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Overload/Adaptation. We all know what it means, but not enough attention gets paid to either. This article will talk about the overload part of the relationship and how to manage progressions to optimize time and performance improvements.

Are you familiar with the story of Milo? The myth is that, as a small child, Milo would go out every day and lift a calf. As the calf grew, Milo was lifting a larger and larger animal until, as a grown man, he was lifting a bull. This demonstrates the lesson of small incremental overloads over a long period of time leading to great strength gains.

Properly timed progressions are the quickest way for athletes to make gains, says @jdevore1. Share on X

My experience has shown me that properly timed progressions are the quickest way for my athletes to make gains. I believe that all the fancy exercises and technology in the world cannot compete with a great understanding of how to progress an athlete.

Look to Make Incremental Gains

I also believe that a great coach’s real value is in the gift of time to their athletes. While most people think the value is in injury prevention, athletic performance, sport-specific performance, etc., all of these things provide the athlete with more TIME. It is a gift of more productive years at the highest level of performance. If an athlete is injured they cannot train, so poor program design wastes an athlete’s productive years (even if they make some gains). Could the gains have been greater? I see my role as a coach to realize the greatest amount of sustainable genetic potential of the athletes I am charged with training without injury.

My understanding of the science and the athlete’s body allows me to give the athlete much greater performance in their most productive years of play. Athletes are dynamic, which is the reason monitoring how they progress is so important. I have a hard time understanding a coach that does not write things down. I always write notes to myself and, even though there are plenty of spreadsheets available to use, I still rely on my notes to help me understand the dynamic nature of training. These notes allow me to learn better ways to make progressions.

I look for incremental changes in my design to produce greater and faster marginal gains that, when added together, create what I call “tipping point” fitness.

Years ago, when the Raiders were in the Super Bowl, I was lucky and got to train Regan Upshaw in that off-season. He was one of my first high-profile elite football players. When I trained him, he had been in the NFL for 11 years. I had never worked with a defensive end at the time, so in my evaluation of him the first thing I did was look at what my primary objective would be if I improved him as a player in the gym. If I could create an athlete who, when the ball was snapped, was immediately in the quarterback’s face, I would be a tremendous coach.

While that is an impossible task, I looked at what percentage of that objective I could achieve and worked backwards. With that mandate in mind, I began to tear apart everything he did once the ball was snapped. What did he require physically to perform at his best based on the needs of the position? I would use the tools of exercise science and training to reduce the time it took him to get to the ball.

I started by looking at his stance to determine how I could reduce the time of his first movements in any direction. We found that he had a very long rear foot stance. This was comfortable, but slow. His time off the ball was about 30% faster if we brought his rear foot up closer. I then looked at what I needed to do from an exercise physiology standpoint to better accommodate this new foot position, as it was initially awkward. Adding more hip flexor mobility made this new stance more comfortable for him.

This was my first incremental gain and it was a tipping point for him. The time immediately after the snap has much greater value to a lineman. During the Super Bowl, I saw him line up on the ball and then move his back leg forward and it put me on the field. I was elated. Of course, we then moved forward to evaluate all the other physical needs of his position. With great athletes, marginal gains add up to big performance gains.

Without incremental #overloads on a regular basis, an athlete will make little progress, says @jdevore1. Share on X

Keeping that in mind, what have I seen as one of the greatest influencers on really fast results without injury? Is it a better understanding of technology, pre-hab, program design, exercise science, mobility, stability, exercise selection, Olympic lifting skill, coaching capabilities, etc.? The list goes on and on. I do not discount the importance of having a basic understanding of all these tools.

However, after a decent understanding of these tools, you make the greatest impact by determining when and where to progress athletes. The great thing about this skill is it relies more on your ability to pay attention, listen, and observe than all the science in the world. Without regular incremental overloads, you will dramatically slow progress! I will say that again: Without incremental overloads on a regular basis, you will see little change! Milo would have been puny if the calf did not grow.

When, Where, and How to Progress Athletes

After high school, athletes today have short off-seasons but you may find blocks of training time that are long enough for you to make an impact. Let’s say an athlete is 19 when he starts college. According to the NFL Players Association, the average career length is about 3.3 years. The NFL claims that the average career is about six years (for players who make a club’s opening day roster in their rookie season). If this is the case, and each player has about eight weeks when they can train consistently in the off-season (I am being generous), the time disappears fast.

That is a total of four years in college and about six years in the pros. So there are about 80 weeks of total off-season training time when players can really make gains. Therefore, if you believe that adding 2.5 pounds to a lift is insignificant, you are really missing the boat. I tell my athletes that proper progressions are like compounding interest for retirement. At first, it does not seem like it is doing much. Then, you suddenly look at the account and there is significant money in it. Building an athlete is similar. Sensible, regular progressions compound and increase in value over time.

Proper #progressions are like compounding interest for retirement, increasing in value over time, says @jdevore1. Share on X

Any unproductive time is costly. One week a year of lost gains in fitness is 12.5% of the total time the average player has in an NFL career after high school to make gains. Two weeks lost is 25% of potential lost for the athlete. This is devastating when you know that the difference between being a franchise player and getting cut can be very small percentages in performance at that level.

The problems that arise in progressions are due to the human body being a dynamic mechanism. This attention on progressions needs to be on strength, but even more so on power and any metabolic conditioning you may perform with your athletes because there is a bigger risk of overtraining these metabolically taxing exercises. Progressions are even more important as the athlete becomes better and better. This is because overloads need to be bigger or more intense to get a change in performance as the athlete gets fitter and fitter. 

When progressing an athlete, you need to consider these factors:

• Time: How much time do you have to train the athlete?
• Maturity: How long has the athlete been training at this level?
• Chronological age: This will have an impact on recovery time. It does not mean an older athlete cannot recover quickly, but you need to keep age in mind.
• Recovery and adaptation time: This is more of an individualized evaluation.
• Fatigue: CNS (central nervous system)/Peripheral (muscle-specific)
• Current level of relative fitness: What level of fitness are you starting with? The fitter the athlete, the more important the progression. An unfit athlete will make gains quickly with most types of stimulus. However, the fitter athlete must have a more focused design.
• Biomechanical issues and impediments: Until remedied, this may limit your ability to make big progressions. However, injuries have helped me become a much better coach, by figuring out ways to improve the athlete in areas that have been neglected for long periods of time.
• Past or recent injuries: Athletes have injuries. How far away from the injury is your training? Always remember it can impact your progressions—it is equivalent to driving a high-performance car fast on bald tires.
• Baselines to establish overloads: Poor baseline analysis wastes a great amount of time as you do not get to an overload level fast enough.
• Mental toughness: Most athletes hate to train things they are not good at. It is like getting a kid to eat their veggies. Sometimes you have to figure out how to make them think it is dessert.
• Winning a workout: Athletes want to win. If you do not create little victories in each workout, morale decreases and progressions are more difficult as you will see breaks in training.

Periodization: When and How Much?

What is the most effective method of progressing an athlete? When, how much, and how often is the science of periodization. In the 1960s, the Eastern Bloc employed 10-year periodization. They would identify a candidate in their early youth and then start the process, which meant they looked at progressions over a very long period of time. Tudor Bompa is considered a pioneer in the study of periodization and he brought much of the Eastern Bloc training methods to the West. 

Overload/Progression: A simple definition of a progressive overload is anything over the norm that creates a stress large enough for the body to make an adaptation. 

Some examples of overloads:

• Load/Intensity: More weight and power output. Higher velocity, and higher percentages of maximum output.
• Volume: Time of output, more reps, more total sets.
• Rest/Density: Rest between the sets; rest between the reps. Most do not think about rest between reps. I utilize this method very effectively in training for efficiency of power production.
• Tempo: Speed of a movement
• Metabolic load: Anaerobic, glycolytic, and aerobic. What are the fuels needed and rest to recovery ratios?

Periodization is just the design of the overloads and rest to elicit a desired outcome. This design will impact progressions in your training. Typically, periodization is organized in blocks. The blocks cover different energy system needs or physiological objectives: strength, hypertrophy, strength endurance, power, power endurance, etc. You typically have a microcycle, mesocycle, and macrocycle. The microcycle is the individual objective of a workout, the mesocycle may be three weeks, and the macrocycle is the overarching longer term strategy.

I have studied the work of Verkhoshansky, Siff, and Bompa on the subject. The problem with most of the original periodization models is they were developed for weightlifters or competitive Olympic lifters whose sport is their training. As a strength coach, and a competitive cyclist, I have learned much about how periodization impacts aerobic performance on the bike. How do you take the lessons of these progressive overloads and apply them to a particular sport for power and strength? You are not trying to build weightlifters most of the time, but you are trying to improve movement and power by way of the weight room.

Endurance athletes are much better at periodization than most team sport athletes. The endurance athlete’s seasons are long and there is often a need to peak for particular events, which lends itself to an effective periodization. With a field or team sport athlete, there is more of an overall need for fitness and then some peaks throughout the season that are dictated more by the coaches of the sport itself, not the strength coach. Once the season starts, it is more play and rest with lots of maintenance to minimize de-training. However, the principle behind periodization is really just a physiological management tool for overloads and adaptation so that the athlete is at their peak when it is most valuable.

I think the takeaway from all of these periodization programs is that you need to build a solid foundation of fitness that addresses the need for the sport. This allows the athlete to progress from this foundation with higher and higher intensities and overloads that have a low risk for injury or overtraining, and then build on this fitness throughout the season through maintenance workouts and competition.

There are many different types of periodization and I will not go into detail on all of them here. The two most common are linear periodization and undulating periodization. Linear breaks out blocks of time, with objectives in each block: hypertrophy, strength, strength endurance, etc. Each block has a focus and you progress through the blocks. Undulating periodization has multiple objectives, and peaks and troughs more often within each of the objectives.

I like Louie Simmons’ conjugated periodization system for my strength and power training the best (it’s much more undulating in nature), as you can apply the principles much easier to different sports and levels of athletes, and it fits well into a commercial center. Collegiate athletes have mandatory practice, which makes some aspects easier. The undulating periodization system allows me to better and more easily address the unpredictability of an athlete’s time, and more rapidly progress athletes that may have faster recovery times.

Viewing Physiological Requirements as Windows

I label my personal system, “Training with Windows.” I am a visual guy, so I like to visualize my overall training design for an athlete as if I was looking at a wall of windows. Each window represents a particular physiological requirement for that particular sport. Remember, most athletes we train are not competitive weightlifters, so the ability to have multiple physical qualities is very important. The windows reflect the needs of the sport at the highest level of performance. During the year, some of the windows are wide open and some just slightly open. The only time they are all wide open is during competition. I spend a lot of time identifying the needs of the sport and what skills the athlete comes to me with, and then determine the gaps for gains.

My system is ‘Training with Windows’—where windows are the needs of a particular sport and position, says @jdevore1. Share on X

For example, let’s say I have a competitive high jumper. Some of the primary physiological windows for their sport would be: lower body strength, lower body power, mobility in hips, mobility in back and shoulders, dynamic core, stability and power, t spine mobility, drive leg power and strength, high rate of force development, hamstring strength and eccentric loading capabilities, strength endurance, speed strength, and knee stability. These are some of the primary windows I would evaluate.

Most of these are obvious, but I need to determine the current physiological infrastructure of the athlete that I need to improve in order to address these needs and progress them. The athlete needs to be able to perform a large number of strength exercises with large amounts of weight. In addition, they need to have enough mobility to handle the upcoming training for power. I look for correlation coefficients to the act of jumping. A correlation coefficient is the amount of influence one variable has on another variable. Your best squatters are typically not your best vertical jumpers, but squats will help improve a vertical jump. Therefore, squats are part of the program that will help support the power training to improve vertical jumps.

An extreme example of this concept would be forearm strength and high jumping. I would say there is a very low or nonexistent relationship (correlation coefficient) to high jumping. In fact, if an athlete’s forearms got too big, they would add unnecessary body weight, which would negatively impact the athlete’s jumping height. However, without good wrist mobility and forearm strength, power cleans are difficult to execute. So, there has to be a window opened to this skill of wrist mobility and shoulder integrity even though it is not a primary window.

I determine the size of the window I utilize by the relationship it has directly or indirectly in supporting the final requirements of the athlete for the sport.

Using the idea of these windows, how do we design and monitor progressions?

As I said when it comes to strength and power, I like the conjugated training system because it regularly addresses all the needs of the particular lifts, but with emphasis on particular areas at different points in time. This also supports my idea of little victories and keeping the athlete engaged. Remember: Athletes do not like doing things poorly, so you need to balance these skills. My high school athletes want their biceps to look good when on the field. The need for biceps may be very low in their respective positions, but I have no problem killing their arms and sending them out of the gym with a big pump from time to time to give them a win.

Following through with my windows metaphor, I never completely close the window on any required skill. I may, however, just crack the window open a little and have another window wide open, while changing the focus so that I can marry the individual’s progressions to the needs and weaknesses in their performance skill set that may already exist. If an athlete is monster strong on deadlifts and squats, what is the added value of more squats if the position or sport they play does not require greater lower body strength than they already possess?

