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Introduction

Bovine colostrum (BC) is the first milk secreted by cows after calving. Colostrum is high in protein and contains several bioactive substances including growth and antimicrobial factors (Donavan and Odle 1994; Reiter 1978). The main growth factor in BC is Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) (Francis et al. 1988) which stimulates the growth of muscle tissue (Tomas 1991) and is important in maintaining muscle mass and function in adults (Borst 2001). Antimicrobial factors in bovine colostrum include immunoglobulin A (Mach and Pahud 1971) and a variety of other less specific antimicrobial proteins and peptides like lysozyme and lactoferrin (Korhonen 1977; Shing 2009) that are important for immune system function.

Previous studies have shown improvements in body composition (Antonio 2001), power (Buckley 2003; Hofman 2002) and strength (Duff 2014) when BC supplementation was taken during a resistance training program. The mechanism through which BC acts to benefit performance remains unclear.

The first study to investigate the effect of BC supplementation on exercise performance was Mero et al. in 1997. Since then, research has investigated the ability of BC supplementation to improve endurance, and anaerobic performance, and increase lean tissue mass, power, and strength. In addition, researchers are also trying to determine mechanisms for these improvements.

Body Composition and Strength

The first study to examine whether BC supplementation affects body composition and strength was published in 2001 (Antonio et al 2001). In the study, twenty-two trained males and females, were randomly assigned to either a BC (20 g/day) or a whey protein group prior to participating in an 8-week resistance and aerobic program that involved three training sessions per each week.

Body composition was analyzed before and on completion of the study using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Body mass significantly increased for the whey group, but primarily due to an increase in fat mass, while the BC group showed significant increase in lean body mass only, without any significant change in body weight. Strength was assessed at the same time points using 1RM strength tests. There was no significant difference between groups in strength.

However, another study (Kerksick 2001) found that upper body strength significantly increased after 12 weeks of resistant training and BC supplementation (60 g/day) in comparison to the same resistance training and placebo. Forty-nine trained males and females participated in the study and strength was determined by 1RM bench press and leg press. There was no significant difference for the leg press 1RM. In contrast to this finding, supplementation with the same dose (60 g/day) of BC, during eight weeks of strength and plyometric training, in fifty-one physically active males, was not associated with significant changes in strength (Buckley 2003).

In 2004, the effect of BC supplementation on changes in body composition was examined (Brinkworth 2004), using the same dose (60 g/day). In this study, active males trained the elbow flexors of their non-dominant arm four times a week. 1RM bicep curl, MRI and maximal voluntary isometric contraction of the upper arm were measured at baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks of supplementation. When compared with both their untrained arm and with the placebo group, upper limb circumference and total cross-sectional area were significantly increased in the trained arm of BC subjects. However, there were no significant differences between groups for upper limb muscle cross-sectional area.

Brinkworth et al. attributed the increase in the cross-sectional area following BC supplementation to an increase in skin cross-sectional area, based on a study that found that canine skin cells proliferate with increasing concentrations of BC (Torre 2006).

Duff et al. (2014) assessed forty older adults randomly assigned to 60g/day of BC or whey protein while participating in a three day/week resistance training program for eight weeks. Strength was assessed using 1RM bench press and leg press and body composition by DXA. BC supplemented participants increased their leg strength to a greater extent than whey protein supplemented participants. Bench press strength, on the other hand, as well as lean tissue mass, were not significantly different between groups.

Power

One of the first studies to investigate the effect of BC supplementation on power was conducted in a double-blind manner and a crossover design (Leppäluoto 2000). Ten athletes performed two jump tests on days 11 and 12 of the supplementation. After the overall analysis, it was found that BC supplementation significantly improved jump flight times in comparison to placebo supplementation. However, limited conclusions can be drawn from this study as neither the dose administered nor details of training and diet control was reported by the authors. The investigation is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

In another double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study seventeen female and eighteen male elite field hockey players received either 60 g/day of BC or whey protein for eight weeks (Hofman 2002). Vertical jump performance improved more in the BC group, but the differences were not statistically significant.

Buckley (2003) assessed 51 males who completed eight weeks of resistance and plyometric training while consuming 60 g/day of BC (n= 26) or whey (n =25). BC supplementation significantly improved peak cycle power and vertical jump height, suggesting that BC was beneficial to power activities.

Anaerobic Performance

Anaerobic glycolysis results in the production of H+ and lactate. Buffer capacity is the ability to bind free protons (i.e. to buffer H+), and offset reductions in pH during exercise; hence, given the strong association between acidosis and muscular fatigue, buffer capacity is an important attribute for maintaining anaerobic performance (Parkhouse 1984).

The main buffers of H+ come from skeletal muscle and include protein, inorganic phosphate, and phosphocreatine. Other components in blood including hemoglobin, bicarbonate, and plasma proteins also buffer H+. One study (Brinkworth 2002) examined whether BC supplementation could enhance the buffering of H+, in response to a 9-week training program with 13 elite female rowers who consumed 60 g/day of BC or whey. Two rowing tests were used to assess performance before and on completion of the supplementation period. Buffering capacity was estimated from the differences in the blood lactate levels and the blood pH levels that were taken at the end of each workload during the tests. It was found that buffering capacity was significantly increased after BC supplementation vs. placebo.

Brinkworth (2004) determined the component of blood buffering capacity that was enhanced following BC supplementation. There were no significant differences in hemoglobin levels, plasma bicarbonate levels or plasma buffering capacity in general between BC and placebo groups. The authors concluded that the observed increase in buffering capacity from their previous work (Brinkworth 2002) was the result of enhanced muscle buffering capacity, but they were unable to determine this because no muscle biopsy samples were collected.

Bovine Colostrum supplementation significantly improved peak cycle power and vertical jump height. Share on X

Studies are mixed regarding the effect of BC on anaerobic performance. Hofman (2002) examined the effect of 8 weeks of BC supplementation (60 g/day) on sprint performance in 18 elite male and 17 female hockey players. Repeated sprint running performance (5 × 10 m) significantly improved in the BC supplemented group compared with the placebo group; however, only performance measures were reported in this study, so the mechanism behind the improvement in sprint performance is unclear. In contrast, Shing (2006) found no improvement in a time-to-fatigue test at 110% of ventilatory threshold, between BC and placebo in 29 highly trained male road cyclists. The dosage used in the study was only 10 g/day (for eight weeks); therefore, dosage may have been insufficient. Buckley (2003) used a higher dose of supplementation of 60 g/day of BC vs. whey for eight weeks on 51 males; however they also found that anaerobic work capacity was not different between the groups.

Endurance

Shing (2009) studied 39 male subjects, supplemented with BC (60 g/day) or whey for eight weeks during an aerobic training program that included three 45-minute running sessions per week. The subjects performed two incremental treadmill tests, at baseline and at 4 and 8 weeks of supplementation. No significant changes in running performance were observed after four weeks, but, after eight weeks, subjects in the BC group covered a significantly greater distance and completed more work in the second treadmill test than the whey group. The mechanism for the significant improvement in running performance is unknown and also could not be explained by alterations in respiratory exchange ratio, lactate threshold or IGF-1 levels (Shing 2009).

Another study (Shing 2006) that used a dose of 10 g/day found that BC supplementation (in comparison to whey) improved 40 km time-trial performance at the end of a 5-day high-intensity training period but not during normal training. Although increased muscle glycogen levels during normal training do not improve endurance performance (Hawley 1997), during repeated days of high-intensity exercise, increased muscle glycogen levels may prevent and delay fatigue (Kavouras 2004; McInerney 2005). Due to these findings and the fact that colostrum feeding in calves is associated with enhanced activity of the rate-limiting enzymes for gluconeogenesis – pyruvate carboxylase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (Hammon 2003), BC supplementation may improve muscle glycogen resynthesis during periods of intense training.

Coombes (2002) assessed whether there was a dose response of BC on endurance performance. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 42 cyclists completed a work-based cycle time-trial (2.8 kJ/kg), following a 2-hour endurance ride, both before and after eight weeks of supplementation of 20 or 60 g/day of BC, or whey. Time-trial performance significantly improved in cyclists who were supplemented with BC (both dosages) when compared with the whey. The similar improvements in performance in both of the BC groups suggest that there may be a limit beyond which a higher BC dose does not provide any added performance benefit. The authors hypothesized that the improvement in the endurance was the result of enhanced nutrient uptake from the intestine, mediated by other growth factors found in colostrum. Nevertheless, the effects of BC supplementation on intestinal changes has not been directly measured yet.

Shing (2013) assessed ten highly-trained male road cyclists randomly assigned to a 10 g/day supplementation of BC or whey, for eight weeks that ended in a five-day cycle race. BC supplementation significantly prevented a decrease in testosterone concentration over the race. In addition, parasympathetic indices of heart rate variability (i.e., increased RR intervals) were elevated in the BC group and reduced in the whey group, indicating better cardiovascular functioning with lower heart rate and higher cardiac output in the BC group.

