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There has been a long-standing debate on whether higher volumes of endurance training equate to elite caliber athletic performances. While it is true that many elite athletes train with much higher volume and intensity than recreational athletes, this certainly hasn’t been shown to be a necessary requirement to compete on this level.

With an increasing volume of training comes a heightened risk of injury, a potentially weakened immunity, and a greater chance of overtraining and burnout. Each athlete is individually capable of handling a given workload and, until the body adapts, this volume should only increase slightly, with caution taken so as not to shock the body into a fatigue- or injury-ridden state. Over time, as more training experience is acquired, this volume can gradually drift upward into the 60-, 70-, and 80-mile, and even 100+ mile weeks.

By no means should an inexperienced runner jump into a 120-mile week training plan and expect to escape unscathed; in fact, some of the highest caliber elite athletes operate at half that volume, under a specific, periodized program designed to substitute quality miles over a quantity of miles. However, others swear by the increases in volume as the key to taking performance to the next level. Is the reward of this high-mileage training worth the risk?

Assessing the Risk

It is well-established in research that exercise in either a high-intensity or high-volume capacity stresses the immune system, making an individual more susceptible to infection, especially immediately following a training session. Unfortunately, a wide breadth of this research involves recreational athletes and sedentary individuals (Mårtensson, Nordebo & Malm, 2014). When considering this trend in elite athletes, you must consider the impact of lifestyle, training tolerance, recovery ability, and nutritional intake, which can all greatly affect the strength and resistance of an athlete’s immune system.

In Mårtensson’s study, which involved 11 elite endurance athletes, the volume of training over several logged years was compared to the number of self-reported sick days. In one year, on average, these athletes trained 462 hours, were sick for 15 days, and were injured for 21 days. The volume of training was not correlated to the contraction of infection, although less fit individuals (those with less training years of experience) were found to be more susceptible than their more experienced counterparts. The latter information aligns with similar research of its kind.

Some studies have reported that the incidence of acquiring an infection post-marathon (or similar event) greatly increases. However, others have negated this cause-and-effect relationship, finding that pre-effort infection is the probable cause for this incidence rate, rather than post-effort sensitivity (Mårtensson et al., 2014). All in all, the physiological training adaptation that occurs in a musculoskeletal and cardiovascular sense also occurs with the immune system. In other words, as an athlete improves and stress demands increase, the immune response must also strengthen to keep from being overrun, both literally and figuratively.

With the explosion of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), it’s no wonder the benefit of high-volume endurance work is being questioned. Still, the largest majority of elite athletes performs 80% of training volume under the lactate threshold, and utilizes HIIT sparingly (Seiler & Tønnessen, 2009). Studies that incorporate a higher intensity of training into already well-trained athletes’ programming prove to be equivocal at best in regards to increasing performance.

What has been consistent and clearly established in the literature is the fact that an 80:20 ratio of low-to-high intensity training leads to excellent long-term performance results in athletes that train daily (Seiler & Tønnessen, 2009). The ability of an athlete to handle high-volume loads in training should be considered on an individual basis, but what seems to be more important is the ratio of this type of base-endurance training to that of high-intensity interval training. The right combination of the two, over time, is better correlated to success in elite athletes today, rather than loading purely for the sake of loading.

References

• Mårtensson, S., Nordebo, K. & Malm, C. (2014). “High Training Volumes are Associated with a Low Number of Self-Reported Sick Days in Elite Endurance Athletes.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 13(4): 929-933.
• Seiler, S. & Tønnessen, E. (2009). “Intervals, Thresholds, and Long Slow Distance: The Role of Intensity and Duration in Endurance Training.” Sportscience, 131-27.

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

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. Discontent is the necessity of progress. Discontent is too gentle a word for the sickening catastrophe of an elite sprinter pulling a hamstring. I can only compare it to a racehorse breaking his leg.

But what can we do? If I hear one more strength and conditioning coach boast about preventing hamstring injuries by increased weight training, I may leave Twitter.

I’ve had great success with Reflexive Performance Reset™ (RPR), an easy-to-learn manual therapy that improves the durability of athletes, keeping them injury free. Think about that. Think deeply. Think of all the athletes who have been sidelined by mysterious soft-tissue injuries.

Reflexive Performance Reset

Thomas Edison said, “Discontent is the first necessity of progress.” When tired of living in darkness, we invent light bulbs. When sprint coaches are haunted by hamstring injuries, we find ways to prevent them.

When sprint coaches are haunted by hamstring injuries, we find ways to prevent them. Share on X

Reflexive Performance Reset is a simple combination of breathing and acupressure that treats imbalances in the muscular and nervous systems. When muscles work together in sequence while fully activated, the body moves correctly. Athletic movements are sequenced chain-reactions. Weak links in the chain and improper sequencing lead to injuries. When the same compensation patterns are reinforced, injuries linger and recur.

Reflexive Performance Reset training is proactive; it helps evaluate an athlete’s current physical state and then implements breathing and acupressure as a means of running injury prevention.

2012 IHSA State Track Meet: Blown Hamstring

At the final race of the 2012 IHSA State Track Meet, the 3A 4×4, my team, Plainfield North, featured four proud seniors with PRs of 49.5, 48.6, 51.6, and 49.5. Our ace-in-the-hole was our third runner, 6’3” Derrick Suss. A newcomer to the relay, Derrick jogged a 51.6 in the prelims the previous day. After running 22.00 in the 200 at Sectional, Derrick was destined to run sub-49, no question. Yes, four seniors with a chance to win it all.

After two outstanding legs, we found ourselves in second place. Seventy meters into the third leg, Derrick went down, hard. He had blown a hamstring. Quest Young and Marquis Flowers ran across the field to help their fallen teammate. Knowing that assistance from his teammates would disqualify our team, Derrick waived off their help and crawled ten meters to the baton. Somehow he found the courage to pull himself up and limp the remainder of his lap.

Evan Flagg took the baton long after the other eight teams finished the race. Evan ran the most spirited solo anchor lap I’ve ever witnessed. Twenty thousand emotional fans stood in support of Plainfield North, many with tears in their eyes, including me. We courageously finished the race but finished last with the slowest time in the 120-year history of the IHSA State Track Meet. Four seniors from Plainfield North stood on the awards stands and proudly accepted their ninth place medals.

The train wreck of this race may be the best and worst moment of my coaching career. I will be forever proud of my team’s courage and forever saddened by what could have been.

 

2009: Career-Ending Hamstring Pull

Rewind four years. Chris Korfist was coaching speedster John Fox. As a junior, John won silver in the 100 (10.83) and bronze in the 200 (21.93 with a PR of 21.75). He also led York’s 4×1 to a 5th place finish. Chris was looking forward to entering 2009 with the best sprinter in the state and of his coaching career.

 

In 2009, the curse of speed reared its ugly head. John pulled a hamstring. He did not compete in the 100 or 200 at that year’s state meet. Somehow, John fought through his pain and helped York’s 4×1 and 4×2 to silver medals (41.84 and 1:26.06).

John Fox’s injury was one of those events in coaching that haunts or hounds you for your career. John did everything I asked of him. Ultimately, our training had a lot do with his injury. Even worse, there was nothing I could do to help him. John’s injury forced me to look at what we were doing and try to understand why it happened. My search took me beyond token theories about why hamstrings fail.

John’s injury had a huge impact on me personally. I felt responsible for what happened.

I had other athletes injured earlier in my career, as we all have. I’ve had disappointments in big races, but that is part of sport. John’s injury was different. The stakes were higher. His ceiling was higher. John could have been one of the best ever.

Indoors, as a senior, John ran a 55m dash at one of the top times in the country. After the injury (going into the outdoor season), we held him out until the IHSA Sectional, the last possible meet. John never ran the 100m or 200m his senior year. He ran the sprint relays at the sectional, the state meet, and nationals. John’s 4×2 team placed second at nationals. After that, he never raced again. He received a scholarship to the University of Illinois but never raced.— Chris Korfist

What Can we Do?

Maybe the answer is less weight training. Or more sprint volume. Or less sprint volume.

More intensity, less intensity, core, stretching, yoga, prayer?

Let’s return to 2012. Just four weeks before Derrick’s injury, I received an email from Chris: “I wanted to let all of you know that I have invited Douglas Heel, from South Africa, to come to Chicago to teach and certify you in his technique. I have been using his techniques for three months and have had some dramatic results, not only in injury prevention but performance as well. Please contact me with further questions after reading the attached brochure. I wanted to let you know first before I opened it up. We are limiting it to the first 30.”
I opened the brochure, saw the $500 fee, and disregarded the invitation.

If I had paid the $500 and learned the Be Activated method, my 4×4 team may have been state champs. In hindsight, I would pay thousands to see Derrick run 49.0 and proudly hand-off to Evan.

As coaches, we send our athletes to doctors for stiff hamstrings, sore quads, and tight Achilles. Doctors seem to mindlessly prescribe rest, ice, compression, and anti-inflammatories.

This past football season, I had a two-way player who went to the doctor with a sore Achilles. The doctor sent him back with a note saying to “play only one way.” One way? I assumed that meant he could play offense or defense but not both. Are you kidding me? I “reset” the kid, and he played fast and pain-free (but only on defense).

I once observed a paid athletic trainer stretching a severe hamstring injury. I went ballistic. The trainer immediately pointed to the fact that she had credentials and I did not.

Prevention: RPR

The best way to avoid the soft-tissue injury conundrum is, of course, prevention.

Consider the idea that the technique that makes athletes more durable can also improve performance. That this same therapy also transitions athletes from a sympathetic state of fear, stress, fight, flight, or freeze to a parasympathetic state of balance, calm awareness, and mindfulness.

“Stress is not a state of performance, stress is a state of survival,” Douglas explained. Before I met him, I believed adrenaline was a preferred drug of athletes.

When we are in a sympathetic state—fight, flight, or freeze—our body collapses and implodes to protect vital organs. No one can perform well in a state of implosion. If pills could produce calm-focus or relaxed-intensity, we would all be addicts.

