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There are many different treatments and modalities that your therapist may use to help you recover from an injury and get you back to your chosen lifestyle in the quickest and most effective way possible. EMS is one of the modalities that has been popular, but incredibly underutilized, for a long time.

EMS is short for Electrical Muscle Stimulation, and is the process of using external methods to activate your muscles and replicate the messages sent from your brain. While it sounds intimidating, EMS is actually a very simple process.

What Is Electrical Muscle Stimulation?

As you probably already know, your brain controls everything you do, say, think, and feel. This means that when you bend your leg, a message is sent from your brain to the muscle on the top of your leg (quadriceps) telling it to contract. Then a second message is sent to the muscle on the back of your leg (hamstring) telling it to relax.

When you feel pain, a similar thing happens. When you touch something hot, a message carrying that sensation is sent to your brain, telling it that the surface is hot and dangerous. Our brain instantaneously sends the same signals telling the muscles to remove the hand.

All of these messages are sent in under one-thousandth of a second, along tracks known as neural pathways. If you are over 18, you probably remember the old radios where you had to fiddle with a dial to find a radio station because each one had its own frequency. This is exactly how messages in your body work: each type of brain signal has its own frequency. Some of these signals include: pain, sharp, blunt, hot, cold, muscle contraction, and muscle relaxation.

A few years ago, scientists not only discovered these pathways, but they were also able to discover the “frequency” on which we send these messages. Not long after the research was developed further, EMS machines were honed and improved with the ability to use the same neural pathways to send messages to our brain and muscles telling them what to do and how to do it.

“EMS works along the same neural pathways to carry particular messages between the brain and muscles.”

When EMS is used, sticky pads are placed on the muscles that need to be activated (switched on) and the EMS machine is set to the right frequency to mimic the brain messages telling your muscles to contract.

Why Would Your Therapist Use EMS?

There are a number of reasons your therapist might use EMS. These include:

1. Pain Relief – When scientists discovered the frequency that our body uses to send messages telling us about pain, they also discovered that there were similar frequencies that could block those pain messages. Imagine that your pain signals are going along train tracks, and the station manager wants to stop the train. All they would need to do is open a gate across the tracks and that would likely stop the train. This is the case with pain. When you hurt yourself, you may have noticed that you automatically rub the area—that action of rubbing gives the brain different signals and blocks the transmission of the pain frequency. This is not the main use for EMS machines, but is definitely one to be aware of. EMS also provides the added benefit of pain relief for patients who are unwilling or unable to take oral pain relief such as anti-inflammatories.

2. Muscle Memory – It sounds slightly counterintuitive, but these neural pathways and messages we have been talking about create a type of permanent track in our mind. It’s a little bit like the way that scratching a ruler across a wooden table will at some point leave a slight divot. These “divots” are known as our muscle memory. This memory is why David Beckham can, after not kicking a ball for six months, know how to curl the ball into the top corner. His body simply remembers how to do it. The same thing applies to athletes that run fast: Once they have run a new personal best, their body “remembers” how to do it and, therefore, it’s easier to replicate the next time.

If you take this a step further, think about when you learned how to walk and move. You (usually) learned the correct patterns for human movement. These patterns are designed for us to be effective and efficient, and reduce the risk of injury. As we get older, we become lazy and start to develop poor habits, including bad posture. When this happens, some muscles become lazy and aren’t doing the work they should be.

The same thing happens when people develop an injury. For example, when you hurt your knee often, your thigh muscles (quadriceps) will “switch off” as a protective mechanism. The reason for this is that our body interprets pain as danger (usually correctly) and therefore, if moving your knee causes pain, it will try and switch off the muscles controlling your knee so you can do no further damage. Once the acute injury has been resolved, your quadriceps might not “switch back on.” This is the reason that athletes often develop a secondary injury after returning to sport; while the original injury has healed, the muscles are not as strong as they were. EMS is very effective in cases like this. The therapist ascertains which muscles aren’t working and uses the EMS machine to manually “jump start” them. I’ll talk more about how they can do that later.

3. Maximum Muscle Activation – This type of EMS treatment is similar to the one above, but is most commonly used in athletes. When you contract a muscle at any given time—for example, your quadriceps—you may only actually use 40% of the muscle fibers and electrical signals available in your leg. This happens mostly because our bodies are incredibly good at learning how to be effective. So, if using 40% gets the job done, then that is all it will use. The problem with this occurs when you are trying to push your body further than you have before. A weightlifter, for example, may try to lift a weight heavier than they ever have before. As a result, they need to recruit as many of the available muscle fibers and electrical signals as possible. Unfortunately for us all, it is not as simple as just asking your body to do it; your body has to relearn the action and learn to “switch on” the extra fibers, and do so in the correct order.

EMS should never be used as a replacement for training, but as an effective training tool. Share on X

An incredibly effective way to do this is to carry out the movement (in this instance, lifting the barbell) while having the EMS pads attached. The therapist can switch the machine onto the muscle contraction setting and turn it on while the athlete is lifting. After a period of time, this will train those dormant muscle fibers to fire up during that action. The therapist can then gradually reduce the external stimulation, as the muscle will have developed the memory to fire up and complete the action. The huge caveat is that EMS should never be used as a replacement for training but, rather, as a training aid.

When and How Should EMS Be Used?

EMS is best used as an adjunct to your training program; just one tool in your training arsenal. Suggested uses of EMS are:

To Aid Muscle Strengthening When in Pain or Injured

One of the most common situations in which a therapist will use EMS is when an athlete is trying to regain muscle strength, but physical movement or training is prevented by pain and/or acute injury. A common example of this is when a patient has had knee surgery. During the months and years leading up to the surgery, the muscles around the knee will have become increasingly weak either as a result of the muscles “switching off” as a protective mechanism or because the patient initially puts more strain on the other leg to avoid pain. The secondary cause of the muscle weakness is a patient leading a less active lifestyle in order to avoid pain and discomfort.

During the very early stages of rehabilitation (from the initial hours after surgery onward), the therapist aims to reactivate the muscles that have been affected during surgery and begin to trigger the muscle memory. They’ll do this as quickly after surgery as possible.

However, because the patient has been through a fairly traumatic surgery and may be in some discomfort, they may be unable or unwilling to carry out the therapist’s wishes. In this situation, the therapist can use EMS both as a mechanism to relieve the pain and, secondary to that, as a method to activate the muscles without requiring any (or very little) movement from the patient. This can be a useful way for the therapist to help the patient regain confidence in their ability to use the muscles with minimal discomfort.

To Enable Training When Fatigued and Prevent Injury

The most common cause of injury in any exercise program is fatigue, regardless of whether the program is designed to help you return from injury, strengthen to prevent injury, or simply improve a physical skill. When you become tired, a number of significant changes occur that greatly increase your chances of suffering an injury. These changes are:

1. Slower Signal Transmission – The signals we’ve been talking about throughout this article are sent at an incredible speed; however, as we become tired the speed of transmission slows. The cause for concern here is that fatigue prevents our body from having enough time to react in order to prevent injury. An example of this occurs if you are jogging and place your foot on a stone. Your brain will receive the message that your foot is on unstable ground and, as a result, amend your center of gravity and weight distribution and tell your foot to adjust its position, all in a fraction of a second. If, however, you are fatigued and this messaging is delayed, it is increasingly likely that you will not receive those messages in time to make the necessary adjustments prior to rolling your ankle and getting injured.

2. Movement Patterns – As we become tired, perhaps at the end of a training session, our movement patterns change. This is generally done as a mechanism to try and “cheat” the exercise and recruit extra muscles to help out. If you go to the gym and watch people in the weights area you will see this frequently. One of the most obvious examples of this is when people are doing bicep curls. In theory, the only movement in their body during this exercise is the lower arm, which they should bend and extend at the elbow. However, as the person becomes tired, you will see them “hitch”’ their shoulder to try and recruit extra muscles. They may even start to swing at the waist, hoping momentum will get the weight up! This creates cause for concern because these new adaptations are likely to result in an injury.

3. Motor Weakness – Simply put, when they’re fatigued, our muscles are tired. They are simply not capable of carrying out the demands we place on them. You may have experienced this if you have ever been on a long run or had a tough leg-training session and then tried to climb the stairs. Your legs likely felt like jelly and gave way under you. Other than the obvious risks that falling presents, you are at an increased risk of joint and muscle injury during this time because your muscles are overloaded.

Due to the reasons above, you have likely been advised not to complete any training when you’re fatigued. However, thanks to the invention of EMS, this is no longer the case. A therapist can apply EMS at the end of a session and activate the specific muscles, continuing to work on activation and tone while you are lying on a couch, at no risk of injury. This is often used in conjunction with visual rehearsal for maximum benefit.

EMS can even help activate fatigued muscles, without risk to the athlete. Share on X

Overall, EMS is an extremely useful tool to aid a healthy or injured athlete, in conjunction with strategic and proven protocols.

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

New research shows lactate just may be the answer to an exercise-induced energy shortage, especially in the brain.

The idea that this metabolite helps regenerate energy for sustaining exercise has replaced the common misconception of its role in muscle fatigue.

In fact, lactate is a fuel source for many cells, including neurons in the brain, under oxygen-deprived (hypoxic) conditions.

Lactate is Fuel

Lactate helps generate fuel as chemical energy (ATP) which powers every cell in the body. Apparently lactate also operates like a hormone due to its involvement in complex memory formation and neuroprotection.

Astrocytes release lactate in response to neuronal activation. Lactate synthesizes substrates, including acetyl-CoA for the Krebs cycle.

During exercise, ATP is generated mostly from free-flowing blood glucose and the retrieval and breakdown of muscle glycogen stores. To keep moving when the glucose supply is short, the body looks for other ways to regenerate glucose and ATP. With plenty of oxygen, consumption and regeneration flow in a relatively steady state.

A shortage of oxygen, however, causes more lactate production. Pyruvate, a byproduct of glycolysis (glycogen breakdown), can convert to lactate to regenerate the chemical compound NAD+, which is necessary to make ATP.

When produced this way, lactate is typically shuttled to the liver where it’s used to synthesize glucose through gluconeogenesis. Then the glucose is shuttled back to the muscles as a primary energy source in glycolysis.

Fat cells (adipocytes) produce lactate under anaerobic conditions as well. The amount produced depends on a person’s total fat mass.

Lactate and Neuron Metabolism

Researchers are investigating lactate’s ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and play a role in neuron metabolism.

Neuron cell death occurs with oxygen- and glucose-deprivation unless the cell receives lactate before the deprivation occurs. In fact, lactate, not glucose, is the necessary factor in neuron cell recovery from hypoxic conditions.

This process, called the astrocyte-neuron lactate shuttle (ANLS), is particularly active during excitatory neurotransmission and the conversion of neurotransmitters (such as glutamine from glutamate). ANLS both produces and consumes lactate.

Researchers suggest lactate, not glucose, is the primary fuel source for brain neurons. Share on X

Astrocytes are a type of glial cell in the brain which helps keep neurons healthy and function smoothly. Under resting conditions, apparently half of available glucose is used by the neurons and half by the astrocytes. Since astrocytes use only 10-15% of the brain’s total energy, researchers suggest lactate is the primary fuel source for neurons.

Is Lactate the Link to Improving Cognitive Function?

The ANLS pathway also may play a role in memory formation, causing researchers to question whether lactate could be the link between exercise and improved cognitive function.

In the hippocampus, the center of the brain where memories form, exercise induces an overflow of extracellular lactate. The lactate levels stay elevated for at least fifty minutes following exercise.

We need much more research to determine how lactate may correlate to memory formation and neuron plasticity, but these findings are progressive and promising.

Lactate and Physical Fitness

Under strenuous exercise conditions, the highest level of effort the body can physically sustain without accumulating lactate and hydrogen ions (H+) in the blood and muscles is called the lactate threshold.

The higher the lactate threshold, the greater the person’s physical fitness.

The point where lactate begins to accumulate in the blood stream creates the anaerobic threshold. Crossing the anaerobic threshold occurs when the body converts from primarily aerobic to anaerobic metabolism, shifting almost entirely from fat to carbohydrates as the primary fuel source.

Lactate, Muscle Fatigue, and DOMS

In this zone, hydrogen ion production accompanies lactate production. When glucose breaks down from the blood, the process releases two hydrogen ions. If glucose breaks down from muscle glycogen, it produces one ion.

The ions create an acidic environment, known as acidosis, which causes acute muscle fatigue, soreness, and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) twenty-four to forty-eight hours after exercise. Although lactate is not the direct source of H+ generation, it’s often blamed for muscle fatigue and soreness.

Lactic acid production, however, plays an essential role in chemical buffering to regenerate NAD+ and remove pyruvate from the cell to supply the next cycle of energy production. The blood can take lactic acid from resting or slowly working muscles. This is why muscles appear to recover during the rest periods of interval training occurring at, or above, the lactate threshold.

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

Reference

Proia, P., Di Liegro, C. M., Schiera, G., Fricano, A., and Di Liegro, I. (2016). Lactate as a Metabolite and a Regulator in the Central Nervous System. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 17(9), 1450. doi:10.3390/ijms17091450.

SimpliFaster: Olympic-style lifts are very specific to body types and technique, making them more than just a simple summary of peak or average output. Besides using feedback for motivation and accountability, what can be done to use the data beyond estimating work?

Dan Baker: First, a little preamble to set up this answer. Exercises can be deemed by their biomechanical attributes as either “strength” or “power” oriented. In power exercises, the velocities are high and acceleration continues to the end of the range—the forces do not have to be decelerated. Basically the energy is released into the air through jumps, hops, and throws. Olympic lifts also fall into this category (they are jumping exercises, essentially). If the force is safely dampened at the end of the movement, like hitting a heavy bag, then throwing punches and kicking are also power exercises.

Figures 1a, 1b, and 2 show sets of snatch push presses (power exercise, Olympic lift) and heavy squats (a strength exercise). Despite the same sort of % 1RM (sets working from about 70 to 80% 1RM), the mean velocities are much different. For the snatch push press, the velocities are around .8 to over 1 m/s. For the heavy squats, .3 to .5 m/s. For the snatch push presses, the velocities remain fairly stable, despite the increase in resistance for each set. For the squat there is a decrease in velocity with increased resistance.

Strength exercises have a deceleration phase at the end of range when resistances are low (< 50% 1RM)= to avoid stressing the tendons and joints. On major strength exercises like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts, with resistances below 50% 1RM, more than half the ROM is spent in deceleration, making them less than ideal for power training even though at this low level of resistance the velocity may be high. The length of the deceleration phase decreases as resistances go above 65% 1RM. By 85-90%, there is no real deceleration phase, but the velocities are so low at this level of resistance that they cannot be classified as power exercises. So using light resistances below 50% 1RM in traditional strength exercises to develop power is often counterproductive as it is training the body to decelerate for much of the ROM, rather than continuing to accelerate.

So we do strength exercises with heavy resistances to develop force/strength, and power exercises with the appropriate resistance to train the body to use force with high velocity until the end of range. If you want to use “strength exercises” to develop power, you need to use resistances of 50-70% 1RM. Something to dampen the ferocity of a rapid lockout (such as bands and chains) also helps.