Therefore, I may crack the window to maintain their lower body strength, but shift my focus and time elsewhere. I may skip ahead and go to maintenance on these exercises and jump right to improving the athlete’s power. This saves me valuable training time that I can gift to the athlete. This is also the reason I am not as fond of systems of training with elite athletes.

I believe in sport that all roads lead to power. In some cases, it is a high output of power for a few efforts (high jump, shot put, etc.) However, most sports require multiple efforts of power in different planes of movement. It is not the highest output of power that wins, but the ability to hold the highest percentage of that power the longest in a competition.

Designing the Workout

Once you establish the windows (needs of a particular sport and position) and establish what baseline skill set your athlete possesses (how big are their current windows relative to the needs of the sport?), the next step is designing the program that will best address these needs and gaps that the athlete may have and that are most important to change. This is your overarching program design to make the improvements necessary to bring your athlete to their highest level of output in the time you have. I call this inter-workout design.

Within the workouts, we also have intra-workout design. This is where I most often see time wasted on poor progressions.

My goal is to progress the athlete to the greatest overload as fast as possible without any risk of injury. I do not want to waste sets, reps, or a workout because I did not get the overload I wanted. Time is where the value exists. Every coach will say if they had more time with the athlete, they could make bigger gains. This type of analysis can give you more time.

Time is where the value exists, and this type of analysis can give you more time, says @jdevore1. Share on X

The first thing I do is set a primary objective for my workout; e.g.., I am going to get a max in the deadlift or bench, or bump absolute power. The primary objective may also be to rein in the athlete so that I get the big lift later in the week. This primary objective is the win of the workout. Then, if you have a hiccup (which you always get), you can still see if you can accomplish your primary objective. Sometimes you just can’t get an overload, but by going in with the objective, you know what direction you want to head in. You also know that today may be best suited for active recovery, because if you try to force the overload at a subpar output you just dig the athlete into a hole and risk overtraining.

You can set up intra-workout progressions in a number of different ways. They can be arbitrary from week to week, with you just setting an increase in weight that is fixed from week to week or a percentage increase week to week. This may work better for individuals that are new to lifting or have not been in the weight room for many months. The progressions will usually be bigger jumps as the athlete gets back into the lifts and the body makes a more rapid adaptation back to the previous normal. The athlete has been here before, and you just work on technique and see if there are any biomechanical issues that need to be addressed. Therefore, this transition time is not a real improvement over where the athlete was at the start of last season.

You can also progress week to week and make changes based on the performance the week before. I like this with more mature athletes and it may work well in a bigger group, too. This can be on a fixed percentage or perceived exertion by the athlete. If you use perceived exertion, you have to educate your athletes on what this means or you will not get the output you desire. My goal is to reduce what I call “wasted” reps and sets and workouts. I want training, not exercise. Exercise is a component of training but may not contribute to moving the needle forward.

I use a rep scheme that allows for the dynamic nature of how an athlete feels. It is based on past lifts, but not wedded completely to them. The past lifts act as a guide. I overlay this with trying to have max lifts in one or two exercises in each workout. I monitor the type of lifts so that the athlete doesn’t do a squat 3 rep max and deadlift 3 rep max in the same workout or on back-to-back days. I am careful about designing the workouts so that recovery time is adequate. These could be an upper body and lower body, pulling or pushing maxes on the same days of the week.

It is also dictated by how many days in the week I get to train the athlete. If you get the athlete more often, you can be more creative with the maxes. This would be similar to the conjugated system.  I, or one of my coaches, will observe the lift and try to progress the athlete based on a previous week’s lift, but at the same time take into account the possibility of a fitness bump during that workout. We know that, as athletes get fitter, jumps in fitness come slower and less often. I want to take advantage of a bump as soon as it takes place, not a week later!! This is really important and the reason I like notes. With notes, you can immediately go back and see what the last max lift was and the date it was executed. You will also start to see patterns in the time between max lifts for different athletes. 

The Workout:

I start with a check-in set, which is typically 10-12 reps. I want to see how the athlete feels, and it is also a way to reduce injuries. The more days of the week the athlete trains, the lower the rep count can be on this set as the athlete is more in tune with how they feel. If you have bigger gaps between workouts, you may do two of these sets. You could look at this as a warm-up to the bigger lift to follow.

If I see any issues with form or if the athlete just feels weak, we progress accordingly. If my objective is to get an overload with a heavy lift, then I want to get there as soon as possible so I do not hinder my ability to overload with too many preceding sets and too much volume. Some athletes are more comfortable with bigger jumps in weight. The next set will typically be six to eight reps. I like the range of two reps as it gives me, my coaches, and the athlete some flexibility and still feel success. I always tell my athletes that I want to target the lower rep range if possible. This means that the sixth rep should be about all that they can accomplish. If you see that it is too light, do not do more reps. Just make a bigger jump on the next set, so as not to add unnecessary fatigue that may compromise you getting an overload.

My next set is typically three to five reps and the last set is two to three reps. Each set will have a bump in weight with the target in mind. The range of the reps gives us some flexibility in targeting. If I can get a 2.5-pound increase in weight, I am going to get it. Do not discount the smaller increases as having little value. On endurance days, the smaller increases are also of great importance and are sometimes overlooked. You want the increase in total volume on these days, and you must allow the body to get the weight on the bar. This method requires the coach to be more observant of the athlete in the lift, or to educate the athlete on the goal of the rep scheme and progression if the coach is not there to add value and monitor them.

I also am very cognizant of the athlete’s level of athletic maturity and I will typically look at “max” lifts for a novice differently than for a seasoned lifter. A less-mature lifter may have six to eight reps “max” as the top end while an elite lifter may have one to three reps.

Greater Improvements, Faster

I have seen great technical coaches get poor performance results from their athletes because of poor progressions. You need less Instagram moments and more focus on what really adds value and cannot be seen in a photo. My belief is that, with a few solid exercises and great progressions, you will make much greater improvements faster than with any other form of training. It is a dynamic process that requires a coach to pay attention and figure out ways to lead the athlete to obtain the greatest overloads without injury or overtraining.

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Last year, a new systematic review and meta-analysis on the effect of flywheel training vs. traditional weight training made quite an impact on the sport science community. I read and digested the 29-page article so that I could explain the study outcomes a little further beyond the abstract, offer some input, and also give a peek into ongoing research by institutions like CESSCE.

After reading the article, the key points I want to get across are:

• Flywheel training with eccentric overload is consistently shown to be superior to traditional weights for increasing muscle power, strength, hypertrophy, and athletic performance.
• Eccentric overloading in these studies is predominantly done through one method, but there are many other more-effective methods.
• There needs to be more research in the future, as we still don’t know what is optimal.
• Researchers in seven different countries are currently looking at the kBox for physiotherapy, fitness, and performance training.

What Is All the Fuss About?

If you follow and read about flywheel science, this meta-analysis won’t surprise you. If you have hands-on experience with the kBox, even less so. Almost all studies comparing flywheel and gravitational loading (weight stack devices primarily) so far have favored the flywheel, so there’s no news here. Two of the studies did not favor the flywheel; however, those are about the conic pulley version, which is completely different from the type with a symmetrical shaft like the kBox. In one of those studies they compare different drills, too, so you can’t really say anything about flywheel vs. weights there, either.

f you have followed us for a while, you might have come across the meta-analysis on flywheels and their effect on power, strength, mass, and horizontal and vertical force production by Henrik Petré; an unpublished MSc project. It contains 15 studies but it isn’t a comparison against weights, so this new study adds something new.

To begin, I want to clarify what eccentric overload means in articles, what people think it is, and what it really is. In all flywheel training articles, the overload has been of the delayed eccentric action type. This means you accelerate all the way through the concentric phase, but don’t resist until after you passed the first third of the eccentric motion. By doing this, you overload the latter two-thirds of the range of motion since you have to absorb the same amount of energy as you produced over the whole concentric phase, but in a shorter period of time.

If you look when people tweet or post about eccentric overload, you can see all kinds of things. For instance, super-slow eccentrics spending 10-12 seconds in ECC phase, which is basically more isometric than eccentric action, at least if we compare them to the eccentric actions done during athletic performance. So, eccentric overload to me is ECC load >1RM concentric. If you are doing 2-1 (i.e., “2 legs up and 1 leg down”) with a submax weight, I’d say you shifted ratios with more eccentric focus, but if that load isn’t >1RM concentric, it is not eccentric overload training.

If you talk about eccentric training (but don’t say eccentric overload), I think it is a broader term that could permit super-slow chins and push-ups with bodyweight. However, I also think they are a waste of time; instead, increase the load and do (fast) overloaded eccentrics because that is the trigger you are looking for. Chris Beardsley wrote a nice piece on fast vs. slow eccentrics.

However, when you use the kBox, there are more ways you can actually overload than seen in these studies. You can use a stronger movement pattern in CON, like doing a “squat-hinge” as our U.S. friends call it, or the terms I prefer: “overloaded RDLs” or “deadlift into RDL” (as performed by Mike Young). RDL is weaker, so it will be overloaded if preceded by a powerful deadlift. You can use accessory muscles like pushing off with arms in the squat in CON and absorb it with the legs or have a coach pull you up, which adds extra energy for you to absorb.

This study looks at flywheel training with a partial overload in eccentric ROM vs. training with traditional weights, nothing else. The adaptations coming from the more powerful overload methods with higher contraction velocities haven’t been studied head-to-head yet, but if we compare more overload, over the whole range of motion with regular CON:ECC 1:1 using weights, I know where my money is. (Read up on the kBox overload methods here.)

What Did the Study Show?

Now, back to the important new meta-study, “Skeletal muscle functional and structural adaptations after eccentric overload flywheel resistance training: a systematic review and meta-analysis” by the mainly Spain-based team of Sergio Maroto-Izquierdo, David García-López, Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalo, Osvaldo C. Moreira, Javier González-Gallego, and José A. de Paz. If you just want the results, you can check the abstract. However, if you are still reading, you probably want a little more information, so here goes.

The authors searched the databases and found 97 studies. Although the flywheel might still have a lot of question marks around it, saying there is no research is wrong. Anyway, based on their inclusion criteria, the analysis included nine studies with a total of 267 subjects. All these studies are flywheel vs. weights, ranging from four to 10 weeks, with healthy young people or athletes between a six and an eight on the PEDro scale, which means all are classified as high quality. The average age for flywheel groups was 25.8 years, with a very asymmetric gender distribution since only one study involved women.

The exercises included in these studies were leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, and squats from lower limb, with two studies including exercises targeting shoulder abduction, arm extensors, and flexors. In the flywheel devices, the overload was provided with delayed eccentric action as described above.

A Clear Win for Flywheel Overload Training

The results in this systematic review are a clear win for flywheel overload training on all training outcomes. Since an image says more than a thousand words, I’d recommend you take a quick look at the summary in the forest plot to see it yourself.

Here is the forest plot. If you want to interpret it yourself, you can find a guide here.

Basically, all studies are placed under the respective outcomes they wanted to look at: strength, power, hypertrophy, jump, speed. The standard mean difference on the far right shows the difference between flywheel and weight training groups, with an average to the right of the vertical bar meaning difference between groups favoring flywheel (i.e., more effect). Studies are weighted, so a larger study has more impact than a smaller one. All studies are weighted and put together in the row with the big black diamond. As you can see, all studies favor flywheel on all outcomes, with power and strength being the most obvious.

Naturally, the results from any systemic review and meta-analysis depend on which studies you choose to include and what outcomes you look at, creating room for debate. Covering a relevant subject, the publication of this study inspired an interesting discussion and additional work by another research group. This other group published both a letter and a study (Vicens-Bordas et al., 2017) showing no significant benefit in strength with flywheel training.

This difference depends mainly on a different selection of studies, where they included only 76 and 71 subjects in their primary and secondary analysis, versus 267 subjects in the first one I review here. They also set the cut in November 2016, which excluded an interesting paper from Maroto-Izquierdo (2017) on professional handball players that got really good results on performance outcomes in the flywheel group and is very relevant for sports performance.

Further on, the second meta-analysis included a paper from 2005 (Caruso) where they mainly studied bone osteogenesis in obese women (and a few men) on hormone replacement therapy. In this study, both groups showed very poor strength gains of 7% vs. 12% (no significant difference) over 10 weeks of training on a seated leg press. With such small gains in strength in both groups for very untrained subjects, I think you can argue for the whole intervention to be suboptimal for strength gains and, as a result of that, it’s also not ideal for comparisons between modalities, especially if you train a younger and more athletic population. If you want to form you own opinion and dig into this flywheel vs. weights “beef,” you can read the letter and the reply from Maroto-Izquierdo et al., and the second meta-analysis.

The current article by Maroto-Izquierdo et al. that this review is about provides a good discussion around the results and mentions a few other interesting studies (not included in the meta-analysis), so I recommend you read the full text if you want to get more details.

