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A subjective wellness questionnaire serves as the epicenter for successful performance monitoring during competition, enhances the reflective and educational process of the interactions of recovery and performance, and informs the proper training dosage for each athlete. Ultimately, this allows us to apply individual, minimal effective training doses confidently with improved trust and devotion.

Periodization and planning may be linear in concept, design, and theory, but life and training are far from that with their constant fluctuations and reactions to the world around us. Proper monitoring allows a practitioner to adapt the training to the athlete. And accounting for their ongoing, day-to-day and week-to-week instabilities encourages continued progress and a successful training experience.

The only way we can adapt the training to the athlete is to understand where the athlete is and what they’re enduring physically and psychologically. Carl Valle’s recent article “Monitoring Athletes – What You Should Know Today” provides an excellent synopsis on monitoring athletes as a whole—what it means, why we as practitioners do it, where it fits for each performance team member, and how to balance a program without getting discouraged immediately. If you have yet to read it, it’s a definite must-read.

Another great piece that gets the wheels turning is the Sports Science Roundtable by Daniel Martinez “The Effect of Monitoring on the Training Process.” As usual, focusing on consistencies and drawing parallels rather than pitting parties against one another regarding who is right and who is wrong is a productive way to learn and gather information on the subject, allowing you to form your own plan of action and implementation.

Most general training questions provoke the answer “it depends,” and decisions and actions are made based upon a summation of details and nuances. What works for one may not work for another, but the more we can share our insights to help simplify and provide a head start, the greater and more effective training interventions and productivity we will have.

A subjective questionnaire at any level truly is your entry point into athlete #monitoring, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

Among the gems of Carl’s monitoring strategies is that a daily subjective questionnaire is vital. I couldn’t agree more. In the pyramid of monitoring strategies, a subjective questionnaire at any level truly is your entry point into athlete monitoring. It provides incredibly valuable data that can empower all parties involved and help efficiency and effectiveness all the way from training microcycles to mesocycles.

I’m not going to dive deeper into why you should monitor and the benefits, but I am going to expand on some simple strategic approaches to successfully implement a questionnaire in your training environment. It’s a process I’ve struggled with, reflected upon, and found success with that I want to share.

Know Your Audience

“People make time for the things that are really important to them.”—Mandy Hale

With the benefits of modern technology, millennials and Generation Z communicate with methods that are quick, easy, and usually electronic. Smartphones are bedside, and an immediate response is rarely more than an arm’s length away. Likewise, technology allows automated questionnaires we can send to these smartphones. A series of questions or markers allows athletes to designate a numerical value based on a sliding scale of metrics, reporting their subjective feelings and creating objective data.

Fatigue, for example, can be reported and objectified, ranging from an alarming 1 (severe fatigue) up to a “cocked, locked, and ready to rock!” 5 (zero fatigue), as well as anywhere in between 2 to 4. Deciding which markers are important is an organic process and completely depends on your situation and particular athletes. But as with most assessments and monitoring, pick something that is sensible (Dr. Matt Jordan offers relevant insight), repeatable, and reliable. The more consistent you can be with your measurement, the better your data will be regarding quality and comparability.

Choose Your Starting Point

The following markers give a good foundation from which to start and allow you to identify the psycho-physiological readiness point for an athlete on a given day:

• sleep quality and duration
• fatigue
• stress

The secondary level of markers would include a deeper dive into quantifying and rating nutrition as well as identifying physical readiness in terms of soreness.

All of this stems from consistent compliance with filling out the questionnaires. With consistency, you can see trends and understand an individual’s recovery process after a specific session or competition while also gauging where an entire team is based on a general sense of feeling outside of the training environment.

But, as Carl said, the athlete is “the most central person involved,” and the only way for this vital monitoring tool to be effective is for the athlete to truly buy-in to its value and understand that the information—although very simple—is incredibly profound and useful. The data allows us to visualize the linear connection from one day to the next, hopefully creating a wave of highs and lows (days of “ready to perform” versus days of “ready to rest”), and mitigating a downward trend of insurmountable fatigue, stress, and maladaptation.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

As practitioners, we’re often guilty of getting far more excited about annual plans, training blocks, and monitoring strategies than our athletes do, which leads us down a path of despair, frustration, and resentment. Questionnaires go out and land on deaf ears. Rather than having a boomerang of actionable information returning to alert us to a problem or give us feedback to help guide the day’s training, we’re stuck playing Frisbee by ourselves. We throw out the questions but never get anything in return. But this is athletics—meaning teamwork is essential—and great teamwork starts with great leadership.

To win buy-in, adherence, and commitment from the student-athlete, the product we’re selling must be a good one. What makes a good subjective questionnaire?

• It’s practical and user friendly³
• It has feedback and understanding³

Practical and User-Friendly

First and foremost, the questionnaire itself must be user-friendly and not burdensome to the athlete. It cannot interfere with a morning routine or have a lag time when loading or connecting. Even a minuscule delay has a profound effect.

“Latency matters. Amazon found every 100ms of latency cost them 1% in sales. Google found an extra .5 seconds in search page generation-time dropped traffic by 20%. A broker could lose $4 million in revenues per millisecond if their electronic trading platform is 5 milliseconds behind the competition.

The Amazon results were reported by Greg Linden in his presentation Make Data Useful. In one of Greg’s slides, Google VP Marissa Mayer, in reference to the Google results, is quoted as saying “Users really respond to speed.” And everyone wants responsive users. Ka-ching! People hate waiting and they’re repulsed by seemingly small delays.”¹

Feedback and Understanding

Once the submission process is seamless and the athlete has taken the bait, to truly reel them in, we must provide a verifiable response to set the hook. Action must be taken, which can be as simple as a remark or something noted or a follow-up question proving we took time to look at the response. These comments are golden nuggets that go a long way in building the buy-in bridge between coach and athlete.

• “Based on the questionnaires today…”
• “I noticed a lot of fatigue from yesterday’s workout, therefore…”

Something has to be done or said about the data. Bring value to the numbers, and bring value to the time the athlete spent to respond. This gets the ball rolling with compliance.

What’s Next?

The law of diminishing returns sets in, and the golden nugget comments become stale and unprofitable. We need to take further action, and understanding of the process needs to ensue.

Complete the feedback loop and help athletes respect and understand the process.²Are they overly fatigued when they should not be? Are they struggling to manage stress outside of training? Is sleep limiting their performance? Help connect the dots and compare the line of poor sleep and high fatigue with poor ground contact times, RSI-mod’s, or potentially even sprint times. Combine their subjectively objective measures with other reliable objective measures.

What Not to Do

Through this process, the fishing line can snap in an instant if you pull too much, and you need to manage the first face-to-face interaction of the day appropriately. One way to kill the trust you’re building with the athlete’s compliance is to ask the athlete verbally “How are you feeling?”²

This generation of athletes communicates electronically, and this must be acknowledged and appreciated. If you ask an athlete this question verbally when you first see them, it completely negates the time and effort they put into filling out the questionnaire earlier in the day. Instead, this is the time to offer the nuggets of information from what you noticed or comment on the prior training session or competition to show you’re invested in their holistic picture and training load.

Build Accountability and Trust

In the midst of all this, make sure you, as a practitioner, hold yourself accountable and continue to watch, track, and interpret these responses. It takes time, and it is not automatic. The athlete has to build a habit, and building this kind of habit requires someone to be there encouraging, motivating, and helping them along the way. This does not mean punishment (“consequences for non-adherence were negatively viewed”). There are always excuses and deeper context (potentially), and if the consequences cannot be applied regularly, the athletes will see through that in a heartbeat.²

Ensure athletes know the information they give in a questionnaire will not be used against them, says @Cody__Roberts. Share on X

Also take steps to ensure the athletes know their information will not be incriminating. It cannot and should not be used against them in any way, but rather used as a reflection opportunity to improve lifestyle factors outside of training that’s directly related to performance. If the athlete simply tells the coach or practitioner what they want to hear, nothing productive will come from this experience, and it will likely end in poor adherence and data collection.

The Snow Ball is Growing: Education and Awareness

By staying on the right path, a flood of great things ensues as the athletes are empowered and feel like they have some say in what’s happening on a daily basis. Teamwork makes the dream work, and they become more invested and engaged in the process.

They learn to manage stress outside of training because the training itself is not such a psychological pit of despair, and they begin to prioritize their sleep habits as they see the connection between sleep, recovery, and fatigue. The athlete begins to mature and appreciate the 24-hour commitment required to be a holistically committed athlete. This can serve as a bedrock for the coach-athlete relationship, and both sides can communicate about the training plan and process of managing load and response.

Discussions, both informal and formal, can be had with an athlete and performance team as information is shared, visualized, and correlated with other performance results or simply the coach’s subjective report² (foreshadowing to the next stage).