In addition, there are two measures of velocity and power—the mean or average of the entire range of (concentric) movement, and the peak, which represents the highest velocity in the shortest measuring time (say 5 millisecs). So there will be a difference between the two measures. When someone is doing a lot of end-range deceleration (because they may be trying to lift 30-40% 1RM in a bench press explosively), there will be a marked difference between the two figures as the body has to severely decelerate the lock-out to protect the joints. In Olympic lifts, which are virtually full ROM power exercises, there should not be a huge difference. If there is a more marked difference for one athlete compared to others, it suggests that they are decelerating near the end of ROM.

Why would they? Because they have mobility or technique problems and the body inherently knows not to continue accelerating (or at least, lifting with high velocity) until catch or lock-out. It may be dangerous to the involved joints, tendons, etc. So there may be a high peak velocity, but the body will slow down the speed to avoid dealing with high force and high velocity at a vulnerable end of ROM in athletes with mobility/injury concerns.

This may suggest that you don’t perform the full versions of the Olympic lifts (or power versions) with athletes who have mobility problems. You may be better off performing a variation (for example, clean power shrug jump instead of power/hang clean).

Also, Prue Cormie’s research shows that the benefit with, for example, power cleans is that as resistance goes up, power also goes up because the velocity is fairly stable—you need a certain velocity to make a successful lift. In other exercises, as resistance goes up, at some point the % dropoff in velocity is greater than the % increase in resistance. Therefore, power goes down.

More than 20 years ago, Greg Wilson called this point—where mean power is highest—the “optimal power load.” It is different for every exercise and there is also individual variation. Some of my published research looks at bench press throws in a Smith machine by professional rugby league players. That “optimal power” (mean power of the entire concentric range) was 55% 1RM for weaker blokes (about 125 kg 1RM), 50% 1RM for the across- the-board normal blokes (about 140 kg 1RM), and 45% 1RM for the strongest blokes (about 150 kg+ 1RM).

To summarize:

1. Olympic lifts are great because we know that if resistance goes up, so does power, until about 90+% 1RM. You don’t need a measurement device unless you are doing pulls or push presses.
2. With the Olympic lifts, the “optimal power” goes up in resistance as you get stronger but stays fairly stable in % 1RM.
3. For strength exercises, the optimal power may go down in % 1RM, even if the actual resistance has gone up a little, if the athlete has gained a lot of strength.
4. For strength exercises, that optimal power point may need to be determined if it is relevant for the individual and the sport. To determine this “optimal power” point or resistance, you need measurement modalities—either a linear position transducer or the new accelerometer type like the PUSH armband.
5. A marked disparity between peak and mean power in an Olympic lift suggests a mobility/technique problem.
6. A marked disparity between peak and mean power in a strength exercise with light resistances (< 50% 1RM) is due to the body self-protecting the joints and tendons from a forceful lockout. Why bother to do this?
7. For a strength exercise to develop power, use 50-70% 1RM for explosive power, perhaps with bands and chains added, or keep these exercises solely for strength development with appropriately heavier resistances.
8. Use jump squats, bench press throws, and similar exercises to train power with resistances 50%1RM of the strength exercise.

SimpliFaster: Jump testing sensitivity is not perfect from the sensitivity being limited, but more reactive options that utilize the stretch shortening cycle add more validity. Is jump training worth doing regularly, a waste of time, or perhaps valuable enough to explore?

Dan Baker: It depends on the athlete and sport. For jump athletes, yes—jump testing and training are important! But the type of jump testing and training needs to be determined. For example, when I worked with Olympic divers, we did squat jumps (no countermovement or arm swing), countermovement jumps (no arm swing), and a vertical jump with arm swing that mimicked a dive take-off (BVJ). The SJ and CMJ are just diagnostic tools to improve the most important, sport-relevant jump test, the BVJ. The SJ is thought to represent the contractile capabilities of the muscles. The difference between the SJ and the CMJ is the extent to which the stretch-shortening cycle contributes.

So, if there is very little difference between the two (say <10%), then the athlete needs more SSC-type training such as jumps, plyos, etc. If the difference is large (>20%), then they may need more basic strength work (squats, etc). This ratio will also reflect the recent training content. So if we concentrate on heavy squats and heavy jump squats for a month or two, the SJ may go from, say, 40 cm to 42 and the CMJ from 46 cm to 47 cm—the SSC augmentation decreases from 15% to 12%. But in following up that block with lighter, faster jumps, depth jumps and other plyos, the SJ may remain unchanged. But the CMJ may improve up to 50 cm and now the augmentation is 19%.

We also did loaded jump squats, up to 80 kg. This is pure leg-jumping power and another tool to improve BVJ. If you look at my paper on the training of an Olympic diver from 1993 to 1996, published in the NSCA Journal in 2001, you will see that a 50% increase in squat strength (coming off a low strength level) begets a 25% increase in power in loaded jump squats, which in turn begets a 15% increase in BVJ height.

So jumps can be used diagnostically to develop training strategies or as tools to achieve outcomes, especially for “jump sport” athletes (volleyball, basketball, diving, gymnastics, etc).

For other sports, jumping is associated with things important in the sport and again can be used diagnostically or as a training tool to achieve an outcome. For example, my research on professional rugby league players, with whom I worked for 19 years, shows that the power achieved jumping with 80-100 kg really differentiates those at the pro team level (NRL) from second- and third-division players. Basically the average weight of players is 98 kg, so if you can’t move that weight quickly in a triple-extension movement in the gym (jump squat or hang clean), you aren’t going to move it quickly on the field! To move those sorts of weights with velocity, they needed to be about 60% 1RM squat. Therefore, you needed a 1RM squat of >170 kg (much more for the bigger boys, whose opponents weigh about 110+kg!). So testing and training influence each other.

Jump squats with 20 kg did not differ much between teams in professional rugby leagues. But at the end of every power training session warm-up, before the real barbell work started, we would do five jump squats with 20 kg to monitor the state of the neuromuscular system/recovery. An easy test, not fatiguing, and it allowed us to monitor how the squad was coping. A 3-4% deviation (from the best preseason score) meant nothing. That is just the normal weekly variation, but changes of 7-10+% meant something! If the whole squad is down on average 7%, look out!

See Figure 3 below for changes across an 8-month rugby league season. There is a slump during the middle portion, which corresponds to two key factors: mid-winter and an increase in playing volume and intensity for key players. So we are dealing with the twin stressors of a suppressed immune system and harder games to recover from, and our N-M scores decrease for the whole squad accordingly.

So we can look at jump training/testing for diagnostics or for training to achieve outcomes associated with success in the sport.

SimpliFaster: Submaximal loads are great for estimating repetition maximal abilities, and research is showing evidence that general exercises and lift velocity can predict what one can do if the load is heavier. One worry coaches have is that submaximal loads with maximal effort for velocity is fatiguing. What is the best way to implement one-repetition estimation with submaximal loads?

Dan Baker: For me, it is still a reps-to-fatigue (RTF) test, with either 5RM or 3RM to predict 1RM. My correlations to predict 1RM are very high with these (R= 0.93-.97). There is not enough data with velocity-based estimation yet for it to be considered better than RTF testing, but it looks promising. We just need more studies, across different populations of athletes and sports, on different exercises. Certainly, for the lower body this would be great—to hit a full squat of somewhere 60-80% 1RM for 1-3 reps and extrapolate to 1RM with a degree of certainty, especially in-season! But right now, most of the evidence on this is done with a Smith machine on Spanish phys ed students, soccer players, or water polo players! We need more data, male and female, on more athletes from more sports and free weights! We need more research that includes super-stars and explosive athletes.

“One worry coaches have is that submaximal loads with maximal effort for velocity is fatiguing” – WTF! Someone fatigued by doing 1 to 3 reps at 70% 1RM with maximal velocity is no athlete!

SimpliFaster: Most holistic programs in the weight room and on the field use different strength training modalities, not just one type of lift. Besides alternating intensities and volumes, does bar velocity-type tracking help with better adaptations biologically to the body? Many coaches are looking into hormonal and gene activation as part of the training process. Is this a wrong path or a good idea?

Dan Baker: My research from the past 20+ years shows that I have always measured power output during jump squats and bench press throws (in a Smith machine). These are my basic power exercises and tests. I prefer to track performance measures (strength, velocity, power, MAS, etc.), not physiological measures (hormone levels, gene activation, etc.). No gold medals for best mTOR signal or fiber type or testosterone-to-cortisol ratio in the Olympics. Don’t get lost by chasing sports science measures when there are easy performance measures to track (says the sports scientist!)

SimpliFaster: Following up on genes and hormones, muscle-fiber profiles of athletes are gaining interest. Could coaches do a better job or individualizing training based on one genetic trait—specifically the amount of fast and slow fiber distribution?

Dan Baker: We are not allowed under the WADA code to manipulate hormones (their changing levels are a consequence of what we do, but we cannot expressly attempt to manipulate them) or genes. Do people understand the WADA code? Manipulating hormones or genes is a doping offense under WADA and you face a 4-year or lifetime ban. We are not allowed to change our genes, so why bother with this stuff? Apart from the peak Olympic sports of sprints, jumps, throws and lifting, most sports require a mix of attributes.

If we take rugby-type sports which need various physical attributes, a lot of blokes are fast-twitch fiber types. But they get beaten down by their opponents through the cumulative fatigue of the high workload imposed on them. Same with many MMA fighters, who get gassed late in the bout and lose. So catering to their strength (explosiveness) is not going to help their weakness (less aerobic capacity). Mixed sport athletes need to work on many things. But can we do a better job on the explosive outliers? Of course! We just need the extra manpower resources!

However, if we take jumpers, divers, sprinters, Olympic lifters, throwers, and others like them, all their training is catered to the fact that they are explosive power athletes. They are on small teams, so manpower aspects of coaching are not as critical as field sports with larger teams. What more could you do that you are not already doing with them? You know they are fast-twitch fiber type people! And you program more individually.

Look at Figure 3. This is the mean bench press velocity lifting for 95 kg (63% 1RM) for three professional rugby league players from the back-line positions—the fast runners, the Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They are lifting at high .8 to over .9m/s for six reps for 2 sets. Yet the González-Badillo et al IJSM 2010 paper suggests that at 63% 1RM, the mean velocity should be < .8 m/s. So why do we have > .9 m/s, when the research suggests maybe .77 m/s for this level of intensity? Because these are our outliers, our superstars. They can’t handle the same volume of work and they are not good at grinding reps because they burn brighter, not longer.

One of those players from Figure 3, doing 3×8 on the bench with a RPE of 8, can only use 64% 1RM. Whereas another player (not depicted),a real slow-twitch type, a grinder, does 3×8 with 78% 1RM. They both bench press 155kg for their 1RM (but have different body weights). We take that into account when designing training.

SimpliFaster: The final need of coaches is to make training work better in reducing injuries, improving speed and size of players, and transferring to sporting actions like deceleration and jumping. How does Velocity Based Training do this with athletes?

Dan Baker: I don’t propose all training be VBT. Why would I? Velocity is another metric to monitor, not the be-all and end-all. Training needs to be holistic, not just based upon velocity. Certainly, the focus on velocity, rather than just 1RM levels, appears to have found its way into the US training mainstream. It will help improve performance, reduce injury, and so forth, as we gain more data and make more informed training decisions. The low cost of velocity measuring devices will see their proliferation. The Plyometric Power System, developed in the early 1990s by Greg Wilson and Rob Newton to measure velocity and power, cost my team $18,000 in 1996! Now the PUSH armband is only a few hundred dollars.

There are certain key exercises and power output or velocity metrics that are useful for sports. You just need to determine what they are! As I mentioned, we have seen that power output or velocity during jump squats with 100 kg and bench press throws of >60 kg separates the pros from 2nd and 3rd division rugby league players, but velocity and power generated with 20 kg in the same exercises does not.

So I need to make sure the velocity I am measuring is one actually associated with performance. If two rugby league players generated .8 m/s with the same % 1RM, are they the same? Not if one is 40 kg stronger than the other, because his power output would be much higher. Look at Figure 4. The greater the amount of resistance, the greater the difference between U/20 years and professional rugby league players. If we just measure velocity with 20 kg during a bench press throw, there is only 2% difference, but it is 16 % with 60 kg, and with 3RM bench press more than 18%.

For divers, the velocity or power generated during jump squats with 20 kg, however, is associated with performance levels. So different sports have different relevant performance measures—jump squats with 20 kg is performance-relevant for divers but not for pro rugby league players who need 80-100 kg! S&C coaches will need to determine what measures relate to success in their sports.

So do some testing. What separates the best performers from lower level performers? Use a battery of loads, initially, until you find what loads and velocities are important (power is the product of load and velocity). And I use absolute loads for testing, not % 1RM. So jumps with 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 kg or whatever is most appropriate for the athletes.

For in-season recovery monitoring, we see (Figure 5) that jump squats with 20 kg can give a guide of recovery and adaptation, especially during the in-season for football and rugby players (Australian Football League, National Rugby League, Rugby Union). So we can use this as a measure of recovery monitoring, not performance.

With respect to injury and rehab, we can look at the velocity of, for example, squats and RDLs with sub-maximal loads in injured players to gain insight of where they are at in their recovery (compared to their normative data in the same exercises).

There are two major things that inhibit us—forces and speeds, especially at end-ROM. After an injury, we have to gradually and progressively break down the neural inhibitions to these things. Maybe someone has good strength (force) in an isometric test at mid-ROM, but can they safely express that high force at high velocities through full ROM? Also is there a large disparity between peak and average velocity?

This is where the proliferation of velocity measuring devices will come in handy. The future is exciting in this area with low-cost, accurate measurement devices gaining widespread acceptance. Many more smart coaches will now be able to make better training decisions because they will have velocity and power data to help inform them about the adaptation processes the athlete is experiencing. I have been using various measurement velocity devices for over 20 years now and I am super-excited about the future.

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SimpliFaster: Olympic-style lifts are very specific to body types and technique, making them more than just a simple summary of peak or average output. Besides using feedback for motivation and accountability, what else can be done to use the data beyond estimating work?

Mike Tuchsherer: The two big things to me would be bar path tracking and then managing parameters for assistance work. And to be honest, although a device like the GymAware can track bar path and should be put in the “useful” category, I’m not sure it’s the best tool available for tracking such things. A more useful aspect would be to manage the load for something like pulls. It’s easy to go too light or too heavy when doing, say, snatch pulls at various heights. If you have a way to measure bar speed in real time, then you can auto-regulate the intensity—which is very useful.

SimpliFaster: Jump testing sensitivity is not perfect from the sensitivity being limited, but more reactive options that utilize the stretch shortening cycle add more validity. Is jump training worth doing regularly, a waste of time, or perhaps valuable enough to explore?

Mike Tuchsherer: Worth doing for whom? As my area of expertise is squarely in the realm of powerlifting and to a much lesser extent other iron sports, I have to answer from that perspective. For powerlifters, I don’t think jump training is worth doing regularly. It’s just too far removed from the specific skills and abilities required for being a good powerlifter.