We have no reason to believe #flywheel training wouldn’t benefit women, but there’s no evidence yet, says @FredrikCorrea. Share on X

Did the meta-study prove that flywheels are better than weights? Looking at the results, the flywheel is definitely more effective than weights—at least if you train young, healthy male athletes. However, as already discussed, this result will depend on the included studies. When it comes to women, we have no reason to believe they wouldn’t benefit from flywheel training, but all the evidence isn’t there yet. We need future studies to include women. This meta-analysis only included three women out of 276 subjects in total. Sport science must do better than that.

How can you apply this knowledge? These studies are basically single-exercise drills and not a part of a training program. Therefore, we actually don’t know (in a scientific sense) how flywheel overload training works in an environment with a much higher total training volume and with parts of concurrent training. Still, it’s hard to see how there would be a negative effect if you add flywheels to a well-designed program. Coaches afraid to train their athletes too hard by adding flywheel training can use this as evidence that they should replace some of the training with barbells with more effective flywheel training.

We are also missing more closed chain exercises involving multiple joints like squats, deadlifts, and split squats. What we see from our users are also different types of overload with a higher degree of overload than in the studies and over the whole range of motion. This is probably an effective stimulus for adaptions in these outcomes but future studies must quantify it. Adding flywheel will cause some muscle damage and fatigue early on, but adaptation is fast and muscle markers for damage don’t seem to have a detrimental effect on adaptation. You can read more on this subject here.

It’s hard to see how there’d be a negative effect if you add #flywheels to a well-designed program, says @FredrikCorrea. Share on X

Last, but not least, the flywheel device is only a tool. You need to use it properly for strong positive effects. I usually say that training on the kBox doesn’t get you strong if you don’t train with that intent. Lousy training is still lousy on a flywheel device. The benefit of the kBox is that it makes it easy to train really, really hard and that is what triggers the adaptation—the overload.

What More Do We Need to Know?

I’d like to see more studies looking at specific populations so we can prescribe training more effectively, depending on training age, strength, sport, etc. As mentioned above, we need studies on more closed chain drills and realistic and complete training programs to help us with periodization. Flywheels might be better, but we don’t yet know what is optimal.

Besides this, I think physiotherapy can benefit a lot from using flywheel training. Patients need to get stronger and more powerful with good timing, since time saved is important for good flow in the health care system and getting people back to work. However, before we see a massive surge of flywheels in physiotherapy clinics, we need more clinical studies on specific diagnoses and conditions.

There Is Work to Be Done

There are studies using the kBox being done right now in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Holland, Italy, and Australia. The topics involve all three main groups: athletes, patients, and the general population. I know at least one publication on physiotherapy that is supposed to come out this spring. Without revealing too much, I can say the kBox was in favor over the gold standard treatment for a common problem among athletes in sports involving a lot of jumping.

In addition to these research projects, we are in discussions with other researchers, so the list will be longer later this year. We try to understand the problems or questions our users have, and I’m tasked with trying to get the researchers to look for answers. I hope that we see more studies we can apply in the field that will help us with protocols, periodization, loading, and in-season training.

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

The goal of everyone involved in sport should be to enhance the performance of the athlete during competition. To that end, we undertake a variety of approaches to place load and stress on the athlete, with the understanding that the provision of this load, in the short term, acts as a stressor. This stressor requires a response from the body, allowing it to adapt and overcome, with the end result being an increase in physiological capacity. If we’re lucky, this will lead to an improvement in performance (although it is worth pointing out that physical improvements don’t always correlate with performance improvements).

There is a fine balance between load and adaptation: too much load can lead to maladaptation, where the athlete becomes over-fatigued and under-recovered, reducing their performance and increasing their injury risk. We don’t want this. On the other hand, if the load is too low, there will be too little stimulus for adaptation and, as a result, the athlete will not elicit any physical improvements from training. We don’t want this either, although arguably it is better than too much load, as at least in this state the athlete has the physical capacity to still compete while fresh.

The Measures of Monitoring

As the standard of sport performance increases, the importance of efficient and well-balanced training becomes paramount. To that end, over the last five years or so, and aided by technological advances, coaches and support staff have become more focused on monitoring the training process. Overall, this monitoring has two main goals:

1. Determine when the athlete is able to tolerate load.
2. Determine when the athlete is unable to tolerate load (and may therefore get injured).

As such, we can think of athletes as being in an optimally adaptive or sub-optimally adaptive state. A host of factors affect this—genetics, nutrition, stress—such that no athlete is likely in the identical adaptive state as their teammate. Even if we had two identical twins, it’s likely that one had slightly higher quality sleep the night before, or had a slightly easier training session a week ago. For a coach, being able to measure this is important, as it determines how much load will elicit the required stimulus: For twin A, a heavy lifting session might be ideal for that point in time, but for twin B, that same lifting session might be slightly too much.

This isn’t news to coaches: In a recent study, 67% of high-level rugby coaches rated monitoring the training load as “very important,” and 29% rated it as “important” —leaving only 4% who didn’t recognize a need for it. There are many different ways to monitor training load, with the optimal one changing based on available equipment and the needs of the performance staff. Common methods include just the quantification of training load, which we can achieve by monitoring the amount of time each player trains for (in total minutes, number of sessions, or number of drills), which is a very crude measure.

We can enhance this by monitoring something referred to as session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE), whereby the players score how hard they found the session (usually out of 10), which we can then multiply by the length of the session in minutes to get a workload score. This is a really useful metric, because now it allows us to take into consideration athlete fitness and fatigue. For example, the more fatigued the athlete, the harder they will find the session, leading to an increased sRPE score. The fitter (and fresher) the athlete, the easier they will find the session, leading to a decreased sRPE score. As such, this process allows individual variation to become apparent, which can be incredibly useful.

Fortunately, subjective measures, such as sRPE, have been shown to be as effective at monitoring athlete wellness as more objective (and usually expensive) measures. There is a caveat to this, however, and that is that sRPE is only valid if athletes give accurate and reliable scores. This isn’t always the case; if they have to give their scores in front of teammates, they might attempt to act macho and lie. Similarly, if the last portion of the session is harder than the rest, this can bias the athlete’s perception of how hard the session was, inflating the scores (one way around this is to wait until 15-20 minutes after the session to collect the RPE data).

We can then monitor training load metrics, including sRPE, over a period of time. Tim Gabbett is one of the eminent researchers in this area. Gabbett popularized the acute:chronic workload score, with the idea being that training load data (primarily sRPE x training time) could be collected to give a four-week rolling average picture of the “chronic” workload, and this can be compared to the weekly (or shorter) “acute” workloads. Large increases or decreases in this acute workload relative to the chronic, standard load the athlete is used to, are believed to increase the risk of injury, something which is again supported by Gabbett’s research.

Subsequent to this, there has been some discussion regarding the best method to calculate the acute:chronic workload, with some researchers pointing out a potential issue with Gabbett’s methods. Because fitness isn’t static, but can increase and/or decrease over time, the use of chronic workloads can be slightly misleading. As an example, I might be in a training taper, which means that if the taper goes on for long enough, I will become less fit. As a result, any training I do acutely will be more taxing than the acute:chronic workload score might suggest—in this case, the researchers recommend using an exponentially weighted moving average, which the research has shown to be effective.

Developing a Monitoring Program

So, what does the ideal monitoring protocol look like? Again, this depends on each person’s unique situation, but the best protocol is one that athletes can follow and that gives usable information. There is no point having the best protocol possible if it takes an hour to complete and you don’t get the results for two weeks. Athletes won’t want to waste time submitting the data, and the information garnered won’t inform the training process, due to the processing delay.

The immediacy of feedback is the most important characteristic of any #monitoring protocol, says @craig100m. Share on X

Returning to the study on rugby coaches, it determined that a maximum of 10 minutes spent monitoring fatigue and recovery per session was appropriate. The immediacy of feedback was deemed to be the most important characteristic of any monitoring protocol, for reasons mentioned previously. The coaches also felt that the monitoring protocol should be both inexpensive—no fancy equipment here—and easy to administer, potentially ruling out blood tests. Other important aspects were that any test should be able to have the entire team complete it at the same time, and the test should be non-fatiguing.

Alongside wellness data and training load data, it makes sense to also collect some performance data. The reason is perhaps obvious: Performance is the metric that matters, and yet we have the potential to lose sight of that if we just focus on wellness and training load metrics. By collecting performance data, we get an idea of how the athlete is responding to training—if their scores are improving, they are tolerating the load well and getting fitter; if their scores aren’t improving, then they are either in an intensified training phase (which is fine, as long as it is planned), or they are not tolerating the training load adequately, and as such are in a maladaptive state, increasing the risk of injury.

Performance is the metric that matters, and yet we have the potential to lose sight of that if we just focus on wellness and training load metrics.

Most coaches conduct performance testing at regular, but widely spaced, intervals; perhaps every month or two. While this allows for the collection of useful performance data for comparison to older data, it doesn’t allow for the making of rapid adjustments. For this, we need more frequent testing data. This creates a problem; while we need more frequent performance data in order to better adjust the training load, we can’t put in maximal testing sessions on a weekly basis because they interfere with training too much. A really good way around this is the use of sub-maximal tests on a semi-regular basis, usually in the warm-up. This approach is perhaps ideal, because the sub-maximal aspect of it means that the test doesn’t interfere with training too much, and shouldn’t be affected to a large extent by motivation.

Sub-Maximal Tests for Performance Monitoring

The sub-maximal tests you might want to use depend on the athletes you’re working with. For team sport or aerobic athletes, a useful test is the 5-5 football test, well studied by Martin Buchheit. In this test, they run for five minutes at 9 km/h with a heart rate monitor, and you collect their average heart rate for the final 30 seconds of the test and after 60 seconds of recovery (to give a score of heart rate recovery). If their sub-maximal heart rate lowers with training, then they’re getting improvements in aerobic fitness; if it increases, they’re perhaps ill or excessively fatigued. The same is true for heart rate recovery; if that goes down, they’re getting fitter. The best part about this test is that it doesn’t require a warm-up beforehand, and so it can function as a warm-up itself.

For monitoring of speed-power metrics, there are a number of different options. One is a six-second maximum cycle sprint, followed by one-minute recovery, followed by an additional six-second max sprint; in this test, you monitor peak power output. This has been shown to be a valid measure of neuromuscular fatigue in Australian Rules footballers.

A second potential measure is that of counter-movement jump height (CMJ). While this often requires expensive equipment (such as an Optojump), you can make a poor-man’s version by just having a measuring tape by the wall and seeing how high the athletes jump. There is also the option of an iPhone/iPad app called myJump, which the scientific literature has shown to be valid. When it comes to CMJ, average height is more sensitive to neuromuscular fatigue than greatest height, so it makes sense to do three to six CMJs during the latter stages of a warm-up.

A final option is that of bar speed during lifting movements, which many coaches utilize. Again, this could be sub-maximal during the warm-up—for example, a set of six hang snatches at 50% 1RM—or could just take place naturally during training, as athletes tend to lift similar loads session to session. If an athlete’s velocity at a given load is significantly lower on a given day, then they are potentially struggling with the overall training load.

A key consideration is athlete compliance. Research indicates that it is crucial that any monitoring of wellness doesn’t take a long time, and is easy for athletes to carry out. The more barriers that an athlete faces in the delivery of wellness data, the less likely you are to get consistent information. If using a questionnaire, athletes should ideally be able to complete it in around 60 seconds. An additional consideration is the ease with which you can log and record this data; if you have paper questionnaires for 30 squad members, you need to input that data into a spreadsheet. This may or may not be a worthwhile use of your time, so other options are apps that record to a centralized database that you can access, although cost becomes an issue here.

Putting the Pieces Together

Perhaps the best practical paper on athlete monitoring comes from Gabbett himself, along with other high-level authors. They published their ideas in an editorial from mid-2017 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Their guidelines are:

1. Determine what you want to achieve through the monitoring process
• As already discussed, this is likely going to the monitoring of improvements in training, the effects of fatigue from training, and a reduction in performance; all of which contribute to the end goal of enhancing athlete performance.
2. Determine how to collect this data
• When it comes to monitoring performance, select fitness tests that are relevant to your sport. You wouldn’t give sprinters an aerobic fitness test, for example.
• For external training load, decide on relevant metrics. If you’re a runner, this might be total training distance multiplied by intensity.
• This can be as in-depth as you require; you might want to collect blood after training to determine hormonal status, although this is likely overkill for most.
3. Collect the data
• Make sure you collect the data in a reliable and valid format; attempt to keep conditions the same.
4. Analyze the data
• There is no point in collecting data if you don’t use it to inform your decisions, so this is the crucial step. Without wanting to get too deep into statistics, for wellness data, you likely want to use standard deviations of z-scores. For fitness testing data, you have a number of options, but the smallest worthwhile change metric is perhaps the most important. If you’re not sure what this is, Anthony Turner has the best video I’ve seen on it, and this website is also an excellent resource.
5. Use the data!

There’s no point in collecting #data if you don’t use it to inform your decisions, says @craig100m. Share on X

Let’s examine this through the hypothetical situation of a sprinter I’m coaching. I’ve decided that I want to collect daily wellness data before the training session, to assess the athlete’s “readiness to train.” I do this via a questionnaire that takes about 60 seconds to complete, and allows me to understand how well she has slept, how tired and sore she is, and whether she is ill. Any large deviations from her “normal” scores (and I can determine what normal is by calculating monthly averages, for example) acts as a red flag to me; I can speak to the athlete to see what’s going on, and possibly change the training session accordingly.