In the statements above, I’ve simplified Reflexive Performance Reset to its three main pillars: durability, performance, and mental state.

Although Be Activated was taught to medical professionals as a treatment method, Chris was implementing it in a non-medical performance setting, using activation as a coach, not a physical therapist, chiropractor, or doctor.

Douglas fully supported adapting the methods to performance training and injury prevention, and RPR was unveiled last summer as the next generation of Be Activated. Reflexive Performance Reset is not a treatment for injuries and is not intended to treat, fix, manipulate, or otherwise replace medical advice and treatment.

RPR gets the body breathing and moving correctly to prevent injuries and improve performance. Share on X

Instead, it’s used as running injury prevention, as it is designed simply to get the body breathing and moving correctly.

“I think if I had RPR in 2009, John Fox would not have injured his hamstring,” Chris said.

 

Chris, Cal Dietz, and J.L. Holdsworth are the founding fathers of RPR. Chris is a high school teacher (Hinsdale Central) and coaches at both Hinsdale Central and Montini Catholic. Cal is the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at the University of Minnesota and author of Triphasic Training. J.L. is the Founder and Head Strength Coach at The Spot Athletics in Columbus, Ohio.

“Here at the University of Minnesota, out of over 4,500 hockey practices, we’ve had only one missed practice due to soft-tissue injury. RPR makes athletes more durable,” Cal explained.

I went to my first Douglas Heel seminar in October 2014. I’ve now attended five seminars, spent more than 100 hours with Douglas, and written seven articles on his technique.

Reflexive Performance Reset Seminars in Cincinnati, Austin, Bakersfield, and Chicago have sold out. The price of attending a seminar and getting certified is $250. For more information, visit Reflexive Performance Reset.

 

 

Post-activation potentiation (PAP) has potential to improve sprint performance and is commonly used in practice and research. It’s especially helpful for athletes who require a little variation in session structure or those who need further transfer from the gym to the track or pitch. This article summarizes what we know about PAP and sprinting, how we can improve PAP’s effectiveness our own sessions, and how we can use PAP for more than a physical response.

The Basics

PAP is a phenomenon where a maximal, or near-maximal, activity increases the performance of a subsequent activity. We expect the performance of the subsequent activity to be greater than if it were performed without the PAP stimulus.

For example, an athlete performs a vertical jump, reaching a height of 50 cm. Next, the athlete performs a 2×2 back squat @ 87% 1RM followed by a 10-minute rest. Then the athlete repeats the vertical jump and hits 51.5 cm (3% improvement).

When using PAP, fatigue and potentiation coexist; typically these are opposing factors to athletic performance.¹ Seitz, Haff² have detailed the balance between potentiation and fatigue, explaining that muscle performance may improve if potentiation dominates and fatigue is reduced. Muscle performance will remain unchanged or even decrease, however, if fatigue is equal to, or greater than, respectively, the potentiating effect.²

How to Apply PAP Stimulus to Your Training Group

A myriad of studies have investigated the PAP response and are superbly summarized and critiqued in various reviews.^1-4 Example exercise pairings include:

1. Very heavy 1-3RM back squat followed by a body weight vertical jump
2. Very heavy 1-3RM bench press followed by a lighter medicine ball throw
3. Bounding-type plyometric activity followed by a sprint
4. Resisted sprint activity followed by a sprint

In this article, I will focus on the fourth pair—resisted sprints and unresisted sprints.

 

Because of the precarious balance between potentiation and fatigue, PAP stimulus is confounded by many variables and depends on the athlete and the specific exercise pairing. Athletes respond differently to varying potentiating exercises, intensities, and rest periods. I advise you to not apply the same PAP stimulus and rest interval to all athletes within a training group.

Do not apply the same PAP stimulus and rest interval to all athletes within a training group. Share on X

A more effective, albeit time-consuming, option is to perform a mini-research study with your athletes. The chart below displays a simple protocol. Your investigation will allow you to individualize PAP stimuli and rest periods for each athlete. This process takes up session time, but I like to think of this as training, not just testing.

 

Resisted Sprinting: The PAP Effect for Sprinting

Five peer-reviewed studies have looked at the potentiating effect of resisted sprinting on subsequent unresisted sprint performance.^5-9 The results are mixed. Three studies found a potentiating effect^6-8 while two did not.^{5, 9} However, we can’t compare the studies due to the variety of methods and populations used.

A common problem with resisted sprint PAP literature is the method of load prescription. I covered this subject previously in this article on resisted sprint training. The five RSS studies used an absolute load or a load related to body mass. As we know, neither method accounts for individual variation in physical qualities such as maximum strength, peak power, rate of force development, or sprint speed.

Non-individual load prescription may be the reason why we’re not close to understanding whether an effective PAP stimulus is present from resisted sprints.

If we prescribe a potentiating load of 30% body mass, athlete A (a weaker athlete) may experience a force-dominant stimulus, while athlete B (a stronger athlete) may experience a velocity-dominant stimulus. How can we expect consistent results when our methods are inconsistent?

How to Individualize Load Prescription

Thankfully, Jack Walsh sought to learn from what was done before and improve upon the practice. In the process, he found some interesting results. Jack conducted a PAP study with a group of male, professional field sport players at resisted sprint loads of 0% (unresisted), 30%, and 60% velocity decrement (V_dec) from their fastest unresisted 10m sprint time.

To find their best sprint time (baseline measure), each player performed 3x10m sprints at 0%, 30%, or 60% V_dec following 3x10m unresisted sprints. After performing the resisted sprints, they ran unresisted sprints at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 minutes.

The results are graphed in the chart below. We can see that both the 30% and 60% conditions provided a moderate to large PAP response 10 minutes after the resisted sprints. As individuals, however, the players’ 10m sprint performance peaked at times ranging from 6 to 10 minutes. Jack now knows how long after three resisted sprint efforts each of his players should perform their unresisted sprints.

 

By constantly potentiating his players to achieve supramaximal sprint speeds above their daily baseline, he found this could induce greater adaptations to acceleration performance than without the potentiating stimulus. Is this worth the small hassle of two hours’ testing? I think so.

All may not be so simple, however. A key reviewer of Walsh’s study, Dr. Eamonn Flanagan, made important points. Given the individual nature of training response and the variability of testing results from a single testing session, how variable is the response time to a given PAP stimulus? Optimal PAP response time is affected by a variety of factors including an athlete’s conditioning on the day of testing, psychological approach, activity within the rest period, and given effort.

With these limitations in mind, coaches must don their critical-thinking hat and decide on the frequency of their PAP testing sessions and the control and motivation they provide within each session. What works for you? How confident are you in your testing control?
I also recommend looking at the resisted sprint PAP work by Maria Monahan of University College Dublin.

The 1080 Motion: An Excellent Opportunity for PAP

The 1080 Sprint can play a significant role for resisted sprint PAP sessions. The device measures an athlete’s baseline sprint time with a minimal load of 1 kg. Upon completion of a sprint maximum, average speed, force, power, and time are quantified at 5-metre intervals of a sprint, both graphically and numerically.

Since the 1080 Sprint can increase load at 1 kg intervals, it’s ideal for providing resistance for the % V_dec resisted sprints. Following the sprints, the 1080 Motion provides measurements for the subsequent potentiated unresisted sprints, again giving measurements of sprint, force, speed, and power performance.

 

Can Resisted Sprinting Provide a Learning Effect Beyond a Physiological Potentiation?

The underpinning physical mechanisms behind PAP are well reviewed¹ and do not require discussion here. The potentiation effect of resisted to unresisted sprints, however, may involve not only an internal physiological effect but also an additional acute learning potentiation, or acute learning effect.

PAP may provide acute learning effects in addition to the known physiological effects. Share on X

With his world class sprint group, Sprint coach Jonas Dodoo of Speedworks uses Exer-genie resisted sprints as part of a warm-up to block starts and acceleration work.

“Prior to the main drills, resisted sprints let the athletes not only create force, but project force so they push forwards. Heavy resisted sprints allow my athletes to practise the first 4 metres of a free acceleration, whilst medium and light loads teach the respective positions required for 2nd level acceleration and transition strength. During each resisted sprint, the athletes get to understand how it feels to create and project high amounts of horizontal force whilst having to switch limbs, something of which we want to coach during our acceleration work. Resisted sprints take away that fear of falling forwards which can cause lateral and vertical force leakage. Following the resistance runs, I encourage my athletes to trust the new ‘forwards’ they have unlocked. It may feel scary and require better switching, but the power will be through the roof so all they have to do is catch the new angles.” — Coach Jonas Dodoo

Coach Dodoo’s reasons for pre-sprint resisted sprint work are compelling. I’d like to see more written about acute learning effects and the different exercise pairings used by sprint, throws, and strength and conditioning coaches.

Example Session for a Resisted Sprint PAP Effect

I’ve used the following session plan with field hockey and rugby players. The guideline will not suit everyone’s needs or session plans, so please take from it what you will.

 

A typical problem with classic PAP protocols is filling the time between the heavy and light loads. Trying to inspire fifteen athletes to sit nice and still for 12 minutes halfway through a gym session is not attractive to the athletes or the coaches.

Instead, fill this time with light technique drills to assist focus on acceleration. In my experience, light drills add to PAP’s learning effect while the sub-maximal nature does not seem to affect the physical potentiation. Finally, the light drills maintain key muscle temperature, which will aid session sprint performance.

Fill the time between heavy & light loads with light acceleration drills, upper body strength work. Share on X

Alternatively, I’ve used the time for upper body strength work with those athletes who need it. I’m confident the upper body work has no negative outcomes on the resisted sprint potentiation and it’s likely to maintain core temperature. Conversely, will heavy upper body strength work decrease neural drive for the free sprints?

Unfortunately, there is little knowledge as to the longitudinal effects of PAP training. Yes, acute improvements in sprint performance have been noted, but do these improvements provide a long-term training effect? Are the longitudinal benefits greater than those when structuring your resisted sprint program in a more traditional manner?