Be Consistent and Committed

Even though the questionnaire may be sent automatically, it’s far from automated and takes a practitioner’s time and effort. Stay committed to examining the data daily and making mention or modification based on what you see. Understand this won’t completely guide the process, but you’re at least providing feedback (completing the loop) and not letting the athletes’ responses fall on deaf ears.

Be Transparent and Honest

There’s a level of honesty required by both parties. Keep the questionnaire interaction professional. Don’t allow it to become a scapegoat for athletes who want to avoid training. Manage it appropriately and continue to use it as a conversation starter about lifestyle habits like improving sleep quality through meditation or relaxation techniques. Use opportunities for nutrition intervention to try to mitigate fatigue and improve sleep quality. This is the intertwining of life and training, which are often one in the same, and what you do in one area impacts what occurs in another area.

Evaluate and Adjust

As with anything, be adaptable. If the fish (athlete) does not take the bait, you may have to switch the lure. You may have to attack from another angle, or all angles. Get other members of the performance team involved in the process. Make sure they’re doing the same things you are regarding feedback, adjustments, and conversations. Continue to bring value to the three minutes of time we steal from our athletes in the morning to gauge where they are during the day.

Time and Place to Adopt an Athlete-Centered Model of Training

In the end, the questionnaire is the beginning of monitoring. It opens the door for very productive conversations and important information regarding the training response. Subjective questionnaires will never be perfect, and they require the right ingredients and proper planning by the practitioner and performance team. The more people there are on the team, the more difficult it can be. But as with most things, proper communication and partnership can make for an effective piece of the training process. Build your training and monitoring on the solid foundation of a subjective questionnaire and assure that you involve the thoughts, feelings, and responses of the most important piece to the puzzle.

References

1. “Amazon Found Every 100ms of Latency Cost Them 1% in Sales.” The GigaSpaces Technologies Blog, Dec. 14, 2016.

2. “Modern Pillars of Strength, Assessment, and Training with Dr. Matt Jordan.” SimpliFaster Blog, Sept. 15, 2018.

3. Neupert, Emma C., et al. “Training Monitoring Engagement: An Evidence-Based Approach in Elite Sport.”International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2018: 1-21.

4. Valle, Carl. “Monitoring Athletes—What You Should Know Today.” SimpliFaster Blog, July 14, 2018.

I had the privilege of speaking to Kebba Tolbert (the associate head coach of women’s sprints & hurdles, and horizontal jumps at Harvard University) several times last season. While we mostly talked about in-season training and recovery, in previous interviews and in programs he created (Complete Track and Field: Specific Endurance for Sprints & Hurdles: An Advanced Approach), he has often stated the importance of building a base of speed and power in the off-season. In an interview with Latif Thomas last year, Tolbert said: “I would say (of) building the base (that) you want to build a base of speed and power and technical capacity, because technique matters, too—that allows you to perform at a high level consistently. So the base is really important, but the base is not aerobic.”

I’m not reinventing the wheel when I emphasize building a base of speed and #power, but it works, says @mario_gomez81. Share on X

Certainly, we are not reinventing the wheel and writing about a paradigm shift in training. Obviously, coaches borrow freely from each other and, in this instance, I have borrowed many of the training ideas from Coach Tolbert and numerous others. I would like to discuss what building a base of speed and power looks like, and how it impacts your training cycles.

Training Week

When a training program makes speed and power a priority during the preparation phase of training, what does a typical week look like? What those three training days entail is completely a coaching decision. Below I discuss two different examples showing how we have included three days of prioritizing speed and power development.

General Prep: Example Training Cycle #1

This is probably the most traditional training cycle that we have followed early in the training year. We dedicate one day, usually Monday, to acceleration (between six and 12 starts). Early in the season we do starts from different positions (2/3/4 point). We generally start at 10 meters and work toward 30 meters, but rarely go beyond 20 or 25 meters because most high school athletes cannot accelerate properly.

At times, we create an acceleration complex or cluster (different exercises or drills to accomplish the same feeling) where an athlete pushes a hurdle, sled, or another athlete in order to feel how violent and explosive acceleration must be. Then, the athlete comes back and performs an acceleration without any physical restriction.

Later in the season, as we get closer to competition or testing, athletes start to use spikes and sprint on the track. We begin to compete against each other and practice acceleration during relay exchanges, and athletes begin using blocks if the coaching staff feels they are prepared.

Our second day is also dedicated to accelerations in several formats (pushing up a hill, pulling sleds with a harness, pushing when pulling is not an option, using bands, and any type of starts that you can imagine); anything that requires the athlete to create energy from a still position. We supplement acceleration training with horizontal jumps (standing long jump, standing triple) and horizontal bounding (skips for distance) and/or med balls throws that include a horizontal displacement. Again, as the season progresses, we begin to get more specific, as noted on Day 1.

Day 3 is another specific speed day. There is an unlimited amount of variation for what this day can look like, but early in the season we work on feel, technique, and the part-whole-part process (an idea stolen from Latif). Last season, I fell in love with the idea of straight leg bounds and used it as a primary exercise for developing elasticity. Again, I borrowed that directly from Coach Tolbert’s Specific Endurance training (which he, in turn, borrowed from Tony Wells). Our third speed session of the week might therefore have a max velocity warm-up (including max velocity sprint drills), wickets, and straight leg bound training modality, finished with another form of vertical displacement exercise to match the theme of the day.

What Should You Do Between Each Speed Day?

If we follow the format above in a seven-day cycle, what do the days between speed training include? At the high school level, most athletes do not train on Saturdays during the general prep phase. If we include three days of speed work in a five-day cycle, we might be asking for an injury and CNS fatigue. Therefore, we combine both acceleration days, and come back on Tuesday with tempo work (during general prep) to prepare the body for specific work later in the season.

We use Wednesday as a recovery day—a complete day off. Thursday would count as the second speed day and would look very much like Day 3 as described above. Friday would then be treated as a second tempo day to prepare the body for specific endurance later in the training cycle. If Saturday is available for training, then Friday could be a third speed day, followed by tempo on Saturday.

General Prep: Example Training Cycle #2

The following example will also look at training during the general prep phase. The three days of speed and power development remain the same—however, the daily order changes. It actually allows for a specific day within a seven-day training cycle, aside from three days of speed and power development. I came up with this weekly cycle training regimen from speaking with Gabe Sanders (the assistant coach of sprints and hurdles at Stanford University). Latif Thomas also talked about it in similar terms on Complete Track and Field.

Potentiation is the driving factor for Day 1. Basically, Day 1 prepares the body for Day 2, allowing for two consecutive speed days. Generally, speed days are separated by a minimum of 48 hours so the central nervous system can recover from all the power output created in a typical speed session and then come back 48 to 72 hours later to perform another speed session. Because Day 1 serves as a primer, the athlete will be prepared to have another valuable speed day of training the following day. Since high school athletes do not produce nearly the same amount of force as college or elite athletes, two consecutive speed days is safe for most high school athletes if the right exercises and progressions are followed.

Two consecutive speed days is safe for most high school athletes if the right exercises are done, says @mario_gomez81. Share on X

Day 1/2 exercises can include any tools within the acceleration and max velocity inventory, keeping in mind the goals of Day 2. Both days can serve as acceleration or max velocity days, or a combination of the two. Latif Thomas talked about “training deeper in the same pool”—meaning using back-to-back days of the same skill—but using a variety of different exercises, versus “training shallower in the same pool”—meaning using one day as a more difficult version—but still training the same skill or speed in general.

Day 3 of speed would occur 48 hours later, on Thursday, allowing the body to recover following two back-to-back days of speed. During the general prep session, we give the athletes a complete day off on Wednesday.

Day 4 (third speed workout) would resume the work established during days 1 and 2. The athlete can revisit what was practiced or established in the first two days or complete a more specific workout.

For example, on Day 1 of this week I might have a 100/110 hurdler work on such things as skip for distance, pull a sled with a harness, or use a bullet belt or resistance band, all to apply the principles of acceleration. Day 2 might include wickets, following a max velocity warm-up and sprint drills. Then they would have Day 3 off. On Day 4, the athlete could come back and work over hurdle 1, if they are prepared to do so, or continue to work on the acceleration mechanics necessary to arrive at hurdle 1 in eight steps with proper mechanics. Depending on the skill level of the hurdler, they would then continue to the subsequent hurdles.

Another example could include a sprinter on back-to-back max velocity days working step over runs (dribbles) and sprint posture on Day 1, followed by performing wicket runs and fly runs on Day 2. Day 3 would be off and Day 4 could be another sprint-specific day.

Day 5 would follow Day 3 in that they would have the entire day off for prescribed rest and recovery. On Day 6, the athlete can complete their tempo runs to work on specific endurance, preceded by a tempo warm-up that also includes wicket runs or some sort of speed work.

Gratitude and Justification

Our No. 1 priority as a program is to create speed, power, and coordination because the skills apply to the majority of events in track and field. At the end of last season, I had a pole vaulter write me a personal note before her family moved due to her father’s relocation. In the note, she stated, “Thank you for helping me improve my speed for pole vault.” I’m proud to share this letter because it supports our program’s emphasis on speed and power development, and how it translates to so many events.