A few times per week I could also implement some sub-maximal tests, the type of which we discussed earlier, to allow me to get some objective data on how well the athlete is tolerating load; if her scores indicate fatigue, and this level of fatigue is unplanned (i.e., isn’t a deliberate training variation such as functional overreaching), then, again, I can modify training. (Once more, the more data I collect, the more robust my baseline data becomes, so I can better detect deviations from normal.)

After sprint-based sessions, I could create my own modified sRPE metric by asking the athlete to rate how hard the session was out of 10, and multiplying this by the distance covered. (In the gym, I could just multiply sets x reps x weight for a volume score). Over time, I can set this up in my spreadsheet to determine the acute:chronic workload, which then allows me to tell if the athlete is under- or over-cooked, or just right.

Finally, at set points during the year, perhaps every six weeks or so, I can insert some specific performance tests; perhaps a speed test (60m from blocks), a strength test (back squat 1RM), and a power test (standing long jump). Overall, this package allows me to make small daily variations in training volume and intensity where required, guard against injury, and then determine whether the athlete is responding to training by showing improvements in testing.

Make Monitoring Part of the Training Process

In summary, athlete wellness, load, and performance monitoring is a worthwhile addition to the training process, possibly protecting against overtraining syndrome, illness, and injury, and allowing for on-the-fly modifications to the training program. While this can be expensive and time-consuming, it doesn’t have to be: Simple 60-second questionnaires, logging of total session workloads, and occasional sub-maximal performance tests are likely to be sufficient for most training program’s goals. Ensuring athlete buy-in is also crucial, as the monitoring program is only as good as the data you can collect, and if this data is unreliable, then the system falls down.

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

Further Reading

• Buchheit, Martin. “Monitoring Training Status with HR Measures: Do All Roads Lead to Rome?” Frontiers in Physiology. 2014: 5(73).
• Halson, Shona L. “Monitoring Training Load to Understand Fatigue in Athletes,” Sports Medicine. November 2014: 44(2); 139-147.
• Turner, Anthony N.; Bishop, Chris; Springham, Matt; and Stewart, Perry F. “Identifying readiness to train: when to push and when to pull.” Professional Strength & Conditioning. 2016: (42); 9-14.

If you’re a regular visitor to SimpliFaster, then you’ll know that one of the objectives of the site is to help coaches get their athletes faster. While linear speed and acceleration are often the focal point, this post will take a look at another physical quality that’s highly valuable in today’s world of elite sport (especially when it comes to court and field sports): change of direction (COD) speed.

The goal of this piece is to present some of the more updated research on COD ability—in particular, what the underlying physical components of COD are and how coaches can organize different training means to enhance this very vital quality.

Before I continue, I’d like to mention something. While I hold a master’s degree in sport science, my practical experience comes from the tennis court. I’ve competed at almost every level—juniors, college, and the equivalent to what other sports would call the “minor leagues.” Over the past decade, I’ve tried to merge my experiences on the court with my experiences off of it. And while tennis is my bread and butter, I believe that the underlying mechanisms that contribute to elite movement outcomes on the tennis court can aptly transfer to other sports. This includes, but is not limited to, basketball, volleyball, soccer, football, and more.

This article reflects my experience both playing and coaching elite tennis for the better part of two decades. I do my best to offer examples from a variety of sporting disciplines, but don’t hold it against me if some examples are biased towards the tennis court.

Agility and COD ­– An Intro

There are many terms used in today’s sporting environments to define movement. Examples include: “they are quick/agile,” “those are some fast feet,” “good footwork,” and on and on. Coaches from all sports use these terms liberally and interchangeably. While, on the surface, this may not seem like a big deal, with the cutthroat competitiveness of sport today every inch or second matters. For the casual fan or observer, it may not make a difference, but for coaches working in elite settings, knowing the difference between key terms will weigh heavily on how these coaches organize their training programs.

For instance, what does the term “quickness” mean? There are books on the subject but, to be frank, I’ve studied this field for over a decade and I’m still not sure. In fact, prominent researchers in the field (Sheppard and Young 2006) disregard quickness as a sport science term altogether, claiming that it’s simply “too vague.”

Even the term “speed” is misleading. What are we referring to? Is it linear speed? Limb speed? Maximum speed? Or something else? If it’s top running velocity we’re after, you should know that in many field and court sports, athletes rarely reach top running velocities. The dynamics of the game, along with the court/field dimensions, just don’t allow for it.

#Agility is often mistaken for #COD speed. They’re closely related, but not the same, says @CoachKuzdub. Share on X

Then there’s agility. “Agility” is a real term and a very critical one at that. While its importance cannot be overlooked, it’s also a term used loosely in sport environments around the world—often mistaken for the main topic of this post, COD speed. For instance, you may think that a simple spider drill is an agility drill (see Video 1 below). If so, you’re wrong. In order for us to better understand COD speed and how training means can improve this quality, we should first differentiate between these two closely related terms, as one is highly dependent on the other.

Video 1: The Spider Drill is a classic change of direction exercise that exposes athletes to different movement patterns that help prime general efficient mechanics. While popular for tennis, athletes in other sports can also do it.

Agility vs. COD: What’s the Difference?

In a recent paper (Huggins et al., 2017), the authors begin with the following sentence: “Agility or COD is a critical physical attribute….” Notice the emphasis on “or.” Or? Really? You don’t have to look very far to know that these terms are not one and the same. To gain deeper insight, let’s briefly define each term, starting with agility. Sheppard and Young (2006) propose the following:

“A rapid whole-body movement with change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus. This definition respects the cognitive components of visual scanning and decision making that contribute to agility performance in sport.”

Two factors jump out when reading this definition. First, that changing the direction of a movement, in the context of agility, is predicated on the presence of a stimulus. And second, this stimulus acts as a catalyst for an athlete to make a decision as to how they’ll execute the subsequent movement.

In tennis, this is pretty evident. Every time a player makes a movement towards the oncoming ball, several factors are at play. The player may anticipate the oncoming shot based on the tactical scenario, their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and the scoreline. Then, they will use various visual scanning cues to better perceive where the ball will end up. Given this info, the player will make a decision, and then execute the movement. This all happens within milliseconds.

Now let’s compare this scenario with the definition of COD ability: “a rapid whole-body movement with change of velocity or direction that is pre-planned.”

See the difference? The former involves a perceptual decision, while the latter does not.

Let’s look outside of tennis to illustrate this distinction. A basketball player, when defending the ball handler, changes the direction of their movements based on what the offensive player is doing—if they cross over to the left, the defender reacts to this (i.e., the stimulus). This is an agility task.

If we look at this same play from the lens of the offensive player, a different story exists. The player likely has an idea beforehand (which is pre-planned) of what play or move they will execute. This movement has layers to it—the player may know their opponent’s weakness (moving to the left) and could try to exploit that or they themself might be stronger/faster when moving to the right and choose to make a play in that direction. Because this is pre-planned (so to speak), it likely falls under the label of “COD” task.

But is it that easy? What about when the defender looks to their right for just a split second to see where their teammates are positioned? In this case, perhaps the offensive player sees a momentary window of opportunity and reacts to it. Is this movement a COD task or an agility task?

The Agility-COD Continuum in Sport

By now, you may be slightly confused. When delving into these concepts, I often am. But there’s a point to all of this; actually, a couple of points. First, movements are rarely just COD-based or just agility-based. There’s likely a continuum that exists. The way I see it, this continuum relates to the open-closed skill continuum in sport.

Gentile (2000) proposed a 16-stage open/closed skill continuum—called “Gentile’s Taxonomy”—to better classify various motor skills. At one end you’ll find skills that are completely closed, while at the other end you’ll find skills that are completely open. Within the two extremes, you’ll find a wide array of skills that may slightly favor one side of the spectrum over the other. Here’s an example of a batter hitting a baseball. (This is taken from Gentile himself. To see all 16 stages, refer to his 2000 study.)

It’s not the aim of this piece to get into the closed to open skill debate, but rather to highlight that COD and agility also act on a similar continuum.

The second point is, while I acknowledge that a continuum exists, training the underlying factors that make up COD, irrespective of agility, is still relevant. Look at Figure 2 below. Although COD doesn’t contain a perceptual component, agility does contain COD. I like the way Sophia Nimphius (associate professor at Edith Cowan) puts it and I’ll paraphrase her here. In essence, COD can occur twice, under “planned” conditions and under “agility” conditions. You can’t have an agility task without the physical, COD side of things.

All this leads us to the following: COD has many sub-components that play significant roles in its successful execution. We will now explore some of these physical qualities to gain further insight into COD speed in elite sport.

In many sports, critical movements of the game occur in incredibly tight spaces. Sport coaches from various disciplines echo similar sentiments, exclaiming thoughts like, “There’s just no space and time out there.” This is obvious in racquet sports where the court dimensions are quite small, but even on the basketball court and the soccer pitch, and in the hockey arena, key plays of a game or match are often decided in these so-called “tight spaces.” Furthermore, it’s typically the player with greater speed—or in this case, COD speed—that seems to win the battle for the puck, ball, or positioning.

Don’t believe me? A recent study (Pereira et al., 2016) took a closer look at movement in professional tennis players, and here are some interesting descriptive results from it. The total distance covered per rally was about 5.5 meters. Lateral movement occurred more than 75% of the time and, when moving to the side, the distances were much shorter. Lastly, and perhaps most intriguing, were the movement velocities. An astonishing 79% of the time, players were moving between 0 km/h and 7 km/h! Another 17% of the time was spent between 7 km/h and 12 km/h, 3% between 12.01 km/h and 18 km/h, and a measly 0.3% between 18.01 km/h and 24 km/h.

In a previous report (Abdelkrim et al 2007), we learned that in men’s basketball, up to 1,000 directional changes may occur during one competitive game. In elite females, a more recent investigation (Conte et al 2015) found that players changed direction 576 times (on average) with a range between 363 and 759. These activities last, on average, between two and four seconds. While 86% of all sprints were less than 10 meters in distance, when analyzing all movements (running, sprinting, jogging, jumping, specific basketball movements, etc.), close to 60% of them occurred in the 1-5 meter distance range.

While the basketball study didn’t analyze movement velocities, it’s safe to say that with the amount of directional changes that take place, and within a specific distance range, full running speeds aren’t reached. To make sense of these stats in terms of training prescriptions, we should look back at sport science basics, and the force-velocity relationship in particular. When movement velocities are low (like the examples above), forces have to be high, otherwise it’ll be a challenge to produce explosive, efficient movement. This leads us into our next topic of discussion, the underpinning physical factors that affect COD in sport.

Change-of-Direction and Sport – Physical Factors

I attended a presentation on COD a couple years back at a tennis federation. While the presentation was well-intentioned, the presenter refuted strength and power training as key components to COD ability. Interestingly, the arguments of the presentation were based on a review paper published in 2006 by Brughelli. Many of us know the results of that paper. If you’ve forgotten, let me refresh your memory: The review found no significant correlation between COD ability and strength or power levels.

Does that mean Sheppard and Young’s model (from above) is completely inaccurate? Or that we should forego strength and power development when attempting to make improvements in COD?!? Here’s the counterargument (Nimphius et al 2017): 

“In research and applied practice, the use of total time as a measure of COD performance has been overwhelmingly considered as a ‘valid’ measure of performance. However, recent research has suggested that the use of ‘total time’ from COD and agility tests may be masking actual COD ability, primarily because total time is biased to linear sprint ability in most tests.”

This is the reason Brughelli’s review came to the conclusion it did—up to that point, research on the topic didn’t actually measure what it intended to measure. (In some cases, researchers still make the same mistakes by using T-tests, shuttle runs, etc. that have a large linear component and, in some cases, are more relevant in testing anaerobic capacity than COD ability.)

As coaches, we should be more concerned with the various instantaneous moments of COD tasks. Share on X

So when it comes to COD, what are we trying to measure anyway? As I see it, the key to understanding COD ability in terms of the mechanical underpinnings lies in the isolated moments where a COD movement occurs. In other words, as coaches, we should be more concerned with the various instantaneous moments of COD tasks. We can divide these moments into three primary phases:

• The Braking Phase – aka the deceleration phase.
• The Propulsive Phase – aka the re-acceleration phase.
• The Transition Phase – aka as the planting phase.

Based on what we’ve outlined above, in conjunction with Sheppard and Young’s COD model, the remainder of this article focuses primarily on the physical subcomponents that make up COD.

Note: I’m a strong believer that technique and coordination are big drivers when it comes to COD ability in sport. They are heavily influenced by the specific and inherent mechanics of each sport, and even further than that, by very specific movement scenarios within each sport. It’s not the scope of this article to highlight the nuances of the various sporting movements, but for strength and conditioning coaches, I believe it’s worthwhile to analyze every possible movement outcome of the sport in question, as it will likely influence programming.  