Immune Function

Intense exercise suppresses immunity for several hours (Nieman 2000). Hence, athletes that perform high-intensity training are at a high risk for over-training syndrome (Halson 2002; Halson 2003; Mackinnon 2000) and upper respiratory tract infections (Mackinnon 2000; Fitzgerald 1991). Overtraining syndrome is a neuroendocrine disorder characterized by poor performance in competition, inability to maintain training loads, persistent fatigue, reduced catecholamine excretion, frequent illness, disturbed sleep and alterations in mood state. It is estimated that, at any given time, between 7 and 20% of all athletes may exhibit symptoms of overtraining syndrome. It is believed that excessively large volumes of training without adequate rest and recovery leads to overtraining syndrome (Mackinnon 2000).

The first study to examine the effect of BC supplementation on immune function (Mero 1997) reported that eight days of supplementation with a BC during normal training did not increase salivary IgA concentration. However, another study by the same authors (Mero 2002) showed that athletes ingesting BC for two weeks at a dose of 20 g/day experienced a 33% increase in salivary IgA concentrations. Note that in the second study, the duration of the supplementation was longer and the authors used BC powder that contains more immune factors than the liquid BC used in the first study.

In a study on marathon runners (Crooks 2006), a significant increase in salivary IgA levels was found after 12 weeks of 26 g/day BC supplementation in comparison to placebo; however, this was not associated with a difference in upper respiratory tract infections. On the other hand, two other studies (Shing 2007; Shing 2013) on male cyclists, with 10 g/day supplementation of BC for eight weeks, found no change in salivary IgA levels, natural killer cell cytotoxicity, lymphocyte or neutrophil surface markers. These results might be due to the lower dosage used in this study (10g/ day vs. 20-26g/ day).

Brinkworth (2003) investigated the relationship between BC supplementation and upper respiratory tract infections incidence based on several studies involving resistance training or endurance training interventions in which subjects ingested BC at 60g/ day vs. placebo, over an eight-week period. It was found that the percentage of participants that had upper respiratory tract infections was greater in the placebo group.

IGF-1

Note: “Colostrum is not prohibited by WADA, however, due to the fact that it contains certain quantities of IGF-1 and other growth factors which are prohibited, WADA does not recommend the ingestion of BC.” See WADA Prohibited List.

Despite the fact that BC contains IGF-1, only one group of authors reported significant increases in IGF-1 levels after BC supplementation for 8 and 14 days (Mero 1997; Mero 2002). IGF-1 is usually degraded in the gastrointestinal tract, but it was suggested that some factors in BC may improve the absorption of IGF-1 by preventing its breakdown (Playford 1993).

Normal IGF-1 levels for young adults are 14-48 nmol/L. The increase reported in the studies mentioned above, was approximately 5 nmol/L, while the amount of IGF-1 contained in the BC was 74 μg/day. At this dose, if 65% of IGF-1 was absorbed, the concentration of IGF-1 would only be expected to rise only by approximately 1.05 nmol/L. This suggests that the increase in serum IGF-1 was probably due to an increase in endogenous production (Shing 2009). Other studies with similar doses of BC and longer supplementation periods have reported no significant changes in IGF-1 levels following 4–8 weeks of BC supplementation (Buckley 2003; Coombes 2002).

Our Last Study

Last year, (study is yet to be published) we conducted a study that examined the effect of eight weeks of bovine colostrum supplementation in comparison to soy protein, on rugby players’: strength, power, anaerobic fitness, aerobic fitness, body composition, and IgA, IL-6, IL-1β and CRP levels, during the rugby season. In a double-blind manner and 1:1 allocation ratio, 29 players received 38g/day of protein from BC protein powder or soy protein. Both supplements were flavorless and had the same color, smell, and texture. We also controlled for energy intake and training regime for each athlete.

We found a significant difference in improving power (vertical jump) with the colostrum group increasing more than the soy group. We have also found a significant difference in improving aerobic fitness with the colostrum group increasing predicted aerobic capacity more than the soy group.

Using the magnitude-based inferences statistical approach by Will Hopkins, we have found that:

1. For vertical jump: The difference between the change in the colostrum group and control group is 3 cm, with 90% confidence interval of plus/minus 1.5 cm. The results of the statistical calculation is that there is a 99% chance that the colostrum group change is different from the control group change.
2. For VO2max: The difference between the change in the control and colostrum group is as 2 mL/kg/min with 90% confidence interval of plus/minus 2.2. The results of the statistical calculation is that there is an 87% chance that the colostrum group change is different from the control group change.

 

Summary

Due to the small number of studies that have been conducted, we are far from having conclusive evidence for the improvement of performance by BC supplementation. Nevertheless, one can conclude from the mentioned studies that there is a great potential for BC to have a positive effect on athlete performance, especially when it comes to power, strength, and aerobic fitness.

Sport nutritionists should conduct more research on this matter so that 1) we will have sufficient statistical evidence to conclude whether BC does help improve performance, and 2) we would be able to hypothesis the mechanism in which BC acts in favor of improving athlete 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

 

References

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Injuries to athletes are a common occurrence in the sporting arena. Elite athletes are expected to perform consistently at the highest level, subjecting their bodies to excessive forces, stresses and impacts, which without adequate preparation can result in frustrating mid-season breakdowns or entire seasons on the sideline.

While injuries in the elite sporting landscape are wide-ranging, it’s unlikely to surprise our readers that the occurrence, frequency and impact of hamstring strain injuries are extremely high across many sports. Hamstring strain injuries are in fact one of the most frequent non-contact injuries that occur in all high-speed running-based sports¹. The analysis of seasonal injury reports continue to confirm the high rate of hamstring strain injuries, including:

• The NFL recording 96 incidences of hamstring strain injuries in the 2014 season, placing it third behind knee and ankle injuries in the NFL²;
• The NCAA recording 1,142 reported hamstring strain injuries during the 2009/10 to 2013/14 academic years³;
• The Australian Football League 2013 injury report stated that hamstring strain injuries were the number one injury in the game in terms of both incidence and prevalence (missed games)⁴;
• The Australian Football League 2014 injury report indicating that although the overall rate of hamstring injuries at clubs had decreased it was still number one in terms of new injuries per club per season (5.2 hamstring injuries per club per year)⁵; and

The perplexing thing is, as noted recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine⁶:

In spite of all the research and additional understanding of hamstring muscle injuries over the past 20-30 years, we have not reduced the incidence of first-time injuries, and the recurrence rate is still extremely high.

With powerful research providing a much clearer understand of why hamstring strain injuries occur, it begs the question: why does the occurrence of hamstring strain injuries remain so high? Is it that elite sporting organisations are failing to learn, innovative and challenge the status quo? Are organisations taking too much of a reactive approach to injuries and failing to implement preventative measures? Or is something else at play?

What Have We Learned?

One of the biggest learnings in recent years is the effect of eccentric hamstring strength on the occurrence of hamstring strain injuries.

Ground-breaking research on the link came from a group of sports scientists from Australia with one key goal – to discover why hamstring injuries continued to be so prevalent in one of Australia’s most popular sports – Aussie Rules Football. Aussie Rules Football involves two teams of 18 on-field players competing to score points against each other by kicking a ball through their opposing team’s posts at each end of the oval-shaped field. Athletes in the top professional league (the AFL) in Australia play for 80 minutes and commonly run more than 10 miles in each game.

With support from AFL teams desperate to reduce their hamstring strain injury rates, the scientists (primarily Dr Anthony Shield and Dr David Opar) were able to collect comprehensive data by measuring athletes’ eccentric hamstring strength during the age-old Nordic Curl exercise in the 2013 pre-season period. That data was then compared against injury data compiled throughout the 2013 season, with some very interesting results.

Those results indicated that players who finished the pre-season with relatively low eccentric hamstring strength were more likely to have a hamstring strain injury. As a statistical cut point, players with eccentric hamstring strength below 279 newtons (roughly 63lbs of force) were 4.3 times more likely to have a hamstring injury in the upcoming season than their peers above 279 newtons.

The report also demonstrated that, to a large degree, the heightened hamstring injury risk caused by age⁷ could be largely overcome by increases in eccentric strength, as demonstrated by the below chart:

Using eccentric hamstring strength as an example, it is clear from the above graph that although unlikely to eradicate the occurrence of hamstring strain injuries in elite sport, it is possible to mitigate the occurrence and severity of injuries by utilising tools that provide objective measurements that can translate into science-backed risk matrices.

How to Measure Hamstring Strength?

The age of objective metrics and big data has well and truly hit the industry, and while not all metrics are created equal, new technologies – and a better understanding of their applications – are providing sporting teams with more and more actionable data every day.

Armed with objective data, preparation staff can identify at-risk athletes and take steps in their program design to address identified risks for specific players (such as putting them in a dedicated pre-hab program to build strength in the affected hamstring(s)). For years, we have heard the adage that programs should be tailored to the athletes’ unique requirements, but quite often this isn’t carried through in practice. The first step, of course, is to get the objective data in the hands of preparation staff.