We prioritize creating speed, power and coordination—skills that apply to most track & field events, says @mario_gomez81. Share on X

To reemphasize, this type of programming is certainly not new, but it is a training principle that I have come across in the last few seasons. It has allowed our programming to continue to focus on our No. 1 goal: Make athletes faster and more powerful. And if we focus on creating a base of speed and power in the off-season and throughout the general prep portion of the season, then our ultimate goal will certainly be closer to becoming reality.

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You might have heard that science has a replication crisis. Both experienced researchers and the lay press have commented on the fact that many research findings cannot be replicated by researchers redoing the same experiments. Because replication is a fundamental aspect of science research, as it allows us to essentially double-check the initial study, such a discovery suggests that many of the research findings we take for granted might not actually be true.

Most famously, this was shown in terms of power posing, where early research suggested that holding a specific pose derived improvements in mood and performance. This then led to a best-selling book and highly popular TED Talk. Only… it turned out that these findings could not be replicated, leading many to believe that they might not be true.

P-hacking is believed to be one of the main drivers of the (alleged) replication crisis in science, says @craig100m. Share on X

More recently, Brian Wansink, a leading food researcher from Cornell University, was found to have committed scientific misconduct, and was made to leave his post. Wansink’s papers, which have over 20,000 citations, have been largely discredited, with 13 being retracted from the journals they were published in. Wansink was accused of p-hacking, a practice that is largely believed to be one of the main drivers of the (alleged) replication crisis in science. So, just what is p-hacking? In this article, I aim to find out.

The Scientific Method

First, a reminder on how science should work, with specific mention of p-values. When I conduct an experiment, I should (in theory—but nobody really states this explicitly anymore), create two hypotheses: the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The idea with a study is to set out to falsify the null hypothesis; while we can’t “prove” that something has an effect, we can say that an effect is very likely if we are able to reject the null hypothesis. (The approach detailed here is an example of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing [NHST]. It is perhaps the most well-known method in scientific research, but it’s not the only one, so keep this in mind).

Let’s work through an example: I have 20 athletes, and I want to understand whether caffeine improves their 1 repetition maximum (1RM) bench press. What I plan to do is get them all to do a 1RM bench press test without caffeine, and get them all to do a 1RM bench press test with caffeine. If they lift more with caffeine than without, then I can state caffeine enhances 1RM bench press performance.

If I was a really good scientist, I’d randomize the order in which they did the test; some athletes would do the caffeine-free test first, followed by the caffeine test, and some the other way around. I would also want to blind the athletes as to whether or not they had consumed caffeine, as through the expectancy or placebo effects, knowing whether or not you consumed caffeine could affect your performance outside of any impact of caffeine. Having viewed the previous research on caffeine and performance, I think that caffeine likely would enhance bench press performance. So, in this case, my null hypothesis is “caffeine will not enhance performance” and my alternative hypothesis is “caffeine will enhance performance.”

After setting up my experiment and my hypotheses, in order to show an effect of caffeine, I want to try and reject the null hypothesis. To do this, I can use a variety of different statistical methods, but the most common and basic is the t-test. One of the outputs from these statistical tests is a p-value. We can use this p-value to guide us on whether or not we can safely reject the null hypothesis. What the p-value tells us—and this is commonly misunderstood—is the chance (or probability, hence “p”) of getting this result, and the null hypothesis being correct.

The p-value tells us the probability of getting this result, and the null hypothesis being correct, says @craig100m. Share on X

Let’s return to the caffeine example. I’ve done the 1RM bench press testing of my athletes under both conditions (caffeine and placebo). The average 1RM score when the athletes didn’t have caffeine was 120kg. The average when they did have caffeine was 130kg. We want to use our statistical tests to understand whether the differences in means is likely “real” (i.e., caffeine does enhance performance—the alternative hypothesis) or “false” (i.e., caffeine does not actually improve performance, and that the difference in means is likely due to chance, random variation, etc.—the null hypothesis).

Remember, the p-value tells us the chance of getting a result this extreme, and the null hypothesis being correct. If I had a p-value of 0.1, then there would be a 10% chance of a difference between the two trials being 10kg, and the null hypothesis (i.e., caffeine does not enhance performance) being true. Similarly, if the p-value was 0.01, then there is a 1% chance.

False Positives vs. False Negatives

Still with me? Now I need to introduce type I and type II errors. A type I error is where we reject the null hypothesis, but the null hypothesis is actually true. In the caffeine example, we would state that caffeine does have an effect, while in actual fact it does not. We can consider type I errors to be false positives.

A type II error is the opposite; here, we accept the null hypothesis, when the alternative hypothesis is actually true. In the caffeine example, this would be saying that caffeine has no effect on 1RM bench press strength, when in fact it actually does. We can consider type II errors to be false negatives.

The p-value essentially tells us our risk of committing a type I error. So, the big question is: What is the acceptable risk of committing a type I error? In this case, what should we set our p-value threshold as, before we can reject the null hypothesis and say that caffeine does have a performance-enhancing effect on 1RM bench press strength?

We could argue about this all day long, but the general consensus is that a p-value of 0.05 is the appropriate threshold. With a p-value of 0.05, there is a 5% chance of us getting the result we did, and the null hypothesis being true. So, if we reject the null hypothesis when p=0.05, what we’re effectively saying is that we have a 5% chance of stating there is an effect of caffeine when actually there isn’t (i.e., a false positive). Some researchers recommend using a much stricter threshold, such as 0.001 (while others believe p-values are a largely outdated method). There is a balancing act here: The stricter the threshold we choose to accept for a p-value—and therefore, the lower the chance of committing a type I error—the greater the chance of committing a type II error.

Ok, now we’re getting closer to the crux of the problem with p-hacking. If I set my p-value threshold as 0.05, then I’m accepting that there is a 5% chance of me claiming that caffeine has a performance-enhancing effect when it actually doesn’t. This means that, if I repeat this experiment 20 times, and each time get a p-value of <0.05, on one of those occasions (i.e., 5% of the trials) I will have gotten a false positive—I will be saying caffeine has an effect, when actually, it might not. This has implications for larger, more complex experiments, when we might have to run multiple statistical tests.

Returning to the caffeine example, let’s now introduce 10 genes that we might believe affect how much caffeine influences performance. For each gene, I want to know whether people with one version see a greater performance enhancement than people with the other version—so I need two statistical tests for each gene, and I have 10 genes, leading to 20 statistical tests. If I select my p-value as being 0.05 for each of these, then, by virtue of running many tests, I’m greatly increasing the chances of committing a type I error; the chance of a false positive is 1 in 20, and I’ve done 20 tests (this is an oversimplification, but it helps to demonstrate the points).

There are a number of ways researchers can correct for this, including the Bonferroni correction. Here, the accepted p-value is divided by the number of significance tests carried out: If I did 20, then my p-value threshold becomes 0.0025 (0.05 ¸20); if my p-value is above this, then I accept the null hypothesis as per usual. This is what I should do, if I’m being honest and scientifically robust.

Manipulating Probability

What p-hacking entails is doing a number of statistical tests, seeing which are significant, and then selectively reporting the tests you did in your paper. So, in my caffeine and genotype example, I would have done 20 statistical tests, with a p-value of 0.05 as my threshold. Having done these tests, I found that subjects with a certain type of one gene, CYP1A2, found caffeine enhanced their performance to a greater extent than those with the other type of that gene.

The p-value for this statistical test is 0.03; below my threshold of 0.05. All the other tests I ran showed p-values of anywhere between 0.2 and 1.0, meaning that, for those genes, I cannot reject the null hypothesis, and so I have to state that those genes have no effect on the size of performance enhancement seen following intake of caffeine. Because null results aren’t as interesting as positive results, and because there is a bias of journals to only report interesting results, I decide to write my paper by just looking at CYP1A2 and caffeine. In my paper, I therefore “pretend” that I’ve only carried out one statistical test. I report the p-value as 0.03, below the threshold of significance (0.05), and thereby demonstrating that caffeine is more performance enhancing in some people than others.

Of course, what I should have done was correct my p-values for multiple hypothesis testing; I actually ran 20 tests—even if I didn’t publish these—meaning my p-value should have been 0.0025. In reality, this gene had no clear effect on the size of performance enhancement following caffeine consumption, but by selectively reporting what statistical tests I did, I can make it seem like it did. And this, in a nutshell, is what p-hacking is.

If you perform multiple tests and selectively report just the significant ones, you are p-hacking, says @craig100m. Share on X

There are other ways I can p-hack. I might carry out my analysis, find that I’m very close to a significant p-value (whether that’s 0.05 or something else), and then go back into the data and make changes so that I am engineering a “successful” p-value. For example, in my caffeine study, I might find that in the caffeine trial my subjects lifted more weight, but with a p-value of 0.08—close to my threshold of 0.05, but not quite there.