Leg Muscle Qualities and COD Performance

While research acknowledges the importance of unilateral strength in improving COD ability, I won’t touch on it much here—otherwise this article would turn into a 10,000-word dissertation. I will, however, focus on several physical factors Sheppard and Young (2006) proposed: concentric strength and power, reactive strength, and how anthropometrics influence the discussion. Let’s dive into these in greater detail.

Concentric Strength and Power

Concentric strength and power can be most closely linked to the propulsive phase of COD. In various sport settings, after a deceleration and plant occurs, a re-acceleration in another direction takes place. Because ground contact times are longer during acceleration phases, maximum and explosive strength abilities are critical. In theory, the more force you can impart into the ground and the faster you can generate that force, the more efficient the propulsive phase.

A 2015 study (Spiteri et al.) on female basketball players showed a significant and strong correlation between propulsive force—the amount of force—from zero velocity to initiation of movement, relative to body weight (which we’ll explore in greater detail soon) and exit velocity (along with subsequent 505 test times). This means that generating a high amount of force relative to body mass will essentially improve COD ability. Thus, increases in concentric leg strength may improve first step abilities, whether that’s initiating movement from a starting position or performing a 180-degree COD.

Practically, the concentric portion might be trained in a more traditional manner (heavy explosive squats) or by decreasing and/or eliminating the stretch-shortening cycle’s (SSC) contribution to the lift (concentric or con squats—see Video 2). Con squats may be useful for sports/athletes where there’s a longer-than-normal transition phase, if a swing, kick, jump shot, or some other play is performed between the braking and propulsive phases. In these cases, concentric-only strength would be highly beneficial. Previous research (Nimphius et al 2010) supports this, as stronger athletes are able to apply force at faster rates (RFD) during the propulsive phases of COD tasks.

Video 2: Concentric work is still relevant because of the adaptations to the nervous system and the lowered stress and recovery needs. A mix of eccentric and concentric activities are wise for in-season training.

What Sheppard and Young’s model left out, however, were the two other types of muscle contractions: eccentric and isometric. Both are vital for improved COD ability in sport.

Eccentric Strength

When an athlete begins to decelerate, the braking forces acting on them are quite high. In fact, studies (Delaney et al., 2015) have shown that athletes are exposed to forces that are much higher than their own body weight during this phase. While coaches are often confronted with the question, “How strong is strong enough?,” it’s apparent that we might want to consider the ability to withstand forces that are up to two times the athlete’s own body weight.

Further to that, Spiteri (2013) found that athletes who performed significantly better at a 45-degree cutting task generated significantly higher vertical and horizontal braking forces. In other words, they were better at rapidly decelerating. In a 2015 study, the same research group found that athletes who were stronger eccentrically had a faster and more efficient transition between braking and propelling. Anecdotally, we see this when athletes appear to have a smooth transition between braking and propelling.

Practically, the eccentric phase can be accentuated with supramaximal lifts (Video 3) or by simply performing a variety of slow tempo lifts. But I doubt that’s enough. Athletes must be able to absorb considerably large forces under fast movement velocities. This is where Olympic lifts may warrant implementation—with an emphasis on the catching phase. During a hang power snatch, for instance, you can target the movement to affect bilateral or unilateral force absorption (Video 4).

Video 3: Heavy maximal eccentrics are difficult to implement without the right rack and the properly prescribed load. Eccentrics are above overload in force, not just overload with time under tension.

Video 4: Split snatches are less common than in the past, but they offer a nice blend of bilateral and single leg benefits to athletes. Include scapular strengthening from barbell pulling, and split snatches are a great addition.

Isometric Strength

Lastly, we have the transition phase. Recall that the transition phase in COD is also known as the plant phase. When looking at instantaneous joint moments, this phase seems to rely on isometric strength abilities (Spiteri et al., 2015). In other words, there’s a transition between braking and propulsion where movement velocity is zero but large forces are still at play.

It seems that athletes who possess higher isometric strength values are better able to maintain a low position when changing direction. This is important for two reasons. If you lack isometric strength, you can’t maintain your body in place. (In essence, you end up fighting against momentum, with it pushing you one way and you wanting to go the other way.)

Athletes w/higher #isometric strength values can better keep a low position when changing direction, says @CoachKuzdub. Share on X

Second, staying low when changing direction facilitates a better muscle length-tension relationship. Muscles produce more force at specific lengths. If they are too long (legs fully extended) or too short (legs fully bent), then force output will be diminished, comparatively. Keeping a relatively low stance will enable optimal force production, allowing for greater re-acceleration during the propulsive phase.

Overall, all three muscle contractions have their place when it comes to faster, more explosive, and more efficient transitions between braking, planting, and propelling. And when looking at some of the research on the topic, it seems that each COD phase links with one another. From a practical perspective, it’s likely not necessary to isolate each phase unless a visual assessment from a seasoned coach warrants it. In that case, you may implement an isometric-only exercise that deals with the exact angles of interest (Video 5).

Video 5: Isometrics are very flexible options and split squats are mechanically suited for intense training. Short periods of isometric training can help break through plateaus in strength and power.

Body Mass, Relative Strength, COD, and More

A study by Delaney et al. (2015) assessed professional rugby players on multiple abilities to determine various performance attributes and how they correlate to COD ability. When comparing a 505 COD test to a loaded vertical jump (40kg CMJ—countermovement jump), there was no significant correlation. While peak power from the vertical jump had no bearing on COD ability, when it was converted to relative peak power (based on body mass), everything changed. All of a sudden, there was a large significant correlation between the jump and COD performance.

When it comes to maximum strength in the back squat, the findings are even more telling. Delaney and his colleagues found no correlation between COD and a 3RM full-depth back squat. However, when back squat strength was reported relative to body mass, there was a strong and significant correlation to COD ability. In sub-elite rugby players, relative 1RM back squat strength was the greatest predictor of 505 COD ability. In female basketball players (Spiteri et al., 2015), there was a very strong and significant correlation between relative strength in a half-back squat and 505 COD ability.

Having a lower body mass isn’t the only factor at play here. A lower-percent body fat ratio relative to strength is also linked with faster COD test times (Spiteri et al., 2015). Essentially, lower body fat can have big impacts on an athlete’s ability to change direction rapidly and efficiently, as there is less nonfunctional mass (nonfunctional in this case meaning non-contractile). To my knowledge, strength training is the best way to improve body composition (i.e., lower body fat percentage). Remember, only muscle contracts—fat doesn’t.

A Word on Female Athletes and Specificity

Female athletes seem to consistently show greater correlations in COD ability when compared to relative strength (Nimphius et al., 2010; Spiteri et al., 2013, 2015). In the case of the Spiteri study (2015), one factor contributing to this finding is that the testing used a half squat instead of a full squat. When it comes to training, this is important for two reasons. First, a half-squat elicits angles that are more specific to COD tasks. On a tennis court or soccer pitch, it’s more common for athletes to move and change direction at these smaller angles than very deep ones, which a full squat represents. Second, athletes can tolerate higher loads in these smaller angles, which further increases relative strength values. As we’ve seen before, a conjugate approach that periodizes squats depths appropriately is warranted.

Reactive Strength and COD

Recall the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) for a moment. The premise is that when performing any type of fast, explosive movement, the involved tissues undergo a rapid eccentric stretch followed by an explosive concentric shortening. Because of this mechanism, the SSC stores and utilizes elastic energy, thereby augmenting power output to levels higher than if we were to perform a concentric-only movement (or if there was a significant lag in eccentric-concentric coupling). There are two components to the SSC, the fast component and the slow component. We’re going to turn our attention to the fast component, as its role is key when reactive strength is in the mix.

I will refer to reactive strength and the fast SSC component synonymously. Movements of this nature are highlighted by short ground contact times (<250 milliseconds), minimal flexion of the hips and knees, and perhaps most relevant to our discussion, a stiffening of the ankle and/or leg.

The Role of Stiffness

Reactive strength possesses one particular sub-component—called stiffness—that enhances the use of the fast SSC. During explosive actions, there is energy exchange between the various tissues of the lower extremity, including muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Stiffness greatly influences this transfer of energy. As the term implies, this literally means a stiffening of the targeted musculature and surrounding tissues. This can occur actively and/or passively. We can see stiffness in the lower extremity as either total leg stiffness—which includes the ankle, knee, and hip joints—or simply ankle stiffness. Stiffness in the ankle is of primary importance due to the activation and rapid contraction (from eccentric to concentric) of the triceps surae musculature, the two heads of the gastrocnemius along with the soleus.

A stiffer spring (to a point) is theorized to rapidly release stored elastic energy. This is exactly what we look for when cutting in football or recovering after a return or serve in tennis. And it begins in the ankle. If the ankle cannot stiffen, not only will ground contact times be higher, but energy may “leak.” This results in diminished stiffness at the knee and hip; both of which are influenced by triceps surae stiffness. Think of the kinetic chain: If there’s a broken link at some point, the rest of the chain suffers. That’s how important ankle stiffness is in generating movement and changing direction.

Researchers (Arampatzis et al., 2001) have found that acute changes in stiffness do, in fact, occur. This tells us two things. First, performing pre-conditioning hops (like the video below) can augment jump height, peak power, and intrinsic ankle stiffness; research has established this on multiple occasions (Kummel et al., 2016; Maloney et al., 2017). Second, having the correct intent may also contribute to increased stiffness, and morphological changes in the muscle-tendon complex are not entirely necessary to achieve stiffness.

Proper exercises and cues, therefore, have a profound effect on establishing this quality, acutely. That said, long-term passive and active morphological adaptations in the muscle-tendon and surrounding tissues may occur. Coaches must assess how much stiffness their sport requires and monitor this diligently.

Video 6: Bilateral reactive jumping is a great way to improve neuromuscular adaptations to the body while sparing the wear and tear that some single leg exercises have. You can use contact grids to measure and monitor lateral movements.

One final note on the notion of proper exercise prescription and cueing. What the aforementioned study revealed was that when athletes performed drop jumps, two things happened. First, there was a greater pre-activation of muscles of the ankle complex before they hit the ground. And second, co-contraction—the ability to contract both the agonist and antagonist musculature simultaneously—increased.

It is important to deliberately train stiffness/reactiveness off the field or court, says @CoachKuzdub. Share on X

Both of these factors increase stiffness. This simply highlights the importance of deliberately training stiffness/reactiveness off the field or court. Lastly, there are ways to make these types of drills more “agility” based by using various external cues (whether verbal, hand gestures, or otherwise). For instance, you can prescribe a drop jump exercise in a closed manner (Video 7) or more open (Video 8).

Video 7: Lateral plyos are about redirecting forces, not just moving side to side. Focus on quality landing positions before changing directions, as it’s easy to get lost on the location an athlete moves to instead of how they receive forces off the ground.

Video 8: Athletes can do lateral jumps on the court, field, or pitch. Include hurdles and cones as general guidelines only, not tight zones of movement, so the athlete doesn’t feel restricted.

Don’t Forget About Technique

My objective in this article was twofold. First, it was my belief that making the distinction between agility and COD was key to laying the foundation for these two qualities. While COD deals only with physical/technical factors, agility entails both perceptual/decision-making factors along with COD factors. Second, it was my aim to uncover why strength and power were previously shown as insignificant players in the optimization of COD (in terms of what the previous research revealed). Also, to offer an updated viewpoint towards the underlying mechanical requirements athletes should possess in order to change direction effectively. These can be trained off the court or field.

Lastly, I’d like to reiterate that this analysis only takes into account a fraction of what’s important when attempting to improve agility and COD as a whole. There are a number of schools of thought on this topic, from game-based approaches to constraint-led drills. I’m not trying to disregard the importance of other methods on COD and agility development, but a universal approach to training makes logical sense to me. While I haven’t touched on technique and mechanics, I do believe we shouldn’t neglect their place in the training process. That said, for athletes to express movement efficiently, it’s my belief that they must possess both the technical proficiency and the physical capacity to do so.