Typically objective data on eccentric hamstring strength was procured by (at the gold standard) subjecting athletes to a 20-minute test on an isokinetic dynamometer. Testing by this method has few supporters in the elite sporting environment given the exorbitant cost of an isokinetic dynamometer, the time cost required to test players, the highly technical nature of the device and concerns of athlete soreness at the conclusion of testing. At the other end of the scale, handheld dynamometers offered a relatively cheaper alternative, but user error accounts for considerable discrepancy in data collection.

Fortunately, the elite and sub-elite sporting industry is far from immune to the onset of innovation and digital disruption. The significant gap between the isokinetic and handheld dynamometers has been filled by the NordBord – the next generation of diagnostic technology focused on arming strength and conditioning teams with a tool that can quickly, accurately and cost-effectively provide metrics that actually matter.

The NordBord

It was from Dr Anthony Shield and Dr David Opar’s study into the AFL that identified the need for the NordBord. Clubs wouldn’t allow their players to be consumed for extended periods on an isokinetic dynamometer and data from handheld devices would be too inconsistent. Accordingly, they developed their own field-testing device.

The NordBord embodies an innovative design with simplistic elegance and has been designed with familiarity, practicality and ease of use at mind. The device is relatively simple to use – players kneel on the NordBord and perform repetitions of the Nordic Curl exercise while the NordBord calculates (amongst other things) the peak eccentric hamstring strength of each leg independently.

In less than 2 minutes on the device (once familiarised), preparation staff will have an indication of the athlete’s eccentric hamstring strength and between-leg symmetry. Then they can determine, by reference to the risk matrixes generated by Dr. Shield and Dr. Opar’s research, which athletes fall into the at-risk category. From there, they can customise pre-season routines to improve these figures into a safer ranges. The ability to benchmark and then retest ensures that the athlete only moves onto a full load when they are ready.

The NordBord empowers strength and condition professionals with real-time, quantifiable and objective data.

It is important to note that although the NordBord provides a specific figure that can be benchmarked, each athlete’s age and hamstring injury history must also be taken into account. But while these risk factors are non-modifiable in themselves, the effect these variables have on the propensity for injury can be reduced with an increase in eccentric hamstring strength (as demonstrated in the graph above, athletes in their late twenties can reduce their injury probability to levels comparable with their 18-year-old counterparts).

Metrics and data will drive elite athlete management and elite sporting clubs that fail to innovate will fall behind. Quick and efficient access to real-time metrics is why the NordBord should form a part of any elite sporting organisation’s screening and monitoring routine.

Tom Myslinski, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Jacksonville Jaguars, said the NordBord has given him “the ability to identify and address those at-risk athletes” on their roster.

“Hamstring strains can keep key players out of action for weeks so being able to determine which players are at risk, and do the correct work to avoid future injury in those players, is invaluable for us,” he said.

The NordBord is not limited to eccentric hamstring strength, and can also measure an athlete’s isometric strength. While research may less support isometric strength as a predictor or injury, it is undeniably a useful and low-impact alternative. This makes it ideal for testing players who are particularly weak or fragile, such as those returning from injury. Long have handheld dynamometers been used to measure isometric strength, with extremely variable results due to operator error. The NordBord instead removes the extra human factor and provides a stable, reliable platform for measuring isometric strength.

Incremental improvements are often overlooked during the preseason, but even small improvements can have major impacts towards the end of a season. The NordBord is equipped to detect these subtle changes, allowing them to be actioned upon when players are most malleable.

“… to determine which players are at risk, and do the correct work to avoid future injury in those players, is invaluable for us.” — Tom Myslinski, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars

Ultimately, it is in the interest of high performance and conditioning staff to take these proactive steps. Even a single injury prevented can save days or weeks where their attention is pulled away from their primary function: helping athletes win.

Proactive injury management can be easy, and with the proliferation of technology in the athlete management sector and athlete data amalgamators such as Kinduct, CoachMePlus and Kitman Labs, the NordBord becomes a high-value string that can easily be added to any team’s bow. Sporting organisations who are prepared to be innovative and dynamic have the opportunity to improve incrementally and measurably over time. Metrics and big data are here to stay, and metrics that matter can go a long way to reducing the occurrence of hamstring injuries in elite athletes.

The Far-reaching Implications of Hamstring Injuries

The implications of hamstring strains are far reaching, and go beyond lost game time for injured athletes. Even the psychological effects on injured athletes cannot be overlooked, especially when recurrent injuries can often plague athletes for their entire professional careers. Even once a player has completed the often lengthy rehabilitation process, confidence to perform in a high-pressure game environment is often reduced, and even a small reduction in performance or decision-making ability can have a massive impact on the outcome of a match. Player welfare is (or at least should be) the primary concern for all elite sporting organisations, so ensuring the implementation of the latest technology, data and injury prevention methods is crucial.

If we continue to explore the fallout from injury occurrences, support staff will echo the grievances of players, with huge amounts of time and effort required to successfully rehabilitate a player for the rigours of elite sport. And with these significant investments of time, the staff’s ability to manage the rest of the team can be adversely affected. Culturally, elite athletes are often known for their egos, but also for their expectations, and organizations with high rates of injury will often find it difficult to attract and retain players, as well as support staff. And with enough injury naturally comes declines in performance. And without drawing too long a bow, eventually these cultural and performance slips can have a negative impact on the financial viability of an organisation – as can salaries paid to an injured player who sits on the bench week after week, willing but unable to contribute.

If you could accurately and cost effectively test an athlete’s hamstring strength in under two minutes, would you? Well, you should certainly consider it.

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

1. Opar, D.A., J. Drezner, A. Shield, M. Williams, D. Webner, B. Sennett, R. Kapur, M. Cohen, J. Ulager, and A. Cafengiu, Acute Hamstring Strain Injury in Track‐and‐Field Athletes: A 3‐Year Observational Study at the Penn Relay Carnival. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2014. 24(4): p. e254-e259; Ekstrand, J., M. Hägglund, and M. Waldén, Injury Incidence and Injury Patterns in Professional Football: The Uefa Injury Study. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2011. 45(7): p. 553-558; Elliott, M.C., B. Zarins, J.W. Powell, and C.D. Kenyon, Hamstring Muscle Strains in Professional Football Players a 10-Year Review. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2011. 39(4): p. 843-850.
2. NFL Player Injuries
3. Epidemiology of Hamstring Strains in 25 NCAA Sports in the 2009-2010 to 2013-2014 Academic Years, Sara L. Dalton, Zachery Y. Kerr and Thomas P. Dompier. Am J Sports Med
4. Australian Football League Injury Report 2013
5. 2014 AFL Injury Report
6. Hamstring Injuries: Prevention and Treatment
7. Arnason A, Sigurdsson SB, Gudmundsson A, et al. Risk factors for injuries in football. Am J Sports Med. 2004; 32 (1 Suppl.) 5S-16S.

Heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring has become increasingly popular in both competitive and recreational sports and training environments due to the development of smartphone apps and other affordable field tools. Though the concept of HRV is relatively simple, its interpretation can be quite complex. As a result, considerable confusion surrounds HRV data interpretation. I believe much of this confusion can be attributed to the overly simplistic guidelines that have been promoted for the casual-end, non-expert user.

In the context of monitoring fatigue or training status in athletes, a common belief is that high HRV is good and low HRV is bad. Or, in terms of observing the overall trend, increasing HRV trends are good, indicative of positive adaptation or increases in fitness. Decreasing trends are bad, indicative of fatigue accumulation or “overtraining” and performance decrements. In this article I address the common notions of both acute and longitudinal trend interpretation, and discuss why and when these interpretations may or may not be appropriate. We will briefly explore where these common interpretations or “rules” have come from within the literature, and then discuss some exceptions to these rules.

This article will mostly focus on the log-transformed root mean square of successive R-R interval differences (lnRMSSD), which is the vagal-HRV index used in popular smartphone apps. For several important reasons lnRMSSD appears to be the preferred HRV parameter for athlete monitoring.

1. It can be easily calculated without specialized software
2. It is reflective of cardiac-parasympathetic modulation
3. It demonstrates greater reliability compared to spectral measures (e.g., HF power)
4. It can be assessed in only 60 seconds
5. It is less influenced by breathing rate, making it more suitable for field usage

Why a high HRV score is thought to be good and a low HRV score is thought to be bad

HRV-guided endurance training has been shown to be superior to pre-planned endurance training in healthy^1,2 and clinical subjects³ for inducing improvements in aerobic fitness variables. Essentially, training with higher intensity/volume when HRV is at or above baseline appears to elicit greater training adaptations. This results in high (or within baseline) HRV being synonymous with “readiness.”

Acute decreases in HRV have been reported to occur following intense endurance training,⁴ resistance training,⁵ and competition.⁶ Therefore, low HRV is commonly thought to provide a reflection of acute fatigue from training or competing.
Where these interpretations can be misleading

Decreased HRV has been observed in a variety of athletes preceding competition as a result of heightened levels of excitement or anxiety.^6,7 Further, lower vagal-HRV has been reported to be favorable in sprinters on the day of a race.⁸

A low HRV score as a result of fatigue also does not necessarily forecast impending reductions in performance. A small case study of 3 high-level tennis players showed that performance markers (VO2 max, single-legged counter-movement jump, and drop jump index) improved following a 30-day overreaching period. The athletes expressed their improved performance at the end of the training program despite showing decreases in RMSSD (between -13 and -49%).⁹

This was also evident in a recent study of ours with a collegiate female soccer team¹⁰ that assessed changes in HRV (weekly mean and weekly coefficient of variation [CV, a reflection of the day-to-day fluctuation in HRV scores]) and perceived wellness in response to weeks of varying training load. During a high-load training week, wellness scores and the HRV weekly mean were lower, and the HRV coefficient of variation was higher. All these changes indicate a higher presence of fatigue.