So, I go back and play around with the data: What happens when I remove males from the analysis? Or what if I remove those with more than four years of training history? Or perhaps subject 17 only had a 0.5% improvement while all others had a 6% improvement, leading me to believe that he/she didn’t really try, so I can remove them from the analysis. Often, there are both legitimate and innocent reasons for removing some subjects from data analysis, which is fine—provided it’s not being done to manufacture a significant result.

Hypothesis After Result is Known

P-hacking also has a close cousin: HARKing, where HARK stands for Hypothesis After Result is Known. Here, researchers generate a hypothesis after they have analyzed their data. Again, this is frowned upon—the purpose of a statistical test is often to test a hypothesis, which indicates that such a hypothesis has to exist prior to the test being used. Similar to p-hacking, HARKing increases the risk of a type I error, which is why replicating such research often proves impossible—hence the replication crisis.

The world of science is well aware of these issues, and the dangers of them potentially undermining public confidence. There are a number of practices being put in place by the various journals in an attempt to guard against both p-hacking and HARKing. These include open data sharing, where researchers upload their raw data as a supplement to their paper, for all to analyze. A second approach is the pre-registration of study designs; here, researchers state what they are going to do, what their hypothesis is, and how they’re going to analyze their data, before they actually do it—preventing both p-hacking and HARKing.

Another potential solution that has been proposed is to increase the threshold required for statistical significance (although not everyone agrees).

Various journals are putting practices in place to guard against both p-hacking and HARKing, says @craig100m. Share on X

Finally, we could drop p-values altogether. This is an approach that has gained increased popularity in sports science research in recent years, in part because p-values might not be all that useful to researchers in the field, with a focus on researchers reporting effect sizes with a probability of importance, as opposed to p-values.

Perhaps the most popular approach here is that of magnitude based inferences (MBI), developed by Will Hopkins and Alan Batterham. However, the use of MBIs has recently been heavily criticized by other statisticians, with at least one journal stating they won’t accept papers that utilize the method. Nevertheless, the approaches detailed here will hopefully help address the replication crisis, and increase public confidence in the scientific process. Given how important it is to society as a whole, this is hugely important.

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

Each year, the strength-specific science on the use of accommodating resistance grows, but the practice seems to stay disappointingly stagnant with coaches and athletes. Typically, we see the same approach of adding bands to squats to help with max strength, or using chains to help bring up a bench press that may be lagging. Occasionally, a coach will support the use of bands and chains as a replacement to Olympic lifts, almost as an either/or option for power development.

This article, however, won’t simply hash out old ideas disguised to look novel and different. It will provide practical applications for accommodating resistance that I have used with novice to high-level college and professional athletes over the last few years, validated by sports technology. It breaks down what I feel are the best and most applicable methods for nearly all levels.

It’s time to move away from the old notion that accommodating resistance is only for the elite. I’ll state, however, that it is not a smart idea to rush into any method of training, and the use of these methods should still be part of a greater plan as a whole. By no means is this list exhaustive, and I don’t claim that this is the definitive guide for strength coaches, but I do think it provides a solid argument for incorporating the methods listed below.

It’s time to move away from the notion that accommodating resistance training is only for the elite, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Several great publications by coaches and researchers really raised the standard on using variable or accommodating resistance, but the small nuances are necessary for the technique to really make a change. What separates this article from others is its authenticity. I’ve used what is outlined here with a number of NFL, MLB, and college athletes, and achieved actual results. If you are serious about taking bands and chains to the next level, this article backs up its recommendations with science and examples of the proper implementation of the exercises.

When Bands and Chains Are Just Not a Good Idea

I don’t recommend that everyone use bands and chains, and I actually warn against their use because variable resistance is designed to overload more and that could be a problem with inexperienced athletes and coaches. When safely employed, bands and chains work, but only if the athletes can do the fundamentals really well. I hate blaming tools for injury when the fault is usually the user, but in this day of Instagram stars, we must be extra cautious with training recommendations. If you are in a situation where the proper coaching ratio is not available, don’t use variable resistance. Intense overload is a mature and demanding training option, so I recommend just doing what you can and not worrying about adding chains and bands to your training equation.

If you don’t have the proper coaching ratio, don’t use variable resistance, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

The final warning is simply this: If you don’t put in the time and effort to properly design training and just wish to spice it up or add a trick to the trade, this isn’t for you. Training with accommodating resistance requires a lot of prep work. Bands and chains are not dangerous, but anything that adds force and complexity can be hazardous to the wrong users. You can’t treat bands and chains as “weight room toys”—they are advanced tools for professionals.

My Personal Thought Process on the Methods Listed

I wrote this article to focus on unfiltered concepts instead of listing exercise variations or cool workouts. It’s popular to list workouts, make up a new movement, or share “progressions” of movement, but I would rather share what I know works very well and let you apply it in a way that fits your best interests. More methods exist than those compiled below, but if you add a few of the approaches listed you will reap big improvements to whatever program you use.

I co-own and run a private training facility and we have a small staff of experienced coaches, so keep that in mind when reading this article. Our business is about “craft coaching,” not mass production of one-size-fits-all templates. If you are not able to write customized or semi-custom training programs, bands and chains may not work with your situation and would perhaps be better implemented with just a subset of your population.

Slingshot Beginner Athletes to Better Push-Ups

It might be surprising that the first method I suggest is not a way to increase resistance, but a way to add assistance. A lot of coaches already use elastic bands to assist beginners or weaker athletes (push-up or pull-up variations are most common) when a movement is too difficult. In pull-ups/chin-ups specifically, while the bands add a boost, they don’t conform to a strength curve of the upper body.

We tend to use “eccentric only” methods, such as lowering push-ups or jump up and lower slow pull-ups (a great method is a reachable pull-up bar closer to the ground, as opposed to climbing up a full squat rack) to engrain the patterns and develop some much-needed strength in these beginner athletes. The push-up, on the contrary, is perfectly set up for “band assistance.” For more than three years now, we’ve been using the Sling Shot, a giant elastic band with arm holes. We find it’s the best tool for assisting push-ups (and bench press) and we have over a dozen of them at the facility.

Getting youth or weaker athletes better at the basics is too valuable not to mention; however, I think everyone can benefit from using the Sling Shot with their athletes or general population clients. Whether you are unloading the deep range of motion during a bench press, helping with lockouts during a strength phase, or adding a slight modification to an adult’s program, the Sling Shot is an inexpensive, invaluable, and remarkably easy tool to use. In addition to the variable or accommodating resistance that the Sling Shot provides, it also acts to “cue” athletes and engrain a better bar path and elbow positioning during the bench press (and push-up).

Video 1. Push-ups with the Sling Shot allow for full range work without removing entry-level plank benefits. It doesn’t matter if it’s rehabilitation or early strength training, Sling Shot bands are great tools.

I’m sure you’ve seen an athlete who undoubtedly flares their elbows as soon as the weight gets appreciable. The Slingshot encourages them to keep their elbows tighter during the press. You must use caution and coaching experience to understand the difference between tight and “too close,” but it provides some biofeedback instantly.

Potentiate with Chains for Jump Complexes

Most coaches will agree that complexes—exercises paired together—are for advanced athletes. It’s hard to say when an athlete is truly ready for complex training, but it’s easy to draw conclusions with potentiation, exercise proficiency, and conditioning demands. First, if an athlete has not polished the exercises individually, linking them together is just negligent. I’d argue that we see too many videos of young or inexperienced athletes being rushed into complexes, and the technique is poor and gets worse with fatigue.

Second, an athlete has to be in shape to handle back-to-back exercises; later in the off-season probably makes the most sense as the time to implement complex training. Nearly every coach is aware that potentiation works best for those with a great strength background, and while you don’t need to squat twice your bodyweight to take advantage of potentiation, you can’t use it with those new to the weight room or you will just drive the athlete into deep fatigue or fail to make appropriate gains.

Video 2. If you can’t do the exercises with polished technique in isolation, pairing them isn’t a good idea. Squats followed by jump exercises is a popular combination, but only for an advanced athlete.

One of the more important factors when using bands or chains is the precision required when choosing load. Without fairly strict loading parameters, the benefits may just be theoretical. While it’s often assumed that “toys” always provide a benefit, it’s not true, and potentiation works the same way. The science and research are heavily in favor of the responses from potentiation, but studies don’t always mimic training. Studies often cite using one or two exercises for two days a week for six weeks.

The precision required when choosing load is a critical factor in the use of bands or chains, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Yes, the response to the stimulus is impressive and appreciable, but modern training programs are typically much more complex than that. Most off-season programs must incorporate everything from speed, power, and strength to endurance and skill development in order to prepare the athlete. Depending on the frequency of an athlete’s training during their sport preparation, coaches might be forced to incorporate a multi-focused approach even within the same training session.