Finally, the PAP effect generally requires quite a heavy load before the lighter load. Are our athletes robust enough to experience this heavy load for, say, 2x sessions per week for eight weeks? Does this type of loading match the periodized plan? Once again, there are no answers here, just questions for the critically-thinking coach.

Summary

Resisted sprinting at heavier loads can improve acute unresisted sprint performance. However, load and rest interval must be individual to the athlete. The coach must understand the limitations of resisted sprint PAP, including the practicality of running a resisted sprint PAP testing session before a block of work and the variability of individual PAP testing results.

Please feel free to contact me with any queries or criticisms. I’m always looking to connect and learn from scientists and coaches around the world.

Many thanks to Jonas Dodoo for providing excellent commentary on his use of resisted sprint PAP work. Also, a big thank you to Dr. Eamonn Flanagan for his critique and advice.

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. Hodgson M, Docherty D, Robbins D. Post-Activation Potentiation: Underlying Physiology and Implications for MotorPerformance. Sports Medicine. 2005; 35(7): 585-595.
2. Seitz LB, Haff GG. Factors Modulating Post-Activation Potentiation of Jump, Sprint, Throw, and Upper-Body Ballistic Performances: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Sports Medince. 2016; 46(2): 231-40. doi:10.1007/s40279-015-0415-7.
3. Wilson JM, Duncan NM, Marin PJ, et al. Meta-Analysis of Postactivation Potentiation and Power: Effects of Conditioning Activity, Volume, Gender, Rest Periods, and Training Status. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2013; 27(3): 854-859. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e31825c2bdb.
4. Suchomel TJ, Lamont HS, Moir GL. Understanding Vertical Jump Potentiation: A Deterministic Model. Sports Medicine. 2016; 46(6): 809-28. doi:10.1007/s40279-015-0466-9.
5. Whelan N, O’Regan C, Harrison AJ. Resisted Sprints Do Not Acutely Enhance Sprinting Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2014; 28(7): 1858-1866. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000000357.
6. Smith CE, Hannon JC, McGladrey B, et al. The Effects of a Postactivation Potentiation Warm-up on Subsequent Sprint Performance. Human Movement. 2014; 15(1): 36-44. doi:10.2478/humo-2013-0050.
7. Matthews MJ, Comfort P, Crebin R. Complex Training in Ice Hockey: The Effects of a Heavy Resisted Sprint on Subsequent Ice-Hockey Sprint Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2010; 24(11): 2883-2887. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e7253c.
8. Winwood PW, Posthumus LR, Cronin JB, et al. The Acute Potentiating Effects of Heavy Sled Pulls on Sprint Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2016; 30(5): 1248-1254. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000001227.
9. Crouse CS. The acute effects of multiple resisted sled-pull loads on subsequent sprint-running performances (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 207.

The RPE scale (rate of perceived effort) is a common tool used to assess training intensity in individuals as well as teams. RPE values give a reference point for an individual’s internal load which can be compared with others during a similar session. A team’s sport scientist and coaches can take this data to plan sessions with specific intensities and manipulate training loads to fit into microcyles. When working on a budget in a team setting, there are benefits and challenges when using RPE scales.

RPE: Training Intensity and Variety

The use of the RPE scale is growing in popularity in team sports because the data collection is easy and it accurately assesses the internal load placed on an athlete during a training session. When I started serving as Head Athletic Trainer and Director of Sports Science for the Wilmington Hammerheads, I had played eight years in the lower leagues of professional soccer.

In lower division professional athletics, coaches and players constantly play an ominous guessing game when it comes to training load. As a player, I experienced two distinct problems with training.

First, players either were training too little or too much depending on their role on the team. Starters who played every minute of every game were asked to perform the same training intensity as players who missed games and were fresh for every training session. Reserve players buzzed in training but were blowing wind and coming up short against the demands of a league match.

Players often felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. God forbid, they told the coach they were unfit in games as a reserve player or, even worse, felt “leggy” during a session on Monday morning.

Second, coaches didn’t vary training. I remember some seasons as a player when I prayed for two games in a week for one simple reason—training monotony. With certain coaches, I knew we were doomed in the five-day training week between Saturday games. We would spend ninety minutes each day training at the same intensity all week. My teammates and I learned why the older veterans pressed cruise control during the week and why the younger, hungry players were smoked by match time on Saturday.

Using the hi/lo model dating back to Charlie Francis in 80’s, it’s easy to vanquish training monotony by increasing or decreasing the planned RPE for a weekly microcycle. Hence, in my new role with the Hammerheads, I was determined to monitor training load (volume x intensity) with objective (training time) and subjective (session RPE) data.

The RPE data helps plan the year, month, week, and daily training for the team and the individual players. Oh, and it cost nothing, which is another huge plus when a team has a limited budget. In theory, conducting this system seems like a no-brainer in my role as Director of Sports Science. As you know, theory is always best explored during experimentation, so expect road blocks when collecting RPE data in a team setting.

What is RPE?

RPE is a way to measure one’s subjective physical intensity. An athlete will describe the physical exertion by giving their effort a number value. There are a variety of scales used to determine an RPE score with numbers ranging from low to high. The low value correlates with easy effort, and the high number value correlates with extremely hard effort.

The Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion is a common RPE scale designed to give a value closely linked to a person’s heart rate. The scale ranges from 6 to 20. Six means no exertion at all and 20 means maximum exertion. Knowing that this scale correlates to an individual’s heart rate helps explain why the scale starts at 6. The number is simply multiplied by 10 to estimate what heart rate is reached during the time the person is asked to give a score.

Here are some guidelines for using the Borg scale:

• Nine corresponds to very light exercise. For healthy people, it’s like walking slowly for some minutes.
• Thirteen is somewhat hard exercise, but it still feels OK to continue.
• Seventeen, very hard, is very strenuous. A healthy person can keep moving, but they have to push themselves. It feels very heavy, and the person is very tired.
• Nineteen corresponds to extremely strenuous exercise. For most people, this is the most strenuous exercise they’ve ever experienced.

In my practice, I chose an even easier RPE scale of 1 to 10. One represents just standing, and 10 is the hardest game the athlete ever played.

I find that this is an easier number for our coaches and players to understand while correlating it with Banisters model (training load in minutes X by session RPE= ___arbitrary units). For example, an individual’s training session lasting 60 minutes with their subjective RPE score of 7 would look like 60 x 7= 420 arbitrary units.

Why is RPE Important?

Rating training intensity is a very subjective measure. You can visit a local park to see the discrepancies. Look at a game of pick-up basketball, and you may notice each player has a different level of internal pain.

Imagine a shirtless, 6’3”, former D1 player making the game look easy as he blows past the middle-aged dude with the headband profusely sweating and sucking wind. Although you may not witness a scene as clear cut as this example, you get the point. No two people feel the same exercise the same way.

RPE is also important when planning sessions. We know the basic training variables to increase or decrease load using the FIT principle (frequency, intensity, and time). The amount of intensity is the major factor when deciding how each and every exercise will look. Frankly, this is the common difference between matches and training.

Think about a time you and your significant other walked two miles on the beach and chatted about life. Now think about the gut wrenching feeling you had in high school or college when coach told you to perform the Cooper’s Test (a two-mile test). The work done is the same, but the intensity changes everything. One leaves you relaxed and ready to eat dinner and the other leaves you upchucking behind the bleachers.

Once again an extreme example, but it shows what a big difference intensity plays on a session. In simpler terms, one can go longer when intensity (RPE) is lower and only last a fraction of the time when the intensity is high.

Does RPE Monitoring Enhance Decision-Making?

Although we can get as many data values that we want, everything comes down to this one all-encompassing question: Why? In our case, we have an eight-month season with eight pre-season competitions and thirty to thirty-five matches all over the United States. It’s crucial we have an objective measure to help us make decisions.

Our coaching staff’s major decisions revolve around when to work and when to rest. My job as Athletic Trainer/ Director of Sport Science was on the line when it came to a decision between work and rest.

In terms of work, I had to ensure our team was ready to handle the increasingly high demands of match fitness. I also greatly appreciated the notion of rest simply so our players could adapt to the stresses placed on them. Otherwise our treatment table could become overbooked.

I believe that the concept of rest is the most misunderstood and abused concept in team sports, especially soccer. Using RPE’s and monitoring training load can help coaches to understand the importance of rest.

RPE’s and the monitoring of training load help coaches understand the importance of rest. Share on X

When we look at session RPE data for individuals, clear trends become noticeable. This can be a life saver by opening up conversations among the coaching staff and players. At the very least, when something out of the ordinary occurs, the return on investment from data collection will provide rewards when it sparks conversations.

As mentioned, data collection also helps coaches plan correctly. When prescribing a specific training load, the coaching staff targets a specific intensity level to match the adaptations they want to occur. This helps hit the intended weekly team training load in a calculable way and avoid the dangerous “too little” or “too much” scenarios.

You can take this one step further and create a realistic training plan to progressively increase training load from week to week and keep the levels of progression safe at about a 10% increase.

Before an athlete ever stepped foot onto our team, we made decisions about how we wanted our pre-season training to play out regarding volumes and intensities based on the RPE data. After the first day, however, I quickly learned we still had issues with the practical implementation.

Below is an example of how our technical staff used session RPEs in our pre-season mesocycle. It shows a slow progression of increased training load and, in theory, increased team fitness.

Challenges with RPE Collection and Implementation

I was the only one gathering, monitoring, implementing, and analyzing data, and it didn’t take long to encounter problems with collecting a simple number value from each player. Please keep in mind that I was also the Head Athletic Trainer in charge of treatment/rehabilitation, immediate evaluation and care of players, on top of practice preparation, warm up, in-practice second assistant coach duties, and cool down.

My initial plan was to troll the players at the end of each session for an unbiased RPE value that was not tainted by their teammates’ answers. I carried a clipboard with the RPE 1-10 chart to remind players what the numbers meant and silently asked each player to rate their number. I did this immediately after training to get their true exertion assessments.