SimpliFaster: Submaximal loads are great for estimating repetition maximal abilities, and research is showing evidence that general exercises and lift velocity can predict what one can do if the load is heavier. One worry coaches have is that submaximal loads with maximal effort for velocity is fatiguing. What is the best way to implement one-repetition estimation with submaximal loads?

Mike Tuchsherer: The closer you get to handling a 1RM, the more accurate the estimation will be. Doing a 3RM will yield a more accurate prediction than a 5RM, and so on. The same holds true for the “sub-maximal-ness” of the effort too. A very tough set (high RPE) will be more accurate than a very easy set (low RPE). So it’s really a trade-off with how accurate you need to be. In my experience, the best implementation has been to simply conduct normal training and use that to form the estimations. We go into this knowing that a) heavier work will be more accurate than lighter work, and b) the athlete must be accelerating the weight maximally to get an accurate reading. So the further off these variables are in real life, the less emphasis we can put on the reading.

SimpliFaster: Most holistic programs in the weight room and on the field use different strength training modalities, not just one type of lift. Besides alternating intensities and volumes, does bar velocity-type tracking help with better adaptations biologically to the body? Many coaches are looking into hormonal and gene activation as part of the training process. Is this a wrong path or a good idea?

Mike Tuchsherer: I think it’s probably a rock worth turning over. We need a certain level of variety in an athlete’s training in order to continue improving results. But we pretty quickly hit a point of diminishing returns. So it would be interesting to know more about it. Keep in mind, though, that variation in intensity will also result in some variation in velocity in most practical cases. The first few reps of your 10RM set will be faster than any of the reps of your 3RM set. So there is some “built-in” variation when it comes to bar speed in normal programming unless you’re always tightly controlling the tempo.

SimpliFaster: Following up on genes and hormones, muscle-fiber profiles of athletes are gaining interest. Could coaches do a better job of individualizing training based on one genetic trait—specifically the amount of fast and slow fiber distribution?

Mike Tuchsherer: In the context of powerlifting, I’m not sure how much that would matter. It may get us to an individualized answer a bit faster, but how much real impact does that have on the athlete? How important is that level of individualization? I’m not sure. Based on what I’ve seen so far, training differences as a result of personality vary much more than training differences as a result of fiber-type distribution. In the practical setting, however, I’m only assessing the latter by proxy so there are certainly limitations with my observation.

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Recently there was an informal discussion on Facebook about VBT (Velocity Based Training). Carl Valle asked several of the participants in that discussion if they would formally respond to a series of questions related to VBT. Here are the answers from Dr. Bryan Mann. The answers from the other participants will be posted when they are made available. You may submit questions to Dr. Mann in the comments section below.

SimpliFaster: Olympic-style lifts are very specific to body types and technique, making them more than just a simple summary of peak or average output. Besides using feedback for motivation and accountability, what else can be done to use the data beyond estimating work?

Bryan Mann: Well, for one, the bar path can be tracked with the GymAware. For those who are big in Olympic lifts, it is good to see what happened and where it happened. From a longitudinal standpoint, I don’t think that is it. A quick turnover of force is one of the main reasons (besides speed-strength development) why Olympic lifts are great for sports. With certain devices, you have the ability to measure the descent of the bar as well as the speed of the descent. I will say that this really only matters for Olympic lifts done from the hang, and this is the only type of Olympic lift that most teams do consistently here at Mizzou.

We have had great successes with it. Engaging the stretch/shortening cycle requires fast and violent movements. Some devices let you see the length of time for the eccentric, the dip that occurs, and the speed that it occurs at. If fast and violent is what you are wanting, are you getting it? I don’t think this is something that you use as feedback necessarily (unless it’s just as a teaching tool for a day or two). It is more of a way for coaches to evaluate their athletes. If the eccentric portion of the initial movement is looking good, and their concentric is looking good, the transfer will be higher. Sometimes we get too caught up on the concentric portion. We must realize that there are two portions to this movement.

It reminds me of vertical jumping. Ben Peterson said that vertical jumping is a skill, and he is right. People learn how to jump higher because that is what we as practitioners care about. The athletes will rely on their strengths to give you the best number. Those who are more strength-dominant and don’t really have that neural “twitch” will go for longer slow dips to allow the longer acceleration time to reach a higher speed of the center of mass upon takeoff. Others who are more “twitchy” go for a rapid shallow descent and rely on neurophysiological mechanisms like the stretch reflex to develop more power.

I think it is much the same on the clean. One athlete may go with a long slow eccentric to hit the concentric velocities and move greater loads. Another athlete may have much shallower, rapid descent, yet moves with the same velocity and the same load. Which one is right? If we look at the force signatures that Cal Dietz published in Triphasic Training, we would say that you want the second athlete’s signature. The ability to quickly absorb and reproduce force may in fact lead to the quicker changes of direction necessary in team sports. I will say, though, this is something I have just started looking at. So I can’t really say, “You should be looking at this dip, for this time, at this velocity.” I do think that this is something valuable to evaluate your program. In the future will we have enough data to say something definitively? I think so. I’m just not sure right now.

SimpliFaster: Jump testing sensitivity is not perfect from the sensitivity being limited, but more reactive options that utilize the stretch shortening cycle add more validity. Is jump training worth doing regularly, a waste of time, or perhaps valuable enough to explore?

Bryan Mann: If we are talking about monitoring training loads, it’s good to explore. Recent research tells us that tracking peak velocity is going to be king. It is far more sensitive than jump height or flight time, and does a better job of picking up differences than force or power.

There are several other things that would be good to monitor if we are looking at countermovement jumps, depth jumps, or anything of that nature. For depth jumps, there is of course ground contact time to factor in as well, and I think that is a crucial measure. For the jump height, it is so multifactorial. When doing more than one repetition (which I believe you should), if the athletes are given feedback, they will change their technique to get the highest possible jump. They may increase their descent distance to increase the time spent in acceleration before takeoff. Having other things to monitor such as dip and eccentric velocity allows you to delve even more deeply into the jump and get more information.

I’m all for parsimony. Let’s get the most amount of information from the least amount of testing. While the vertical jump used to be the gold standard for monitoring, it really isn’t any longer as it isn’t sensitive enough. Many things can confound the results. Using technology, we can look at multiple factors that go into the jump. These different factors—such as flight time, dip, eccentric velocity, concentric velocity, and height—provide nuggets of valuable info. Is one piece of information more critical than the others? Well, some people say peak concentric velocity is the best predictor, but maybe it’s only because no one has found the Holy Grail yet?

A podcast with Carl Valle—who is also on this roundtable—mentioned using 40kg as the load for the jumps. You are getting weekly longitudinal data and a small training effect. Squat jumps are ballistic in nature and thus have a very minor deceleration phase—if one exists at all. But what’s wrong with getting some ballistics in every week? Nothing. It is going to help improve the athlete’s RFD.

Whatever type of jump you do (countermovement or non-countermovement), be consistent. Do it on the same day or same phase of the week. For instance, if a baseball player on a 5-day rotation always lifts 2 days after pitching, always do it on that day (instead of a typical 7-day rotation). That way you can tell when/if something is changing/happening. This is crucial to help determine what/when changes occur.

This is something else that I have just started playing with in the past couple of weeks so I can’t give any definitive info. I feel bad saying this over and over, but I’m just really delving into GymAware and all of its capabilities. We (okay, I) have been using the concentric everything as a gold standard for so long, but I have noticed a lot of unaccounted-for variance in things. I think a lot of this can be covered with things like eccentrics. I reserve the right to be wrong on this, but what I’m looking at right now seems promising.

SimpliFaster: Submaximal loads are great for estimating repetition maximal abilities, and research is showing evidence that general exercises and lift velocity can predict what one can do if the load is heavier. One worry coaches have is that submaximal loads with maximal effort for velocity is fatiguing. What is the best way to implement one-repetition estimation with submaximal loads?

Bryan Mann: This one is purely theoretical for me. I think Mladen has done more with this question, so I’d read his answer. If you don’t have time I’ll give something that’s theoretical from my standpoint. If I remember correctly, at over 60% of 1RM the mean propulsive velocity and mean velocity become closer and closer. If you hit the first set or two at 60% plus at max velocity, you could predict the 1RM for the day. Utilizing that 1RM, you could choose loads based on that and do them at an entirely volitional velocity. For instance, if my first set at 60% showed that today my max was at 135kg instead of 125kg, then I could use that 135kg to base the rest of my sets for whatever % of 1RM I had intended for that day and perform the exercises using volitional rather than maximal intended velocity.

On the other hand, I’m not sure why coaches are worried about velocity being fatiguing. ALL training is fatiguing. If the goal is just simply maintenance of strength, okay. However, I am most concerned with performance. All of my volumes are done in a manner which will keep performance high and total volume relatively low. I am not concerned about the velocity being fatiguing, because I’m looking at like 10 total reps of squats, etc. My in-season training is all based on strength-speed or speed-strength utilizing high velocities. This is what is most important for most team sports in-season. During the off-season, isn’t stressing the athlete and causing the adaptation the point? If we want to cause an adaptation to occur, we have to impose an overload of a specific demand upon the body.

SimpliFaster: Most holistic programs in the weight room and on the field use different strength training modalities, not just one type of lift. Besides alternating intensities and volumes, does bar velocity-type tracking help with better adaptations biologically to the body? Many coaches are looking into hormonal and gene activation as part of the training process. Is this a wrong path or a good idea?

Bryan Mann: I truly believe it is, and it goes back to specificity. I know people disagree with me on this right now, but I’m not sure why other than the fact that it’s new. If you asked what % of 1RM should you be training at to develop strength-speed, people would tell you around 50-65% or maybe even 70%. But if you tell them a velocity range they look at you like you’re crazy.

We all know that strength is extremely variable, as was alluded to before. Mladen in his paper showed what he later let me know was his own training and its variations. He saw an 18% swing on any given day, so some days the %s would be way off and others he would be lucky and be right on. We know that velocity and % of 1RM are so consistent. Something like 98% of the population when utilizing maximal intended velocity is within ±.04m/s for each of the %s (I think some of this variation is by height. This is something I’m looking in to for the future. I think we may find some interesting stuff, such as when you’re dealing with major height variations, some things may change). So if we use the corresponding velocity to the % of 1RM, we will be using the right weight on any given day.

I go through all of this to relate everything back to the SAID principle. We have to impose the proper demand on the body to get the specific adaptation we are hoping for. If we know we want to develop strength speed, we are looking at .75-1.0m/s (40-65ish% of 1RM); for accelerative strength .5-.75m/s (around 65 to 80ish% 1RM); for absolute strength, under .5m/s (85-100%). Simply using velocities that correspond to the % of 1RM desired allows you to be right on the load you are utilizing, rather than hoping to be lucky that it was correct on any given day.

I think it’s a good idea to use hormonal and gene activation as part of the training process. We can take evidence and research that has already been done and try and figure out how to manipulate it for the best results. I think any changes that come as a part of training would be great, but I am not so sure about any gene activation done through exogenous substances.

However, how many coaches are going to be looking at actual changes in DNA? How many strength and conditioning coaches have the money to be doing western blots and the like to be examining DNA? Also—does it actually matter? I think it is great to examine what the actual outcomes of training are, and what things are influenced. What really does happen to mTOR during times of low, moderate, and high aerobic activity? What really does happen on the cellular level to signal greater hormonal responses? How do we alter these signaling pathways?

While these are great things to know and understand, I don’t see coaches looking to do genetic testing on their athletes. It’s cost-prohibitive. We know about C-reactive protein, test:cortisol ratios, VO2 Max testing from Bruce protocols, Wingates for power, etc., and most people don’t utilize them because of time and cost. Do we take what we know from science and apply it to training? ABSOLUTELY! But I don’t think it’s necessarily the best utilization of resources to spend money on genetic testing. I think results could be better seen with cheaper means. Are they running faster and jumping higher and changing direction more quickly? If they are, I think this is what really matters.

SimpliFaster: Following up on genes and hormones, muscle-fiber profiles of athletes are gaining interest. Could coaches do a better job of individualizing training based on one genetic trait—specifically the amount of fast and slow fiber distribution?

Bryan Mann: Interesting that you pose this question. I think that to some point, yes we could. Recently we examined all our football players and some different things that make them who and what they are. One thing that has long been talked about is somatotype through the Heath Carter equation (I’ve got a poster presentation on this at the NSCA National Conference for anyone who is interested). We found that—except for ectomorphs—the athletes did not respond to training any differently. They responded best to decreased volumes, especially at higher intensities.

This is not to say that differences among other sports don’t exist, as this was very much a homogenous group. While the positions vary in their makeup, all rely on strength and power for optimal performance. It would be interesting to see the results from a more heterogeneous group such as an entire track team. How do individuals respond to training, such as long distance vs. throwers? I’m going to guess it would be different, but can’t say for sure.

I really feel like this individualization of training is like the Wild West. There is so much going on and so many buzzwords associated with it, but does it make much of a difference? Well, for 85% of our team it really didn’t make a difference with how they responded, but for 15% it did. Is that sampling error and population bias? Perhaps. Might it be different for the general population? To me, the frustrating and invigorating parts of this profession are the unknowns, solving those and then finding out what else we don’t know. It’s a never-ending cycle, and the great thing is that you never know what you’re going to run into next.

I think that fiber typing could play a critical role in training. I’ve noticed over the years that the guys who are your Ferraris—with the highest type-2 fiber makeup—seem to benefit most from small volumes of high-intensity, high-velocity work. They need longer and/or more frequent rests. If they don’t get them, they start to break down.

These are the guys who are often the freaks you work with only a handful of times in your career. In the 16 years I’ve been in this field, I have come across maybe a dozen. They are the stuff that legends are made of with their athletic abilities. But not every guy who jumps 40 inches is a Ferarri, I might add.

At the opposite end are the Diesel Duallys, the guys who are high type-1 fiber (or at least I’d assume they are). They just get better with every attempt, and it seems like they don’t start to even get warmed up until the 3rd or 4th quarter. We had an athlete who didn’t start improving his 40 time until about his 6th or 7th attempt, and not PR until his 10th. With 40s, I’ve always maintained that when they drop below 97% of their best run of the day, they are done. For most of our athletes, that was 2-4 repetitions.

But this guy would run a 40, do a jump test, then an agility test, and come back to run another 40 and keep going for over an hour. Then he’d do his best performances. Now, don’t go saying that “Well, obviously he wasn’t warmed up yet.” I have never been one who trained individual athletes, and this guy did everything and he did it right. We didn’t have to watch for him skipping out on stuff like warmup exercises and what have you. He just took a long time to warm up.

I’ve recently been reading Winning, a book by Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE. A former CEO recommended it to me for leadership and how to run a department. (By the way, if you want to know how to lead and provide direction, I’d say CEOs of multimillion-dollar corporations would be a good start). Welch talks about the typical breakdown of employees. You have your top 20% who are your stars, your middle 70% who are your workhorses, and your lowest 10% who are just your bottom feeders.

Most people would think that you need to spend the majority of your time on your stars, to make sure they shine. Well, that’s really not the case. You need to spend a great amount of time on your middle 70% and provide them with all of the resources you can and keep them moving in the right direction. This is where your future stars will come from, and presently are the source of most of your profits.