Having devised and implemented the training program, I interacted with and observed the athletes in terms of behavior, body language, etc. They were definitely experiencing fatigue. However, they all completed workouts of higher volume and intensity in both the weight room and during conditioning sessions. This indicates that they were still able to demonstrate their strength and fitness qualities despite fatigue.

Therefore, in the presence of fatigue reflected by HRV, performance may or may not suffer. HRV will typically show changes before performance decrements and thus may serve as an early warning sign of fatigue accumulation. But do not expect your or your athletes’ performance to be poor based on a low HRV score, as this certainly is not always the case.

Why an increasing trend is thought to always be a good thing

Increases in aerobic fitness have often been associated with increases in cardiac-parasympathetic activity in a variety of individual and team sport athletes. A common observation is that those who improve fitness also improve HRV, while those who do not improve fitness show either no change or even decreases. For example, a study by Buchheit and colleagues¹¹ demonstrated that subjects who improved their 10K run time following a training program also showed a progressive increase in their HRV, while non-responders showed no meaningful changes. Large correlations between changes in HRV and maximum aerobic speed and 10K time trials were found.

A recent study of ours currently in press¹² evaluated how early changes in HRV relate to eventual changes in intermittent running capacity in team-sport athletes. We found that athletes who demonstrated an increase in their HRV weekly mean and/or a decrease in their weekly HRV CV at the halfway point of a 5-week training program improved performance to a greater extent than those showing the opposite HRV changes. In light of studies like these, interpretation of an increasing HRV trend as being a positive response to training has become popular.

Why interpreting an increasing HRV trend as always a good thing can be misleading

Unfortunately, an increasing HRV trend throughout training is not always a good thing and thus should not always be interpreted as such. In fact, several studies have reported increasing HRV trends in overtrained athletes predominately involved in endurance sports. For example, Le Meurr et al.¹³ showed decreased maximal incremental exercise performance and increased weekly HRV mean values in elite endurance athletes following a 3-week overload period, compared to a control group who saw no changes. Following a taper, performance supercompensation was observed along with a return of HRV toward baseline.

Why a decreasing trend is always thought to be a bad thing

The most common response to overload training is a progressive decrease in HRV. This is your typical alarm response to a stressor, where the sympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system is activated. In this situation, resting HR is elevated and HRV decreases. With insufficient recovery time, HRV may not fully recover to baseline before the next training stimulus and thus will result in a downward trend when this cycle is perpetuated. An intense day of training can result in suppressed HRV for up to 72 hours post-exercise.¹⁴ With the higher training frequencies and training volumes often associated with overload periods, it makes sense that HRV will show a decreasing trend. Typically, HRV will respond first with a decreasing trend and performance decrements will follow if the overload period is sustained.

A study by Pichot et al.¹⁵ provides a good example of a decreasing HRV trend in response to overload training. They showed that middle distance runners saw a progressive downward HRV trend (up to -43%) during a 3-week overload period. In week 4, training loads were reduced and HRV recovered and exceeded baseline values.

Why and when a decreasing HRV trend does not necessarily reflect fatigue

Aerobic exercise tends to have a stimulatory effect on parasympathetic modulation, which can be observed in the HRV score the following morning. This is one reason why moderate aerobic exercise is often used as an effective recovery modality. However, exercise intensity is an important mediator of cardiac-parasympathetic responses to the training session. A recent study by Plews and colleagues4 featuring Olympic-level rowers found that training phases of high intensity (e.g., above the second lactate threshold) suppressed HRV, while phases of lower intensities (e.g., below the lactate threshold) increased HRV.

This is important to understand when interpreting an HRV trend over time. Phases involving moderate intensity aerobic work are likely to cause an increasing HRV trend, while phases of high intensity conditioning with minimal low intensity work will cause a decrease. The absence of low intensity aerobic work results in an absence of the stimulatory effects that this training type has on parasympathetic activity.

Further, the high intensity training will be more disruptive to homeostasis as a result of greater metabolic demand. In this situation, a progressive decrease in HRV can occur despite no meaningful increase in levels of fatigue. Therefore, you shouldn’t be alarmed if you observe a decrease in your HRV trend when limiting moderate aerobic work.

Conclusion

Monitoring HRV cannot be done effectively when following a black-and-white approach to trend interpretation (i.e., high = good, low = bad). Further, relying on an HRV score alone to assess training status will prove to be very difficult. HRV changes must always be taken into context, by keeping track of training load, training type/content, lifestyle factors (sleep quality, nutrition, stress, etc), and performance. These variables are complementary and provide a more complete picture of training status.

Users should therefore observe the HRV trend -> analyze in the context of sport and lifestyle demands (i.e., training load and psychometrics) -> determine the meaning of the change -> adjust training or lifestyle factors if necessary according to the goal of the current phase.

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. Kiviniemi, A.M., Hautala, A.J., Kinnunen, H., and Tulppo, M.P. (2007). “Endurance training guided individually by daily heart rate variability measurements.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, 101(6), 743-751.
2. Botek, M., McKune, A.J., Krejci, J., Stejskal, P., and Gába, A. (2013). “Change in Performance in Response to Training Load Adjustment Based on Autonomic Activity.” International Journal of Sports Medicine, 35(6), 482-488.
3. Behrens, K., Hottenrott, K., Weippert, M., Montanus, H., Kreuzfeld, S., Rieger, A., and Stoll, R. (2014). “Individualization of exercise load control for inpatient cardiac rehabilitation: Development and evaluation of a HRV-based intervention program for patients with ischemic heart failure.” Herz.
4. Plews, D.J., Laursen, P.B., Kilding, A.E., and Buchheit, M. (2014). “Heart Rate Variability and Training Intensity Distribution in Elite Rowers.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance.
5. Chen, J.L., Yeh, D.P., Lee, J.P., Chen, C.Y., Huang, C.Y., Lee, S.D., and Kuo, C.H. (2011). “Parasympathetic nervous activity mirrors recovery status in weightlifting performance after training.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25(6), 1546-1552.
6. Edmonds, R.C., Sinclair, W.H., and Leicht, A.S. (2012). “The effect of weekly training and a game on heart rate variability in elite youth Rugby League players.”
7. Morales, J., Garcia, V., García-Massó, X., Salvá, P., Escobar, R., and Busca, B. (2013). “The use of heart rate variability in assessing precompetitive stress in high-standard judo athletes.” Int J Sports Med, 34, 144-151.
8. Merati, G., Maggioni, M.A., Invernizzi, P.L., Ciapparelli, C., Agnello, L., Veicsteinas, A., and Castiglioni, P. (2015). “Autonomic modulations of heart rate variability and performances in short-distance elite swimmers. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 115(4), 825-835.
9. Thiel, C., Vogt, L., Bürklein, M., Rosenhagen, A., Hübscher, M., and Banzer, W. (2011). “Functional overreaching during preparation training of elite tennis professionals.” Journal of Human Knetics, 28, 79-89.
10. Flatt, A.A. and Esco, M.R. “Smartphone-derived heart rate variability and training load in a female soccer team.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. In press.
11. Buchheit, M., Chivot, A., Parouty, J., Mercier, D., Al-Haddad, H., Laursen, P.B., and Ahmaidi, S. (2010). “Monitoring endurance running performance using cardiac parasympathetic function.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, 108(6), 1153-1167.
12. Flatt, A.A., and Esco, M.R. “Evaluating individual training adaptation with smartphone derived heart rate variability in a collegiate female soccer team.” J Str Cond Res. In Press.
13. Le Meur, Y., Pichon, A., Schaal, K., Schmitt, L., Louis, J., Gueneron, J. and Hausswirth, C. (2013). “Evidence of parasympathetic hyperactivity in functionally overreached athletes.” Med Sci Sports Exerc, 45(11), 2061-71.
14. Stanley, J., Peake, J.M., and Buchheit, M. (2013). “Cardiac parasympathetic reactivation following exercise: implications for training prescription.” Sports Medicine, 43(12), 1259-1277.
15. Pichot, V., Roche, F., Gaspoz, J. M., Enjolras, F., Antoniadis, A., Minini, P., and Barthelemy, J.C. (2000). “Relation between heart rate variability and training load in middle-distance runners. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 32(10), 1729-1736.
16. Flatt, A.A. and Esco, M.R. (2014). “Endurance performance relates to resting heart rate and its variability: A case study of a collegiate male cross-country athlete.” J Austral Strength Cond. 22:48-52, 2014.