I soon realized this was an unfathomable task on top of the ten other duties I had. Determined to keep the process in place, I had the players fill out the form upon entering the locker room after training. I emphasized that their scores should not be affected by their teammates. The accuracy of the data was tainted right away, but we continued to keep this plan in place throughout the season.

Next, issues started to arise with practice plans. When making a session longer due to low-intensity work or RPE, you risk a coach’s on-the-fly decision to increase the intensity intended. For example, a routine Thursday training session with a tactical and technical emphasis before a Saturday match ends up taking longer because the team doesn’t perform well. The coach demands they work even longer and harder to get things right and until he’s satisfied.

It’s easy to see how this can happen. But now a moderate to light session with a planned RPE of 4 to 5 and 70 minutes long turns into a 7 RPE session that’s 85 minutes long. This leaves players gassed, pissed, and unable to fully recover for the important match.

Despite these challenges, I believe there are many positive reasons to use RPE measurements as part of a team’s sport science on a budget.

Practical Applications

For coaches who want to start using RPE data, my most important advice is to be clear with your coaching staff about how this can help with major issues.

The first step is to get the coaches to buy-in to how RPE data can improve their system and help improve results for the team and the players. In my brief meeting with the technical staff before the season started, my message was a bit over their heads, which diminished the emphasis on the data’s importance. Imagine a coach hearing jargon like rate of perceived exertion. They’ll instantly check out.

A team’s health, wellness, and preparedness rely on the intensity of loads during training. Share on X

Instead, focus on the idea that the team’s health, wellness, and preparedness for the season relies massively on intensity during training. When they understand that we want to use the RPE to measure intensity and keep track of players, they will listen more intently. Next, with the cooperation and authority of the whole coaching staff, you can set up a system to make the players responsible for this measure.

Please note, players also need to understand how this helps them. This is where your trust as a sport scientist is truly tested. In my situation, I focused on asking only a little from them and giving back a lot. My message to the players was very clear: My goal was to keep them healthy throughout the season and keep them as fresh as possible for matches.

In return, I asked the players for three measures (all of them free of cost):

• Weigh in/Weigh out daily (hydration monitoring)
• Google Form Wellness Questionnaires biweekly (wellness monitoring)
• RPE Collection (training load monitoring)

Even though my coaches and players understood the principles behind the model, I also enlisted the older veterans (“locker room guys”) to get involved. I’m lucky that I have authority over all player monitoring; if players don’t fill out the RPE sheet, I charge a monetary fine.

When I switched from collecting the data myself to having the players self-report their numbers, I gave them direct instructions to keep their number unbiased by not comparing their numbers to the rest of the team. I also knew this would be close to impossible.

Now I had values for each player individually as well as a team value for a normal training week. Next, I factored in the training time (volume) to come up with player training load values and team training load values.

The charts are my way to get visual data into the coaches’ hands and strike up conversations with them. The charts also give the sports scientist an opportunity to point out a trend and continue the education process. The graphics help coaches to know, understand, and see what the data values represent and their importance to the team’s performance. You must be able to communicate this information clearly or don’t use it at all.

Conclusion

Using RPE is an easy and harmless way to gather important information. If you want to monitor training load, collecting RPE can be used along with minutes on the training pitch or in the gym to create a dual point measure using an external load with an internal load. Beyond that, you can look for trends of fatigue in individual players and talk to them.

When deciding to collect RPE’s from your players, first and foremost you must be able to communicate your reasoning to the players and coaches. Next, you must implement a system that can be kept up consistently for the year. Only then will you be able to use this process to organize training sessions and make decisions based on the data you receive.

References

1. Borg, G.A. (1982). “Psychophysical Bases of Perceived Exertion.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 14(5), 377-381.
2. Impellizzeri, F.M., E. Rampinini, A.J. Coutts, A. Sassi, and S.M. Marcora (2004). “Use of RPE-Based Training Load in Soccer.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 36(6), 1042-1047.

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

 

I’ve been training to jump higher ever since I can remember. For years, my main measurement tool was how high I could get my hand on a basketball net, then the rim, and eventually the square on the top of the backboard. In high school, running parallel to this, I began the magic of measurement via a crossbar suspended between two metal standards—an event known to many as “high jump.”

Our brains need what is known as “knowledge of result” or “KR,” as Frans Bosch often alludes to, in order to hit new levels of performance. Knowledge of result (how high did you jump/how far did you throw/how fast did you run) is what gives our subconscious mind the means to determine whether what we are doing in training is actually working. The subconscious mind often cares less in regards to many traditional cues and instructions.

Knowledge of result isn’t only numbers. It can also revolve around body positions, such as keeping the head fixed after clearing a hurdle, where the brain must self-organize a strategy for the body to work in this context.

A Jump Mat Helps Give Context to ‘Knowledge of Result’

In jumping for more than two decades, and coaching jumps for just over one decade now, I’ve realized how important it is to provide athletes with context and “knowledge of result” through a variety of means. This helps them understand how their bodies are working and adapting, not only on the conscious level, but also the subconscious one.

To this end, at age 24, I finally took a substantial leap and purchased a “Just Jump” mat. It was a significant investment for a poor graduate school student working for UPS and valet parking cars to make ends meet. (I actually thought that I could get the cost reimbursed at the time, and that I would be able to use the jump mat in tandem with the force plates at our biomechanics lab, but neither of these ended up happening.)

Contact times in jumping provide a more important ‘knowledge of result’ than height readings. Share on X

The Just Jump mat became one of my favorite tools for years to come, and all of my track athletes were tested on standing vertical jumps contrasted against the 4-jump test. We also used it quite often in the context of plyometric contacts—for the life of me, I don’t know why the plyometric function isn’t in the current system (it was in the old model). The KR that comes from contact times in jumping is, in my mind, probably more important than any sort of height reading as far as track jumpers (and jumpers of all types) are concerned.

Training With the Speed Mat

In terms of knowledge of result of testing though, there are a few areas where things can be better. It has been said (and I firmly believe it) that getting more data from doing fewer things is the optimal path leading to improved coaching intuition (as opposed to a little data on a lot of things, which just leads to confusion). This is one area where I was like a kid on Christmas morning when I started to utilize the Speed Mat in basic tests, such as the 4-jump counter-movement jumping and cadence. (It’s actually five jumps on the Speed Mat.)

Here is what I mean. The Speed Mat offers tests such as vertical jump, assessing both height and power. It has a 5-jump option that enables you to track the wave pattern of each jump. (Did the athlete get better on each jump, i.e. a reactive athlete, or did they get worse? Or were they totally erratic, such as a player who just has no plyometric ability and needs to improve direction of force off the ground?)

Although the simple output box of the Just Jump gave effective data to coaches on a rather binary level, a lack of options on the same tests (and dropping plyometric contact time) was holding it back.

Not only does the Speed Mat have great “training = testing” features such as cadence and a single jump reactive strength index (RSI), but its app-based nature also allows an evolutionary process as we advance in these training and testing ideals. Although app-based systems do require an extra step in setup, they more than make up for it by being able to offer better tracking, and evolving over time with tests and metrics.

One thing I am looking forward to seeing down the line is Bosco’s 15-jump fast and slow twitch indicator test, as described to me by Henk Kraaijenhof. It’s a thing of beauty to get on a mat for 10 seconds and instantly have a good idea what your fast-to-slow twitch percentage is, as well as all the related implications for micro- and meso-cycle constructions.

In a more real-time view, the RSI function on the Speed Mat is a great “priming” modality for any plyometric session. As Curtis Taylor mentioned on Episode 21 of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, contact times are one of the first things he looks at when starting a plyometric program in fall training. If you coach the plyometric around the constraint of contact time, you know the muscle-tendon and motor-control layout you are building is one that an athlete can build on down the line.

In acute session training, I can use the Speed Mat to help athletes understand which combination of ground contact time and height will yield the optimal outcome, and then take this movement pattern to all other plyometrics done in the session. This is a great contextual tool for any coach.

If you are familiar with Charlie Weingroff, then you know his mantra of training = rehab and rehab = training. With jump testing, I think I have a model of testing = training and training = testing.

As far as testing and data go, I agree with what I’ve learned from Carl Valle, that you are winning if you can make the training the test, and therefore engage in minimal distractions before or through the course of the workout. I think we occasionally forget that we are, in fact, coaches, and our primary mission is to train athletes and not undertake a barrage of assessments through each workout.

Jump testing with the Speed Mat provides a model of testing = training and training = testing. Share on X

In addition to excess testing taking time, it can also become a distraction from the flow-state of training, and buying into the day’s work. After decades of the coaching game, I think we can agree that athletes who are continually cued or measured after every single exercise fall into movement paradigms that don’t lead to optimal results.

So, what are some aspects of the Speed Mat that I’ve found incredibly useful in my marriage of training and measuring?

• The alternation of power and maximal jump height options
• Using cadence for training or a canned test system under constant constraints
• RSI can set the tone
• Looking at the 5-jump in the context of RSI, peak power, and jump curve progression

Mental Gains and Alternating Quantification Types

One thing I’ve begun to understand over the years is the value of not measuring everything in the exact same way, over and over. When you get so hung up on one specific type of measurement, it can become de-motivational over time, especially when particular numbers become a self-fulfilling prophecy on the athlete’s end for the day’s work. Fluid periodization is certainly important, but the mental stress of having a singular key performance indicator at the beginning of each session can become a drag.

I’ve come to realize that when I suspect that athletes will be lower than average in a given exercise with attached feedback (such as a Kaiser jumper), I’ll alter the constraints of the test, or even cover up the output readout. This is so athletes won’t get discouraged if I’m trying to keep the intensity level of the strength session lower.