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

References

1. Arampatzis, A., Schade, F., Walsh, M. and Brüggemann, G. (2001). “Influence of leg stiffness and its effect on myodynamic jumping performance.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 11(5), pp.355-364.
2. Ben Abdelkrim, N., El Fazaa, S., El Ati, J. and Tabka, Z. (2007). “Time-motion analysis and physiological data of elite under-19-year-old basketball players during competition” * Commentary. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 41(2), pp.69-75.
3. Bergmann, J., Kramer, A. and Gruber, M. (2013). “Repetitive Hops Induce Postactivation Potentiation in Triceps Surae as well as an Increase in the Jump Height of Subsequent Maximal Drop Jumps.” PLoS ONE, 8(10), p.e77705.
4. Brughelli, M., Cronin, J., Levin, G. and Chaouachi, A. (2008). “Understanding Change of Direction Ability in Sport.” Sports Medicine, 38(12), pp.1045-1063.
5. Conte, D., Favero, T., Lupo, C., Francioni, F., Capranica, L. and Tessitore, A. (2015). “Time-Motion Analysis of Italian Elite Womenʼs Basketball Games.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29(1), pp.144-150.
6. Delaney, J., Scott, T., Ballard, D., Duthie, G., Hickmans, J., Lockie, R. and Dascombe, B. (2015). “Contributing Factors to Change-of-Direction Ability in Professional Rugby League Players.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29(10), pp.2688-2696.
7. Gentile, A.M. (2000). “Skill acquisition: Action, movement, and neuromotor processes.” In J.H. Carr & R.B. Shepard (Eds.), Movement Science: Foundations for Physical Therapy (2nd ed., pp.111-187). Rockville, MD: Aspen.
8. Huggins, J. (2017). “Within – and between – Session Reliability of the Spider Drill Test to Assess Change of Direction Speed in Youth Tennis Athletes.” International Journal of Sports and Exercise Medicine, 3(5).
9. Maloney, S., Richards, J., Jelly, L. and Fletcher, I. (2017). “Unilateral Stiffness Interventions Augment Vertical Stiffness and Change of Direction Speed.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, p.1.
10. Nimphius, S., Callaghan, S., Bezodis, N. and Lockie, R. (2017). “Change of Direction and Agility Tests.” Strength and Conditioning Journal, p.1.
11. Nimphius, S., Mcguigan, M. and Newton, R. (2010). “Relationship Between Strength, Power, Speed, and Change of Direction Performance of Female Softball Players.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(4), pp.885-895.
12. Pereira, T., Nakamura, F., de Jesus, M., Vieira, C., Misuta, M., de Barros, R. and Moura, F. (2016). “Analysis of the distances covered and technical actions performed by professional tennis players during official matches.” Journal of Sports Sciences, 35(4), pp.361-368.
13. Sheppard, J. and Young, W. (2006). “Agility literature review: Classifications, training and testing.” Journal of Sports Sciences, 24(9), pp.919-932.
14. Spiteri, T., Cochrane, J., Hart, N., Haff, G. and Nimphius, S. (2013). “Effect of strength on plant foot kinetics and kinematics during a change of direction task.” European Journal of Sport Science, 13(6), pp.646-652.
15. Spiteri, T., Newton, R., Binetti, M., Hart, N., Sheppard, J. and Nimphius, S. (2015). “Mechanical Determinants of Faster Change of Direction and Agility Performance in Female Basketball Athletes.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29(8), pp.2205-2214.

After the huge success and popularity of the first “Jumps Roundtable” series of articles, SimpliFaster asked Coach Nick Newman to trade his usual answers for questions. Nick interviewed eight accomplished jumps coaches for the second edition of this excellent six-part series.

We have published one question from the “Jumps Roundtable Edition #2” per day over the last six days. This sixth and last installment is on the specifics of designing a training plan, and also delves into the biggest influences on these particular coaches. Please enjoy, and please share.

The Coaches

Bob Myers: Bob Myers is currently retired, but served as Associate Head Coach at Arizona and was a college dean and athletic director over the past 40 years. He has an M.S. in Kinesiology, specializing in Biomechanics, and a doctorate in education with his dissertation on “A Comparison of Elite Jumps Education Programs of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom Leading to a Level III Jumps Education Program in the United States.” Bob was inducted into five Halls of Fame as an athlete, coach, and athletic director. He has published 31 articles in professional journals around the world and has lectured at over 50 locations throughout the world.

In his 13 years coaching at Arizona, Bob coached four national record holders, five collegiate record holders, and 27 All-Americans in the high jump, triple jump, long jump, javelin, and heptathlon. He is perhaps best known for coaching the University of Arizona women high jumpers to a 1-2-3 finish in the 1985 NCAA Outdoor Championship, where all three jumped over 6’3” (1.91m for second and third, and 1.93m for first) even though two were heptathletes. He also coached Jan Wohlschlag, who was ranked No. 2 in the world in 1989, won four USATF National Championships, and was the World Grand Prix Champion.

Todd Lane: Todd Lane entered his 10th season as a member of LSU’s coaching staff in 2017. The Tigers and Lady Tigers have flourished in eight seasons under Lane’s direction—he has coached 11 NCAA scorers to 35 scoring All-America honors in four different jumping events since joining the LSU coaching staff right before the 2008 season. His student-athletes have also captured six SEC championships and 36 All-SEC honors over the last eight seasons.

Nelio Moura: Nelio Alfano Moura has been a member of national coaching staffs in Brazil since 1990, participating in five Olympic Games, five Pan-American Games, and 17 World Championships (Indoor and Outdoor). Nelio has developed, in partnership with his wife, Tania Fernandes de Paula Moura, more than 60 athletes who qualified to national teams, and he coordinates a talent development program successfully maintained by the São Paulo state government. He is Horizontal Jumps Coach at Esporte Clube Pinheiros, and has a master’s degree in Human Performance from UNIMEP – Piracicaba. At least one of Nelio’s athletes has qualified to each iteration of the Olympic Games since 1988, and he guided two of them to gold medals in Beijing 2008. 

Dusty Jonas: Former high jump Olympian, Dusty Jonas, was named a full-time assistant coach on the Nebraska track and field staff on July 12, 2017, after eight years as a volunteer assistant for the Huskers men’s and women’s high jump. Since joining the Huskers program as a volunteer coach in 2010, Dusty has coached nine Big Ten high jump champions and 10 first-team All-Americans. Twelve Huskers have cracked all-time Top 10 high jump charts in his eight seasons. In the 2015 indoor season, Dusty helped then-sprints coach Billy Maxwell coach the Huskers men’s sprints, hurdles, and relays, and that group went on to combine for 46 of the team’s title-winning 127 points at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. 

Neil Cornelius: After a torn ankle ligament at 19, Neil started coaching in his free time at the age of 20. One year later, he coached his first National Junior champion in the triple jump (Boipelo Motlhatlhego, 16.07m). By 2011, he had his first 8m jumper (Mpho Maphutha, the youngest South African and the first South African high school athlete to jump over 8m at the age of 18 years). By 2013, Neil has his first national colors by representing South Africa as a team coach for the African Junior Champs. There, his athletes received three medals (long jump: Gold; triple jump: Gold (15.98 CR) and Silver). In 2016, Neil coached Luvo Manyonga to an Olympic Long Jump silver medal (8.37m) and in 2017 to a World Championship Gold (8.48m) and an African/Commonwealth Record (8.65m).

Since Neil first started coaching, his training group has amassed 88 medals (16 medals at various international championships and 72 medals at national championships). He’s currently the head Long Jump/Triple Jump coach for the Tuks Athletic Club (University of Pretoria), as well as the head jumps coach for the Tuks HPC and the Tuks Sport High School. 

Kyle Hierholzer: Kyle Hierholzer has most recently worked as the 2017 Lead Jumps/Multis coach and education manager for ALTIS in Phoenix, AZ. During the 2015 and 2016 seasons, he was the co-coach of Jumps/Multis with Dan Pfaff. Over the course of Kyle’s tenure, the group produced podium finishers at the U.S. Indoor Championships, World Indoor Championships, World Outdoor Championships, and Olympic Games, and also a Diamond League Champion. Before joining ALTIS in fall 2014, Kyle worked eight years at Kansas State University. Kyle primarily assisted head coach Cliff Rovelto in the sprints, jumps, and combined events. He also served as the primary coach for the K-State pole vaulters. 

Stacey Taurima: Coach Taurima has been the Head of Athletics of the University of Queensland for almost five years, where he has coached senior and collegiate athletes to finals in World Youth, World U20 Championships, Commonwealth Games, and World University Games. He has coached national medalists in both senior men’s and women’s sprints events, and in 2017 coached Liam Adcock and Shemaiah James to Silver and Bronze in the Open Australian Championships, along with Taylor Burns and Daniel Mowen to Gold in the 4x400m. Stacey has coached 16 national champions and 19 international athletes in a five-year period and many professional sporting teams utilize him for his expertise in speed-based programs. 

Alex Jebb: Alex Jebb is the Combined Events and Jumps coach for John Hopkins University. In his first two years of coaching there, his athletes have earned six All-American honors, five Academic All-American honors, 15 school records, four championship meet records, and two NCAA Division 3 All-Time Top 10 marks. Alex was honored as the USTFCCCA NCAA Division III Mideast Region Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year for the 2017 indoor season. He graduated from John Hopkins with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and from Duke University with a master’s degree in Engineering Management. He is an engineer by day and coach later in the day.

The Question

Nick Newman: This question is repeated from the first edition of the Jumps Roundtable, simply because it is an area of great interest for most coaches—the topic of differing weekly training setups.

Different areas of the world seem to have slightly different general setups. For example, a common American setup alternates high-intensity sprinting/jumping/weight training days with low-intensity running and circuit training days, while a common European setup alternates sprinting/jumping days with weight training days throughout the week. Which training setup do you use? Who, or what, would you say influenced your programming style the most? 

Bob Myers: I predominantly follow the European model in which sprint/jump days are followed by weight days. However, this is an oversimplification since sometimes this model is not followed, due to the goal of the training cycle. If absolute strength is the goal of a particular cycle, then sprinting and jumping becomes secondary.

Each cycle should have an overall goal or theme and, therefore, other aspects of the training, while not neglected, become less critical. This is how the weekly or other cycles reflect what is important in that time period. My training cycles were most heavily influenced by the great coaches of my time: Dan Pfaff, Gary Winkler, and Vern Gambetta, along with many other great minds in training theory, such as Tudor Bompa, Gerhardt Schmolinsky, and L. Matveyev.

Each cycle should have an overall goal, reflecting what training is important in that time period. Share on X

Todd Lane: Good question. I guess I’m more the American setup you referenced in your question. Through the years, I’ve begun to mix in more of some alternates at various times of the year, or back-to-back high-intensity days with the high-level athletes. For them, I feel like some change to training that we’ve done over a period of years is a good thing. Also, they often need a bigger stimulus to achieve new levels of performance. This would be followed by several days of low intensity.

Obviously, Boo Schexnayder (and the people who influenced him) has had a huge influence on my programming.

Nelio Moura: I don’t have a pre-established model, but I try to follow some concepts.

Technical training is always after the easiest days. We usually have a full rest day on Sundays, and an active recovery day on Wednesdays. Technique is trained on Mondays and Thursdays, but that can change during the competitive season. When we have technique, we also do some complementary strength training (weight lifting or plyometrics).

Weight Training: Two to three sessions per week, each session with a different goal (non-linear periodization). During the competition season, I normally prescribe a very short session of maximal strength (maintenance) on Wednesdays (recovery day).

Plyometrics: Two sessions per week, with a 72-hour interval between the sessions. Sometimes, for organizational reasons, I have to reduce the interval to 48 hours.

Speed: Tuesdays (flying 10m or 30m, in & outs, running over small hurdles, etc.) and Saturdays (usually at our speed ramp, in different combinations of uphill/flat/downhill).

On Wednesdays, we do active recovery (prophylactic work, medicine ball throws, easy interval training).

In order to try to answer, here is a model. Remember, it is flexible.

Dusty Jonas: My training setup and philosophy has been heavily influenced by my college coach and mentor, Gary Pepin. People who know me best know that I am voracious reader and I am on a constant quest for knowledge to learn all of the different ways to skin the proverbial cat. Much of what I have learned has come from reading everything I can get my hands on, from my experience as a volunteer coach, and from my time as a professional in track and field. I was lucky enough to pick up a lot of knowledge along the way in USATF high performance clinics, and from coaches that I was fortunate enough to meet and work with on various national teams.

As touched upon in a previous question, to develop a training plan you need to know the demands of the event and athlete, and train the qualities needed to succeed. In the fall, I typically train my athletes in a traditional GPP setup where we alternate high-intensity and low-intensity days. This usually allows the athlete sufficient recovery time between high-intensity or higher volume sessions. I generally favor five to six training days per week in the fall. A typical five-day setup would look something like this:

• Monday – Acceleration/power work, multi-jumps circuits, weight training
• Tuesday – Technical training, specific drill work
• Wednesday – Speed/power, plyometrics/multi-jumps, throws, weight training
• Thursday – Technical training, specific drill work, position work
• Friday – Tempo (extensive, intensive, hills, speed endurance), weight training
• Saturday – Active recovery or rest
• Sunday – Off

The SPP phase is very similar to GPP, but the focus shifts to much more event-specific technical work and more MaxV and specific speed endurance work. This may lend itself to more recovery time between training sessions.

The competition season varies from the GP and SP phases in the fact that this is the time of year where an athlete’s technique will not generally improve significantly with most collegiate programs having a competition every weekend. Most of the time is spent recovering and sharpening qualities that should have been developed early in the year. My competition weeks typically look like this:

• Monday – Acceleration/rhythm work, jumps circuits, med ball circuits
• Tuesday – Technical training, specific drill work (This is our biggest technical session of the week.)
• Wednesday – Speed/specific speed endurance, plyos/multi-jumps/throws, weight training
• Thursday – Light technical work, position work
• Friday – Pre meet
• Saturday – Competition
• Sunday – Rest

I find myself planning more around rest than anything else. Share on X

As far as American versus European training setups go, I think both have their merits. Choosing one over the other or something totally different will depend on the athletes that you have and the rate at which they develop. The more years I spend in the sport, the more I learn that one way isn’t always the best way. I find myself planning more around rest than anything else.