Properly placed complexes, however, do create a PAP affect, and if you use them with conditioned and advanced athletes, you will likely get a favorable response. Pairing jumps after band or chain work is extremely efficient and works great either in direct sequence (back-to-back or contrast sets) or after a potentiation-laced warm-up.

Save Time in the Weight Room with Bands and Chains

While the earlier point about potentiation benefits of great output and greater neurological adaptations have merit, the time-saving benefits of using bands and chains are more interesting if contrasted immediately and the forces are impressive. The term “biological load” sounds fancy, but barbell load is a little oversimplified. It’s hard to say how to calculate work with bands and chains because the total load on a bar is not the same as the interaction of the bar on a human body. High-quality work with all-out effort means athletes can reduce set numbers, but you have to increase the total work done and do it in a way that is purposeful. Decreasing one set of squats isn’t a huge change, but when paired with another exercise, you can get a lot of work done quickly.

Contrasting can be done with bands or chains, and with isometric actions, so plenty of options exist for coaches who want to challenge athletes but need scientifically sound approaches. Chains and bands are not isometrics, but a few pauses at different ranges with load can help save time by removing the need to do additional exercises. Bands have been shared with split squats in the Bulgarian article, but there’s no reason that a composite style of lifting sets can’t be done with isometrics and accommodating resistance methods.

Video 3. If an athlete doesn’t have a lot of time, heavy bands can make a difference, as they can be programmed to make every repetition count. The athlete can do a simple 3×5 program quickly when bands are set up properly.

A combined program of traditional and “special” approaches does get to the goal faster, as the results are better than one method alone. Sometimes a program needs to avoid bands and chains because of unique injuries or use bands and chains more often because of uncommon needs. Either way, the more methodologies used, the more likely a coach will find the right balance or more personalized technique for improvement than using only one modality. In no way am I suggesting that if you don’t use variable resistance methods you are missing out, but the rates of improvement are so strongly supported by the research they’re worth employing.

Perform Advanced Eccentrics with Band Benching

Eccentric overload is very tricky when using bands and chains for bench press. Technically, overload happens when the weight is beyond what can be pushed concentrically, so with heavy weights known to cause pec tears with NFL linemen and strong guys in general, what can be said about band benching and added speed? We know empirically that bench press injuries usually result from improper load selection, rushed progression, or poor technique of the lifter.

If they have not done enough accumulation over the past few months, a strong and talented athlete (especially after a prolonged break) could find themselves at risk for an upper extremity injury. So why bother with any speed or eccentric-style lifting at all? General eccentric overload is taxing, and adding a component of speed can be frightening at first. However, with proper adaptation, it should be a tool used more often for more seasoned athletes.

Athletes need to be exposed to reasonable risk in a systematic or intelligent fashion, not sheltered from harm. Reducing injury rates on the field isn’t about increasing the risk of injury in training; it’s about removing unnecessary or foolish risk. Pec, biceps, and triceps tears are collision-type injuries and are common in the NFL. They usually happen at end range and, like many injuries, most likely occur when the eccentric stress is too great.

The purpose of band benching is coordination of #eccentricoverload and reinforcement of game needs, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

If a coach does not provide training that addresses tendon and muscle durability, then some responsibility must be taken by a coach who is willing to address the need. The increased eccentric speed that the band provides will help the athletes get more efficient at handling and reducing that stress at end range. Secondly, larger athletes with high velocities have higher momentum, so it’s up to those in collision sports to recognize that the upper body is another area that must be trained with care. Band benching isn’t the Nordic hamstring exercise of the upper body, but it’s a great way to challenge extensors of the elbow and shoulder.

Video 4. The correct band setup will add more speed eccentrically than normal lowering speeds, so be careful. Moderate loading with bands is aggressive enough to challenge athletes, but conservative enough that it doesn’t add unnecessary risk.

The intention of band benching is not just overloading the triceps; it’s about coordination of eccentric overload and reinforcement of the needs of the game. Having a better bench or better qualities within a bench press may not directly transform to an athlete playing better, but it’s better to be skilled, strong, and durable than just practicing the game.

Build Rate of Force Development and Propulsive Strength

The use of variable resistance is like a two-for-one deal when developing the rate of force development (RFD) and propulsive strength of athletes. The first quality is more known, as RFD is common in strength and conditioning circles, but propulsion is still a mystery within the research. For example, many athletic motions at end range of extension may have very little or no impact because the follow-through has no real contribution to the speed of the exercise. Sprinting and throwing are prime examples, as the release and toe off may not add much to the equation, so it’s visually deceptive to coaches who don’t know the kinetics of the exercise. Force plates are a rare truth serum to the eyes because they remove what we intuitively believe is happening visually and measure how forces interact with a body.

So, if full-range strength is not as important to success with high-velocity movements, why focus on overloading that range of motion? Here is the paradox: Good weight training may be poor in specificity, but rich in program value. Constantly trying to reenact sport in the weight room is easy and will earn lots of social media attention, but the compromise in speed and overload is a waste of time and energy.

Good weight training may be poor in specificity, but rich in overall program value, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Plyometric jumps and Olympic weightlifting may not always transfer to faster sprinting, throwing, or decelerating, but they may help keep athletes progressing when more specificity doesn’t reap a return. Coaches have theorized for years about the value of generating more work with less wear and tear to challenge the nervous system, and specific variable resistance may be the right fit for larger athletes who simply don’t respond well to on-the-field jump and sprint training.

Propulsive strength is a bit of a misnomer, as it may not help propulsion with sprinting for all athletes, but it covers the period of time where athletes tend to slow down and put the brakes on at the end of the lifting motion. You’ve probably seen an athlete who has either been coached to or just assumes that they must finish the squat or bench with speed, and they end up leaving the ground or locking out awkwardly and lose all the tension we seek so stringently. This is a poor decision, as we know the end range (top) of the movement is the least difficult and least influential on the force/propulsion we are after, so they should be coached to avoid this.

More skilled athletes find a way to finish properly, but there are some exceptions where bands and chains might help reinforce this concept. Taller athletes, such as basketball players, for example, tend to struggle due to their poor mechanical structure and lack of experience using the big lifts. Not only does variable resistance challenge the stronger athletes to increase their rate of force development, it allows the less strong and less technical athletes to push further into the movement without losing their tension and finishing the lift poorly. Any level of athlete can use variable resistance when the need is real, but advanced athletes tend to respond to bands and chains best because they’ve likely already run through the gamut of classic training methods.

Simulate Isokinetic Resistance Without Machines

I have almost zero experience with isokinetic machines or the motorized/pneumatic resistance that is more known today. However, there is some research that points to its relevance, especially regarding rehab or return-to-play protocols. No researcher in their right mind will tell you bands or chains are the same as isokinetic machines, but some similarities exist with movement velocity and during single or multi-joint machines.

Load changes, specifically increases in weight or resistance, will then, in turn, greatly reduce bar velocity. Although barbell speed is not completely uniform, the velocity is rather flat with minimal surges or spikes when using bands or chains. The main reason for the disappearance of these machines is probably due to their limitations beyond single joint actions. Bands and chains can somewhat remedy this.

Video 5. Isokinetic alternatives are a welcome find for athletes who need overload and quick improvements in strength when injured. Here, the concentric and eccentric speeds are rather uniform, simulating a lot of the benefits of isokinetics.

Isokinetic resistance has value, but what we see in rehabilitation and return-to-play programs is most notable. It is safe to get an athlete on their feet and use resistance that is similar to isokinetics because the athlete is loading slowly and steadily. While rapid and explosive movements are necessary for complete return-to-play status, some athletes are not ready for rapid actions.

This method of training—isokinetic simulation—isn’t really about mimicking actual benefits of the resistance mode, but replicating the performance benefits of the training for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation has nearly the same needs as performance, just scaled down and with some tricky caveats due to injury. Reducing velocity while increasing load with the right setup is very useful for rehabbing athletes, as joints are sometimes more tolerant of slow force loading than rapid contractions.

Periodize Programs Better with Partial Movements

The most straightforward way to change training is to change the range of motion. The research supports using mixed methods, or incorporating partials and full range training. It’s not sexy, but it works, and partial ranges of motion near full extension are actually great for breaking plateaus or sustaining gains in strength and power.

Quarter squats, rack pulls, and bench press partials are excellent options, but other supportive exercises are also useful provided the total stress is greater or equal than that of bands or chains. Partials with low resistance loads just spin the wheels of athletes, as resistance totals must be high enough (read: massive) because the work distance is incredibly short. For example, sprinting at high velocity has very low work distance to the hip and knee, but the overall work totals are high because the amount of power per step.

Video 6. Partial range of motion with squats requires a lot of careful setup so the first and last inches are demanding. You should include full range of motion squatting during the season and early in the athlete’s development.

Some coaches feel that the gap between isometric holds and slow concentrics gets into the grey area too much because heavy band resistance sometimes turns lockout speed into a grinding endeavor. As the load velocity hits near stoppage, the risk is dangerous with some movements, but this should never be an issue with partials if safety measures are in place. You don’t need to hit failure at all with partials, but due to the highly precise calculations required to get the most out of the shorter range, many coaches only benefit from the variation of the loading style, not the adaptations to the overload.