In the same vein, I really like that the Speed Mat has the capability of not only measuring vertical jump height (and it does so in metrics, which is a contrast to just jump or Western vertecs) but also vertical jump power. I’ll use the SpeedMat as an alternative vertical jump test because my athletes aren’t looking at the centimeters jumped, but rather the power, which is a function of their bodyweight and height. This gives them motivation for the day, even if their output is down, and keeps that intent of the drill, which is so important for continued progress.

Video 1: The Speed Mat doesn’t measure just vertical jump height, it also measures vertical jump power. When it’s used as an alternative vertical jump test, athletes look not at the centimeters jumped, but at their jump power, which gives them motivation even if their output is down.

Cadence and the Forgotten Art of Contact Time Overload and Rhythm

If I had to explain what data I’m most fond of when it comes to various force plate and jump mat tests, I’d say that contact time tells me more about an athlete’s ability to produce force usable in sport (particularly jumps) than absolute height does. I’ve had high jumpers who tested mediocre at pretty much every test in my battery, but had the ability to land a depth jump from a 60-70cm box with ninja-like qualities and also register plyometric contact times of .16-.17 on high hurdle hop drills.

In a similar vein, I’ve always enjoyed the lateral barrier hops exercise for time. This movement requires fine coordination of muscular contraction and relaxation, as well as fast vertical stiffness against resistance. There is also a lateral component, which is important for building sprint and jump stabilizers and synergists. Pre-tensioning is a must to get a good rate over the barrier, as muscle slack is the enemy of rapid angular joint velocities in the lower limbs in conjunction with vertical stiffness (sounds like a common linear activity we all know well).

To up the ante on this particular movement, a Speed Mat set to cadence can be utilized to give instant feedback on an athlete’s rate of movement.

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Video 2: The lateral barrier hops exercise requires fine coordination, fast vertical stiffness, and pretensioning. Add to this movement by using a Speed Mat set to cadence, which gives instant feedback on the athlete’s rate of movement.

RSI Can Set the Tone

The RSI is a great way to set the tone for a workout, and you can use it as a contextual tool to improve the quality of the ground contacts in the rest of the plyometric workout. What I’ve found over time is that many athletes don’t ever get the sensory and quantitative feedback to understand what it’s like to get off the ground in under .20 seconds. The use of a feedback system, such as the RSI function on the Speed Mat, is a great way to start a session in a manner that allows athletes to “refer back to the warmup” to find a sensation that they can plug into their current plyometric activity.

Video 3: The RSI function on the Speed Mat is a great “priming” modality for any plyometric session. The feedback from the Speed Mat helps athletes understand what it’s like to get off the ground fast enough to get into reactive territory.

In this regard, RSI is a massive help. It’s also a great way to assess early over-reaching, since the highest order of speed strength and the length of foot contacts in every activity is the first thing to “go” when an athlete enters into heavy training. Even in these cases, athletes can still hit good barbell numbers, to the delight of the strength coach, whether or not the motor patterning that exists in this scenario is completely optimal. As with anything, the balance here is up to the planning scheme of the coach, whether it’s planned periods of creating a negative hormonal balance to overshoot later, or training that hangs its hat completely on the finest neural quality in the short (or long) term.

What Can the 5-Jump Tell You About Your Athletes?

Compared to a singular countermovement jump, a 5-jump tells us quite a bit about the ability to display force quickly (and accurately) in the vertical plane. A 5-jump is more informative of neuromuscular fatigue, since the highest order of speed strength is the first domino to fall when an athlete starts delving into the realm of overreaching. The wave of a 5-jump test is also a great way of telling, and training, an athlete’s level of coordination and accuracy in producing rapid vertical forces. If an athlete has trouble doing it once (Single response RSI jump), chances are that they will reach that neural edge rather quickly in the course of a multi-jump test, but it does really tell you what the athlete is prepared to do.

Video 4: A 5-jump test gives a lot of information on the ability to display force quickly on the vertical plane. This includes neuromuscular fatigue, since speed strength is the first thing to go when an athlete begins overreaching.

 

Generally speaking, anterior-chain dominant athletes have respectable vertical jumps, but somewhat poor 5 jumps. For posterior-chain dominant folks, it’s often the opposite.

A bonus with a multi-jump test is that athletes can’t cheat the landings quite as well, either. I consider a 5 jump an RSI test with a greater accuracy requirement.

An Efficient and Beneficial Training Solution

After training jumpers for many years in track and field and team sport, and even as slam-dunk specialists, I’ve come to understand where testing and training can merge and create more efficient and beneficial training solutions. In this regard, the Speed Mat is a valuable tool, and has unlimited potential within the scope of contact mat readouts.

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

 

Just the other day, I had some really awesome coaching experiences with athletes that had little to do with the kilograms lifted, the meters run, or the physiology of training.

I have been coaching for a few years now, but in terms of communicating with athletes—really getting underneath the hood and understanding what makes them tick—and getting the best out of the person and the athlete, I am still learning. In this respect, I will probably always be learning.

I frequently see and read about the work of coaches like Brett Bartholomew and Bryan Mann, who talk about the need to connect with the individual. We all know athletes are not unfeeling robots, or just numbers on a spreadsheet. But you only get better at this aspect of coaching by experiencing more situations that challenge you to coach the person, and not just churn out programs and generic cues.

Don’t Take Away the Fun

The first big conversation was with a racket sport player about his competition schedule. We discussed whether he was over-competing and was, as a result, underprepared in comparison with his rivals. I had computed a load of data and research, and drawn up comparisons with his direct rivals, his own previous schedules this year, and his performances in seasons past. I highlighted every little aspect that supported the reason I thought my opinion was the correct one.

Over the course of the conversation, I was enlightened to a very significant point: A point that is sometimes too easy to lose sight of. As a strength and conditioning coach looking at the optimal way to plan training and competition for the greatest chance of success, I look solely at the science and application of this information and data.

When I spoke to the athlete about why he had entered certain tournaments at that point in the season, when I would have recommended traveling less and staying home to train more, he told me that he wanted to enter these competitions because he had played in that country before and had fond memories of the fun that he had. Athletes training for their sport because they like to compete and have fun. Who’d have thought it?!

Coaches need to remember that athletes train for sport because they like to compete & it’s fun. Share on X

I still think my strategy for the coming seasons is more valid, more viable, and more appropriate for delivering success. My view on the over-competing issue hasn’t changed. But I had been so wrapped up in helping this athlete achieve success that I had forgotten why he plays his sport in the first place: Because it’s fun.

He is driven, he is motivated, and he is successful. He really wants success. And if I deliver information on the best way to achieve this, then he is smart enough to listen and follow it. It’s good to take a step back sometimes and remember why any athlete gets involved in their sport and continues to play it. If we take them to a place where it isn’t fun anymore, then they will eventually stop competing.

Help Athletes Understand Changes to Training

The second conversation I had was with a track and field athlete. She had been training in track and field for a number of years but, in terms of training in a high-performance program, this is Season One.

Talking to her, it was clear that she was struggling to get her head around new ways of training. The training is now more focused, more structured, and consistent but progressive. She needed to know why things are done a certain way and why she can’t train the way she used to.

I thought she might be frustrated that, with the change in the way things were done, there was currently less consistency in the motor output. This is basic Motor Learning theory, right? Her performances are going to be less stable as we change from old bad habits to newer, and hopefully more-efficient, performances. This is obvious to me and the coaches reading this. But it’s a strange and uncomfortable place to be for an athlete who had been used to “success” and achieving that success a certain way.

Year One of a high-performance program is going to be as much of a mental as a physical challenge for her. Her questions were about whether this is the way in which other elite athletes train. The short answer is “yes.” While there will be differences in the nuts and bolts of the program, the fundamental philosophies, structures, and patterns will have a lot in common.

Initially, the conversation was somewhat challenging, but I think it proved beneficial for both of us. Sometimes it is good to be challenged or questioned, with the athlete searching for answers and a greater understanding of the “why” behind the “what.” It made me really think about what she is doing and where she is going, and the small part I play in that.

Connect With Athletes as Individuals

These two conversations gave me a good opportunity to make a deeper connection with the athletes involved. They helped me understand each one’s individual motivations as an athlete, and what makes them tick as a person.

These are the real moments in coaching. The moments when you get to connect with people, educate athletes, and, hopefully, give them a greater understanding of where they are going, what they are doing, and why.

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

Eccentric training is an undervalued component of many resistance training programs and can significantly increase an athlete’s strength and responsiveness in many sports. By following the simple guidelines below for various techniques, a coach can safely incorporate eccentric movements into any program design and reap the benefits.

The Science

Every action that requires a part of the body to move in space is made of concentric and/or eccentric muscle contractions.

When muscles contract and produce a force that exceeds the force applied to the muscles, the muscles shorten in a concentric contraction. The movements are usually powerful, like when weight is squatted up from the lowest position to the top of the movement. Or when weight is bench pressed from the chest to full arm extension. The quadriceps and the pectoral muscle groups, respectively, are the primary concentric movers.

When a muscle lengthens while under an external force that exceeds the force of the contraction, the muscle fibers elongate in an eccentric contraction. Eccentric movements oppose their concentric counterparts. When the weight during a squat or bench press is returned to the starting position, the muscles contract eccentrically.

Eccentric actions produce 20-60% greater force than concentric actions. And lower levels of neural activity occur, leading to a high force-to-neural activation ratio. Eccentric movements have the potential to increase both concentric and eccentric strength and hypertrophy; their slower, less technical nature develop the strength and hypertrophic elements of muscle fiber rather than neural development.

In every sport involving running, jumping, and throwing, eccentric movements provide critical force to the stretch-shortening cycle. In the long jump, for example, jumpers plant their foot before the fault line, causing an eccentric lengthening of their leg’s extensor muscles immediately before a forceful concentric takeoff into the sand pit. The muscles’ quickest maximal (eccentric) stretch leads to the greatest increase in concentric force on takeoff. Unfortunately specific exercises to improve eccentric contractions are often neglected in resistance training programs.