Neil Cornelius: Our track sessions in season usually alternate between jumping and sprinting, with the majority being high-intensity.

• Mondays and Tuesdays – High-intensity jumps and sprints
• Wednesday – Mid-intensity running and recovery
• Thursday – High-intensity jumping/technique
• Friday – Recovery running
• Saturday & Sunday – Rest

In the off-season, the setup changes in intensity a bit depending on the phase we’re in, but we still alternate our days between jump-specific and sprint-specific exercises. The high-intensity gym in the off-season occurs early in the morning on the days we are supposed to do sprints (twice a week), with the alternate days being kept for a recovery session in the gym. In season, I like to keep the gym intensity and frequency low to keep the track quality very high. 

Kyle Hierholzer: Like most coaches, I have learned from each coach involved in my life along the way, and I am grateful for every single one. My two biggest influencers are probably Cliff Rovelto, whom I worked for at Kansas State for eight years, and Dan Pfaff, whom I co-coached with at ALTIS for three years. They’re my biggest influencers mainly because I could observe and learn from them daily, over long periods of time. In addition, Boo Schexnayder has always been open and eager to share. He and Todd Lane were my instructors for my Level II Jumps course 11 years ago, and both have continued to give back to the sport, and me, tremendously.

I arrange activities to affect the bio-motor abilities: strength, speed, stamina, suppleness, skill. Share on X

My coaching systems and style are some blend of my environment and the lessons learned from mentors and experiences. Today, when I write and implement training, I still structure activities around influencing the five bio-motor abilities: strength, speed, stamina, suppleness, and skill. Most of my background was in combined events, so I have a bias toward grouping activities based on commonalities and compatibility. I feel that this allows me to get the most bang for my buck when teaching an element.

When I think of organizing training days in a microcycle, I tend to categorize them as either “neuro” or “general.” Neuro days would be days that intentionally have a high impact on the athlete’s nervous system. Typically, these would be higher intensity, low-moderate volume days. General days would then be activities that help to restore the nervous system. General days include both working and rest days for me.

When further classifying days, I will think high-neuro, light-neuro, general, or a hybrid day (having both neuro and general components). Throughout the course of a season, we are working to be able to handle two to three back-to-back neuro days because that’s what we do in competitions. From Day One of training, that is what we are gradually working towards.

The weekly cycle structure for us might look like this throughout the course of a season:

I’m happy to share training plans in more detail, just send me a message.

I write training in ranges and with many options so that we can readily fine-tune things on the day, while keeping the theme of the day or cycle. Regarding strength training, I view it as complementary to what we are doing on the track. I tend to marry it to the theme of the day and the cycle so that the teaching component can continue into the gym. I generally tend to keep it simple in the gym, focusing on one of three components: maximum strength, power, or general strength.

As the season goes along, we spend less time in the gym, and typically narrow the focus to only key exercises. The fluff drops away. I don’t use a lot of special strength exercises because I feel like we do plenty of them on the track, but I will on occasion in certain cycles. Especially if an athlete indicates a desire for this, or feels strongly that it’s necessary. I don’t mean to downplay the weight room at all; it is a significant part of our training and athlete development. However, it supports what we do on the track—it doesn’t drive it.

When I first started coaching, I wrote in four-week cycles. I followed a medium-medium-high-low loading routine in early season, and a high-medium-medium-low routine in the competitive season. Now, I almost exclusively write in three-week cycles with a mod-high-low rhythm in early season, and high-mod-low in later season. I’ve found the increased density of low weeks has worked well with my style of training design and implementation.

I’m still not exactly sure where I sit on the general prep versus special prep debate, but I would say I typically start on the general end of specific movements. For example, we do acceleration work during Week One of training, but it’s not in spikes, it’s for shorter distances, and it’s often focused more on the global aspects of the skill.

I have begun utilizing Coach Pfaff’s three-day rollover cycle during the competitive phase, and I am a believer in its effectiveness for most athletes. For more information on this, feel free to contact me, and I’ll happily discuss and share. The basics of it are to do an ergonomic study of the event to figure out the most important demands, and then focus solely on those demands. For a long jumper, this might globally look like the following:

• Day 1 = Acceleration development/power emphasis in the gym
• Day 2 = Jump technique/general strength
• Day 3 = Max velocity or speed endurance or intensive tempo/power and/or max strength

The guidelines for implementing the rollover are pretty straightforward:

• Always rest after a Day 3.
• Day 2 is a wild card and can be played anytime, except the day after a Day 3.
• The athlete can insert rest days as they choose at any other time.
• Insert normal pre-meet routines into the cycle as needed.

So, a two-week setup with competitions on Friday and the following Saturday might look like this:

Or it could look like this…

Or several other options depending on the athlete…

The main variable we work with in this situation is density. We try to find the patterns that work best for each athlete. The athlete stays on the rollover for the duration of the competitive season, and we typically start it two to three weeks prior to the first serious competition of the season. Generally, if an athlete goes on the rollover for the indoor cycle, we’ll go back and do a few regular cycles before outdoor.

My training system is still evolving and changing. I always do my best to look at things through the common-sense lens. When in doubt, I reach out to my support circle, and I ask them to reel me back in. Grow your network, and contribute to it.

Stacey Taurima: Australia has a good history of horizontal jumping success. We seem to be predominately a nation based around “speed-based” jumpers. Although our track sprints history isn’t currently turning heads, our horizontal jumpers seem to be very competitive with runway speeds.

My program is mostly KPI-driven, so the ‘capacity’ we’re developing will dictate the program design. Share on X

The technical elements in sprinting, jumping, and lifting all tend to influence my training programs in both collegiate and junior developing athletes. Being ALTIS alumnus, Coach Dan Pfaff has probably been my most influential sprints and jumps coach to date, and through his teachings I’ve embraced the importance of working towards a technical model in all areas of the program.

The program is generally KPI-driven, so depending on what “capacity” we’re developing, this will dictate the program design.

The weekly outlook will generally commence after a rest day. The primary focus on the first session of the cycle will be to prepare the body for Day Two, which is generally the higher KPI focused session (i.e., technical jumps/plyometrics day). So, Day One (potentiation day) will blend into Day Two, and so on. Once again, the intensity/density will be determined by athlete needs, time of year, etc.

Alex Jebb: The training setup will vary depending on the time of year. As the year progresses, my group develops more variation in setup between the multis and the other jumpers/hurdlers. I’ve experimented with a few different setups, including the two you mention above, as I like to “guinea pig” things on myself before employing them with my athletes.

While it is possible to provide a solid justification for each of the many setups out there that work for a particular athlete, I think that the following setup works best for my athletes. For the most part, we’ll go:

• Monday – Accelerations/med ball or jump circuit/heavy lift with more of a concentric focus
• Tuesday – Short approach jumps/jump drills/extensive tempo
• Wednesday – Max velocity work/bounding/lighter lift through large ranges of motion with a focus on bar speed
• Thursday – Recovery day/throws work/pool or general strength circuits
• Friday – Either a speed endurance day or resisted accelerations/special lift (heavy on plyometrics, largest variation in squats on Fridays as we progress through the various themes)
• Saturday – Jump tech./intensive tempo or speed endurance
• Sunday – Splash around in the pool

I think this structure allows me to touch on everything I want to accomplish each week, and I have found it easy to layer in event-specific work into this setup throughout the year. This arrangement is conducive to implementing progressions within each event, as it touches on almost every component needed (acceleration, max velocity, speed endurance, technical work, various themes in the weight room, etc.), so it’s easy to progress each element at the proper pace for the athlete.

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After the huge success and popularity of the first “Jumps Roundtable” series of articles, SimpliFaster asked Coach Nick Newman to trade his usual answers for questions. Nick interviewed eight accomplished jumps coaches for the second edition of this excellent six-part series.

We will publish one question from the “Jumps Roundtable Edition #2” per day over the next six days. This fifth installment is on the specifics of building a technical model. Please enjoy, and please share.

The Coaches

Bob Myers: Bob Myers is currently retired, but served as Associate Head Coach at Arizona and was a college dean and athletic director over the past 40 years. He has an M.S. in Kinesiology, specializing in Biomechanics, and a doctorate in education with his dissertation on “A Comparison of Elite Jumps Education Programs of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom Leading to a Level III Jumps Education Program in the United States.” Bob was inducted into five Halls of Fame as an athlete, coach, and athletic director. He has published 31 articles in professional journals around the world and has lectured at over 50 locations throughout the world.

In his 13 years coaching at Arizona, Bob coached four national record holders, five collegiate record holders, and 27 All-Americans in the high jump, triple jump, long jump, javelin, and heptathlon. He is perhaps best known for coaching the University of Arizona women high jumpers to a 1-2-3 finish in the 1985 NCAA Outdoor Championship, where all three jumped over 6’3” (1.91m for second and third, and 1.93m for first) even though two were heptathletes. He also coached Jan Wohlschlag, who was ranked No. 2 in the world in 1989, won four USATF National Championships, and was the World Grand Prix Champion.

Todd Lane: Todd Lane entered his 10th season as a member of LSU’s coaching staff in 2017. The Tigers and Lady Tigers have flourished in eight seasons under Lane’s direction—he has coached 11 NCAA scorers to 35 scoring All-America honors in four different jumping events since joining the LSU coaching staff right before the 2008 season. His student-athletes have also captured six SEC championships and 36 All-SEC honors over the last eight seasons.

Nelio Moura: Nelio Alfano Moura has been a member of national coaching staffs in Brazil since 1990, participating in five Olympic Games, five Pan-American Games, and 17 World Championships (Indoor and Outdoor). Nelio has developed, in partnership with his wife, Tania Fernandes de Paula Moura, more than 60 athletes who qualified to national teams, and he coordinates a talent development program successfully maintained by the São Paulo state government. He is Horizontal Jumps Coach at Esporte Clube Pinheiros, and has a master’s degree in Human Performance from UNIMEP – Piracicaba. At least one of Nelio’s athletes has qualified to each iteration of the Olympic Games since 1988, and he guided two of them to gold medals in Beijing 2008. 

Dusty Jonas: Former high jump Olympian, Dusty Jonas, was named a full-time assistant coach on the Nebraska track and field staff on July 12, 2017, after eight years as a volunteer assistant for the Huskers men’s and women’s high jump. Since joining the Huskers program as a volunteer coach in 2010, Dusty has coached nine Big Ten high jump champions and 10 first-team All-Americans. Twelve Huskers have cracked all-time Top 10 high jump charts in his eight seasons. In the 2015 indoor season, Dusty helped then-sprints coach Billy Maxwell coach the Huskers men’s sprints, hurdles, and relays, and that group went on to combine for 46 of the team’s title-winning 127 points at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. 

Neil Cornelius: After a torn ankle ligament at 19, Neil started coaching in his free time at the age of 20. One year later, he coached his first National Junior champion in the triple jump (Boipelo Motlhatlhego, 16.07m). By 2011, he had his first 8m jumper (Mpho Maphutha, the youngest South African and the first South African high school athlete to jump over 8m at the age of 18 years). By 2013, Neil has his first national colors by representing South Africa as a team coach for the African Junior Champs. There, his athletes received three medals (long jump: Gold; triple jump: Gold (15.98 CR) and Silver). In 2016, Neil coached Luvo Manyonga to an Olympic Long Jump silver medal (8.37m) and in 2017 to a World Championship Gold (8.48m) and an African/Commonwealth Record (8.65m).

Since Neil first started coaching, his training group has amassed 88 medals (16 medals at various international championships and 72 medals at national championships). He’s currently the head Long Jump/Triple Jump coach for the Tuks Athletic Club (University of Pretoria), as well as the head jumps coach for the Tuks HPC and the Tuks Sport High School. 

Kyle Hierholzer: Kyle Hierholzer has most recently worked as the 2017 Lead Jumps/Multis coach and education manager for ALTIS in Phoenix, AZ. During the 2015 and 2016 seasons, he was the co-coach of Jumps/Multis with Dan Pfaff. Over the course of Kyle’s tenure, the group produced podium finishers at the U.S. Indoor Championships, World Indoor Championships, World Outdoor Championships, and Olympic Games, and also a Diamond League Champion. Before joining ALTIS in fall 2014, Kyle worked eight years at Kansas State University. Kyle primarily assisted head coach Cliff Rovelto in the sprints, jumps, and combined events. He also served as the primary coach for the K-State pole vaulters. 

Stacey Taurima: Coach Taurima has been the Head of Athletics of the University of Queensland for almost five years, where he has coached senior and collegiate athletes to finals in World Youth, World U20 Championships, Commonwealth Games, and World University Games. He has coached national medalists in both senior men’s and women’s sprints events, and in 2017 coached Liam Adcock and Shemaiah James to Silver and Bronze in the Open Australian Championships, along with Taylor Burns and Daniel Mowen to Gold in the 4x400m. Stacey has coached 16 national champions and 19 international athletes in a five-year period and many professional sporting teams utilize him for his expertise in speed-based programs. 

