue to develop their spatial skills at the same time.

Maintaining #tumbling skills can positively affect body awareness and control during growth spurts, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

Keeping up with tumbling skills can positively affect body awareness and control through those times. This is very important for young athletes who play sports like football, soccer, hockey, and wrestling. Those sports obviously have moments where the athletes will find themselves moving through the air and falling on the ground in awkward positions. Knowing how to fall, land, and recover is not only important for performance, but also for injury prevention.

Jumping and Landing

In field and court sports, having the ability to start, stop, turn the hips, and change direction is paramount to being successful. It requires a pair of strong legs and mobile hips to be able to get into the right positions to move efficiently. Many young athletes have decent sport-specific skills, but fall behind or get injured because they simply never developed a foundational level of upper and lower body strength, hip range of motion, and trunk stability.

Luckily, it doesn’t take fancy exercises or a million-dollar training facility to remedy this issue. As a young coach, I often found myself training youth sports teams in gymnasiums, outdoor fields, and empty hallways. With minimal equipment, I had to come up with ways to improve strength that produced results. Working on jumping and landing skills is a great way to train the lower body for the demands of sports. It’s cheap, easy to implement, and something many children like to do from a very young age.

Children, by their very nature, love jumping. For most kids, jumping skills develop naturally though a wide range of movement experiences, games, and sports. Children crave challenges and by exploring different jumping activities, children will naturally take chances and have fun in the process. For older athletes, jumping and plyometrics have been a staple in performance enhancement for decades. This is why I find jump training so beneficial—it can be implemented at all levels and ages of sports performance training.

Jumping is broken down into five different categories, although as you will see in the video, a coach is only limited by their creativity and imagination. When you add simple tools like boxes, hurdles, and trampolines, the amount of variation is endless.

The five jumps are:

• Two-foot takeoff, two-foot landing
• Two-foot takeoff, one-foot landing
• One-foot takeoff, two-foot landing
• One-foot takeoff, opposite foot landing (aka leap)
• One-foot takeoff, same foot landing (aka hop)

When it comes to jump training, many coaches follow a series of progressions, with increasing difficulty depending on the exercise. Although that is a perfectly fine method of training, our method of jumping is a bit more experimental. Instead of following a fixed number of reps and sets and training days devoted to one exercise, we constantly change exercises and add different parts to each exercise. For example, instead of just a two-footed vertical jump, we may throw a medicine ball catch in the air, followed by a single-leg landing. For young athletes, the more variation that can be added to each exercise, the bigger the potential to expand their overall movement skill set.

Video 4. Jumping and landing exercises.

Learning to Play

Children learn best when they are allowed to figure things out by themselves. When I was a kid, my friends and I never counted how many times we climbed a tree or raced each other down the street (sets and reps). I simply went outside and played. We raced, chased, wrestled, biked, climbed, and swam ourselves to exhaustion. These play sessions not only made us tired, but developed movement skills that we carried forward with us in sports and life. If sports are a complex problem-solving activity, then early movement experiences are the ABC’s and 123’s needed to solve those problems.

Kids need #play sessions to develop the movement skills they carry forward in sports and life, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

Exposure to a wide variety of movement is key for all-around athletic development. Good coordination and movement skills are the basis to developing an athlete’s full potential in any sport. The lack of fundamental movement skills in our current youth has been brought on by the decline of outdoor play and multiple sports play, and diminishing physical education time paired with longer periods of sedentary, seated time. This, in fact, is why I find my passion in training these young athletes. It is my mission to bring back these basic movements that once flooded our courts and fields with superior athleticism.

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