A muscle’s quickest maximal (eccentric) stretch leads to the greatest increase in concentric force. Share on X

Research shows that eccentric overload training with supramaximal loads of 100-120% of an athlete’s one-rep maximum develops maximal strength better than concentric-only training. It’s likely that muscle hypertrophy is induced when muscles are subjected to greater tension under a load where one can perform more volume without excessive fatigue; the energetic cost of the eccentric activity is lower than concentric activity.

I’d like to emphasize the importance of recovery here. Although metabolic cost is low, eccentric activity places more stress and strain on the muscles’ contractile elements, causing greater muscle damage. Upper limb muscles are even more susceptible to damage because of the shape of the individual muscle fibers. Eccentric exercise targets Type II (slow-twitch) fibers more than Type I, which also contributes to muscle damage.

Methods to Incorporate Eccentrics

There are four common techniques for incorporating eccentric exercise into a resistance training program.

1. The 2/1 technique: An athlete lifts a weight concentrically with two limbs and lowers the weight eccentrically with one limb, making the load twice as heavy for the eccentric movement. For strength development, perform sets of 3-5 reps per limb with a 60-second rest interval.
2. The two-movement technique: This is appropriate for experienced athletes since they must combine a compound, multi-joint exercise with an isolation exercise. For example, an athlete performs a power clean followed by a 5-second reverse curl. Or they do a close-grip bench press followed by a 5-second triceps extension. They should perform 4 to 5 sets of 5 reps with 1 to 2 minutes rest between sets.
3. The slow/superslow technique: The athlete exaggerates the length of the eccentric phase. When loads are a lighter percent of the one-rep max, this phase should last 10 to 12 seconds. Higher percentages call for 4 to 5 seconds.
4. The negative/supramax technique: An athlete only performs the eccentric movement of an exercise, so it’s necessary to have at least one spotter. Standard protocol calls for one repetition at a load of 110-130% of the concentric 1-RM for 8-10 seconds. Perform heavier loads for less time. The athlete can do 3 to 10 sets of single reps. This technique is more demanding than the others and should be incorporated conservatively.

Reference

Mike, J., C.M Kerksick, and L. Kravitz (2015). “How to Incorporate Eccentric Training Into a Resistance Training Program.” Strength and Conditioning Journal, 37(1), 5-17. doi:10.1519/SSC.0000000000000114.

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 reality in the world of high performance strength & conditioning is that athletes will face interruptions in their training at some point or another. In some cases, injuries occur. Some are very minor and training can resume as planned with some modifications. Other times, medical interventions are necessary followed by complete rest of varied durations.

It is also worth mentioning that athletes also voice their worries over losing their physiological adaptations when coaches employ periods of active rest or tapers. For both the strength & conditioning coach and the athlete, it is important to have a general understanding of what happens to an athlete’s ‘physiology’ during a short-term period of detraining. It is important to understand the potential effects and understand the mechanisms of any changes in physiological capacity.

This brief article categorizes ‘Detraining’ as part of the Principle of Reversibility. This principle is broadly defined by stopping or markedly reducing physical training leading to an induction and a partial or complete reversal of adaptations earned from training. As mentioned previously, interruptions in training could include illness, injury, active rest cycles or other reasons.

Detraining is defined as: “the partial or complete loss of training induced anatomical, physiological or performance adaptations as a consequence of training reduction or cessation” (80). Training cessation implies a “temporary discontinuation or complete abandonment of systematic programme of physical conditioning” (80).

A taper, on the other hand is “A progressive non-linear reduction of the training load during a variable period of time, in an attempt to reduce the physiological and psychological stress of daily training and to optimize (sports) performance” (80).

Timelines Defined

Losses of training-induced adaptations differ depending on the duration of the period of insufficient training stimulus (80). A 4–week block (short-term) is the reference point for this article.

Populations Examined

It is also critical to mention, “Some detraining ‘effects’ are not the same when we compare the elite athlete with several years of training history to the previously sedentary, recently trained person who engages in activity for health-related purposes versus performance purposes.”(Bott and Mujaika, 2016).

This article discusses the process of detraining, during a 4-week period (short-term), as it pertains to each system of the body. Within each system, the article attempts to compare the “endurance-trained athlete” to the “recently trained person” – two very different populations.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the endurance-trained athlete is defined not exclusively as an endurance athlete (marathoner, road cyclist etc), but rather an athlete who possesses a relatively high aerobic capacity. However, in the studies reviewed for this article, exact capacity values were not clearly defined.

Systems of the Body

1. The Cardiorespiratory System

Maximal Oxygen Uptake (81)

• Shown to decline with short term (<4 weeks) training cessation in highly trained individuals with large aerobic power scores.
• The % loss is somewhere between 4 and 14%.
• Essentially, some studies are showing the higher trained, the bigger the decline.
• Conversely, that of the recently trained has been shown to decline to a much lesser extent (3-6%).

Blood Volume (81)

• Total blood volume as well as plasma volume have been shown to decline by 5-12% in endurance-trained athletes. This essentially limits End-Diastolic Volume (the phase where the heart fills up with blood – large amounts are good) and consequently the End-systolic volume (the amount of blood left in the heart after it contracts to push the blood out – small amounts are good)
• Plasma volume can decline in the first 2 days of inactivity so this has implications for tapering.
• In recently trained individuals there is also reduce blood volume (red cell mass and plasma) so this effect is not limited to those more trained.

Heart Rate (81)

• As a result of the decrease in plasma volume, there is a relatively acute increase at submaximal and maximal workloads (5-10%). This is important if a coach is using heart rate as a means of monitoring intensity.
• However, this effect is reversed when plasma volume is expanded.
• Stabilizes after 2-3 weeks without training
• Resting heart rate unchanged in endurance-trained individuals
• In recently trained individuals: Resting Heart Rate and Maximum Heart Rate can revert quickly to pre-exercise levels but Submaximum HR is not affected.

Stroke Volume (81)

• Since blood and plasma volume decreases, stroke volume follows suit and is reduced.
• Reduction in maximal aerobic capacity shown by endurance-trained athletes.
• After 12 – 21 days of cessation, a reduction of 10-17% has been reported along with a corresponding 12% reduction in Left ventricular end-diastolic dimension.
• No observations have been summarized on recently trained persons.

Cardiac Output (81)

• The increased Heart Rate values resulting from detraining does not counterbalance the decrease in stroke volume in endurance-trained athletes.
• Thus, cardiac output is reduced substantially (8%) with 21 days without training in endurance-trained athletes.

Cardiac Dimensions and Blood Pressure (81)

• Some researchers observed no change in such a short time.
• Some observed a 25% decrease in Left Ventricular wall thickness and a 19.5% reduction in LV mass after only 3 weeks in endurance-trained athletes.
• A reduction in LV mass and a higher total peripheral resistance could lead to increases in mean arterial pressure during exercise when an individual becomes detrained.
• In recently trained individuals who trained for 8 weeks lost all positive effects on systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). They were completely reversed.

Ventilatory Function (82)

• A decline in maximum ventilatory volume is observed in highly trained individuals
• This often declines parallel to VO2 max (maximal oxygen consumption)
• There is no commentary on recently trained individuals on this characteristic

Endurance Performance (82)

• A loss in the characteristics of cardiorespiratory fitness lead to performance impairments in endurance-trained individuals
• Slower times to complete distances
• Shorter exercise times to exhaustion are performance indicators
• In recently trained individuals (6-12 weeks of training), 2 weeks of training cessation did not sufficiently reduce time to exhaustion.

2. The Metabolic System

Substrate Availability and Utilization (82)

• In endurance-trained athletes, the increase in the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) at both submaximal and maximal exercise intensities results in a higher reliance on carbohydrate metabolism
• Insulin sensitivity also decreases which is linked to decreased lipid mobilization during exercise
• There is an observable reduction in GLUT-4 transporter protein content – Skeletal muscle stores glucose as glycogen and oxidizes it to produce energy. The main glucose transporter protein that mediates this uptake is GLUT4, which plays a key role in regulating whole body glucose homeostasis.
• Also, a decrease in muscle protein lipoprotein lipase activity. Lipoprotein lipase breaks down fat in the form of triglycerides, which are carried from various organs to the blood by molecules called lipoproteins. This leads to a decrease in HDL cholesterol (the good guys) and increase in LDL cholesterol (the bad guys)
• With respect to individuals recently trained, all values of insulin, RER and GLUT-4 go back to initial levels (pre-training levels).

Blood Lactate Kinetics (82)

• Endurance-trained athletes have been shown to respond to a standardized submaximal swim with higher blood lactate levels after only a few days of training cessation.
• This is accompanied by a lowered Bicarbonate level
• LT occurs at a lower % of VO2 max
• *Muscle’s oxidative capacity may fall as much as 50% in one week.
• In recently-trained individuals, lactate levels did not change with cessation of exercise, even after 6 weeks of training. It is presumable that it takes several months, if not years to significantly improve lactate threshold in previously untrained individuals.

Muscle Glycogen Stores (83)

• Negatively affected by training cessation in as little as one week due to rapid decline in glucose to glycogen conversion and rapid decrease in glycogen synthase activity.
• No specifics on particular populations.

3. The Muscular System

Muscle Capillarization (83)

• Declines or doesn’t change in such a short amount of time
• In highly trained athletes, it still remains 50% higher versus sedentary controls
• With recently trained individuals, levels still remain higher than pre-training values after 4 weeks of inactivity
• This indicates the robustness of this adaptation.

Arterial-Venous Oxygen Difference (83)

• Data available is sparse
• Indicates no change in 21 days, lending support that the decline in VO2 max is likely due to central factors: decreased stroke volume.

Myoglobin Level (83)

• In both trained and recently trained individuals, cessation did not affect myoglobin levels in such a short period of detraining.