I think the same principles apply to training large teams (football, swimming, etc.). You spend most of your time determining the best training for the middle 70%, then use whatever time is left over trying to make sure your stars and Ferraris get what they need. If you have either a small team or a large coaching staff, allow one or two of the staff do what’s best for the Ferraris.

One of the great things about VBT is you’ll also quickly be able to tell who your Ferraris are and make sure that they’re using the right loads. We had one football player who was really in the wrong sport. He was extremely fast and explosive, and would have done a helluva a job in the indoor 60 and the outdoor 100. When we first started utilizing VBT with him, he was able to move much higher velocities at the intended loads, and did well with heavier loads at the appropriate velocities when we backed down the volume. VBT allowed us to have the red flag to catch that Ferrari who we might not have noticed until much later. Regardless though, from day 1 he was using the right load for himself.

Now, back to the question as I got off track—could coaches do a better job of individualization? Most likely yes, though I do think that first off they need to get that middle 70% correct before they worry about spending time doing individualization. If they don’t, they’ll be looking for another job very quickly.

SimpliFaster: The final need of coaches is to make training work better in reducing injuries, improving speed and size of players, and transferring to sporting actions like deceleration and jumping. How does Velocity Based Training do this with athletes?

Bryan Mann: I think autoregulation and specificity address all of these points. I will point out that first the athlete should get strong. This takes care of all of those points. Research on Division 1 football players by Jacobson (and I believe Krause was the other researcher) showed that increasing strength improved speed, explosive ability, and change of direction for about the first year. After that, increasing strength did not increase those qualities. At the point when power and speed are no longer improved by getting stronger, we need to look to increase RFD or other things.

I’m currently working on utilizing our longitudinal data to examine the effects of utilizing velocity on improvement of power, speed, and agility over the course of a career as compared to a long-term program that did not use this implementation. I feel that I often say “I’m working on something for this” all of the time. Maybe I could get something done if it weren’t for this pesky teaching and coaching I’ve got to do on top of the stuff that I WANT to do.

Using VBT can help with the speed and other sporting actions to increase the quality of work by giving feedback. A study by Randell et al showed that by giving feedback of the velocity of the lifts (with all loads and volumes the same) to one group resulted in significant improvements in speed, jumping ability, and change of direction over a second group that did everything else the same but received no feedback. I also think that combined with the feedback, the specificity of load with maximal intent helps with the improvements. When you know the trait that needs to be developed, having nearly every rep of every set at the appropriate load with maximal intent seems to bring about great changes in the athlete in terms of the transfer to performance.

As far as reducing injuries, using VBT helps adjust the load in congruence with the other stressors on an athlete. I’m sure most of us have read Selye’s The Stress of Life or Sapulsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, and we have seen that stress in one area of life affects the body in the same manner, albeit not with same intensity.

When I was working at a smaller school, we had a fantastic off-season program. Guys were just throwing up their loads like they were nothing. One of the last sessions got us really excited about testing. Our football guys were across the board just smoking their sets with 92% for doubles. We were scheduled to test shortly after, and we happened to do it during midterm exams. We had several guys getting stapled with 85%, and most only getting their 92% for their max.

What happened? The accumulation of stress affected them physically through what is called psychoneuroimmunology (say that 3 times fast!). I’m not going to lie and tell you that I knew what had happened right off of the bat—I didn’t know for about 10 years. I just knew what happened and it was so drastic that it stuck in my mind. I finally figured it out in 2012 after talking with health psychologist Dr. Brick Johnstone. When I talked about it as well as the injury rash during the previous year, he mentioned, “Oh, you’re talking about psychoneuroimmunology. This is what it is, how it happens, etc.”

We did statistical analysis and found that we had basically three types of weeks: high-stress weeks (pre-season camp), high academic-stress weeks (a lot of tests), and low academic-stress weeks (no major tests). What was interesting was that during the pre-season, the guys in the two deep were something like 2.8 times more likely to get hurt as during a low academic-stress week. Even more interesting—almost mind-blowing—was that during the academic-stress weeks, they were 3.2 times as likely to get hurt as during a low-academic stress week. In other words, someone in the two-deep was more likely to get hurt during a test week than during training camp. Talk about shocking!

During the in-season, all the lifts at the core of our program are done off of velocity. We have found that this helps normalize things for our athletes. The ones playing a lot are often a bit more beat-up from additional reps in practices and games. Their current 1Rm might be lower due to the stress they are undergoing. The backups or those who don’t play at all might actually increase in load from week to week and gain strength. The main source of their energy expenditure and stress is in actuality the strength training.

I bring all of that up to make this point: Strength is variable, and it is very variable due to all of the other stressors that occur in your life. While some talk about the fatiguing effect of maximal intended velocity, I think that it’s a good thing, especially when you stay at the higher velocities. It greatly regulates the loads that can be utilized. If athletes are fatigued, they reduce the load they are lifting because their 1RM isn’t what was tested months before; it was much less that day. With the utilization of velocity and its near-perfect relationship with 1RM, the proper load is always utilized. By tracking these loads longitudinally, we can see what long-term adaptations or issues are occurring.

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

 

Related Articles

Dr. Mann’s eBook Developing Explosive Athletes: Velocity Based Training is available at EliteFTS.

Given the inconclusive evidence surrounding the use of caffeine as a performance-enhancing supplement and the significant metabolic consequences on glucose disposal in a sedentary state, athletes should use caution and consume caffeine in moderation.

Researchers continue to study caffeine, which is allowed by the NCAA and US Olympic Committee, to determine its enhancement effects on athletic performance in training and competition. Caffeine is rapidly absorbed by the body within five to fifteen minutes of ingestion. Peak levels in the blood occur between forty and eighty minutes, making it ideal for immediate training benefit (Spriet, 2014). With a half-life of three to five hours, caffeine’s effects can last for the better part of a day.

Low doses of caffeine, 3mg/kg body weight or less, improve vigilance, alertness, mood, and cognitive abilities without negative side effects (Spriet, 2014). Higher doses often result in gastrointestinal upset, dizziness, nervousness, insomnia, confusion, tachycardia (rapid heart rate), and the inability to focus (Spriet, 2014).

Endurance Exercise

The first dose-response study, performed in 1995, involved a cycling time trial performance test. Cyclists ingested 3, 6, and 9mg/kg of caffeine sixty minutes before the time trial (Spriet, 2014). The cyclists who took the 3 and 6mg/kg doses showed a 22% increase in time trial performance while the high-dose group demonstrated only an 11% non-significant increase (Spriet, 2014).

Another study, where well-trained cyclists ingested low-dose caffeine late in an endurance race, showed that both 1.5 and 3mg/kg were ergogenic when ingested late in an exhaustive ride (Spriet, 2014). Caffeine intake pre-workout showed 4.2% and 2.9% improvement in cycling performance when 3 and 6mg/kg were consumed, respectively, indicating a decrease in dose-response efficacy similar to the first two studies mentioned (Spriet, 2014).

In running performance, the evidence is a bit less consistent. Some researchers found that 150-200mg of caffeine improved 1500m performance by 4.2s in well-trained males, whereas another study involving a longer distance event (3 x 18km in 8 days) showed no performance effect of low-dose (90mg or ~1.3mg/kg) (Spriet, 2014). In an 8K time trial involving well-trained male runners, a 24-second, or 1.8%, improvement was observed with 3mg/kg caffeine ingested sixty minutes before the event (Spriet, 2014). An average of 3.6% performance improvement across multiple endurance sports was collected from studies with ingestion amounts ranging from a 2-5mg/kg (mean = 3% enhancement) and >5mg/kg loading dose (mean = 7% enhancement) (Shearer & Graham, 2014).

Anaerobic Exercise

In power-based sports requiring short, anaerobic bursts of activity, the evidence of caffeine’s ergogenic effect on performance is conflicting. An increasing number of studies have been published involving HIIT training, resistance training, and force-production activity. Studies observed improvements in peak power (Wingate test) and absolute strength when consuming 5 and 7mg/kg body mass, respectively.

Few studies exist on the effect of low-dose supplementation (Spriet, 2014). One study by Lorino, Lloyd, Crixell, and Walker (2006) examined caffeine’s effect on agility performance in the Proagility run and 30-second Wingate test. Sixteen recreationally active males, who were in a two-hour fasted state, received a dose of 3mg/kg of body weight an hour before testing (Lorino et al., 2006). Researchers based the dosage on the midpoint of the commonly tested range of 3-9mg/kg bodyweight (Lorino et al., 2006). There was no significant change in peak power, mean power, percent power decrease, and proagility performance (Lorino et al., 2006). The study concluded that caffeine ingested at this dosage did not enhance performance in recreationally active males, but that the results could not be extrapolated to anaerobically trained athletes (Lorino et al., 2006).

Metabolic Effects

Popular theory states that caffeine produces positive effects on fatty acid metabolism and carbohydrate utilization in the tissue, but these metabolic changes are unlikely to occur in exercise lasting less than thirty to forty minutes (Shearer & Graham, 2014). The mechanism by which caffeine affects skeletal muscle metabolism involves its interaction with ryanodine calcium receptors. Specifically, caffeine augments the release of intracellular calcium for increased force production and the shortening of muscle fiber (Shearer & Graham, 2014). Of course, the positive effects are extremely time- and temperature-sensitive and largely dependent on fiber type due to the differences in calcium kinetics, with a greater benefit in slow-twitch than fast-twitch fibers (Shearer & Graham, 2014).

Caffeine’s use as a performance-enhancing supplement should be carefully restricted to athletes. The consumption of caffeine and caffeinated beverages has significant metabolic consequences on glucose disposal in a sedentary state (Shearer & Graham, 2014). Administering caffeine before a glucose tolerance test or an insulin clamp (the gold standard for measuring insulin resistance) resulted in a 30% disposal rate in both tests, creating a hyperinsulinemic and hyperlipidemic state of metabolism (Shearer & Graham, 2014). This means that less than one-third of the glucose is taken up into the cells, and even less makes it to skeletal muscle for glycogen storage (Shearer & Graham, 2014).

Given the half-life of caffeine, its effects on insulin resistance may last through several meals of the day. The consequences of this have implications in the development and progression of chronic diseases, even in previously healthy individuals (Shearer & Graham, 2014). An analysis of healthy subjects showed that caffeine impairs glucose uptake by 26% (Shearer & Graham, 2014). Importantly, a decrease in insulin sensitivity under similar testing conditions was not improved with exercise in another experimental study (Shearer & Graham, 2014). Because caffeine’s benefits are not conclusively supported, from the standpoint of both performance and metabolic physiology, athletes should take caution and supplement with caffeine in moderation.

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

Spiret, L. L. (2014). “Exercise and sport performance with low doses of caffeine.” Sports Medicine. 44(Suppl 2) (2014): S175-S184.

Lorino, A. J., L. K. Lloyd, S. H. Crixell, and J.L. Walker. “The effects of caffeine and athletic agility.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 20(4) (2016): 851-854.

Shearer, J., and T. E. Graham. “Performance effects and metabolic consequences of caffeine and caffeinated energy drink consumption on glucose disposal.” Nutrition Reviews. 72(S1) (2014): 121-136.

In sports training, coaches and trainers are constantly searching for the way to attain greater returns on work done and minimize the stress on the athlete’s neuromuscular system. One of the most difficult areas to work in is the development of the most critical of human performance factors in dynamic sports: Power.

Power development is totally dependent on the speed of movement, and therefore creates numerous problems for the coach and athlete. Once an athlete starts to accelerate a mass, such as a normal barbell, they create high amounts of inertia. This needs to be slowed down—for instance, in a push press—or absorbed, such as landing from a jump squat. Both speed reduction and returning mass absorption place extreme strain on the body’s soft tissues and skeleton. This strain doesn’t just eventually lead to overuse injuries—it is also a very inefficient way of training.

This problem is drastically increased as trainers decrease load and increase speed. So, when you are moving in the direction you need to develop power, you are restricted by the equipment. Another problem is that you cannot change the weight in the eccentric phase as you can in the concentric when using traditional equipment.

Developing Power With the 1080 Quantum

The 1080 Quantum doesn’t have these problems because of its patented No Flying Weight mode, which is a normal weight with the ability to stop inertia when you stop the movement. Therefore, an athlete using the 1080 Quantum can accelerate through the body’s whole range of motion, increasing the work phase considerably. Additionally, because there’s no mass to stop, there’s no undue stress on joints and ligaments.

As you add weight in the eccentric phase, every repetition becomes more efficient because humans are 30 percent stronger in the eccentric phase. Normally, athletes would have to do eccentric training in a separate session. However, with the 1080 Quantum, these phases can be combined in the same session, giving the athlete a much more functional training session that’s very close to what is actually done in the sporting arena. The 1080 Quantum has enabled extremely large gains in power development. The most striking difference is the amount of work, or rather the lack of work, done to obtain these results.

To test this, I used a 1080 Quantum Syncro system, which includes two 1080 Quantum units and a smith rack. The study subject was an international-level 110m hurdler who participated in two training sessions a week for six weeks.

The robotic technology embedded in the 1080 Quantum allows for different resistance settings, and the ability to set load and speed independent of the concentric and eccentric phases of an exercise or movement. The exercise used was a single leg squat. In the concentric phase, an isokinetic (speed limit) setting was used. This can also be called variable resistance, since the load of the system is matched by what the athlete is able to generate. In the eccentric phase, a constant load was used.

The athlete saw an increase of power when he used the 1080 Quantum for exercises such as con-ecc squats and one-legged squats, in three sets of five repetitions twice a week for a period of six weeks, with loads no higher than 180 pounds. He got to levels that were never attainable using conventional training equipment and methods.

Using the 1080 Quantum, the athlete got to power levels that were never before attainable. Share on X

One of the differences in equipment is that the 1080 allows acceleration in the eccentric phase—which recruits fast twitch fibers—and then decreases the speed allowed in the concentric phase. But, because the athlete is trying to accelerate during the concentric phase, they are only using fast twitch fibers. As we have decreased the speed allowed, we can then increase the time (time under tension) in which we are using fast twitch fibers considerably, compared to traditional weights. This leads to a much higher/longer activation of fast twitch fibers compared to the use of a traditional weight, where we have only a very short time period in which we have contact with the weight before it becomes airborne! This dramatic increase in the activation of fast twitch fibers causes greater work load and thus, the athlete is unable to produce the necessary power for more than three sets of five repetitions before fatigue sets in.

• Blue – two legs
• Red – left leg
• Green – Right leg
• Con Peak power
• Con TP(W)
• PP Watt/kgBW
• TP Watt/kgBW

Developing a Protocol

As the 1080 system is fully functional, you can apply this principle to any exercise you want. You can use a custom-made smith machine to work traditional exercises in the vertical plane and then utilize the 1080’s 5m off cable to work a host of horizontal plane movements. Coaches at the Malmo Sports Academy in Sweden—including Kenneth Riggberger, myself, and others—use a method of accumulation and intensification over periods ranging from two to four weeks, depending on the time of year and goals for a specific period.