By John Brumund-Smith

Practice is fascinating to me. Coaches are fascinating to me. While I love going to other coach’s practices, unfortunately, I simply don’t have much time to because I’m at my own practices. However, since I do not coach in the fall, I recently had the time and opportunity to visit some successful Cross Country programs in Lake County, Illinois. This article will compare and contrast their programs and attempt to find out what makes them so successful. I focused primarily on the boys’ programs, since that is where most of my experience in coaching lays.

If you are the type of person who just loves spoilers, scroll down to the bottom of the article to find out how the three teams did at their Sectional Championships. The end of this article will be, in part, a preview of the athletes at the IHSA State Cross Country Championships.

Here is a quick breakdown of the three programs I had the pleasure of following (rankings are from the weeks I visited them):

Grayslake Central High School

• Head Coach: James Centella
• Boys’ and Girls’ programs are combined
• Defending Illinois Class AA Boys State Cross Country Champions
• Boys are ranked 4th in Class AA
• Girls are ranked 15th in Class AA

Lakes Community High School

• Boys’ Head Coach: Travis Shepherd
• Girls’ Head Coach: Keith West
• Boys are ranked 13th in Class AA
• Girls are ranked 6th in Class AA

Lake Zurich High School

• Boys’ Head Coach: JB Hanson
• Boys qualified for State for 8 straight years
• Boys are ranked 4th in Class AAA

The first thing I noticed that all three of these programs had in common was how overwhelmingly positive all of the coaches are with their athletes. Through three different schools, four different head coaches and three different assistant coaches, I never heard a negative word. All forms of communication were positive or corrective in nature. Part of this, perhaps, may have been due to the power of observation, but I do not think so. I have gotten to know all four of those head coaches a bit from coaching against them in the spring. None of them are among the screamers and ragers that are somehow still prevalent in certain high school sports.

The first thing I noticed that all three of these programs had in common was how overwhelmingly positive all of the coaches are with their athletes.

Obviously, the programs shared a lot in common, but they also had their own unique qualities. First, let me go over what happened at each practice before I delve into more specific comparisons.

Grayslake Central High School

The Rams are the defending boys Illinois Class AA State Cross Country Champions, which they won in a landslide, scoring just 54 points. They placed sixth in 2014, 17th in 2013, and 19th in 2011. They return Jack Aho, the defending state champion, along with his brother Matt, who placed seventh at the state meet. The GLC girls placed ninth last year at State.

I met Coach James Centella in the basement of the school just before 5:45 a.m. on a pitch-black Friday morning. Although held during a time when most rational people would much rather still be in their beds, the weather was ideal for distance running: 60 degrees, still, and very fresh after a light rain. The one hindrance, other than the early hour, was the darkness. The rare “black moon” made visibility incredibly difficult. If the team meeting and warmups lasted a little longer than usual, that was OK.

“Announcements, bring it in!” Centella said jovially, as his team milled about in the hallway. Some general announcements followed, about what time the bus left in the morning (6:50 a.m.) and what sort of jobs different athletes had at the meet (getting the tarp, getting the tent, etc.), and information about ordering the conference meet shirt. Coach Centella did not have to hype his team up before a hard day of practice or really speak much at all about what would take place that day. Routine would dictate the practice. As expected, Centella said they would be doing their usual pre-meet day, which meant a 30-35 minute run on their usual path. The exact prescription for each runner was nicely laid out on a printed spreadsheet posted on the team bulletin board.

After the short meeting, the athletes went right outside to the track for a series of stationary exercises like lunges, leg swings, and knee grabs. The activities were social, with the athletes in clumps talking to each other as they went through the motions. Occasionally, some athletes would need some gentle urging to complete the exercises. At the conclusion of the exercises, enough light had peeked through to allow the team to start their run.

Thankfully, Grayslake Central High School is located just across the street from Central Park and the grounds of Grayslake Middle School. The athletes only have to cross one road (very low traffic at 6:00 in the morning, of course), and they can complete the rest of their run on the various trails in the park. There is no set course. Athletes know how many minutes they have to complete, and are able to come up with their own route. Only occasionally do the coaches have to tell an athlete to either speed up, slow down, or get moving entirely. For safety, they are encouraged to run in a group.

During the run, Coach Centella and his assistants trotted around to make sure everybody was on task. For the most part, everything ran very smoothly. Between the boys’ and girls’ teams, there were almost 100 athletes trotting around the park. Because they had different running assignments and started at slightly different times, they trickled back to the track at different times.

Once back at the track, another routine started. There were strides, hurdle drills, and mini-band exercises to be completed. The coaching staff roamed around to supervise, but only occasionally needed to correct or motivate an athlete. “Don’t bend at the waist,” Coach Centella said to an athlete doing a mini-band exercise. “Squat.” While he was helping out some younger athletes with the mini-bands, his studs were running their 100-yard strides on the turf football field. When the athletes were done with their routines, they were free to go, but not before having some watermelon brought by one of the team moms.

As is the case at most practices, the last athletes to leave were the best ones. Ask even a layperson to pick out the best distance runners of the group, and they would almost certainly point at Jack and Matt Aho. Tall, long, and lean, the Aho brothers barely look like they break a sweat, regardless of the pace.

Jack is the defending Illinois Class AA State Cross Country Champion, and holds track bests of 4:08.79 in the mile and 9:00.7 in the 3200-meter run. Matt, who finished seventh at the 2016 State CC meet, has track bests of 4:27.91 in the 1600-meter run and 9:25.05 in the 3200m. The latter time was just 0.33 seconds away from qualifying him for the 2016 Illinois Class AAA State Track & Field Championships, where his brother Jack finished as the runner-up in the 3200 meters. There are different enrollment cutoffs for cross country and track in Illinois, which is the reason that Grayslake Central is in the largest division for track, but the middle division for cross country.

Grayslake Central did not just win the state championship in 2016. They dominated, scoring just 54 points, while runner-up Mahomet-Seymour scored 121. In addition to the Aho brothers, Eli Minsky, currently a junior on the team, earned All-State honors with a 25th place finish. The rest of the team graduated in 2016: John Girmscheid (23rd), Jack Battaglia (26th), Danny Vincent (51st), and Alden Aaberg (108th).

The current crop of Rams has held pretty steady at a fourth-place ranking in the AA, while the girls, who placed ninth at State in 2015, were ranked 10th at the time of my visit. The girls return Megan Girmscheid (39th), Elizabeth Aho (80th), Greta Ruhlman (124th), and Riley Acthemeier (146th) from last year’s ninth-place team.

Going into the championship season, Coach Centella is hoping both of his squads can advance to the State Championships, which has become an expectation recently for the Rams.

Lakes Community High School

In their 12-year history, the Eagles have only had one team qualify for the IHSA State Cross Country Championships. Their girls’ team qualified for the AA meet in 2008, the second year Illinois moved to three classes. The boys have never qualified as a team, but have had two individuals qualify in their history: Blake Franson (2008) and Ryan Prais (2009, 2010, 2012).

A little under nine hours after leaving the Grayslake Central practice, I got a chance to see how their new rivals at Lakes Community High School practiced. The rivalry between the two schools stems from the fact that they are both charter members of Illinois’ newest conference, the Northern Lake County Conference.

While the Lakes boys’ and girls’ teams technically run two separate programs, they are more apart than different. Because they have no assistant coaches, Travis Shepherd (head boys’) and Keith West (head girls’) basically act as each other’s assistants, in addition to running their own programs. Lakes is the only team in the new conference with two head cross country coaches. All the other teams have one head coach who oversees both programs. So, in a sense, Lakes is fortunate, though their situation is certainly not ideal.

The team meets in a lower hallway in the athletic wing of the school. They started with a quick meeting, then headed outside to what had continued to be a great day for running: 64 degrees and slightly cloudy. Both programs started out with an easy jog, followed by dynamic stretching led by their respective coaches.

Like the practice at Grayslake Central, today’s practice was simply a pre-meet day for the athletes at Lakes. Some of the varsity members were not even at practice, having been given the option to run on their own. The remaining members took off on their 2.5-mile “pre-meet” loop, which started on the gravel trail winding around the side of the school and took them across Grass Lake Road to a series of athletic fields. Shepherd and West trotted around with them, monitoring the athletes who needed to be monitored and shouting out general encouragement and jokes.

As the athletes got back from their easy jog, they again separated into their groups: boys and girls. Lakes is blessed with a slight hill just outside their meeting place. The boys performed three strides and then a series of “wicket drills” up the hill. Coach Shepherd used verbal cues to help correct their form as they ran the wicket drills over the mini-hurdles, crediting the cues he learned from current York coach, Charlie Kern.

Coach West held a different philosophy for the girls, having them sprint down the hill while focusing on lengthening their stride and feeling fast. “Happy runners mean fast runners,” he said, smiling as the girls sprinted down the slight decline.