Enzymatic Activities (84)

• Citrate synthase (the enzyme in the first reaction of the Kreb’s cycle in aerobic metabolism) activity decreases between 25 and 45 % with short term training cessation in trained athletes.
• Decreased muscle oxidative capacity is reflected by significant (12-27%) reductions in enzymes that facilitate ATP production in aerobic pathways (beta-hydroxyacyl CoA-dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase and succinate dehydrogenase)
• Lipoprotein lipase activity in muscle tissue decreases, favoring storage of adipose tissue
• Glycolytic enzymes decreased only slightly with the exception of glycogen synthase which decreased 42% after only 5 days
• All of the above information pertains to trained athletes
• For those recently trained, mitochondrial enzyme activities have been shown to decline to pre-training levels.

Muscle Fiber Characteristics (84)

• Human skeletal muscle is highly plastic tissue and improvements in measurement techniques have allowed the human muscle to be studied in a more functional context (Harridge, 2007).
• It is the properties of muscle which are altered by changes in physical activity (Harridge, 2007).
• Harridge’s review discusses, specifically, the contractile machinery of the muscle and how it is sensitive to mechanical loading. Should those loads be removed for a period of time due to injury, specific fiber types will atrophy.
• Disuse, due to detraining, has the effect of causing slow to fast transformation of muscle fiber type expression. This may lead coaches to blindly conclude this as being an ideal adaptation for speed and power.
• What one must keep in mind is the atrophy that comes with disuse negates any benefits of slow-to-fast transition in terms of fiber function.
• Mean fiber cross-sectional area in Type 2 fibers, can decrease in 2 weeks
• Percentage distribution of fiber types were unaltered in recently trained individuals during 4 weeks of inactivity.

*The mechanisms of fiber transitions are beyond the scope of this article.

Strength Performance (84)

• Strength-trained athletes showed slight, but non-significant reductions in Bench Press, Squat and Vertica Jump after 2 weeks without training
• However, it is important to note that swimmers were not able to demonstrate same force to the water (power) after 4 weeks of inactivity.
• In recently trained individuals, after 4 weeks of inactivity, strength was still higher than pre-training values.

4. The Endocrine System (84)

• Decline in insulin sensitivity
• Unaltered catecholamine levels at rest and after submaximal exercise
• Glucagon, cortisol and Growth Hormone did not change with 5 days of inactivity in endurance athletes
• Strength trained athletes show positive anabolic hormone changes after 14 days of inactivity, with:
• Increased GH levels
• Increased Testosterone levels and T:C Ratio
• Decreased Cortisol levels

Short-term Detraining Re-Cap

• “The partial or complete loss of a training-induced adaptation in response to an insufficient training stimulus” (85).
• Short term is defined as less than 4 weeks of inactivity.
• Losses depend on the training status of the subject.

Conclusions and Implications for Tapering

• Rapid decline in VO2 max with highly trained athletes.
• Much less in recently trained individuals.
• Due to immediate reduction in blood volumes and reduction in stroke volume
• Thus, endurance performance declines rapidly in trained athletes.
• Higher reliance of CHO as a fuel source
• Decreased muscle lipoprotein lipase activity
• Lactate threshold lower at % of VO2 max
• Muscle glycogen levels rapidly decline
• Significant reduction in oxidative enzyme activities and thus reduced ATP production
• Non-systematic changes in Glycolytic enzyme activities
• Muscle fiber distribution remains unchanged
• Fiber cross sectional area declines (atrophy) in strength and sprint trained athletes.
• Strength can be maintained for up to 4 weeks of inactivity.
• However, sport-specific power of athletes may suffer declines
• Anabolic hormones may increase in strength-trained athletes

Works Cited

• Harridge, Stephen D. R. (2007). Plasticity of human skeletal muscle: gene expression to in vivo function. Experimental Physiology. 92.5 783-797.
• Mujika, I and Padilla, S. (2000). Detraining: Loss of training-induced Physiological and Performance Adaptations. Part 1. Short Term Insufficient Training Stimulus. Sports Medicine. 30 (2). 79-87.

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

Squash is an exceptionally tough sport where the top players exhibit phenomenal levels of athleticism, speed, power, and agility. I was fortunate to attend the 2016 Men’s Squash World Championships in Cairo, Egypt with players from the Hong Kong Sports Institute. As a strength and conditioning coach, I work with the number one ranked player at the Institute.
The head coach sent me to Egypt to experience the sport’s highest level to gain greater insight and knowledge by observing how the best players behave, prepare, and compete.

Video 1. Mathieu Castagnet dives for the ball and quickly recovers to hit a winning shot. Squash requires remarkable skills and physical abilities.

The sport has produced outstanding, talented athletes over the years including Jansher Khan, Peter Nicol, Nicol David, and the current number one in the world Mohamed El Shorbagy. Squash courts can be set up in spectacular locations for great sporting occasions—in front of the Pyramids of Giza, inside Grand Central station, and overlooking the Bund in Shanghai.

Squash is a Skill Game that Requires a High Fitness Level

At its core, squash is ultimately a skill game. If you don’t have technical and tactical skills, it doesn’t matter how fit you are. You can’t compete at the higher echelons of the game. This isn’t a groundbreaking concept and isn’t unique to squash. My job is to enhance the athletic capabilities of the athletes while the specialist sports coach teaches the intricacies of the sport.

A skilled player should never lose to an opponent because they lack physical fitness. Share on X

When watching elite squash players such as “Colombian Cannonball” Miguel Angel Rodriguez you understand just how important physical fitness is to the players. As I said, there comes the point when physical fitness won’t make up for a shortfall in squash skill. On the other side of the coin, a player should never lose to an opponent because they lack physical fitness.

Video 2. Rodriguez enhances his squash skills with excellent physical fitness, reinforcing how crucial strength and conditioning is to squash players.

Fitness, speed, and unbelievable reactions allowed Rodriguez to reach number four in the world, and he still resides in the top ten. Squash skill, technique, and tactics remain our training priorities. But having watched Rodriguez bounce around the court almost as fast as the squash ball reinforced how essential strength and conditioning is in modern squash.

Appropriate Training for Squash Players

It was with great surprise then that I saw some players following incredibly flawed training practices. At the hotel gym, I watched an imposing looking athlete come in for a training session in full power lifter mode. Knee sleeves, belt, weightlifting shoes. He went straight to the smith machine (granted hotel gyms are usually appallingly equipped), racked up 50kg, and grunted and groaned his way through some squats. These were working sets. On another occasion, I saw a young, up and coming potential star hitting some lunges after he exited the tournament. High rep sets of lunges with the 6kg dumbbells.

In squash training, players complete dozens if not hundreds of lunges during a week. The value of performing more high rep lunges under low load is a questionable practice to me and may only invite injury through overuse. We use lunges and single leg exercises in our players’ programs, but we tend to load them heavy to build max strength and related qualities.

I also had the opportunity to talk to a player who used only old school bodybuilder methods and machine weights and had no real experience with free weights. We shared ideas with him, demonstrated some things, and I’m sure this will benefit his future squash training and performance.

Current knowledge & training concepts aren’t moving down to all levels of the sport of squash. Share on X

In the world of elite sports performance, we know American Football and Rugby use sports science, strength and conditioning, and modern training practices. My time in Egypt highlighted that squash is still one of many sports where the latest knowledge and training concepts are not finding their way down through all levels of the sport. The benefits of weight training and muscular strength to footballers and rugby players is clear but can still be a hard sell in other sports.

Learning Good Habits to Enhance Performance

I observed many positive things, too, while watching the stars of the game. The preparation, warm-up, and cool-down strategies of players Nick Matthew (former three-time World Champion from England) and Nicol David (the long-serving former female world number one) highlighted that longevity in elite sport is achieved only by consistent and long-term good habits.

On game day, I saw both Matthew and David in the gym going through morning stretching, mobility, and activation routines to ensure they were optimally prepared for evening competition. I suspect it’s this dedication, professionalism, and attention to detail that took them to the very peak of the sport and kept them there for so many years.

Speaking of Matthew, I was fortunate to share a bus ride with him from the hotel to the competition venue and pick his brain about squash, training, and his life in sport. We had interesting conversations about working for the EIS, British Cycling, and Shane Sutton. The most interesting story was his personal account of how his attitudes about training have changed.

Like other athletes I’ve met in squash and several other sports, Matthew has an exceptional attitude toward training. His work rate and commitment to athletic development are exemplary. So much so that he was perhaps guilty of over training at times during his career. Matthew openly admitted that he would stress out if he couldn’t train hard in the lead up to, and the day before, a competition. Between game days, he always wanted to be on the court sharpening his skills (at some tournaments, the players get days off between matches).

Unfortunately he was struck down with a knee injury going into the Commonwealth Games which prevented him from training as he normally would before the competition. Even during the week of competition, he didn’t train normally due to his knee injury and travel logistics. Matthew went on to win the Gold medal, and he realized training wasn’t everything. As Dan Pfaff would say, “training is overrated.” It took Matthew until his early 30’s and a knee injury to learn this fact.

Experienced senior athletes, especially, don’t need to train hard every day before and between competitions. Playing squash almost daily every week for many years, athletes won’t lose their touch because they don’t play the day before, or the day in between, matches.

Preparing for Major Competitions

When it comes to a major competition, athletes do all the hard work during the months and years before the competition. Once players arrive at the competition venue, they’re not going to develop new athletic abilities or greatly enhance their competition performance. Training at this late stage will likely mess up all the months and years of hard work. The analogy of “polishing the car” during the final weeks or days before the major championships is the best approach to optimize performance. You won’t add any horsepower at this late stage; you’ll only put miles on the clock that might lead to the breakdown of a vital part.

The flip side is that preparation is very individual. Athletes have their crutches. Things they need to feel, do, or experience to believe they’re fully prepared for optimal performance. The coach’s job is to mentally prepare athletes to perform their best rather than prepare them physically.

On match day, some athletes want to have a session with their coach, some want to hit by themselves. Some like to talk tactics with the coach and some like to have their space, to avoid distractions and other people, to be alone with their music and headphones. I witnessed the challenge Hong Kong coach Faheem Khan faced managing his players’ individual personalities and preferences at the World Championships.