We work a great deal to first increase capacity (strength) at slow speeds in the eccentric phase, and then speed up the eccentric phase as well as the concentric phase. The ability to rapidly decelerate in the eccentric phase is of primary importance, because it is where most athletes are lacking when tested.

We have found that, when we alter the natural phases of how a resistance works in either isokinetic or isotonic mode, we need to return to a normal barbell and load in order to “re-program” the neuro-muscular system. Below is the protocol used by Coach Riggberger that has produced Olympic finalists. The results of the intervention with the 110m hurdler are also from the Malmo Sports Academy.

The chart clearly shows the speeds in the eccentric phases for Phase 1 and Phase 2, demonstrating how we speed up eccentric and slow down concentric speeds in order to work the time-under-tension portion even harder.

We have just finished testing a protocol using a first phase of 0.2 m/s and 0.3-0.5 m/s in the concentric phase in order to work two extremes in each repetition. This is extremely hard, and after two to three sets of five reps, the athletes are totally exhausted. We then work eccentric overload of up to +30% and slow speeds (you can even add an isometric stop in bottom position) and also limit speed and load (as we have higher in the eccentric) in the concentric phase to increase the time under tension dramatically. The rest period is 10 minutes between sets because, otherwise, the athlete simply doesn’t recover enough to complete three sets with the desired effect. In initial trials, this has given us unprecedented strength gains and also big gains in power, if done in short periods of up to eight to 10 sessions.

The potential for strength and power gains is enormous. Any strength and conditioning staff that is looking at getting the biggest bang for their buck should look into the 1080 Quantum system and what it can do for your strength facility.

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

If you were involved in sport in 2010, you almost certainly encountered discussions about vitamin D. It was very much the supplement du jour back then. Plenty of research showed its function in performance, as well as the prevalence of insufficiency. This research kindled interest that remains strong today.

What is it?

Vitamin D refers to a group of vitamins. The most important are D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol). The sun is the primary source of vitamin D for most people, as it isn’t widely available in foods. This situation obviously causes issues in individuals who don’t get much sun exposure. More on this later.

What does it do?

Vitamin D plays many important roles in the body. There is some evidence that it affects the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Low levels of vitamin D can have a negative effect on the immune system, muscle function, stress fractures, and injury risk.

These studies suggest that we need to ensure athletes have sufficient levels of vitamin D. The main issue here is availability. Since the main source of vitamin D for most people is the sun, insufficient sunlight exposure causes problems. This can be either a result of low levels of ambient sunlight (especially in winter), or spending most of the day indoors. Some conflicting evidence suggests that sunscreen use may also reduce vitamin D levels.

In a 2012 paper, leading sports nutritionist Dr. Graeme Close measured vitamin D levels in the blood of a group of athletes which included soccer and rugby league players, as well as non-athletes. Close took blood samples during the winter months, with a blood vitamin D level of 100nmol/l suggested as optimum. The results were staggering. Only one of the 61 athletes had a vitamin D concentration of 100nmol/l or greater. The median value among the athletes was less than 75nmol/l, and less than 50nmol/l for non-athletes. You might think this is a problem exclusive to more northerly latitudes, but a study of NCAA athletes reported similar results (It should be noted that the authors use different units to measure vitamin D). In a study of Middle Eastern athletes, 91% were deficient, with 59% showing an increase in stress fracture risk. So even though we might know we need sufficient vitamin D—especially from a performance standpoint—many athletes still aren’t getting enough.

How much vitamin D do we need on a regular basis?

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin D varies from country to country, and it is typically 400IU-800IU per day. This amount probably is enough to avoid deficiency but not to ensure optimal levels, especially for athletes. The problem is that there are no accepted guidelines for optimal vitamin D intake for sports performance, although research indicates an optimal blood value of around 100nmol/l. To achieve this value, Dr. Reinhold Vieth (1999) recommends a daily intake of 4000IU. This amount sounds reasonable, although I used to supplement with 5000IU per day. After three years at this level, my vitamin D levels were still less than 100nmol/l. Nevertheless, 4000-5000IU appears to be a decent daily target.

You can get too much of a good thing, however. You need to be wary of vitamin D toxicity, (hypervitaminosis D). Symptoms include fatigue and muscle weakness—hardly ideal for athletes—vomiting, decreased appetite, and dehydration. In some cases, it can also lead to calcification of soft tissues. Fortunately, the Vieth paper (it is good–please read it!) asserts that there isn’t any evidence of adverse reactions at blood vitamin D levels of less than 140nmol/l, which would require approximately 10,000IU of vitamin D per day.

One thing to consider is that vitamin D is fat-soluble, which means it can be stored— potentially making toxicity more likely. Toxicity can only occur through food/supplemental sources, however, as the creation of vitamin D through sunlight has a feedback loop that guards against excess. The half-life of vitamin D within the body in its storage form is about one month, so people getting a lot of sun exposure and supplementing should be careful throughout the summer and autumn months.

Vitamin D Sources

One thing to be aware of is the different forms of vitamin D. Vitamin D from sunlight is of the D3 variety. Vitamin D from vegetables and fortified products often comes as D2. Which is better? Most research indicates that D3 is much more effective than D2 in humans, although some studies counter this.

Where can we get vitamin D? Some foods contain it, although not in especially high amounts. Oily fish has around 750IU per 100g, and this is D3. Foods like mushrooms contain D2, although the amount can vary. Fortified milk and juice products can contain both varieties.

Sunlight, of course, is another option. Total body sun exposure can easily provide 10,000IU (Vieth), which is plenty. However, the obvious risk here is skin damage from sun exposure, including the risk of melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma. This paper from Barbara Gilchrest in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition examines both sides of the issue. Another factor to consider is that dark skin requires a greater amount of sun exposure for adequate vitamin D formation, which is why African Americans are at greater risk of vitamin D insufficiency.

Supplementation

The final avenue is vitamin D supplementation. The most common regimes are between 2500IU and 5000IU per day, although 50,000IU per month (1660IU per day) over the winter months was effective in increasing vitamin D levels in a group of elite athletes. I used to take 5000IU per day in the winter, when my sun exposure was essentially non-existent, and 2500IU in the summer when I was getting more sun. Ideally, you should choose a supplement that contains vitamin D3, the more readily available form. Often this comes in an oil-based capsule, which is fine; if it comes in more of a powder, consuming it with fatty foods will increase absorption. Supplementation has some benefits. You know how much you’re getting (assuming the manufacturers are truthful), and you aren’t risking skin damage from the sun.

Does supplementation help? The Close article cited earlier has a second part. The researchers recruited 14 footballers from a Premier League club academy (not a huge sample, admittedly). Half took 5000IU of vitamin D per day for eight weeks, the other half a placebo. The players did a battery of physical tests before and after supplementation.

Both groups increased their plasma vitamin D levels, although only the supplementation group did significantly better—presumably the placebo group was also getting some sun exposure. The supplement group saw a significant improvement in their vertical jump and 10m sprint performance, while the placebo group didn’t. There was a trend toward significance in improvements in 1-RM bench press and back squat too; this means it didn’t quite meet the significance level but was close. The supplement group improved bench press on average by 6.5kg, compared to 2.5kg in the placebo group. Back squat 1RM improved by 9kg, compared to 3kg in the placebo group.

Makes you want to use vitamin D supplements, doesn’t it! Just remember that these athletes were not only most likely deficient to start with, but also still developing physically. It follows that greater improvements would be likely. The same research group conducted a larger research trial a year later and found no effect of vitamin D supplementation on performance measures.

In a group of ballet dancers, daily supplementation with 2000IU increased vertical jump (a measure of power) and reduced injury risk. In a group of Greek professional soccer players, increased vitamin D levels were associated with performance improvements in various jumping exercises, sprint performance, and VO2 max. Subjects in this study did not undertake supplementation but instead received all their vitamin D from the sun.

Some early research shows that vitamin D may have a role in increasing type II muscle fibers. This research was conducted in stroke patients, so we have no idea if it would still be the case in healthy individuals. Similarly, animal studies suggest that vitamin D intake might have a role in protein synthesis. These results have not been replicated, especially in humans.

Vitamin D supplementation may have a protective effect against injuries, particularly stress fractures. In a group of female Navy recruits, daily supplementation of just 800IU vitamin D reduced stress fracture risk by 20%. Similarly, higher intakes of vitamin D in a group of female cross country runners were associated with a decreased risk of stress fracture.

Vitamin D supplementation can increase testosterone levels. Higher levels of testosterone may be associated with more favorable adaptations to resistance exercise (although the evidence on this isn’t always great), and may also increase competitive drive. In this study, daily supplemention of 3332IU for a year led to a significant increase in testosterone levels.

Vitamin D supplements can have a positive effect on muscle recovery. In a 2013 study, researchers gave a group of males either 4000IU per day for 28 days or a placebo before they underwent a fairly strenuous exercise protocol. Subjects who supplemented with vitamin D had a lesser increase in biomarkers associated with muscle damage and soreness than those in the placebo group.

Finally, sufficient levels of vitamin D can have an important knock-on effect by improving post-exercise recovery, possibly by causing an increasing in anti-inflammatory cytokines. Low levels of vitamin D are also associated with an increased risk of illness.

Testing of Vitamin D

Vitamin D testing is relatively easy and straightforward, depending on where you live and regulations governing that region. In the UK, vitamin D testing can be conducted via a GP (if you ask nicely), or you can order a kit online for less than £40. In the USA, tests cost about $50. In Australia, vitamin D tests cannot be sold directly to consumers, Testing needs to be conducted by a practitioner.

After getting your vitamin D tested, it’s important to know how to interpret the results. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) provides these guidelines:

• <30 nmol/l – deficient
• 30-50 nmol/l – inadequate
• 50> nmol/l – adequate

When I was an athlete, my governing body regularly conducted vitamin D testing. Their guidelines were similar to the IOM–they didn’t want any athletes below 50 nmol/l, and preferred us to be around 100 nmol/l. Some blood tests give results in ng/ml, so you will have to convert to nmol/l. Plenty of online calculators do this.

Summary and Conclusions

Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency are common in athletes. This can lead to a whole host of issues, including increased injury risk, poorer recovery, reduced muscle strength, and decreased immune function. Vitamin D can be obtained in relatively small amounts from food. Sun exposure represents an excellent source of vitamin D. However, the possibility of skin cancer should not be taken lightly.

Supplementation appears to be the safest way to increase vitamin D levels. However, there are no accepted guidelines on supplementation levels for athletes. The majority of research uses daily doses of 2500IU-5000IU per day. This amount represents a good starting point. It is generally accepted that intakes below 10000IU per day are safe for most people. Regular blood testing of vitamin D levels is relatively inexpensive and gives a good indication of current supplemental needs. While the evidence shows that athletic performance can suffer if vitamin D levels fall below 50nmol/l, it is not clear that levels well above this enhance performance.

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 wanted to share this because there will be other coaches out there who are trying to get a foot in the door or on the first rung of the ladder and struggling immensely. I think that this could also have broader reach to anyone interested or involved in working in performance sport, from physios to nutritionists to sports psychologists.

There are many other stories from coaches around the globe that are no doubt grander and more exciting. This is just my story of where I am, how I got there, and what I did to arrive at my present location. But I think it tells an important story about the power of persistence.

Figuring It All Out

I’ve always loved sport. Soccer mostly, but just about any sport. Academically, I was always in the top of my class. I was quite good at the read-and-remember style of education that was so prevalent. Although I did not struggle at school, P.E. (Physical Education) was always my favorite class. I also had an aptitude for science and related subjects like math. When I realized that I had no chance of being a professional athlete, of any kind, and it came time to decide on a university course, my thoughts went like this: “I like sport and I’m good at science. Sports Science seems the obvious choice.”

So I ended up studying Sports Science at the University of Glasgow. The further I got into my studies, the more I realized that strength and conditioning was the particular area in which I had the most interest. I’d rather be on the field or court or in the gym than in the lab.

Perhaps naïvely, I did not really start looking for practical experience until my final year. Maybe part of that was that, in Scottish universities, you don’t study sports science specifically in your first two years, just general courses such as biology. Therefore, it was later into my academic career when I realized what I really wanted to do.

Academically, the course at Glasgow University was fantastic. However, the opportunities to get my hands dirty were not plentiful and I had to develop my own major real-life sports science and S&C opportunities.

Because I did not have enough work experience to sustain me through my degree, I began to search the local area for sports teams operating at a decent level who might speak to me and let me come and intern or shadow a coach. I immediately discounted Rangers and Celtic as the two biggest sports institutions in Scotland. Falkirk FC, also playing in the top division in Scottish soccer, was only a train and a bus journey away. So I went through their website, contacted their sports scientist, and hassled them for a meeting.

After talking via phone and email, they agreed to let me come down and shadow the existing strength coach. Excellent. A proper start with a full-time, professional sports team playing at the highest level in that country. (No jokes about the state of Scottish soccer, please!) On my way to attend the first-ever session, the head of sports science phoned me. The full-time strength coach was off and I would be leading the session. Fake it ’til you make it, right?! I’d never led a strength and conditioning session before. The most I had done before this was gym training with my brother following bodybuilder splits.

They threw me in the deep end, and it was sink or swim time.

It was great. I loved working with youth footballers to develop their strength and conditioning. I could combine my passion with my work. Over the next year, I spent many evenings with the strength coaches at Falkirk, delivering S&C sessions, undertaking performance testing, and learning my trade.

While undertaking my MSc in Strength and Conditioning at the University of Edinburgh, an opportunity arose to become a speed and development coach with academy players at the Scottish Rugby Union. This allowed me to diversify my experience, somewhat.

Developing a Network From Scratch

When my studies came to an end, I was working three jobs: full-time in a bar, part-time with a football club, and part-time with the National Rugby Union. It wasn’t sustainable and it wasn’t going to pay the bills. I ultimately moved back to my family home in London while I looked for a full-time S&C role.

Because I was back in the South of England with few connections, I had to seek out new opportunities. I took to online research again and found out that the head of academy strength and conditioning at the London Wasps RFC was my old rugby coach when I was a youth. I contacted him and was able to arrange a voluntary coaching opportunity with their academy players. The travel was complicated and time-consuming and the work was not full-time. However, it gave me some contacts and I hoped opportunities would develop.

During this period, I interviewed for a variety of sports science and strength and conditioning jobs all over the country. From Aberdeen to Manchester to South East England and everywhere else. I applied to every single job that came up. It was then that I began to really understand the importance of a network.

The English Institute of Sport interviewed me for the position of lead strength coach for English squash. Despite performing very well in the interview, and even being one of only two coaches interviewed who achieved a passing mark on a test they used to separate candidates, I was not selected. At the group interview, I discovered that one of the applicants was a former player who worked there part-time. Going up for the interview was always going to be a wasted journey, no matter how well I performed. That’s not bitterness: I have many more stories like this, as do many of my coaching friends. It’s just a fact of life.

I was beginning to lose faith in securing a full-time role. My family was pushing me towards going into another field, to use my book smarts and qualifications to take some kind of graduate job that paid well. I even attended an interview in London for some business-related job. I bombed. It was awful. My heart just wasn’t in it and the interviewer could tell that immediately.