Make Variable and Accommodating Resistance Work for You

Overall, the key to using bands and chains is knowing when and where to fit them in and how to monitor changes. A big issue with bands and chains is that they don’t perform overload eccentrically closer to the ground or at the beginning of the barbell motion. Also, those using bands or chains for free weight exercises must consider the limitations of elastic resistance and linear resistance, as they are not supramaximally eccentric or isoinertial. Bands and chains cover a lot of needs, but they don’t do everything.

The key to using bands & chains is knowing when and where to fit them in and how to monitor changes, says @ShaneDavs. Share on X

Deciding on using bands and chains, or other types of accommodating resistance, isn’t joining a cult—it’s just using the right tool at the right time. Several coaches see chains or bands as powerlifting tools, and we need to move on from that mindset and think about using specific development methods in strength as a complement to weightlifting exercises such as the clean and snatch.

Some users of bands and chains may see variable resistance as a solution to power training, while others tap into the technique only on special occasions. Either way, use bands and chains intelligently, not because they look advanced to other coaches or they impress athletes. Athletes do get excited by additional tools in the weight room because they crave variety, but only include them when warranted, as you can make plenty of progress by just polishing up the basics.

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 was lucky enough to meet Boris Sheiko in June of 2015. I was the head coach and Director of Strength and Conditioning at the gym where he presented his first seminar in the US. At the time, I didn’t know much about Boris or his coaching, just that he had coached many successful lifters in Russia, and I had seen his templates that were available on the internet.

After hours of listening to him speak and watching him coach, I was intrigued. Everything that he said made so much sense to me. I was just starting my journey into powerlifting, and I had my first meet coming up in October of the same year.

I’ve been competitive in everything that I’ve done in my life, and I wanted powerlifting to be the same. I was starting the sport later in life but still had some long-term goals laid out. I discussed these long-term goals with Boris and hired him as my coach. Little did I know the impact that decision would have on my coaching career. Over the next three years, I worked with Boris and ran his program as well as asked him many questions. This experience laid the foundation for my powerlifting club, Precision Powerlifting Systems.

Lifting as a Skill

For Boris, technique is the most important aspect of training; the Eastern European countries treat the lifts as skill development. Their major focus is neuromuscular coordination. A sticking point is not always due to weak muscles, it may be due to poor skill or neuromuscular coordination by the lifter.

Eastern Europeans treat lifts as skill development, focusing on neuromuscular coordination. Share on X

We want each repetition in training to look the same, which is how we build a stable movement pattern. If we do five repetitions that all look different, we’ve trained five different movement patterns. This type of training builds an unstable movement pattern that cannot be stressed maximally because it’s already broken. Increasing the skill level of performing the lifts requires practicing the lifts. Twenty percent of the total volume comes from the competition lifts themselves, 60% comes from what Boris calls his “special exercises,” and 20% from GPP.

The special exercises are variations of the competition lifts selected to fix technical errors—these variations are done with competition foot placement, bar placement, grip, and deadlift stance. The similarities to the competition lifts allow the athlete to carry over the skills practiced within the special exercises. The more similar the forces, angles, and speeds of the lifts, the more carry we get. This is the law of specificity.

Intensities and Volumes in the Sheiko System

The average intensity of the lifts is 70% of 1RM, plus or minus 2%, for all repetitions taken at 50% or higher. An existing body of Russian research indicates that anything under 50% does not increase muscle mass or strength.

Most of the sets have 3-6 repetitions. According to research, it’s not so much the number of reps we do, but the total volume. Also, research shows that strength is best achieved within the 3-6 rep range with 1-4 reps in reserve (RIR). This combination helps us build both muscle mass and strength.

For beginner lifters, the average intensity will be slightly lower. There will be many repetitions of the lifts taken between 70% and 80% of 1RM to work on technique. The number of lifts is based on recommendations that coincide with the lifter’s classification within the Russian Classification Chart.

The chart categorizes lifters based on total, gender, and body weight. As the lifter grows within this chart, their total number of lifts grows with them, which ensures their long-term success. The chart allows the lifters to improve over time and keeps their current volumes in check. Increasing volumes too quickly can lead to a career cut short by peaking too early or by increasing injury risk.

Load Management in a Sheiko Program

Load variability may be the most important aspect of programming in this system. I’ve taken this to heart and made it the foundation for our team programming. Load variability includes changing exercises, reps, and intensities. It also refers to alternating high, medium, and low-stress training days to keep the athlete progressing steadily while also keeping down the risk of injury. We never want to stray too far from baseline, either up or down.

Load variability may be the most important programming aspect of the Sheiko powerlifting system. Share on X

I have found this to be true in my program over the past three years. The average weekly volume was always very close to my baseline. There were higher load, medium load, and low load weeks, but none of them got too far away from the baseline.

This is where the Acute: Chronic Work Ratio (ACWR) comes into play in my programming for my lifters. The ACWR is a tool for monitoring training loads that’s been primarily researched in a team sport setting, not powerlifting.

In the model that I use, the chronic workload is a running 4-week average of the athlete’s training volume. The acute workload is this current week’s training volume. We want the ratio of the acute workload and the chronic workload to be between 0.80-1.30 and 1.0 of the lifter’s baseline. This ensures we don’t get too low below baseline or too far above.

It also gives us a guideline for how quickly we can increase training loads. Increasing them too quickly comes with a risk, as does getting too far below the baseline. Doing too little does not leave the athlete prepared to handle larger loads.

In the research, there are internal and external factors that impact the ratio. External factors in powerlifting are the actual loads lifted in training. The internal factors are lifter’s feelings and effort. Upon entering the gym, the lifter rates how they feel on a 5-point scale:

1. Fatigued
2. Slightly fatigued
3. Normal
4. Slightly excited
5. Excited

They also record the RPE for the last set of each competition lift or variation as follows:

• RPE 10—Maximal effort, no more reps left
• RPE 9.5—Could not do 1 more rep but could add weight
• RPE 9—Definitely could do 1 more rep
• RPE 8.5—Maybe could do 2 more reps
• RPE 8—Definitely could do 2 more reps
• RPE 7.5—Maybe could do 3 more reps
• RPE 7—Definitely could do 3 more reps
• RPE 6.5—Maybe could do 4 more reps
• RPE 6—Definitely could do 4 more reps

We don’t want the rating to be any lower than an RPE 6 or greater than an RPE 9. This way, technique stays consistent and the athlete can recover. Unlike in the research, I separate the external and internal load monitoring. This allows me to determine whether there’s an external load issue or an internal load issue when things are not going well. It also allows me to identify when I need to drop the external loads or when I can increase them.

Cultural Differences in Training Lifts

There are some important differences with my athletes compared to those in Russia—in Russia, athletes are raised with the sport. Athletes pursuing the discipline can attend a school that offers powerlifting, just like a college offers a major. By the time many lifters are 20 years old, they’ve been lifting for ten years or so. In contrast, this is the age when most Americans are starting their powerlifting careers.

We need to make some changes to the model to adapt it to our culture. No one will want to work on technique for ten years before starting to load it more. And because many lifters here start training at a later age, it’s harder to master the skill.

The Eastern Europeans also go through many years of GPP work to prepare for the high volume powerlifting programs they do later on. This strategy is also lost on American lifters. We need to find a way to get strong at many different angles to build a resilient athlete.

How to Modify the Sheiko System to Train American Powerlifters

The tweaks I’ve made to the program are in exercise selection; if a lifter has good technique in the lifts, we’ll vary the exercises a bit more than what I saw in my program with Sheiko. I’ll use different bar placements and foot placements on the squat, different grips and no-arch with the bench press, and opposite stance and different foot placements on the deadlift. We only do this when the lifter has demonstrated a good technique that holds up under heavier loads.

We've tweaked the Sheiko system to adapt to American powerlifting culture and training. Share on X

If the lifter still needs technical work, the variations will be very similar to the competition lifts until their skill level improves. Once we build technical proficiency, we want to build well-rounded athletes. They should be strong at the high bar and low bar, wide stance and close stance, all grips, and all deadlift stances. If we discover a weakness, we’ll continue to push that variation until it becomes a strength. This strategy is very different than what I did under Sheiko.

No matter the exercise selection, however, we follow the recommended volumes, number of lifts, and average intensities laid out by Sheiko. We still follow the belief that the technique is the most important aspect of training. We also keep volumes close to the baseline and alternate high, medium, and low load days to keep the athlete progressing forward while keeping them as healthy as possible.

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’s the purpose? I need to stop and ask myself this question every day. I not only ask this when I see crazy things on Instagram or YouTube, but I also ask this when I fall into the trap of trying new exercises because of their novelty effect rather than their effectiveness. Look at what gets all of the hits on Instagram and YouTube: you find a lot of “likes” on such crazy movements as a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch with the top leg on a bench.