A coach must be adaptable and empathetic to work with the different characters and needs among their athletes. Although we understand that athletes don’t need to put in any work this close to the competition, if the athlete is accustomed to and wants to put in sweat and effort on the court, we need to work with their preferences and idiosyncrasies.

The World Championships went quite well for our guys. While I only work with one of them, I was the strength and conditioning professional from the Institute on this trip, and I helped look after all our guys in the competition. Two players in the main draw progressed to the last 16 and one more to the round of 32. They all lost to a former World Champion, the then reigning World Champion, or the player who went on to become World Champion. They gave a good account of themselves.

As to the importance of professionalism, preparation, and good habits, I was pleased to see the evidence of our athletes’ education and their dedication to their development. Even after tough losses and match finishes late in the night, it was pleasing to see our athletes leading themselves through their cool-down and recovery protocols.

The squash season is long, busy, and unforgiving. The World Championships may have ended for our guys, but the next World Series event was to begin only a couple of weeks later—the next level of competition below the World Championships that’s somewhat equivalent to the Diamond League.

Plans A, B, C, and D

When the tournament was over for our players, we still had the odd day at the end of the week in Cairo. As ever, when training away from home, you never have access to the equipment and facilities you’re used to or need. Everyone wants to undertake the most effective form of training but, for a myriad of reasons, it’s not always possible.

Coaches must be flexible, adaptable, and creative. In a hotel gym with only a handful of machines and dumbbells or a competition venue with minimal equipment and facilities for recovery and cool down, you have to make do with what is there. You have a plan A, but you also put together a plan B, C, and D if you can.

Whenever I travel with athletes, I scout out the venue, the hotel, and the local area looking for opportunities. At the China Open, the hotel facilities were appalling with unsuitable treadmills and only a bench. By exploring the local area and discussions with a local gym owner, I was able to secure access to facilities nearby.

I saw these quotes on social media recently, and they couldn’t be more appropriate to this idea:

• “Having a plan is important—having a plan B maybe even more so!” – Dustin Imdieke, ALTIS
• “Plan B isn’t making it up on the spot—it’s called “plan” B—so let’s plan for it!” – Stuart McMillan, ALTIS

Take Away Points

1. Squash requires exceptional levels of athleticism. In a skill based sport, physical fitness won’t take you to the top, but it’s criminal to fall short of your technical and tactical potential because your physical abilities are underdeveloped.
2. Squash, like many sports, has a long way to go regarding education (throughout all levels of the game) about how optimal athletic development should look.
3. “Don’t try to replicate the game in training, distort it” – Vern Gambetta
4. Professionalism, dedication, and doing the little things well are vital to sporting success and the longevity of that success.
5. Nick Matthew’s experience supports Dan Pfaff’s assertion that “training is overrated.” Some athletes take a long time or a key incident to learn the essential or basic messages. Young athletes should listen to, and benefit from, the experiences and mistakes of their predecessors.
6. The analogy of “polish the car” is apt for major championships. You can’t make an athlete’s tournament with training at this late stage, but you can break it.
7. Work with the individual and their personality. During a championship, the competition’s psychological component dominates, and you must give the athlete what they need to feel strong and confident going into the competition.
8. Education pays off when athletes are given messages repeatedly and experience the benefits of these lessons. Every interaction with an athlete is an opportunity to educate.
9. Have a plan. But be flexible and adaptable. Have backup plans. Once on site, scouting and exploration can help inform, strengthen, and enhance any backup 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

Overload Stress

As fitness professionals and coaches, we thrive on the fact that it’s our individualized and specific overload periodization that gets our clients/athletes to their goals. We put all the science into developing their program, and they implement it with full reliance on what we have on paper.

Long-distance endurance events require long-term training plans to build up the cycles/mileage properly without wearing down the body. There has long been debate over whether it is more beneficial to train more miles per week at lower intensity or fewer miles per week at a higher intensity. The consensus is to do what works best for your athlete. Some are anatomically and physiologically less gifted than others in their ability to withstand the impact of high-mileage or high-intensity work before injury sets in.

Every athlete has an overload ceiling that continually fluctuates based on the current cycle of training. For example, during base building or recovery cycles, the body can only handle minimal amounts of stress before experiencing overtraining symptoms. In later (stronger) phases, such as strength-endurance, the body typically endures great stress for a period of up to four weeks before needing a microcycle of recovery.

Daniels’ Running Formula lists eight principles of training, which include: stress reaction, specificity, overstress, training response, personal limits, diminishing return, accelerating setbacks, and maintenance. They are all equally important to consider when developing a training program. However, from personal and professional experience, the one that truly hits home is overstress.

Prioritizing Deload Weeks

For an athlete to regularly perform quality training sessions or to peak for competition, the progression of training stimuli must incorporate an appropriate amount of de-stressing in order to reap the benefits of the applied stress. Instead of trying to force the body to adapt by loading, then overloading, and then loading on top of the overload, allow the body to repair itself on a physiological level. This will actually speed performance gains and minimize the risk of injury. We can call it: “The less is more approach.”

Daniels mentions the fact that forcing an athlete to do a workout in less than ideal conditions, or that the body is not feeling well-equipped to handle, can lead to long-term physical and psychological damage. If training can be thought of as an internal stress on the system, consideration of the external stresses on the athlete needs to be a similar priority. These external stresses can include emotional stress, financial stress, school or work stress, or even social stress from friends and family. Even with the best training progression, if these factors are ignored, an athlete can suffer from overtraining symptoms and wind up sidelined.

Coaches should be concerned with both the internal stresses on an athlete, and the external ones. Share on X

Without consideration of an athlete’s individual circumstances, levels of stress, and reactions to training, the application of a cookie-cutter training plan can have disastrous effects. Each athlete has unique strengths and weaknesses that can be targeted with appropriate programming. Every member of a team performing the same workout can have a multitude of effects, depending on the person and the variables that contribute to a training outcome.

According to Zaryski & Smith (2005), intensity is the most critical factor in overload training; however, it must be balanced effectively with frequency and duration. Unfortunately, there is not a neat formula to calculate the ideal frequency/intensity/duration combination for a given athlete. There is a correlation to the level of experience and the training load/frequency/intensity that can be tolerated, but, again, this is not linear or guaranteed. This concept is known as structural tolerance and can be greatly improved over time, within limits.

Overload is defined as the concept of progressively building the load of physiological work so that the body overcompensates and adapts after a recovery period. The length of an athlete’s season—typically described in macrocycles of 12-14 weeks—will also determine how the program is structured. The nutritional intake and hydration level of these types of endurance athletes are critical to recovery and the ability to withstand subsequent overload stimuli (Zaryski & Smith, 2005). If an athlete is struggling to handle a particular workload that was previously handled without incident, it may be time to check whether either nutritional deficiency or dehydration is the culprit.

The Art of the Taper

Just as there is the need for manipulation in the training variables to stimulate adaptation, there is a need for the same type of manipulation when reversing the trend leading up to a competitive event. In researching more about the benefits of tapering for performance, I found an article that revealed the benefits of a nonlinear taper over the traditional step-down and linear tapers for peak performance. Mujika & Padilla (2003) state that a non-linear taper maintains training intensity by gradually reducing training volume (60-90%) and training frequency (no more than 20%); improving performance by about 3%.

The linear taper drops all variables gradually and proportionally, while the step-down taper drops all variables immediately at the beginning of the taper and maintains low levels of training up until performance. Although maximum recovery may occur with these latter two methods, maximum performance suffers. The maintenance of training intensity and relative frequency is necessary to avoid detraining, but the benefits of performance are not achieved without a reduction in other variables.

McNeely and Sandler (2007) state that the research on tapering is often conflicting, considering the difficulty in replicating the psychological stress that occurs leading up to a peak performance event. Many physiological improvements develop during a taper period, including VO2 max (with a taper of less than 14 days), hemoglobin (+14%), and hematocrit (+2.6%) increases in the first seven days of a taper, all of which help improve the oxygen-carrying capacity of the body. Sport-specific muscle power and contractility seem to increase with the taper as well, possibly due to changes in neuromuscular efficiency as fatigue slowly dissipates.

The idea is that, with reduced volume of training, strength-power mechanisms of adaptation are allowed to take shape. They are normally inhibited by the competing aerobic development that occurs during high-volume training. The peak of strength and power in muscle contraction is typically considered ideal for racing to peak performance.

The date of target competition will also designate when tapering (reduction of volume) needs to occur. The length of the taper will vary depending on the distance of the race, but it typically lasts from one to four weeks (Hug et al., 2014). A successful tapering phase leads to peak performance on competition day; this can be enhanced by preceding the taper with several weeks of overload training (up to a 50% increase), while maintaining intensity all the way through race day.

The physiological response to overload stress causes a high activation of the cardiac autonomic system, specifically the parasympathetic nervous system for the purpose of restoration and recovery. As the taper progresses and no new overload is introduced, the parasympathetic response decreases and the sympathetic tone returns to a balance. This has been indicated as a marker of improved race-readiness and performance.

Periodization, recovery, and tapering are each truly an artistic entity that requires individualized attention for each unique athlete, based on their ability and circumstances. To achieve long-term success without the hindrance of overuse injuries, the recovery phase should be emphasized as much as the build-up progressions.

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

• Daniels, J. T. (2014). Daniels’ Running Formula (3rd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
• Hug, B., Heyer, L., Naef, N., Buchheit, M., Wehrlin, J. P., & Millet, G. P. (2014). “Tapering for marathon and cardiac autonomic function.” International Journal of Sports Medicine, 35: 676-683.
• McNeely, E. & Sandler, D. (2007). “Tapering for endurance athletes.” Strength & Conditioning Journal, 29(5): 18-24.
• Mujiika, I. & Padilla, S. (2003). “Scientific bases for precompetition tapering strategies.” Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, 35(7): 1182-1187.
• Zaryski, C. & Smith, D. J. (2005). “Training principles and issues for ultra-endurance athletes.” Current Sports Medicine Reports, 4: 163-170.