Sometime around this point, an old university friend contacted me. He was working at the Hong Kong Institute of Sport as a strength and conditioning coach and they were advertising a new role. I applied immediately and was elated to take the job. I knew nothing about Hong Kong; I was just happy to give my career a big shot in the arm.

For the first time in my life, I travelled to Asia. When I moved there, it was my first time living outside of Europe. It was only the second time I had left Europe at all.

Persistence Pays Off

As with anything in life, it’s not all roses. There are things that frustrate and annoy me. But when I stop and look at the positives, these annoyances pale in comparison. This past summer, as we sat and watched the Rio Olympics, I had six athletes taking part in the rowing, long jump, and marathon. I’m not working with any Olympic medal winners…. yet. I plan to in the future.

I have worked with athletes to prepare for the Olympic Games, various World championships, the Asian Games, and other international events. I work with a squash player who is consistently in the Top 20 in the world and who reached a career-high ranking of 12.

Since arriving in Hong Kong, I have met a lot of great coaches, sport scientists, physios, and other support staff. I have travelled to the unrivalled Altis in Phoenix, Arizona, and spent time with Dan Pfaff, Stuart McMillan, and the other staff as they helped prepare World and Olympic champions and world record holders for competition. I attended the NSCA conference in Shanghai and delivered a presentation to an international audience.

Hell, I’ve experienced a lot of cool non-work-related things, too. I visited Fiji, which is the most beautiful holiday destination I have been to, and Thailand as well. Every weekend during the summer, I can take a boat trip off the coast of Hong Kong with my friends and a fridge full of beer, and anchor beside a secluded beach.

None of this would have happened without persistence, downright stubbornness, and a lack of care about hassling people. That first gig I secured with Falkirk came down to hounding the head sports scientist until he allowed me to attend. Then, right from my first day of shadowing, I had my first paying gig in strength and conditioning because the lead strength coach was ill.

There was a time where I wondered if it was all going to work out for me and if I was taking the right path. But having a strong will and determination, and being stubborn, meant I kept at it until the right break arrived. Moving to the other side of the world, when I had never lived outside of Europe before or so far from home by myself, was a big step. But I didn’t give it a second thought.

Keep Growing Your Network

My career path to date is real proof of the statement: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I wasn’t able to generate the right opportunities. I wasn’t able to leverage my network sufficiently and I had neglected to grow my network. But networking is huge in our highly competitive industry.

Something like 125-150 students came through my undergrad degree, and another 30 or so took the MSc course. Yet, I only know a handful who are currently working in performance sport. Many are personal trainers, P.E. teachers, and even policemen. There is, of course, nothing wrong with choosing these careers. And, no doubt, some of them made a deliberate choice. But I am positive that the vast majority wanted to work in elite sport. It’s just an incredibly tough industry to break into. Knowing the right people opens doors.

Begin developing your network as soon as you can. In general, most coaches and practitioners are happy to help if they have the time. For example, I visited my older brother in Charlotte earlier this year. While I was there, I went online to check out local venues and decided to hit up Mike Young of Athletic Lab and Joe Kenn of the Carolina Panthers. Despite being incredibly busy preparing athletes for the U.S. Olympic trials and the coming NFL season, respectively, they both were able to give me half a day to meet and talk shop and check out their training centers.

Recommendations for Success

As I said at the outset, my story is not special, nor is it necessarily very impressive. There will be many more coaches out there who have achieved more than I have, at a younger age. My story is merely unique to me. But I hope that it helps some aspiring coaches, sports scientists, nutritionists, and any other professional looking to get a start in elite sport.

Here are my recommendations for success in this field, and any other goal you strive for in life:

• Be persistent.
• Don’t take no for an answer.
• Be single-minded. Be stubborn!
• Learn from my mistakes—broaden your horizons. Don’t limit your job hunt to your home country. You may need to take a big step to get the start you need.
• Seek out each and every opportunity.
• Never think you aren’t good enough. Apply anyway—you never know the response you will get.
• Develop a network and leverage it.
• Seek out new environments and experiences, and particularly anyone with a wealth of experience.
• Read as much as possible.
• Collect some qualifications (a degree, maybe a post grad, an industry certificate) but then make it a priority to collect experiences and contacts, too.

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

 

Without sprint training, soccer breeds horrible sprint mechanics and slow runners. Same with football. Same with basketball. Same with baseball.

Kids need to sprint at full speed without a ball. They need to wear track spikes. If they aren’t wearing spikes, they aren’t sprinting. Sprints must be timed. Records must be kept. Every sprint must be less than five seconds in length. Any sprint more than five seconds trains something other than max-speed. Kids should perform all sprint training in a non-fatigued state. Sub-max sprinting will not make kids faster.

Sprint mechanics must be taught. Plyometrics must be included. Video must be analyzed. Rest, recovery, and growth must be respected. For optimum effectiveness, kids must sprint two or three times a week. Anything more than this is counterproductive. Less is more.

Kids Can Learn to Sprint

I’ve witnessed the evolution of sports in America. I played football, basketball, baseball, and ran track. Not once did I pay to play. I didn’t compete against teams from other towns until 7th grade. High school sports were covered by the local radio station and daily newspaper. I kept a scrapbook, not a Twitter account.

Times have changed. Youth sports have become a big deal. Parents invest. Parents strategize. Before kids learn to multiply and divide, they’re playing soccer against teams from other towns. Before kids read Charlotte’s Web, their baseball teams have traveled to out-of-state tournaments. Most boys have played football for several years before they enter high school.

Most kids learn to play their sport but never learn to sprint. Share on X

With this great interest in youth sports, you would think kids would be faster than ever. I’ve found the opposite to be true. Most kids learn to play their sport but never learn to sprint. Sprinting must be taught and practiced. This seldom happens in youth sports.

My advice to athletic-minded parents: Teach your kid to sprint.

Running is Not Sprinting

It seems all little kids play soccer these days. Soccer is an endurance sport. Typical soccer players run seven miles per match on average. Sometimes I see soccer players run faster than others, but I seldom see sprinting. Sprinting doesn’t happen during a seven-mile run. You might be the fastest slow person, but that doesn’t make you a sprinter.

No one sprints in a state of fatigue. Endurance athletes are efficient, not fast. To keep running for an extended amount of time, athletes learn to compensate to keep going. Compensations become habits.

Compensations are adjustments made, often unconsciously, to survive a task. Sprinting is never achieved in high-volume situations. Athletes instinctively switch to auto-pilot, choosing efficiency and survival. When kids compete for an hour, they’re never sprinting. They may be running relatively fast, but they’re not sprinting.

 

 

Speed Can be Taught and Learned: Clayton Lakatos, 4th Grade

Clayton Lakatos is a 75-pound 10-year-old. Clayton comes from an athletic family and has played soccer, baseball, and flag football. Sounds like your typical athletic kid.

A closer look, however, reveals Clayton is different. Clayton was taught to sprint by his dad, one of the best track coaches in the state of Illinois. Chad Lakatos coaches at Edwardsville High School. Edwardsville won the Illinois 3A (big school) title in 2015 and placed 2nd in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

 

Good sprint coaches are data-driven. I have timed over 200,000 40s in my coaching career. Check out Clayton’s 40 times in the graph below.

 

 

Clayton’s additional marks at age 9. All of these are sprint-dependent.

• 100m 15.2
• 200m 33.3
• 400m 1:25.4
• Long Jump 12’0”
• High Jump 4’0”

 

 

Speed Training Makes Football Players Faster: T.J. Kane, High School Athlete

T.J. Kane was a typical athletic kid. He was best at throwing and catching a football. As a freshman, T.J. was my starting quarterback for a team that went 9-0, outscoring their opponents 458-38. As a sophomore, T.J. again quarterbacked his group to a 9-0 season. Then something crazy happened. T.J. went out for the track team and got fast. T.J. is now an elite high school wide receiver and plans to play college football.

 

I don’t think fast was ever used to describe T.J. as a young athlete (that’s a polite way to say that T.J. was slow). He’s still not a candidate to run on my 4×1, but he sure looks fast on the football field. Based on the graphs below, we expect T.J.’s speed numbers to improve.

 

 

Athletes get fast when they develop good sprint habits. I believe every football player should sprint train consistently starting at the end of football, continuing through the track season, and into the summer. We are what we do.

T.J.’s dad, Tim Kane, is the head football coach at Plainfield North High School. I’ve been on Coach Kane’s football staff for eleven years. Tim has always promoted my speed training. We have our differences, but we always agree on the subject of speed. You might see this as a natural relationship between a football coach and a track coach, but it’s often the opposite. Football coaches sometimes use the term track speed as a dog whistle for wimp speed.

Last week, when I told a track coach to bring their football coach to TFC-4, the track coach replied, “We have a better chance of developing cold fusion.”

Where to Find Sprint Training

The best way to get fast is to join the track team. Competition and measured efforts take athletes to new levels. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Off-Season Speed Training: Sprint Coaching Methods to Look For

• Make sure sprinting is timed. If sprinting is not timed, it’s not sprinting. If you see a Freelap timing system, you know you’re on the right track. If you see the sprint coach meticulously recording times and giving athletes instant feedback, you have the right place.
• Look for a sprint coach who believes in alactic training. Alactic training is maximum intensity work for less than ten seconds followed by enough rest to repeat the effort on the next attempt. Mindless weight lifting, grueling aerobic workouts, and multiple repeats of 200 meters have no place in sprint training.

Look for a sprint coach who believes in alactic training. Share on X

• If you see mini-hurdles, the coach probably knows his stuff. Wicket drills (running over mini-hurdles) is a staple of sprint training. Remember, sprinters pick up their feet, lift their knees, and then deliver vertical force.
• Look for a sprint coach whose strength training looks different than your high school football team back in the 80’s or 90’s. The old bench press, curl, and squat guys are going extinct, thankfully. By the way, sprinting is the best strength exercise I know.
• Find someone who has a true track and field sprint background.
• Video analysis is a part of every reputable sprint program. In today’s era of slow motion video on every iPhone, it’s inexcusable to train without video.
• If you see a poster saying Train Smarter, Not Harder, you’ve probably found the right place.

Off-Season Speed Training: Sprint Coaching Methods to Avoid

• If a speed coach tries to convince your kid to specialize in one sport, sever ties immediately. No entrepreneurial coach should put training in conflict with playing multiple sports.
• If you see guys running with parachutes behind them, turn around and walk out. Sprint training requires ground contact times of a fraction of a second (0.08 in elite sprinters). If you are pushing things, pulling things, running slowly uphill, or running with parachutes, your contact time won’t be 0.08. You might as well be wearing ankle weights (don’t wear ankle weights either). Note: I’m talking sprint training. Coaches will often push and pull things to train acceleration. When accelerating, ground contact times are much longer than max-speed sprinting. In my opinion, the best indicator of sprint ability is max-speed. The 10m fly is a much better predictor of success than the 10m start. Give me a guy who runs 25 mph, and acceleration will be learned quickly.

The best indicator of sprint ability is max-speed. Share on X

• Be cautious of speed training with ex-NFL players and ex-college athletes who failed to graduate. In my experience, these entrepreneurs attempt to use their athletic resume to hide their inexperience as coaches.
• Too many ex-football players are addicted to the grind of football training. The grind has nothing to do with sprinting. Training hard seven days a week will make athletes slow and trainers rich.
• Avoid places that advertise muscled-up athletes wearing No Pain, No Gain t-shirts with cut-off sleeves. Bodybuilding is for magazine covers, not for speed.
• If you see a sign that says, Train Insane or Remain the Same, run away.

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

 

For athletes doing Olympic lifts to improve sports performance, measuring peak velocity provides the best information for progressing their loads. Peak velocity also represents an athlete’s capabilities better than mean and average velocity and is not affected by injuries. These athletes don’t perform Olympic lifts to participate in weightlifting competitions; they do the lifts to improve sporting form. Their goal is to increase their speed-strength ability and explosive power.

When I began measuring bar velocity, the only metrics available were mean velocity and mean power. The software and hardware at the time were not sufficiently advanced to determine peak velocity. It’s been this way since the 1960’s when the Soviets began using velocity to analyze their lifts. It wasn’t until a few years ago that peak velocity became available.

Because I used mean velocity for a decade with great results, I was quite hesitant to change my recommendations. For each Olympic lift, I knew what the mean velocities should be. I even had it broken down by height. Why, then, would I want to change? Over the past five years, a plethora of information has become available and has greatly influenced my thoughts on what to use and why.

To begin, let’s address the confusion that seems to exist about the definitions of mean and peak velocity. Mean velocity is the average (or mean) for the velocity over an exercise’s entire concentric portion, from start to finish. Peak velocity is the fastest point during the concentric portion.

Why use one and not the other? For one, many lifts, such as squats and bench presses, have an acceleration (propulsive) and a deceleration phase. Because the two motions always occur during the concentric phase, the concentric phase is the most beneficial and stable to use for measurement. You can use mean velocity for Olympic lifts, but it might not be the best choice.

In my opinion, there are several reasons to use peak velocity for Olympic lifts:

• The defined moment at which peak velocity occurs
• The ballistic nature of the exercise
• The alterations to technique that occur as a result of feedback of mean velocity
• The inaccuracy for those with orthopedic issues
• The difficulty for systems to determine when and what to measure for mean velocity

I’ve done most of my work with LPTs, such as GymAware. Other means of measuring velocity may lead to different reported numbers. This doesn’t mean those measurements are wrong; they’re just measured by a different means. The need may exist to look at velocity zones and profiles of individual lifts with an alternative device such as body, limb, and barbell velocity.

The Defined Moment at Which Peak Velocity Occurs

In a 2014 study done by Harbili et al.¹ examining both the clean and snatch, researchers found the single moment when weightlifters hit peak velocity. This occurs at the top of the second pull. The athletes accelerated up to this point and decelerated beyond this point. Since we know when the peak occurs and now have the ability to measure peak velocity when it occurs, it only makes sense to utilize peak velocity as a metric to evaluate the lifts.

Orthopedic Issues Leading to Form Discrepancies

Over the years, I’ve noticed a common trend with athletes. They get injured, and the injuries stick around for a while. Injuries to the wrist, shoulder, and elbow are quite common among a multitude of sports, and these joint injuries can greatly impede the catching portion of the lift movements. I’ve seen several athletes with these issues who have a marvelously fast looking pull only to have a very suboptimal reading from their device because their rack was slow. Their injuries slowed down their movement during this portion of the exercise. Because the mean velocity is the mean from the beginning to the end of the movement, the slow catch decreases the velocity measurement.

These athletes often become quite frustrated, and rightly so. They’re being held back by a parameter instilled by us, and they are unable to do anything about it. While the mean velocity’s feedback is important and useful, it shouldn’t be the determining factor. By utilizing peak velocity, we eliminate the portion of the lift causing problems and impeding results. With peak velocity, athletes are better able to overload the movement and see a better transfer to their sport.