The Lakes program in general is an interesting blend of philosophies and compromises. Clearly, the closeness of the boys’ and girls’ programs has its advantages, but acting as each other’s assistant coaches can come with downsides. For example, the day after my visit, the varsity athletes competed at the Peoria Invitational (on the state meet course), while the junior varsity competed at Antioch’s Harland Invitational. This meant that Coach West would not be able to accompany his varsity girls to the Peoria Invitational, where they finished a best-ever second place. Instead, he went with both JV teams to Antioch. Since Coach West has kids and Coach Shepherd does not, it made sense for Shepherd to take the three-hour trip to Peoria while West took the 15-minute trip to Antioch’s course.

The two coaches are under no obligation to mimic each other as far as workouts or philosophies go, but an almost-inevitable shift to the center has been occurring in the three years they have coexisted as head coaches. Being exposed to another coach’s training methods and styles can help any coach realize what they are doing well and what they can do better. (You will note that this is part of the point of this article.)

A coach exposed to another coach’s training methods and styles realizes what they can do better. Share on X

Both coaches are convinced they have the best team in the school’s short history. The girls are hoping to qualify as a team for the first time since 2008, Coach West’s first year as head coach. Both programs also have potentially the best athlete in the school’s history. Senior Jeremy Wallace ran a school record 15:09.8 at the Peoria Invitational, while freshman Olivia Schmitt has come awfully close to the girls’ record.

Lake Zurich High School

Few teams in recent Illinois history have had the sustained success of the Lake Zurich Bears. The boys have not lost a dual meet since 2007, notching 66 wins in a row. They have also qualified for the IHSA State Championships eight years in a row, topping out with a runner-up finish in 2010. Last year they placed fifth, and return their top four athletes in 2016.

Practice at Lake Zurich High School starts in a cramped classroom with only 15 desks for the almost 50-strong team. If not for the throngs of short-short wearing kids seated all over the floor, you might confuse it with an actual class. Every athlete holds a binder and a pencil. Their coach, JB Hanson, sits on the desk in front and whistles to get their attention. By now, the athletes know the drill. They open up their binders, ready their pencils, and pay attention.

At least one day a year, each senior has the opportunity to present to the team. The binders are not only logbooks for the daily workouts, but a place where the athletes take notes on the presentations given by the seniors and coaches at the start of practice.

Today was senior Andrew Rifkin’s day to present. He gave four quotes and his interpretation of the quotes, and related each of the quotes to his own experience at Lake Zurich High School. Here are his quotes:

“Failure is just a fork in the road. You determine which fork to take.”

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” – Henry Ford

“Never let your head hang down, never give up and sit down in grief. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” – Satchel Paige

“The pain of regret is far worse than the pain of discipline.”

Andrew’s teammates took notes as he spoke. Getting almost 50 high school boys crammed up against each other in a crowded space to be quiet and listen is a small miracle. Andrew’s explanations of what the quotes meant to him were the best part of his presentation. When relating the Henry Ford quote, Andrew shared a personal story about how he got cut from the golf team his freshman year. He then went out for cross country, and turned the failure of getting cut from golf into the success of being on the cross country team.

Andrew ended the presentation with two open-ended challenges:

“What kind of legacy do you want to leave on the team or on the school in general?”

“How satisfied would you be if your high school career ended today?”

Speeches like that from a senior makes the coach’s job easy. JB Hanson added a couple of his own thoughts to Andrew’s comments, saying, “I would be in the category of not being satisfied with my high school career.” He talked about how he did not work all that hard in high school, but that he was unaware that he was not working hard.

He then went over personal best times from yesterday’s timed mile, noting that 22 athletes recorded their all-time bests. After he read each name, the team gave two claps in unison. Hanson made a special note of a few of them, mentioning one athlete who had a 22-second PR, and another who was only the third freshman in his coaching career to break 5:00 in the mile. Hanson then covered general information (practice time on Friday, meet stuff for Saturday, plans for the rest of the week) before sending the athletes out for the day’s activities.

The practice started outside, as it does every day at Lake Zurich, with a one-mile warmup on the track. That was followed by the captains leading some simple drills like toe walks, ankle walks, lunges, leg swings, etc. The track was busy with activity. In addition to the boys’ and girls’ cross country programs, the football team was practicing on the turf, and the soccer team was preparing for their game later in the afternoon. The boys dodged Gatorade jugs as they trotted their way around the track. On a 54-degree, windy, drizzly, overcast day, hundreds of athletes remained focused on the task at hand. Such is sports.

Stud athletes are like racehorses; they will go too hard if there’s no jockey up there pulling on the reins.

After the warmup, all of the members of the team headed off on an easy run, having looked up their mileage and paces on the wall of the team room earlier in practice. Almost all the athletes were prescribed between 5 and 8 miles. Tomorrow, the athletes will run just as far, but as part of a Fartlek workout. Knowing that, there was good motivation to not run too fast today, which is a bigger problem for top programs than running too slow is. Stud athletes are like racehorses; they will go too hard if there’s no jockey up there pulling on the reins.

And boy does Lake Zurich have some studs. One interesting aspect I noticed during the team meeting, which could certainly be inconsequential, was that the best athletes on the team (who also happened to be seniors) were seated on the floor. On many teams, the studs or the seniors would insist on sitting at the desks. Certainly, the desks are more comfortable and might be seen as a status symbol, like sitting in the back of the bus. But those kinds of symbols were apparently unimportant at Lake Zurich. The studs sat on the floor.

How those studs became studs is a fairly interesting story. For four years, opposing coaches have known about current senior, Matt Pereira. The long-legged, always-smiling Pereira finished as the runner-up at the 2013 North Suburban Conference Cross Country Championships as a freshman, then finished 69th at State. In track that year, he got even better, winning Conference in the 1600-meter and 3200-meter runs, then earning his first All-State honor by placing eighth in the 3200-meter run at the State Championships. Anybody who runs a 9:12.66 in the 3200 meters as a freshman has to be considered a prodigy.

Pereira took another step up as a sophomore in cross country, placing third at the State Championships with a 3-mile time of 14:22. He was joined at the state meet by two other members of the Lake Zurich class of 2017: twin brothers Kyle and Brian Griffith. Kyle ran cross country as a freshman, but Brian did not. Both went out for baseball in the spring of their freshmen year, but got cut and joined the track team. After running a 2:04 in the 800-meters, Brian realized he had some running talent and decided to give cross country a try in the fall of his sophomore year.

Brian Griffith finished fourth just among Lake Zurich underclassmen at 2014 IHSA State Cross Country Championships—Pereira, his brother Kyle, and freshman Pat Burns all beat him. Five months later, during their sophomore track season, Brian had passed them all and was winning invitationals.

That was a scary thought for area coaches. Matt Pereira, the kid who had dominated the conference the past year, might not even be the best runner in the sophomore class at Lake Zurich. Brian Griffith and Matt Pereira both made the IHSA State Track & Field Championships individually and on a relay that spring. Griffith placed 11th in the 800-meter final with a time of 1:55.92, while Pereira did not advance out of the 1600-meter prelims. They combined with Kyle Griffith and senior Justin Shim to finish ninth in the 4x800m Relay, with a time of 7:51.30.

Both Griffith brothers made a huge leap their junior year of cross country. After being beaten by Pereira by 84 seconds at the 2014 IHSA State Cross Country Championships, Brian Griffith finished just one second behind his teammate in 2015. Pereira was fifth overall in 14:29, while Griffith was seventh in 14:30. Kyle Griffith improved tremendously as well, taking 45 seconds off his 2014 time to finish 21st overall in a time of 14:44. Lake Zurich had three of the seven best juniors in the entire state.

Matt Pereira made history a few weeks after the State Championships, but for a bit it looked like the long high school season had cashed him out. He finished a disappointing 67th at the Nike Cross Midwest Regional Championship. But a week later, Pereira rebounded in a major way by finishing seventh at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional Championships, running an amazing time of 15:13.6 on the hilly 5000-meter course at the University of Wisconsin Parkside. That performance qualified him for the most prestigious high school cross country race in the United States, the Foot Locker National Championships, where he finished 24th in the nation. Drew Hunter, the Virginia Prep athlete who set the indoor high school record in the mile with a time of 3:57.81 a few months later, won the race going away.

All three juniors made the State Championships individually in the spring of 2016: Brian Griffith (800m), Kyle Griffith (1600m), and Matt Pereira (3200m). Brian Griffith was once again the top athlete, running 1:54.64 to make the 800-meter final, where he finished 10th.

Coach JB Hanson has been there through it all. There were precious few meets remaining as I visited his practice; just Conference, Sectionals and, almost assuredly, State.

How Do These Programs Compare to One Another?

What you have read so far is just a snapshot of one practice from each program. Below, I will compare and contrast how the programs operate on a daily basis.

Coaches

All three schools have a different setup for their coaching staffs. Grayslake Central completely combines their boys’ and girls’ programs. James Centella is the head coach for both programs, and both of his assistants help with both programs as well. Lakes has a separate head coach for boys and girls, but no assistants—they’re it. Travis Shepherd is the head coach for the boys, while Keith West is the head coach for the girls. Both act as each other’s assistant. Lake Zurich has perhaps the most desirable coaching scenario, with each program having their own head coach and their own assistant. The two programs help each other out here and there, but ultimately, they run independently.