I give my teams their programs a week in advance and ask for their feedback. They can let me know if we have something on their card that they’re uncomfortable with, they can ask me questions about why we do have certain exercises in the plan and why we don’t have others, and they can point out any mistakes that I’ve made.

This has helped me get to know my athletes better because we can get on the same page regarding our goals for the training sessions and how to reach those goals. My athletes bring up good ideas and questions that I would have missed if I were the only one editing the plan. And if I can’t answer their questions with a thorough response about my purpose, then maybe we shouldn’t be doing the exercise they questioned.

Progression plays a big role in which exercises athletes should perform. Most coaches start with basic movement patterns, such as a squat, hinge, push, and pull. But where do we go if we have a couple of athletes lagging in the squatting and hinging? Do we slow the group down and hope that they catch up? Do we modify the plan to allow certain kids to still train with a purpose? This is where we’ll get different answers from different coaches.

I like to slightly modify an exercise when an athlete is lagging and turn it into an assistance exercise that will lead them toward performing the original exercise. For example, three girls on a team I coach struggle with hip hinging (RDL). So, instead of changing their program or forcing them to perform the RDL until they figured it out, I gave them PVC pipes to learn the movement. I had them place the PVC pipe along their spine starting at the top of their head while keeping both hands on the pipe, maintaining the pipe’s contact with their head and lower back. The activity helped them learn to hinge properly (see video below). Once they learned to hinge correctly, they could translate the movement into a true RDL—an exercise programmed to develop strength.

Video 1. When an athlete lags behind in a programmed exercise, I like to modify the exercise into an assistance exercise. For example, when athletes have a hard time with the hip hinge for RDLs, I teach them the hinge movement using a PVC pipe to guide the movement correctly.

Evaluating an Exercise

Back to the side plank single arm kettlebell snatch mentioned earlier—I have actually seen a coach program this for his athletes. It’s an example of how some exercises can get into a team’s regular training program when the key question “What’s the purpose?” is not asked.

In this case, the coach included the exercise during the team’s off-season training. I asked him how the athletes’ Olympic lifts and squats were progressing. He said he hadn’t included either of them in the program because the athletes weren’t “good movers.” His response puzzled me because, generally, if athletes are not good at moving in the squat pattern, our job as coaches is to get them good at moving in the squat pattern.

So next I asked, “What have they been working on instead of Olympic lifting and squats, and how are they loaded to train for strength and power?” He said they were working on a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch. I had to ask, “Okay—what’s the purpose?” The coach replied that it trains strength, power, and balance and gets the athletes moving outside of the sagittal plane.

After a 10-minute discussion, I realized his reasons were the same reasons I, like many others, program squats, deadlifts, cleans, and snatches. His concern was injury prevention since his athletes were bad movers. But, if we believe that our athletes are so flawed that they can’t put a barbell on their back, squat down, and squat up in a controlled and closed environment, how is a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch going to solve the problem?

If a squat pattern is flawed, how will a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch solve that? asks @will_ratelle. Share on X

I asked that question, and he responded, “well volleyball players aren’t competitive powerlifters, so they don’t need to squat.” Well, volleyball players aren’t competitive circus acts either, so they don’t need to do side plank single arm kettlebell snatches.

But back to the purpose of the exercise. The coach claimed it trains strength, power, balance, and movement outside the sagittal plane. Let’s review each.

Strength: I can’t make the case that the side plank single arm snatch would train strength very well. Even if we could load it heavy enough, we know that strength is also context-dependent. Can you load the movement in a way that will carry over to sports? If you’re using a 20-kilogram kettlebell, will it drive significant strength gains? Will it overload the nervous system enough? Will it load the musculoskeletal system enough? Can you progressively overload it for a long time (like years and years)?

It does none of those things. It does, however, get you stronger and better at doing a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch, which could be called a skill rather than pure strength. It may have a carryover to other activities on some level, but I don’t know how much carryover it will have to college sports. Maybe it does have its place, and I’m just not equipped enough to program it for a strength purpose.

Power: I can’t say that I would train it for power either because power is the product of force and velocity. I don’t see the exercise as a tool to improve one’s force output or velocity in the context of a movement in sports.

Balance: I do see the exercise as a great tool to develop an athlete’s balance, with balance defined as maintaining a position for a given time period. Sports are played on one or two feet, however, so I don’t see the carryover. I think we can train for balance with other exercises such as back squats and deadlifts.

Movement: This exercise does get athletes moving outside the sagittal plane. One could argue that it’s important to train in all three planes of movement, and I believe that’s true. But I disagree that the sagittal plane is this dogmatic plane to move in. Athletes are moving in all planes throughout the day, in practice and games, and it’s sometimes difficult to load the body in the frontal and transverse plane practically. Maybe the sagittal plane is the most practical because of various reasons, such as the equipment we use, the load we can place on it, etc. One could argue that it’s most effective when targeting a specific strength or power goal.

Ultimately, though, why do something that’s so elaborate? If athletes are bad movers in the context of squatting and Olympic lifting, is a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch a requisite movement before squatting? Will it help someone improve their squat magically? Consider the specific adaptations to imposed demands (SAID) principle—you get good at what you do.

This exercise doesn’t seem to provide a better way to get athletes stronger, more powerful, or moving better. You’ll get much more bang for your buck putting a barbell on your back and learning to squat properly than doing a side plank single arm kettlebell snatch.

Variety to Alleviate Boredom with Plyometrics

Fancy trends are the most interesting with plyometrics. Hurdle hops, box jumps, and broad jumps become very monotonous. I implement too many obstacles with too much variance, which ends up wasting time. What is the purpose of plyometrics? From the Greek words plio, meaning more and metric, meaning measure. More practically, plyometric exercises are quick, powerful movements with a pre-stretch or a countermovement. They train power, the rate of force development, landing mechanics, and the stretch-shortening cycle, which train a short amortization phase in sprinting and bounding, etc.

Their purpose is not to see how many hurdles you can jump while spinning a 360 and holding dumbbells. That may be fun and look cool, and athletic individuals may be able to perform it better than less athletic individuals, but is it a more effective training tool than broad jumps, power skips, bounds, or hurdle jumps? If you’re looking for variations outside these exercises, here are few effective ones that might be helpful:

• Broad jumps—lateral broad jumps, single leg broad jumps, depth drop broad jumps, multi-directional broad jumps, and any combination of these
• Box jumps—depth drop box jumps, pogo jumps to box jumps, single leg box jumps, lateral box jumps
• Bounds—zig-zag bounds, straight leg bounds, single leg bounds (for height and distance), lateral bounds (with or without a stick), Heiden jumps (for height and distance), cyclical bounds, bounds to sprint, sprint to bounds

Strength, Power, and Speed Work

On the platform and in the rack are also areas where coaches sometimes forget to ask “What’s the purpose?” Everything we do is meant to create change, to produce an adaptation that will benefit the athletes with their sport. So, what adaptations are we looking to produce when we lift weights? A strength adaptation. That means we must lift heavy enough, frequently enough, and incorporate enough volume to produce a strength adaptation.

We have to consider whether we’re actually doing this when we develop programs for our athletes. Shouldn’t our exercise selections produce the most global (full body) stress possible? If we don’t effectively stress our systems, we don’t adapt. Typically, here’s what happens when athletes have two primary lifts on their card and then six to seven accessory lifts: after they finish the first two movements, they rush through the remaining exercises on the card because each exercise requires two to four sets with moderate to high volume. With limited time to train each week, are they truly lifting weights with the purpose of getting stronger?

We don’t need to target strength, power, speed, aerobic, and whatever other adaptation we may deem important for our athletes each day. If our focus is too broad, there’s a high chance our athletes won’t develop how we would like them to develop. Aim small, miss small. Instead, dedicate each day to a specific purpose.

Don’t let speed & power work turn into conditioning nor strength work turn into circus acts, says @will_ratelle. Share on X

If you want to hit all areas in one day, however, you can do that. Dedicate x amount of time to speed work, x amount of time to power work, x amount of time to strength work, and x amount of time to conditioning. Don’t let the speed and power work turn into conditioning, and don’t let the strength work turn into circus acts. Make sure the program is done with a purpose; this purpose must create a positive change in the athletes’ physiology that will improve their ability to perform.

Lastly, I always ask coaches who use barbells for speed work, “What is the purpose?” I don’t understand it. We agree that barbells are a great tool, but loading it with 30-50% of a 1rm and moving it fast doesn’t make sense to me. While I understand the argument of wanting to move the weight fast within the force-velocity curve since power peaks in that percentage range, when lifting a barbell loaded so lightly, a majority of the range of motion occurs during deceleration.