Alex Jebb: Alex Jebb is the Combined Events and Jumps coach for John Hopkins University. In his first two years of coaching there, his athletes have earned six All-American honors, five Academic All-American honors, 15 school records, four championship meet records, and two NCAA Division 3 All-Time Top 10 marks. Alex was honored as the USTFCCCA NCAA Division III Mideast Region Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year for the 2017 indoor season. He graduated from John Hopkins with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and from Duke University with a master’s degree in Engineering Management. He is an engineer by day and coach later in the day.

The Question

Nick Newman: Event technical models are difficult to create because of the physical and anthropological variables each athlete possesses. However, for your specialty event, what are the most valuable technical specifics that you feel influence performance the most? How do you address them within your program?

Bob Myers: In one word, kinetics—the position, momentum, and body movements to create maximum forces in the correct direction (angles at takeoff) at the right time. A good part of the season is spent trying to progressively and systematically maximize these forces at the right time to attain maximum vertical lift (as pertains to the HJ) at takeoff. As the season comes to an end and the athlete is peaking for the most important meets of the season, high jump approach accuracy and rhythm (momentum and body position) must be foremost in the technical preparation for a peak.

All coaches should employ a technical “system” whereby a systematic progression (or technical learning progression) of technique is taught, then use an inventory of problem-solving drills to address particular technical deficiencies that pop up. Drills should not be used just to drill, unless they are part of the physical training for an athlete. Drills should be used to build the technical model or to correct a technical error.

When you drill, have a reason: Use drills to build a technical model or correct a technical error. Share on X

Many coaches drill for no particular reason or at the wrong time in the season, often just because they have seen a drill used by another coach. Again, every aspect of training should be done for a specific purpose, not just because they saw a good athlete doing a particular type of training.

Todd Lane: I disagree with the statement, “Event technical models are difficult to create because of the physical and anthropological variables each athlete possesses.” Technical models are the commonalities we see across all good performers in performing the event. There are stylistic differences within this model that are unique to each performer, but they still exhibit the key checkpoints that make up a technical model.

For instance, in the triple jump, the athlete has horizontal displacement at takeoff and free hip/leg extension creates a somewhat neutral pelvis position, which allows all phases to be efficiently executed. This is addressed during all the work we do, from bounding to short approach jumps.

Nelio Moura: My program is really open, so I allow plenty of technical variations. For example, if you ask me the best way to begin the approach run, I will say, “standing.” However, my athletes begin their run-up in different ways, according to their individual preferences. I just try to help them be as consistent as possible. On the other hand, there are key, fundamental aspects that determine performance at the horizontal jumps, and I am truly emphatic about them. I can’t see how to make concessions at the transition and takeoff phases, as well as the active landings in the triple jump. 

Dusty Jonas: I want to start by giving the readers a clear understanding of how I choose to define the term “technical model.” To me, it refers to coaching to the demands and physics of the event to achieve the desired result. I will also continue to use the high jump specifically as my example of developing a technical model. While this is high jump specific, the concept carries over to most of the other events in track and field.

There are specific things in the high jump that an athlete needs to be able to execute in order to reach as close to their potential as possible.

1. Generate 90%+ of the required horizontal velocity over the first three to four strides of a 10+ step approach.
2. Initiate the curve such that the foot, hip, and shoulder turn progressively to greater degrees. This develops inward lean that causes the COM to stay inside of the outside leg on the curve. The COM should not shift over the top of the penultimate foot.
3. At takeoff, the COM should travel from the outside edge of the heel to off of the big toe as the athlete leaves the ground.
4. If all of these things are executed correctly, four rotations should occur: forward, lateral, about the long axis of the body, and about the bar.

As the above list for the technical model points out, there are many different things that need to happen correctly for an athlete to efficiently clear a bar. That being said, many athletes can jump relatively high while lacking one or more rotations, but bar clearance and, very importantly, athlete health, can suffer over time as a result.

To address the original question directly, the most valuable technical aspect that affects performance is the approach. It is also the most time-consuming and, for some, the most difficult to master.

Knowing that these things need to be accomplished, accommodations must be made based on factors such as anthropological differences, genders, training ages, etc. The first thing that I do is identify weaknesses, specifically on the approach, and adjust accordingly. One athlete’s time may well be spent doing acceleration work and running a large number of approaches to develop a rhythm and feel for the lean and speed through the curve. Another athlete may do extremely well with just a very small amount of full-approach running/jumping. When I find where an athlete’s time is best spent, I start to see the most significant improvements.

The largest accommodation that we make is to fit specific radius measurements to each athlete individually, based on a number of factors such as height, speed, and technical proficiency on the curve. Regardless of individual differences, the goal is the exact same for every athlete, so in reality, there can be only slight variations to the model itself. The only variations that should be made are in how the training is programmed and how the coach chooses to implement his or her system to fit the technical model.

Neil Cornelius: Jumping is all about control. You need to be able to control your speed, control the timing of your takeoff, control your flight, and control your landing. The most important and valuable part to control is the athlete’s body position and posture. The perfect body position in a specific phase (i.e., shoulders up and open in your takeoff) allows you to pull out the proper movements and technique when you take off, fly, and land. This is why plyometrics on the track during the year (off-season and in-season) are of vital importance, as that control, posture, and body position (as well as timing) can be more easily taught while doing those exercises.

Kyle Hierholzer: I’m not sure what my specialty event is, but I will go with the long jump because that is where I’ve probably done most of my work recently. I will, however, make a comment about specializing to young coaches… Don’t do it! Even if you fancy yourself as a jump coach right now, spend some time with the throws coach, the distance coach, the sprint coach, etc.

Also, that administrative stuff? It’s pretty important as well. The more well-rounded you become, the better you will be down the road. Everyone pretty much agrees that young athletes shouldn’t specialize—well, neither should young coaches. Rant over, on to the long jump. I’m going to discuss shapes, targeting, and penultimate no-nos. 

The first element we spend a large amount of time developing is the approach. I won’t spend too much time discussing it now because it’s been talked about and written about for years on end. There really is nothing new under the sun. Back in 1936, Jesse Owens was solid.

We train and teach acceleration, transition, and max velocity technique and qualities. We train these qualities on the track, and we transition them to the runway. We hold athletes accountable to each phase, and demand mindfulness of execution. However, what has been important to me lately is understanding shapes.

A jumps coach can only see and hear what the approach should look like, but an athlete must feel it. Share on X

What do I mean by shapes? Can the athlete spend the appropriate amount of time in each phase? Can they blend together each phase in a harmonic, well-executed fashion from any length of run, in any conditions? The athlete must feel what the approach should look like. As a coach, I can only see and hear what the approach looks like. The athlete can feel it.

The length of the approach should be able to be expanded or condensed and still have shape. If the athlete executes a 20-step run well, but loses shape on a 12-step approach, then I haven’t really done a good job of teaching them what the purpose is for each phase of the run. In our system, I know that when an athlete maintains shapes for any length of run, we really have someone who is learning, who is mindful, and who is buying in.

The second element is targeting. I hear lots of people talk about steering, but I hear very few talk about targeting. I was introduced to it by Coach Pfaff. It centers around the athlete targeting a specific point on their foot to a specific point on the track. Targeting makes steering more effective and precise.

When someone shoots a rifle with open sights, they line up two points. One at the end of the barrel, and one at the back. So, we can’t just tell athletes to hit the board. We should tell them exactly “what” to hit the board with, and exactly “where” to hit it. The board is 20 centimeters long. Be specific. “Target your back row of spikes 15cm behind the board.”

Typically, the faster the athlete is coming down the runway, the farther behind the board they need to target. The only exceptions to this are the super twitchy, fast converter types, who by the grace of God have a much bigger margin for error than everyone else. So, if an athlete hits their mid/check mark with a well-shaped run but still fouls, we go to targeting. If they were targeting 20 centimeters behind the board, we’ll move it to 30 centimeters, and so on. If they weren’t targeting at all, we remind them to do their job.

Targeting is an easy concept to grasp, but a hard skill to master. It requires mindfulness, and it should be a KPI in jump sessions. This can sometimes be difficult because athletes want to work on “technique.” That’s when you show them how many fouls they averaged in each competition last season, and then see if they think it’s an issue. Find your teaching moments. Athletes will generally need to have different targets for approaches of different lengths.

Targeting is easy to understand, but hard to master. It should be a KPI in jump sessions. Share on X

The final portion I’ll discuss is penultimate mechanics, and point out two common errors we’ve experienced in recent years, as well as share some possible strategies to address the issue. The two issues we’ll be looking at are over-lowering on the penultimate, and being over-active on the penultimate.

1. “Over-lowering.” Although the center of mass will lower, athletes generally do not need to have any conscious feeling of trying to lower their center of mass on the penultimate step. The lower their center of mass goes on the penultimate, the higher it’s going to go in flight, the more forward rotation that will occur, and the shorter they will jump. Correct lowering of the COM should result from the proper shape of the run, and correct penultimate execution. Over-lowering can occur for several reasons:
1. The athlete is too close to the board, and must put the brakes on and sit on the penultimate to buy time to get the takeoff in. Debrief the shape of the run, targeting, and conditions.
2. The athlete is too far from the board, and must now buy time to get to the board for the take off. Debrief the same as above.
3. The athlete craves being way up in the air and looking cool, and is lowering to allow this to happen. Explain to the athlete that this is the long jump not the high jump, and our objective is to go far.
4. Poor posture going into the take-off phase. This requires the athlete to again spend too much time on the penultimate to correct the posture error. Debrief shape of run and mindfulness on postural strategies.
2. “Over-activeness.” You can measure this by looking at the angle of the penultimate shin upon touchdown of the penultimate foot. We are looking for perpendicular (90 degrees) to the ground. If the penultimate step is too negative (less than 90 degrees), then the center of mass will be going down into the board, and the athlete will interpret this as falling. As a reaction, they will most likely block the takeoff leg into the board to fight the sensation of the fall. This can be a very injurious action.

Most athletes who are “over-active” have a wrong understanding of the penultimate step. They generally are mistakenly trying to add velocity to the run, or they are trying to spend less time on the ground than they should. The athlete must decelerate to jump. It’s the price you pay to fly. We want to maintain as much velocity as possible on the penultimate, but that will be unique to each athlete. Each athlete will also have a unique amount of time that they need on the ground to execute the jump. Less time on the penultimate is not always better for every athlete.

To correct this error, some good cues can simply be to ask the athlete to “feel the penultimate foot further out in front,” “let the ground come to them,” “feel a little bit more flight on the penultimate stride,” “feel the ground for a little bit longer on the penultimate step,” or something else that you come up with for your specific athlete based on their characteristics.

Generally, if the shin angle is correct and the center of mass lowers the appropriate amount for the individual, then your athlete will be in position to execute proper takeoff mechanics.

Stacey Taurima: For me, key technical areas include:

• Understanding the technical requirements in acceleration transferring to upright running.
• Run-up rhythms in relation to stride length and frequency.
• Emotional control and steering abilities having higher KPI requirements.

When training these elements, we tend to observe foot placements along the runway and assess individual foot placements, which we call “grouping,” at various points along the way. The more consistent the groupings, the easier it is to steer into the board.

Alex Jebb: For me, I believe that nothing replaces the base of just being an athlete in the purest sense. We even have a phrase we use that helps keep athletes out of their own heads and keeps things fun after jump or throw attempts or races: “More athlete.” This objective is something we work towards as a base throughout the year, with the aim of the athlete developing a wide range of skills and abilities in a multitude of areas.

Jumpers need what I call a ‘more athlete’ base, to develop a wide range of skills and abilities. Share on X

For example, I’m a big believer in high jumpers playing pick-up basketball because of the many types of jumping and mixed energy system work involved (the only rule we have is that they must play with other varsity athletes to help reduce injury risk). I believe that working through various planes of motion and types of movements develops the athlete’s motor learning capabilities so that when we do focus in on a few ultra-specific types of jumps, they see a greater uptick in performance than they would have with less of an “athlete” base.

Technical models are largely the same, regardless of the athlete, because the laws of physics will dominate a large portion of these models. Building off of the physics piece, I think the concepts of basic physiology are the next level of governance. Only after accounting for these two layers, physics and physiology, can we begin to interject athlete-specific modifications. An event such as the long jump begins with looking at projectile motion and objects in flight—greater horizontal speed and vertical takeoff velocity will produce a greater jump. Physics!

The next piece is how the athlete should most efficiently reach peak speed at the take-off point and conserve as much horizontal velocity as possible while converting energy into a vertical takeoff (i.e., a stiff take-off leg). Physiology! Delineating between the requirements of a “speed jumper” or a “power jumper” in the long jump, for instance, then becomes a puzzle of fine-tuning take-off actions and angles for what will work best for that particular athlete.

Thus, working off of my first point, increasing the athlete’s ability to “figure things out” makes my job much easier as a coach. Once the athlete and I identify what works best for him or her, then we can alter different variables to develop proficiency in his or her individual “model.” For example, we’ll utilize spatial cues such as low hurdles, incorporate jumps on or off of boxes to address when and how to apply forces, and employ objects such as weighted vests or assisted speed devices to target the feel of ground contacts.

Tomorrow, we’ll feature the last installment of this Jumps Roundtable Edition #2 series: “Designing Training Plans.”

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