Theory

Coach Centella at Grayslake Central said he gets a lot of his workout and training ideas from Drew Hunter’s coach, Tom Schwartz. This is the second time I have mentioned Drew Hunter in this article, so he must be pretty good. Basically, they do two workouts a week at GLC. If they have two meets that they run hard in, those are their only workouts for the week. Whether they run hills or not is dependent on where the championship meets will be at the end of the season. This year, with nothing but pancake-flat courses on the horizon, the need to train for hills is minimal. Part of their philosophy includes some top speed running. Many coaches believe that the “strides” their athletes do before or after a run constitute top speed running. Coach Centella will occasionally have his athletes do 6x40m top speed with an easy one-lap recovery jog.

Travis Shepherd at Lakes runs a relatively standard Jack Daniels program, with some Greg McMillan wrinkles thrown in. They were able to get a grant from the Lakes Booster Club for 22 heart rate/GPS monitors, which help them immensely in their training. Lakes does what Shepherd calls “two and a half” workouts a week, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with meets on Saturdays. Their long runs max out at 90 minutes for the elite athletes, and they do a long run at least every 10 days. Shepherd believes in running V02 intervals in October, which would include around 3 miles’ worth of repeats at race pace with full recovery. On “easy” days, Shepherd will sometimes have his athletes do lactic acid tolerance training, 4x300m repeats at half-mile pace (45-50 seconds) with a 400m jog recovery. They also lift weights twice a week, mainly doing mini-band work and power lifts. Coach Shepherd was kind enough to share a two-week training block with me.

Keith West coaches the Lakes girls using what he calls a “watered-down” version of the training he learned at Loyola University (Chicago) from his old coach, Gordon Thomson. He adapts their training every year. This year, he started their hard workouts a month later in the season, which has shown immediate benefits. The athletes seemed fresher in their early-season races this year than they had in the past. West also has the top athletes running about 25 percent more than they have in the past, but that is due to those athletes upping their mileage in the summer. He states that their off-season work was better this past summer than it has ever been, which is a big reason the Eagle girls are having such a remarkable season. One of his favorite workouts is running a tempo on Wednesdays, with the girls doing four or five 1200m repeats with about 90 seconds of rest. They do not lift much, and instead do injury-prevention circuits.

When I asked Lake Zurich coach, JB Hanson, about their training, he replied, “We’re a Paavo program.” Paavo, of course, is Paavo Nurmi, the “Flying Finn” who won nine Olympic gold medals and set 22 world records. Part of the Paavo program means Coach Hanson will assign the athletes to different groups, levels A-N, depending on their ability. He has a bigger range of athletes than most teams, by virtue of the fact that his top athlete finished 24th in the nation last year. Unlike Grayslake Central and Lakes, he bases their distance runs on miles, not minutes. They complete an average of three workouts a week once they have a base under them.

Pre-Run and Post-Run

Thankfully, most distance coaches have seen the value of strength and coordination in their athletes, and have adapted their practice routines accordingly.

All the practices I visited fell under the “easy run” moniker. Grayslake Central and Lakes both had pre-meet days, while Lake Zurich had a Critical Threshold (CT) day. Yet, while the norm used to be for coaches to just let their athletes trot their miles and then send them home, all three programs I visited did some sort of balance, coordination, functional strength, and dynamic stretching activity both before and after practice. All had some sort of stride or race-pace running. None of them did any static stretching. Thankfully, most distance coaches have seen the value of strength and coordination in their athletes, and have adapted their practice routines accordingly.

Facilities

Grayslake Central is located right next to a park and a middle school, which both provide lots of grass and paved trails. They only need to cross one street to get to a good chunk of prime running space, so that is where they spend the majority of their time. Lakes has perhaps an even better setup. They have a crushed-gravel trail wrapping around on the west side of their high school, and plenty of athletic fields surrounding the school grounds as well. In fact, they have the ability to field a very nice cross country course right on their school grounds. Just outside the door where they meet as a team, they also have a beautiful hill at about a 5-percent incline. The hill, which has both a paved and a grass section, is wonderful for all sorts of training. Lake Zurich has the least-advantageous setup, being located right in the middle of suburbia. But they have a lot of field space on their campus as well, plus plenty of delightful neighborhoods in the surrounding area suitable for running in.

Dual Meets

Unfortunately, all three programs have to deal with constant dual meets on their schedule. Most high school athletic programs follow a somewhat similar schedule to what the college programs in their sport follow. For example, high school and college football teams play one game a week. High school and college basketball teams play two and occasionally three games a week. But in cross country, when most college programs are running one race every other week, these high school athletes are expected to race twice a week. Though these weekday dual meets can have some advantages, ultimately, most coaches who are subjected to them feel they are a chore.

Grayslake Central and Lakes are both in the newly established Northern Lake Country Conference. The teams are required to run four duals meets (some are actually triangular meets) against each other in order to determine a “dual meet” champion. Lake Zurich belongs in the North Suburban Conference, which is where Lakes was until the conference split up in the summer of 2016. The conference used to have two different seven-team divisions, and the dual meets would determine the division champions. Now there are eight teams in the conference, and no divisions. The dual meets, to the dismay of basically every single coach, count for 25 percent of the conference championship. In theory, your team could win the North Suburban Conference meet and not be crowned conference champions.

Lake Zurich has a 66-game winning streak in dual meets. They run their athletes hard when they have to in order to win, and at other times run the meets they figure they can win more easily as a tempo workout. Grayslake Central operates basically the same way. They only run hard if they have to, especially since they only run two workouts per week, and a hard meet counts as a workout. Lakes generally takes the same approach, and will sometimes even rest their varsity from an invitational.

Extras

Being part of a team is, of course, more than just workouts and exercise. That is a training group, not a team. A high school team, especially, needs ways to keep the athletes interested. All three programs I covered have active Twitter accounts, which has become essential in our internet age. (You can follow Grayslake Central, Lakes, and Lake Zurich at these links.)

Grayslake Central and Lakes both have “theme days” at practice, where the athletes spice it up by dressing in pajamas, mismatched clothes, neon, or as twins. Fun apparel days were mentioned in my article, “The Power of Apparel in Sport,” so I am happy to see such days working so well for top programs. Lake Zurich runs a little bit more serious of a program, and does not do apparel days. They do, however, have the freshman boys face off against the freshman girls in a dance-off the Monday after the conference meet. The freshman boys, Coach Hanson noted, have dominated the previous battles.

There are dozens of other little nuances here and there that make each of these programs unique, from spaghetti dinners to fundraisers to team outings, to a multitude of other memorable activities most athletes are certain to remember more than their average mile pace.

All three programs I visited were very comparable in certain ways and very unique in others. All the coaches are constantly tweaking their programs to try to get the best and most enjoyable experience for their athletes. Just following them around for one practice was extremely entertaining for me, and I thank them all tremendously for agreeing to be a part of it. Hopefully, all of you reading this article can take something from one of these programs to help make your own team better.

The Results

And now for the results:

Conference

In the first year of the Northern Lake County Conference, the Grayslake Central boys scored a dominating victory with just 25 points. The Rams swept the top three spots, with Jake Aho (14:14), Matt Aho (14:32), and Eli Minsky (15:14). Lakes finished second with 52 points, led by Jeremy Wallace (15:15) in fifth place. Nine of the top twelve places in the eight-team conference went to athletes from Grayslake Central and Lakes. On the girls’ side, Grant Community High School won with 41 points, while Lakes earned second with 59 points, and Grayslake Central came in third with 74 points. Lakes freshman Olivia Schmitt (18:19) finished third, followed in fourth by Megan Girmscheid (18:28) of Grayslake Central.

Grayslake Central was not the only team I covered that dominated their conference meet with a 1-2-3 finish. Lake Zurich scored just 21 points at the North Suburban Conference meet, with Brian Griffith (15:17), Matt Pereira (15:22), and Kyle Griffith (15:31) sweeping the top three spots. Collin Luell (15:45) of Zion-Benton was the only athlete to break up a 1-2-3-4 Lake Zurich sweep, beating LZ’s Patrick Burns (15:47) for fourth place.

Sectionals

The goal for all of the programs I covered was to qualify for the IHSA State Championships, which is only possible by finishing among the top five teams at the Sectional Championships. All the teams I covered first made the Sectional by qualifying out of the Regional Championships.

Grayslake Central and Lakes were both placed in the Belvidere Sectional of Class AA, easily the most loaded Sectional on both the boys’ and girls’ sides. For the boys, four of the top seven and nine of the top 24 ranked teams in the state would compete at Belvidere. Grayslake Central came in seeded fourth in the state, but second in the Sectional behind Crystal Lake Central. Lakes came in ranked 11th in the state and fifth in the Sectional. The girls’ Sectional looked to be even tougher, hosting five of the top six ranked teams in the state! Lakes was ranked sixth in the state and fifth in the Sectional, while Grayslake Central was ranked 14th in the State and seventh in the Sectional. Only 25 teams total would qualify for the State Championships, and the Belvidere Sectional for both boys and girls had nine of the top 25 ranked teams in the state. Just five from each would qualify.