The Ballistic Nature

In a ballistic exercise, there’s an initial rapid and powerful force followed by a projection of the body, load, or implement into the air.^{2, 3} This is true for jump training and med ball training, but what about Olympic lifts? In a lift, peak velocity occurs at the top of the second pull. The athlete then projects the barbell into the air and attempts to drop their body under the bar to catch it in a racked position. Then they stand up for the recovery of the movement. Look back at the descriptions of the ballistic exercise and the Olympic lift. Both involve projection. When projection occurs, muscular force does not determine barbell deceleration, gravity does.

Conversely, when an athlete performs a traditional strength training movement such as a squat or bench press, muscular force determines the barbell’s deceleration. If left to gravity, the barbell will fall from the hands. Since muscular force slows down the barbell, we should measure muscular force from beginning to end because this measurement matters.^{4, 5, 6} To counter this, some systems use mean propulsive velocity, but this only measures the propulsive phase of the movement and disregards the decelerating phase.

I’m quite comfortable recommending mean velocity with traditional strength training because the predictive values are not much different, with R-squared and standard error estimate values being R2=.981, SEE=3.56% for MPV and R2= .979, SEE=3.77% 5 and the paucity of equipment that actually calculates MPV.

As practitioners, we should only measure and manage what we can measure and manage. We should use peak velocity for Olympic lifts because the speed of gravity will not change and the decelerating phase is irrelevant.

Alterations to Form as a Result of Mean Feedback

Athletes are kinesthetically aware and competitive. Once they understand that the objective is to obtain the highest possible number, they’ll begin to alter technique to accomplish this. For a movement done from the hang, athletes often dip below the knees to the mid-shin. More commonly, when performing a movement from the floor, they’ll try to move as fast as possible rather than doing a slow and controlled first pull into double knee bend. They’ll often shoot their hips into the air and back to get a greater ROM to produce force and achieve the highest velocity.

We know these are not acceptable movements, and they will not transfer to the playing arena. The athlete is trying to beat their opponent or teammate in barbell velocity. It’s tougher to cheat the peak velocity through momentum from an entire movement when trying to achieve a higher score. Again, I believe peak is better.

Different Heights Require Different Velocities

As previously mentioned, different ROM distances among the lifts will require different velocities. This is also true for athletes of varying heights. A few years ago, we implemented VBT at Mizzou when we had a 6’8” offensive tackle and a 5’6” running back training together. At the time, we were using mean velocity, and I believe we were going with 1.3m/s for everyone on the team. The offensive tackle struggled to stand up with loads at that velocity, yet the running back did it with ease. What gives? Well, remember that velocity equals the change in distance/time. The offensive tackle had to move a greater distance in nearly identical time, causing the discrepancy. When we delved deeper, we started to dictate velocities up by height and had the tackle lift appropriate loads. Peak velocity is no different. Gravity plays on everyone with the same acceleration. The further we go against gravity, the harder we have to push to keep going, and the faster we have to move to get there.

Determination of Mean

Another issue concerns the measurement of mean velocity. When does it end? The device doesn’t tell us because it doesn’t recognize what’s going on with the movement nor what the athlete’s intended motion is.

We see an example in the graph below. The blue line indicates the position, the red line indicates the velocity, and the blue shading indicates what was measured for the mean velocity. If you look at each of the three repetitions, you’ll see that each was measured differently. Why? Because of the way the athlete was moving. Sometimes the barbell came to a complete stop for the catch and sometimes it did not. However, peak velocity for each movement occurred at the same point. The blue line indicates the barbell’s position and the red line indicates the movement’s velocity. (We can get more information by looking to the right at the bar path. It’s a nice little feature in my opinion, but completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.)

The devices used to collect velocity are only measurement devices. Think of a tape measure. It goes where we put it. It doesn’t tell us if the hook came off the end or if there’s a staple at the end of a board we’re using. It doesn’t tell us if the spot we’ve measured at a moment in time is the actual spot we want to measure. It only tells us the distance from the endpoint to here. While they have incredible software and usability, the devices only know whether or not something is moving.

When we look at the first repetition in the graph, it appears that the person caught the barbell standing all of the way up with their legs locked out, so the device read the average of the velocity during that entire pull to catch. On repetitions two and three, the barbell didn’t travel in the same manner, and the device thought that movement was completed far sooner. Although there would be very distinct velocities during reps 1, 2, and 3, they look close to the same. The lift was performed just differently enough for the system to calculate it differently.

If we refer to Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t, we see that the signal clearly exists in the peak velocity but is muddied in the mean velocity.

But Wait. I Have Been Using Mean Velocity for Years!

Mean velocity has been used with the Olympic lifts since the 1960’s in the Soviet Union. R.A. Roman, in his text The Training of the Weightlifter,⁷ published the most effective mean velocities for improving 1RM in training. If the barbell slowed down or did not move fast enough, something was wrong with the technique. Note that the individuals only did Olympic lifts, and they were quite proficient at them. Also, they did not experience other incidences that could cause injuries that might alter form.

Roman outlined the velocities for the various lifts which I’ve listed in the table below. The information was adapted to fit the nomenclature and style of the program at the University of Missouri at the time of development.⁸

When dealing with neurologically trained Olympic lifters, the relationship between peak velocity and mean velocity is so strong that choosing only one of the measurements would prove to be nearly irrelevant. Some athletes may have discrepancies with form that would make the best choice peak velocity. On average, however, it seems either is a useful tool. When an athlete performs a lift properly, a strong relationship exists between peak and mean velocity.

However, when Olympic lifts are done to improve performance in another sport, portions of the technique seem to be lost in translation. Most athletes do a good job with the pull but tend to lose their technique during the racking phase. This is usually related to two things: the athlete’s lack of familiarity in racking the lift and their orthopedic issues.

Important Point

When examining the Olympic lifts, we ought to realize their purpose. For most athletes, the goal is to increase their speed-strength ability and explosive power. It’s not to have perfect technique in a clean. This is akin to Olympic weightlifters playing soccer or basketball for aerobic work. They’re not going to have perfect, or in some cases even proficient, technique or form when dribbling, shooting, and passing. They’ll look like Olympic lifters trying to play soccer or basketball. Why, then, are we so concerned with perfect technique of the Olympic lifts?

Average velocity assumes that the athlete has excellent technique on the lift. If any portion of the movement slows down, the average velocity suffers. It appears that the racking position of the clean or snatch is where most athletes trip up. This portion of the lift is inconsequential to improvements in explosive strength. For force production, what matters is the point where the barbell achieves peak velocity, which is the top of the second pull (if coming from the ground).

If a highly technical portion of the lift can be impaired by an athlete’s upper extremity and thorax injuries, why are we even concerned with the average velocity? We shouldn’t be, and that’s my point. The reason for performing Olympic lifts isn’t to participate in a weightlifting competition; it’s to improve sporting form. Olympic lifters spend hours upon hours and years upon years refining their technique on the clean, jerk, and snatch. Our athletes should spend hours upon hours and years upon years refining their technique on sports skills. Olympic lifting is special physical preparedness for the lifter and general physical preparedness for the athletes involved in other sports.

In my opinion, we need to get the most bang for our buck. Peak velocity tends to better represent our athletes’ capabilities. And a previous AC separation or shoulder dislocation will not matter. If they stand up with the bar, the only thing that matters is that the peak velocity as the average has been removed due to inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

The technical nature of Olympic lifts also requires a great amount of coaching. The catch is quite technical and requires a great amount of work by the athlete and knowledge, background, and coaching from the coach. Pulls are quite simple, though, and achieve triple extension, one of the primary benefits of the Olympic lifts. I think we need to worry more on the pull and improve its technique over the catch.

In short, both average velocity and peak velocity have their place. With Olympic lifting athletes, using both provides good redundancy to keep technique in check. Otherwise, what truly matters is the velocity of the barbell at the top of the second pull, so let’s just focus on that and utilize peak velocity. It gives cleaner data.

As more data becomes available, we may make small alterations to the charts over the coming years. My aim is to perfect the system, but I’m far from that. I feel confident enough, however, to release these guidelines. What I’ve experienced matches materials from Ajan & Baroga⁹ as well as other coaches.

Based on my data and data from others, I have some points to make. All of the velocities listed for the clean and snatch are from the floor. From the hang, mean velocities will be a little bit faster. I have not discovered why exactly, but I’d wager it has something to do with the engagement of the stretch-reflex.

There’s also the confounding issue of individual variation. If an equation is right 80, 90, or even 99% of the time, then it doesn’t work a certain percentage of times as well. Realize that some people are outliers and may not fit these guideline velocities. For example, an athlete may appear to have great form, but they’re 5’9” and anytime they drop below 2.0m/s, they can’t catch the bar. When we see someone who clearly doesn’t meet the guidelines, we may have to adjust for that individual.

Recommended Guidelines

There are a plethora of reasons to use peak velocity for Olympic lifts, provided we have the ability to measure peak. We just need to pick the reason that makes the most sense to us. Remember that velocities depend on the type of measurement system you’re using. If you’re using an LPT, such as GymAware, these velocities should fit nicely. If you’re using TENDO, which works fantastically, ensure the setup is correct and that the tether is perpendicular to the platform during the lift.

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. Harbili, E and A. Alptekin. “Comparative Kinematic Analysis of the Snatch Lifts in Elite Male Adolescent Weightlifters.” Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. 13 (2014) 417-422.
2. National Strength & Conditioning Association. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2000.
3. Siff, MC. Supertraining. Denver: 2000.
4. Gonzalez-Badillo J.J., M.C. Marques, and L. Sanchez-Medina. “The Importance of Movement Velocity as a Measure to Control Resistance Training Intensity.” Journal of Human Kinetics. 29A (2011) 15-19.
5. González-Badillo, J.J. and L. Sánchez-Medina. “Movement Velocity as a Measure of Loading Intensity in Resistance Training.” International Journal of Sports Medicine. 31 (2010) 347-352.
6. Jandacka D, and P. Beremlijski. “Determination of Strength Exercise Intensities Based on the Load-Power-Velocity Relationship.” Journal of Human Kinetics. 11 (2011).
7. Roman, R.A. The Training of the Weightlifter. Moscow: Sportivny Press, 1986.
8. Mann, J.B. Power. “Bar Velocity Measuring Devices and Their Use for Autoregulation.” NSCA’s Hot Topic Series. 2011. www.nsca-lift.org.
9. Ajan T., and Lazar Baroga. Weightlifting: Fitness for All Sports. Budapest, Hungary: International Weightlifting Federation, 1988.

Most people picture a large, overweight athlete as the ideal or the norm for the shot put, hammer, discus, and weight throw. Yet, when I interviewed people for this story, including former Olympians, in nearly every case they also coached the throws, and most said that what they look for in a thrower is a tall, rangy athlete.

Some people think that a woman hammer thrower has to be a big, muscular woman. Sure, Tatyana Lysenta is No. 3 and Aksana Miankova is No. 4 in the world and both are about six-feet tall and weigh 180 pounds or less. However, Gulfiya Khanafeyeva is the seventh best hammer thrower in history and she was 5’8” and 150 pounds. Yelena (Priyma) Rigert of Russia was 5’5.5” and 139 pounds when she competed, and her top throw is still ranked in the Top 25. So, while being tall does help, all of the top women throwers are athletic regardless of their size.

An important thing to keep in mind for women in these events is that their implements do not weigh as much as the men’s. Therefore, there is more of a premium on athletic ability, speed, and technique than in the men’s events. At the Olympic level you do have to be strong, but fat can actually be detrimental because it will just slow you down. At the lower levels of competition, you will see all types of bodies that work in the throwing events.

Throwers aren’t just big people that can’t run; it is quite the opposite, actually. ~Aubrey Baxter

I spoke with several female coaches and trainers with experience as throwers, as well as the father of a successful current high school thrower. We discussed the need to dispel misconceptions about female throwers, ideas on how to make the sport more popular and attractive to spectators, and how to get more girls involved.

Aubrey Baxter

Aubrey Baxter was born and raised in Redfield, SD. She was a decorated four-sport athlete in high school (track and field, volleyball, basketball, and softball). After graduating in 2004, she played college volleyball and competed in track and field for a year, and then decided after the season she would focus solely on track and field. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Black Hills State University in 2009 with a Psychology major and Sociology minor.

Altogether, Baxter is a 27-time All-American, and has won 15 National Championships (8 NAIA Titles at Black Hills State University and 7 USATF Club National Titles). The discus throw was her weakest event, as she tossed it “only” 169’5”.

Baxter competed in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials and finished in seventh place in the hammer throw, with a throw of 219’10” or 67.01 meters. She is also an applied technology specialist at Metropolitan Community College, a personal trainer with Nebraska Elite, an independent beauty consultant with Younique, and a life coach. She is married and has one son.

Bill Peyton: What things should a high school kid not do in training to be a discus thrower?

Aubrey Baxter: I don’t think kids should focus on what not to do, but instead on what they should do. Throwers aren’t just big people that can’t run; it is quite the opposite, actually. To be a successful thrower, you need to be an athlete. Every thrower needs to work on technique, strength, speed, and power, among other things.

BP: What things should a thrower do that will aid in their development?

AB: When I was younger, I went to a few throwing camps. The big one I went to was out in Custer, SD, which really showed me the possibilities that were available for me if I continued throwing. Going to camps, connecting with other throwers and coaches, being a student of your event—there are so many things that can aid someone in their development, along with the obvious one of working hard.

BP: How do you convince a girl to become a thrower and, just as importantly, how to
have the courage to stay with it?

AB: When I was younger, I struggled with my size. I hated how wide my shoulders were and I really struggled with it. However, if someone would have asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, I would have said a professional athlete. I wish I would have had someone like me say, “Well, that’s why you have wide shoulders, so that you can achieve that dream of yours.” My family and friends were great, but I needed someone like I am now to say that to me then.

Along with working at Metropolitan Community College, personal training at Nebraska Elite, training myself, and being a mother, I also do coaching and self-esteem training with young girls. I help girls figure out what they are passionate about. If it’s not throwing or track that’s totally fine, but I want them to find what they are passionate about and focus on positive things about themselves instead of negatives.

BP: How can we get athletic women to become hammer throwers and to have the courage to stay with the event?

AB: I think if young girls see elite hammer throwers compete, they will want to do it too; especially the competitive, driven, and strong young ladies. The hammer throw is such an incredibly beautiful event that takes strength, power, technique, patience, hard work, time, etc.

Coach Bob McKay, the former U.S. Olympic Developmental Coach, told me that when Lance Deal, 1996 Olympic Silver Medalist, handed someone a hammer for the first time, he said, “Welcome to frustration.” This is so true. It’s the event that you have to go fast in, but be patient; you have to throw the ball in, but let it carry you. It’s maddening! But at the same time, it’s beautiful and so much fun to do. I think if people watch elite hammer throwers compete, they will see how amazing the event and the athletes that do it are.

BP: What might surprise people about throwing in track and field?

AB: I don’t know if this would surprise people or not—definitely not throwers—but I think the progression of all of the throws is beautiful. It’s amazing to break down throws into the path the implement travels and that feeling of an effortless throw. It’s beautiful.

BP: How can we make throwing in general more popular?