Yes, the initial acceleration will be much higher than a load of 80-90%, but unless we project the bar into the air, we’re decelerating the movement just as much as accelerating it. So is the purpose of 30-50% to train for power? If it is, and power is the primary focus, is that going to produce greater adaptations than Olympic lifts? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m skeptical. Power is the product of force and velocity. Lifting a bar with such a light load will not improve force, and I’m skeptical that it will improve the athletes’ velocity.

Lifting a lightly loaded bar won't improve force, and I'm skeptical that it will improve velocity, says @will_ratelle. Share on X

A common power measurement is a vertical jump. Theoretically, getting someone to squat heavy takes care of the force component of power. We can take care of the velocity component in a number of ways; practice jumping or projecting an object seems like a better way than moving a light weight fast if a majority of the range of motion occurs during deceleration. That’s not to say we shouldn’t train our athletes with intent to move the bar fast—intent is always important.

Final Thoughts

As a general rule, it’s okay to say that certain methods aren’t necessarily better or worse than other methods. A program works when the athlete understands the purpose of each exercise, training block, etc. And if we can communicate that purpose to each athlete, we have a greater chance for their buy-in, which likely leads to greater results.

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

“Speed kills” is a cliché that is no less true for being over-repeated and under-trained. The fact is, time, equipment, and staffing constrain coaches to quantify progress and athletic development in pounds and highlight lifts. From an athletic development angle, it isn’t a lack of strength that keeps holding an athlete back on the field, but their ability to deploy power effectively and at speed.

“Within your sport, no matter which sport and with very few exceptions, you must agree that the speed of motion of competition actions are a significant determinate regarding the competition outcome… In either case, the velocity of sport motion is central to competition preparation, yet the principles of increasing the velocity of sport motions are not central to coaching education. Training for speed must be conceptualized as part of practice for sport” –James Smith

Speed work is often difficult to individualize in a team setting. It requires large dedicated spaces and important investments in staff and equipment. Combine those constraints with unrealistic expectations from the head coach about conditioning volume and frequency, and the result is that speed work often gets left by the wayside.

Why Train on a HiTrainer

The HiTrainer was initially developed as a tool to help football players, and power sport athletes in general, withstand the intense and concentrated bursts of energy required to be successful. It can be used to develop repeat sprint ability (RSA), increase athlete resiliency, and manage programs and athletic development. The athlete is placed in a lean in this non-motorized trainer, simulating the late drive phase, and their chest rests on two pads with force sensors. This forward lean reduces joint impact, promotes increased ground force production (propulsion), and recruits the posterior chain in a safe sprint position that protects hamstrings during maximal effort.

Maximum effort sprints and interval training are integral advantages to training on a HiTrainer, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

Repeat sprint ability describes the ability of an athlete to recover and maintain maximal effort during subsequent sprints or plays, and has obvious implications with team sports. Workouts to improve top field speed throughout the length of a game should include maximum effort, interval sessions, continuous volume, and neuromuscular sessions. The ability of an athlete to maintain their speed throughout competition affects injury rates, decision-making, and ultimately performance. Much like the goal of S&C training in season is to manage or eliminate athletic attrition, RSA is about managing that decline in a much shorter time frame. Maximum effort sprints and interval training are integral advantages to training on a HiTrainer.

Video 1: Quantifying strength and speed with HiTrainer Director of Performance, Eric Joly.

Great athletes and teams are often durable ones. Whether due to focusing on one sport too early, over-competing/under-recovering, or a simple muscular imbalance, athletes are at even greater risk of injury than ever before. Injuries affect athletic development and seasons, and increasing athlete resiliency throughout the season means longer playoff runs and more success. The proper incorporation of acceleration-based protocols into your training programs will better prepare your athlete for competition year after year and reduce soft tissue injuries in the posterior chain.

A great illustration of this is how sprinting on a HiTrainer mitigates the potential for hamstring injuries by strengthening them through use while limiting the lengthening and eccentric loading of the upright sprinting position. Derek Hansen makes a great case for incorporating acceleration protocols for prehab/rehab and performance in general. In addition, athletic trainers can make use of the HiTrainer’s force sensors to capture left and right leg forces and diagnose potential imbalances or rehabilitate existing injuries with data.

The #HiTrainer helps coaches quickly evaluate groups of athletes for conditioning, power, and speed, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

Developing athletic or individual programs is an involved and difficult process, and that is often before we include speed. Having a tool like the HiTrainer enables coaches to evaluate large groups of athletes quickly for conditioning, power, and speed. These variables can be used to customize goals and chart progress, and as a baseline to monitor athletes in season.

If something isn’t measured, it is difficult—if not impossible—to manage, and a system that is repeatable and easy to use, and provides actionable data, is extremely valuable to any coach. You can prove that your athlete is better conditioned and faster while adjusting their training according to how they are feeling, as well as what they are producing. I wrote about balancing tactical training and time in the gym with the help of data and baselines in season in “Fatigue Profiling with Athletes During the Competitive Season.”

Non-Motorized Treadmills

One of the questions we frequently answer at HiTrainer is what the difference is between a curve treadmill and a HiTrainer. Coaches who ask this question usually want to make a purchase to complement what their facility already offers. Both machines are non-motorized and benefit from engaging more muscle groups than the typical treadmill, and given their newness and popularity, such questions are to be expected.

While I am sure there will be more in-depth explorations of what curve treadmills are appropriate for, our experience has shown them to be very effective for endurance training and tempo runs. Their belts carry a good deal of momentum, however, and this limits their practicality/safety for interval training while reducing their value for acceleration training. For power sports like football, where explosiveness, change of direction, and the ability to be in the right place down after down matter, gradually building up speed or floating around the field aimlessly is not the right training approach.

What Can It Do?

A treadmill is just a treadmill until it isn’t. Coaches can utilize a HiTrainer to free up turf space for high value coaching while incorporating sprints, resistance training, and conditioning work into one. Having a strip of turf in a gym is a recipe for collision with other athletes either sprinting or doing sled work and there is never enough room. With a HiTrainer for acceleration and maximum effort work, coaches can utilize their turf space for agility, mobility, and sport-specific work.

Sled work has become a popular proxy for horizontal force production and athletes do seem to enjoy it. However, this means removing coordinated arm movement and it can mean poor posture. It also encourages athletes to overload sleds while increasing their ground contact times. Taken together, these factors can make an athlete tired, but not faster—a better alternative outside of a HiTrainer would be to get athletes to hill sprint.

A HiTrainer can be loaded with up to 300lbs of resistance, and athletes maintain an erect upright posture and arm swing. In addition, they are not limited to a certain distance before having to swing the unit or themselves around, but can continue on indefinitely. Speed work in the weight room has, until non-motorized treadmills, been extremely limited and treated as a separate area to work on outside or at another location. Experts increasingly point to low-volume, high-intensity work or micro-dosing to build speed. Hunter Charneski’s article on in-season football training talks about exposing football players to maximum velocity runs in-season to build speed and reduce injury.

Having the ability to incorporate maximum effort runs in the weight room quickly opens up a full range of training options to coaches without program interruption. Incorporating sprint interval training with active recovery is not just about building top speed or ground force production, but preparing athletes for their chosen sport. We see positive VO2max adaptations and submaximal endurance increases by training maximum effort, which is the reason we recommend sprint training for both power sports and endurance sports.

The Machine and Data

The HiTrainer ATP+ is 100% made in North America, built from large pieces of solid steel, and has been tested by NFL linemen and NBA players. It is appropriate for athletes 8 years old and up, and settings go from 4’8’’ to 6’10’’. An athlete rests against chest pads that house force sensors, which capture important data on power. With no motor, the ATP+ only requires a household plug to power the tablet that contains the present options for walking, sprinting, and interval training, and also collects the data. Peak speed and time to peak speed represent maximum velocity and acceleration capabilities of an athlete in the drive phase. Power is presented in watts, and is a function of belt speed and weight into the pads.

HiTrainer’s most exciting aspect may be its ability to measure time to peak power, or #explosiveness, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

The most exciting aspect of the HiTrainer that is otherwise difficult to measure efficiently is time to peak power, also known as explosiveness. Powerful athletes are always explosive and everyone from Olympic lifters to top sprinters chase this quality. Being able to measure how long it takes, in seconds, is the first step to making progress.

Although it had previously been mentioned as a tool for all athletic trainers, left and right leg forces are something that every coach will immediately see the value with. Whether you believe in activating muscles or not, seeing a problem clearly reflected in the data is the first step to correcting a movement pattern, strengthening a weaker muscle, and restoring an athlete to balance. This will improve performance and reduce injury risk by helping an athlete remain as symmetrical as possible.

Developing Responsiveness and Explosiveness

HiTrainer was developed to condition athletes to the rigors of competitive action while making them more responsive and explosive. Athletes love to sprint, and are underserved when programs focus mainly on vertical force production. Acceleration should be an integral part of the development process, and training the right energy pathway, removing time/space limitations, and developing quick athlete turnaround is what the HiTrainer is for. Incorporating this high-performance tool into a strength and conditioning program will bring speed into the weight room and faster athletes to the field.

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