AB: In order to make throwing more popular, we need to be seen. Throwers need to be focused on (along with field events in general). If some of our stories got out, I think we would have a lot bigger following. But no one knows who we are because we are never covered by the media. I wish that the amazing people who compete for this country (I am biased toward throwers, of course) would be showcased and supported more because they deserve it.

BP: I’m hearing people say to put the throwing events inside the track. You have seen more top-level track meets than I have. With artificial turf, potential injuries, and other issues, how do we do this?

AB: I know that throwing on the infield would help, but yes, there are safety concerns there. I think the biggest thing is for the media to step in. Showcase throwers, share their stories, and people will fall in love. Throwers are a different breed, but I have had some of my best memories being around throwers. They love what they do, they are passionate, they are a little crazy, but they are usually a blast to be around.

BP: Both boys and girls go into the throws as something to do between seasons. They do not take it seriously. The money goes to football. Do you have any suggestions?

AB: Sadly, this is very much a reality. I can see this as being a negative, but at the same time, a positive. Yes, we lose many athletes to other sports because they are more popular than track and field, and that is too bad. I feel like we, USATF, the media—everyone has to do their part in sharing how amazing throwing events and the athletes that throw are. We go outside and throw things as far as we can, that’s awesome! The positive to losing some athletes to other sports is that we are left with the people that really do love throwing, and that creates an amazing atmosphere when you get a group of throwers together.

BP: Are throwing events emphasized enough at the grassroots levels?

AB: You have to be very careful with young kids when it comes to the throwing events. The hammer is an event that most people pick up later in their careers as throwers.

I had no idea what the hammer throw was before my freshman year of college; absolutely no clue at all. I have been part of numerous camps that try to teach young throwers the opportunities that are available to them if they work hard and stick to it.

Megan Schuessler Young

BP: Tell me about your own background in the throws. Include your childhood sports, reasons why you got involved with throwing events, best marks, and titles won, if any.

Megan Schuessler Young: I started throwing in the seventh grade when track season rolled around. Being a bigger, powerful girl, the throws were where my coaches guided me when choosing a field event.

Luckily, I had coaches that I liked and that liked me and I enjoyed the challenge of throwing, so I stuck with it. I grew up in the small town of Llano in the middle of Texas. As a kid, I played just about everything my town offered. My mom taught me tennis and my dad taught me softball/baseball and those were the two first sports I learned.

I took swimming lessons for long as I can remember and, though we didn’t have a competitive swim team, I really enjoyed swimming. I started playing basketball in second grade when they allowed us to sign up for Little Dribblers. I also did random activities at the local fitness center like gymnastics, ballet, and taekwondo. We didn’t have volleyball or soccer, so I never got to experience those sports that seem so popular now.

I don’t think I won any major titles. I was the high school district champion several times in shot put and in discus, but nothing in college. I did hold both my high school and the Texas Tech school records in the discus, but they were both quickly broken. My best marks (which took some Googling) were 46’9.5” in the shot put and 169’3” in the discus.

BP: How can we get more girls interested in the throwing events at the grassroots level and then help them have the courage to stick with it through their growing years?

MSY: I think that a lot of it starts with the parents. Parents are the ones who decide what their children will do; at least when they first start participating in activities. If parents have never been exposed to throwing or have a negative association with it, then they will not steer their children towards it.

For girls, throwing being thought of as “manly” seems be the biggest hurdle. This is an issue especially for middle school girls, which is when most girls first experience track and field. They are so concerned with how they look and how others perceive them. Changing that perception is a big key to getting girls to try and stick with throws.

Changing the perception of female throwers as “manly” is a key to getting girls to try throwing. Share on X

I think if there was a way to get parents and families out to watch track meets, and for young girls to see how graceful and powerful elite level throwers are, they might be more inclined to throw. This might also help girls to see that throwers are not typically the big slow girls who are throwing because they cannot do anything else, but are really exceptional athletes doing very difficult movements in a powerful way.

Convincing parents of the merits of track and field on their child’s athletic development could also be helpful. I hear all the time that, “I put my kid in (blank) so they can improve their (blank).” You could fill in the blanks with just about any skill and any sport, such as soccer for agility or football for power.

The beauty of track and field is that is has the potential to teach and allow kids to practice an enormous array of skills in a one-stop shop. If parents could see that, I think they would be more likely to sign their kids up for track earlier and therefore instill in them a feeling for “I do track” that’s like the way most of the kids that I work with feel about soccer, softball, and volleyball. As a side bonus, they might actually learn to run correctly at an early age, which will benefit them for every sport down the road, and develop a mental toughness that could also help them in all sports, and in life in general.

Youth track and field also should become elite. In my experience, summer track and track clubs are a “you-pay, you-join system.” Track and field is just happy to have people interested. However, as seen with the AAU basketball, club soccer, and travel softball teams, etc., the harder it is to get into something and the more it costs, the more people want to do it and the more invested they are in it. If a parent pays $3,000 for a club sport and the kid has to try out to even make the team, then, by golly, that kid is going to every practice and game and will do so with a smile on their face. If a parent pays a minimal fee and their kid gets to compete no matter what, who cares?

On the flip side of that, it takes a special person to be a thrower. It is not for everyone and kids should not be forced into it or they will hate it. However, if a girl does like to throw, having parents and coaches who are encouraging and supportive is good for helping a girl to keep throwing during her growing years.

BP: Is there a way we could get the throwing events inside track and field stadiums or at least nearby?

MSY: With younger children, I am OK with field events being outside the track. You never know where the implement is going to go, and with the already cramped time schedule, it would be almost impossible to schedule throwing events when there aren’t running events going on.

I do think it helps the atmosphere of the throws when there are more people watching. The reality is that, if the throws area is outside the track, the average track fan is not going to miss everything else going on at the track to go watch throws.

BP: There are a few isolated smaller events where the throws are featured. (I am thinking of the Golden League.) However, the organizing groups seem to be against this type of thing. Do you think we should pursue shorter, more concentrated meets?

MSY: I think anytime we can have meets that are advertised and made to be entertaining and exciting, it’s a good thing for track and field in general. People have short attention spans and some people will balk at taking their families for an entire day or night of track and field.

I do like the idea of shorter, more focused events, especially out in public places like the shot put in downtown Lawrence for the Kansas Relays or pole vaulting in the mall for the Drake Relays. The more everyday people who know nothing about track and field can be exposed to it, even by accident, the easier it is for kids to get excited about track.

BP: A key to getting girls involved with throwing events, and athletics in general, may be to develop, hire, and maintain women coaches. Is there a way we could do this well?

I don’t think it matters if a coach is male or female. What matters is how educated and enthusiastic they are about coaching the throws. ~Megan Schuessler Young

MSY: I don’t think it matters if a coach is male or female. What matters is how educated and enthusiastic they are about coaching the throws. The job of throws coaching in middle or high school is often given to a coach, whether they want it or not and even if they know nothing about it. But even then, a coach who is willing to learn and who shows up every day to practice eager to help his or her athletes get better is what young athletes need.

A coach who is just “getting through” track season is not helpful for the progression of the athletes or the sport. There has to be better education for throws coaches. Throwing is such a complicated event to coach and not many people put the time they really should into learning how to coach it.

Ramona Pagel

Ramona Pagel was born in Los Angeles, CA, and married Kent Pagel, a former UCLA thrower. He coached her throughout much of her career. She graduated from Long Beach State University in 1982 and San Diego State University in 1984. After leaving SDSU, Pagel made four consecutive Olympic teams, 1984–1996, in the shot put.

Pagel held the American record in the shot put for 25 years and also spent eight years on the Top Ten list for Americans in discus, until back problems caused her to choose to focus on her best event. She currently works as the Wellness Director with the U.S. Navy NBVC. She also worked as a coach for 28 years at the collegiate level.

Personal Bests:
Shot Put: 66’2.5”; 20.18m
Discus: 203’2”; 61.92m
Javelin: 150’2”; 45.77m

BP: How can we get more girls interested in the throwing events at the grassroots level and then help them have the courage to stick with it through their growing years?

Ramona Pagel: It would be easier for the women to use a lighter shot put in high school. The men go from 12-16 pounds, whereas the women use a 4kg as a 14- or 15-year-old and on up. A 3kg or 3.5kg for girls in high school would allow them to learn the technique without being intimidated by the weight.

BP: Is there a way we could get the throwing events inside track and field stadiums or at least nearby?

RP: Only if we eliminate football and soccer. The cost of grooming infields and the ability of schools to rent out their fields is precluding our use of the turf field. Better understanding of the events by announcers or having an announcer at the events that are out of sight would help.

BP: There are a few isolated smaller events where the throws are featured. (I am thinking of the Golden League.) However, the organizing groups seem to be against this type of thing. Do you think we should pursue shorter, more concentrated meets?

RP: Meet directors are influenced by an athlete’s marketability and much of that involves changing the public’s perception of throwing events, as compared to more popular events like football games.

BP: A key to getting girls involved with throwing events and athletics in general is to develop, hire, and maintain women coaches. Is there a way we could do this well?

RP: More women coaches would be great. There seems to be more pressure to perform as a female coach, as they always have to do better than the male coaches, for less pay. High school coaches do not get paid much for coaching, so it becomes a passion profession.

College track and field coaches are paid on the lowest scale, and rarely is a throwing coach considered for a head coach position. So pay for the most part is at entry level. I see many good coaches go into administration because, once they have a family, the hours are regular and they get paid more. It does not make sense, but the change will have to start with knowledge on the part of administrators and hiring committees.

Cathy Casey

Cathy Casey is in her 14th year (2002–present) at SMU, and is the head coach for the school’s cross country and track and field programs. She became the head cross country coach in 2005 and the head track and field coach in 2015.

Casey has played a pivotal role in the Mustangs’ swift rise to national prominence in cross country, winning five Conference championships (four C-USA and one American Athletic Conference) in the last seven years. During each of the championship seasons, she earned Coach of the Year honors. On the track, Casey specializes in the development of middle- and long-distance athletes.

She is native of Carbondale, Illinois, and was a member of the cross country/track and field team at the University of Texas, earning her degree in 1997. Casey currently resides in Dallas, TX, with her husband.

BP: How do you get athletic women to try the discus throw and, even more importantly,
have the courage to stay with it?

Cathy Casey: I think that we need more former throwers to coach our youth—female throwers in particular—to make sure the girls know that throwing is an option for them. We lose these kids to other sports like volleyball and basketball simply because these girls just don’t know how good they can be at throwing. With a technically sound coach, they will keep improving and therefore can have the confidence to continue with the event.

We need more former throwers to coach our youth—female throwers in particular—to make sure the girls know that throwing is an option for them. ~Cathy Casey

BP: How can we make throwing events more popular? The running and jumping events seem to be much more popular.

CC: I think that the throwing events can be made more popular by incorporating the throwing area at the track. Too many times, they are outside the main venue so that no one can see the throwers compete. Put on more throwing clinics and coaching education classes for throws. Put pressure on high schools to hire coaches with a track background.

Elizabeth Murphy

Elizabeth Murphy finished her first year as the SMU Track and Field Throws Coach in 2016. This was Murphy’s first step into coaching, after competing as a thrower as a graduate student at SMU and three years previously at Grand Valley State University.

Murphy returns to the Hilltop after competing in the weight throw and hammer throw for SMU in 2012–13, winning the Conference USA Outdoor Championship in the hammer throw and coming in third at the C-USA Indoor Championships in the weight throw. Those results, along with a 16th place finish at the NCAA Championships, earned her All-American status in her only year at SMU.

Prior to her time at SMU, Murphy was a two-time hammer throw champion and six-time All-American at the Division II level while at Grand Valley State. She also holds the record at the D-II level in the weight throw for indoor track and field.

BP: How do you get athletic women to try the discus throw and, even more importantly, have the courage to stay with it?

Elizabeth Murphy: I think most women start out trying the throwing events, in general, as an auxiliary sport. For example, basketball players decide to run track in the off-season to stay in shape. Some of the bigger girls on the basketball team end up throwing and being decent at it. I’m sure there are a handful of girls who want to be “throwers” and I’m sure, internationally, there are more women who want to be throwers than in the U.S.

If we want to talk specifically about discus, that’s probably one of the easier events to get women to throw. I’ve heard people describe the discus as “pretty,” so it is easy to understand why a woman would be more likely to throw discus rather than shot put. I feel like discus sheds the masculinity that is associated with shot put and that’s why more women gravitate towards disc than shot.

BP: How can we make throwing events more popular? The running and jumping events seem to be much more popular.

EM: I believe the unpopularity of the throwing events is an effect of a bigger problem. Our society doesn’t want to see women in a muscular state. These views are changing slightly, but they haven’t shifted enough to be accepting of different body types than what would be viewed as “ideal” for women.

The unpopularity of women’s throwing events is an effect of society’s views of “ideal” body type. Share on X

If I am going to be completely honest, when someone thinks of a female “thrower” they think of Mrs. Trunchbull from the movie Matilda, or they think of a woman who is of above-average size. Neither of these views is appealing to society, nor are they accepted by society. We need to change what is viewed as “normal” to encompass the growing athletic arena for women. I know you asked specifically about throwing events, but I believe this is related to most women’s sports.

Beth-el Algarin

I attended the Minnesota Section 5A meet at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, in early June. Beth-el Algarin was throwing the shot put for Pierz Healy High School, and she won that event along with the discus throw the same day. It was hard not to be intrigued by this little dynamo with the white shot put. Even to someone who does not know the throws that well, it was easy to see that she was much quicker than the other throwers. Algarin was the shortest and probably the lightest person in the finals.

I had the opportunity to listen to a person I thought was her coach. He had something to say to her after every throw and they both seemed to be having a lot of fun. It was obvious that Algarin was happy with her last throw, as she whooped it up and celebrated with the “coach,” who actually turned out to be her father, Luis Algarin. The throw was a personal record for her at 42’6”.

Mr. Algarin volunteered some information about his daughter, as it must have been obvious I was intrigued by her throwing. “She has been winning world powerlifting competitions since she was eight years old,” he said. “However, she started out with very light weights until she got a bit older. She can now bench press 275 pounds.”

It seemed that, although he was happy with how she performed at Sections, he just knew her potential was much higher. I asked him about his own athletic participation and he told me that he had once bench pressed 600 pounds in college!

Luis Algarin is the state chairman for one of the largest powerlifting federations in the world. So he is the main influence for Beth-el Algarin getting into the weight room and the record books. She holds 70-plus world records in various age and weight groups.

“She has tried to put her power to work in the throws, but it takes more than brute strength (as we have come to learn). Bottom line, strength is great, but technique is everything,” said Mr. Algarin.

Throws take more than brute strength. While strength is great, technique is everything. Share on X

Beth-el Algarin was a distance runner in cross country and track and field, while competing in world championship events in powerlifting. She won the conference championship in the 800-meter run as a seventh grader. She would still be running long-distance races if not for injuries to her knees.

The next week at the state meet, Beth-el Algarin finished in third place in the shot put at the State Class A meet with a throw of 41’1.5”. She was 1.5 inches away from second place.

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Reference:

Beckham, Jeff. “There’s More to Shot Put Than ‘Beastly Women.’” Wired. August 6, 2012.