Lake Zurich would face some stiff competition in their Class AAA Sectional in Waukegan as well. The Bears were ranked fourth overall in the State, just ahead of the fifth- and sixth-ranked teams from Hersey and Prospect, respectively. Overall, the Waukegan Sectional was not as deep in its division as the Belvidere Sectional though, with only five teams ranked in the top 25.

The girls were up first on Saturday, October 29, at the Belvidere Sectional. With so many top-ranked teams, there was little room for error. Certainly, this was a race the Lakes girls would like to have back. Needing to finish in the top five to advance, they finished eighth, just 14 points away from their State dreams. Adding to the sting was the fact that their top runner, Olivia Schmitt, missed qualifying as an individual by one place. She ran 18:19 to place 15th overall, and finished so close to the final individual qualifier—Sophia Oury of Hampshire—that she could have almost reached out and touched her.

Which girls’ teams earned that fifth-place spot and a trip to the State Championships? Grayslake Central. Despite having their top athlete, Elizabeth Aho (yes, she’s related to Jack and Matt), finish in just 28th place, the Ram ladies crammed all of their top five in the first 57 runners to sneak away with a team score of 212. They narrowly edged out Boylan Central Catholic (214), Woodstock (214), and Lakes (226) for that coveted fifth spot.

The boys’ race would be just as exciting, especially if your last name was Aho. Jack (14:36) and Matt (14:54) once again smoked the competition for a 1-2 finish. Their teammates did their jobs as well, and Grayslake Central came away with their second Sectional team title in a row. Just like their female counterparts, the Lakes boys came in seeded fifth in the Sectional and left with an eighth place finish. The silver living for the boys, however, was that senior Jeremy Wallace’s 12th place finish in 15:35 earned him a trip to the State Championships, just the third athlete in program history to do so.

Over at the AAA Sectional in Waukegan, the Lake Zurich boys once again imitated Grayslake Central by finishing 1-2 individually. Brian Griffith edged out teammate Matt Pereira, this time 14:51 to 15:00. Kyle Griffith finished sixth in 15:14, and the Bears easily took home their second Sectional title in a row with a score of 79.

Both the boys’ and girls’ teams from Lakes ended their season three places away from their ultimate goal. Despite the outcome from the most difficult Sectional in the state, it would be hard to argue against both programs experiencing their most successful year ever. True, the Lakes girls made the State Championships as a team in 2008, but was that collection of girls better than the current crop? At Sectionals on the same course back in 2008, the top five Lakes girls ran 18:50, 18:51, 19:27, 19:57, and 20:53 (average time 19:35). This year’s team ran 18:19, 19:20, 19:54, 20:00 and 20:03 (average time 19:31). The 2008 team finished third, even though there were only four Sectionals back then. The 2016 team finished eighth, with the teams in AA spread out over five Sectionals instead of four.

Evidence of the distance runners in Illinois getting better can be shown on the guys’ side as well. Ryan Prais of Lakes, who qualified for State individually in 2009, 2010, and 2012, got faster on the State meet course every year, but got a worse place every year, too! He ran 15:31 for 16th in 2009, 15:22 for 35th in 2010, and 15:19 for 40th in 2012.

With coaches learning from each other, sharing and copying ideas, and helping nourish what has become an incredible running community, I hope this great sport will continue to flourish, and the times will continue to drop.

Onto State

The IHSA State Cross Country Championships are quite the spectacle. Hosted at idyllic Detweiller Park in Peoria, Illinois, the meet has seen the exploits of such running greats as Craig Virgin, Tom Graves, Jim Spivey, Donald Sage, Jorge Torres, Matt Withrow, Evan Jager, Chris Derrick, and Lukas Verzbicas. On Saturday, November 5, it will host this year’s crop of exceptional talent.

Jack Aho of Grayslake Central has a great chance to repeat at the IHSA Class AA State Cross Country champion. Brian Griffith and Matt Pereira of Lake Zurich should both contend for the individual title in Class AAA. Their senior-laden teams have a chance to earn a trophy by finishing in the top three. Many of the athletes profiled in this article will have a chance to earn All-State honors by finishing in the top 25 in their division.

Girls’ results can be found here, while boys’ results can be found here.

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

Football—sorry, soccer (that word always sticks in the throat) —is the global game. It is the most popular sport in the world, with genuine global appeal. Everyone stops for the World Cup, and it is estimated that 600-700 million people watch the World Cup final.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a footballer, but it turned out that I’m a bit crap at football. So, instead, I decided to combine my natural affinity for science-based subjects at school with my passion for sport. I studied sports science, and ultimately became a strength and conditioning coach. If asked as I was completing my education, I would have described my dream job as being a sports scientist for the famous Rangers Football Club of Glasgow, Scotland. What could be better than training the players of the team you idolised as a child, taking them through warmups on match day, and having a front-row seat in the dugout on match day?

In my short career as a strength coach, I have worked in football and rugby, and I currently work with Olympic and international athletes in athletics, rowing, and squash. I seem to have moved away from football in recent years. This was not a conscious decision. However, it was a conscious decision to seek out opportunities to work with athletes at increasingly higher levels of performance, and in sports and environments where physical preparation, the application of science, and the applied knowledge of best practices were at the forefront of athletic development.

This opening preamble sets the scene for the reason why, just today, I was once again dismayed to see another “strength” training video from the world of elite football. (Actually, the video is two to three months old, but it only just made its way onto my social media radar tonight.)

The Need for Better Training in Football

I assume that the majority of readers are based in North America and, therefore, are not perhaps familiar with the Juventus Football Club. Juve, also known as The Old Lady ([La] Vecchia Signora) is the most successful team in Italian football and one of the most successful teams in European—and, therefore, basically World—football. The team is the elite of the elite and crème de la crème, when it comes to the realm of football. Their black-and-white-striped kit is instantly recognisable and unmistakable.

Aspiring coaches, sports scientists, and players would eagerly seek out and follow the example they set: “If it’s good enough for footballing superstars like Gianluigi Buffon and Gonzalo Higuaín, then it’s what I must be doing.” It is quite frustrating, therefore, to once again see such seemingly low-level training being promoted by the elite of world football.

Video 1: Juventus Football Club players participate in a group workout labelled as “At work in the gym.” However, the exercises shown in the video are extremely low-level training exercises more often used in warmups. Football teams need to stop promoting these types of exercises as serious strength training techniques.

And this is not the first time that football has let itself down in such a fashion. My mind immediately jumps back to the famous videos of Atletico Madrid, the finalist in the Champions League (European football’s premier competition) in two out of the last three seasons.

Football appears unwilling to join the modern world of athletic development. Football is a special sport, where athletes apparently do not need to develop basic levels of strength and power.

This is not a war cry for football to take on an exclusively powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting focus. But dressing up an overly elaborate warmup as “functional” strength training is blasphemous to a strength and conditioning coach who loves the “beautiful game.”

There is nothing wrong with many of the exercises in the video. I have used lots of them in warmups, as part of an injury rehabilitation or prevention work. But after a few suspension trainer rows, some hip mobility, and some planks, you can be sure my athletes will then go and do some actual training.

Many knowledgeable strength coaches, sports coaches, and personal trainers are now fully aware of the “con” that is functional training. Any training that improves an athlete’s ability to compete in their sport is functional. So, despite the message first preached by functional gurus, squats, bench presses, and any other barbell exercises are very often functional.

Functional training is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” of training. Everyone knows it’s bullshit, but they don’t want to point it out for fear of being outcast by their kind and/or the gurus. So, they all carry on pretending they can see the “functional” benefits. The big issue with a lot of these so-called functional exercises is that they fail to obey a basic law of training, and that is progressive overload. If the training does not stress the athlete beyond their current capabilities, then there is no stimulus for the body to adapt and improve.

Training must include progressive overload in order for the body to adapt and improve. Share on X

As previously stated, the exercises demonstrated by the Juve players and coaches are not, in and of themselves, bad or wrong. But they are insufficient to develop a world-class footballer for the demands of the game. If that is a Juve “strength” session, they may want to consider including some exercises that actually develop strength: that require their athletes to produce force and overload their neuromuscular system.

Coaches and Trainers Want to Do Serious Training

Football is the beautiful game. It is the most popular sport in the world for good reason. But, it seems to me, as a sports performance practitioner not currently operating in European football, that there are fundamental issues with its philosophies and concepts of athletic development. This problem is not pervasive throughout all of football. I know sports scientists and coaches doing excellent jobs of changing attitude and behaviours, educating, and building strong cultures. But there do appear to be issues with some of the real heavyweights of European and World football in adopting modern, effective training practices.

As an outsider looking in, I believe that the ambitious strength and conditioning coach who wants to work with the best athletes, cultures, and coaching staff, in the highest level environments, would be better off working in sports like American football, rugby, or track. The biggest clubs in European football do not seem to offer an environment for an ambitious, educated, and experienced strength and conditioning coach. There is no possibility of complete job satisfaction and professional fulfilment from having athletes perform glorified warmups and bastardised physio rehab protocols, when they could be working with a prop forward, line backer, or 200-meter sprinter, and doing some serious training.

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

 

In this article, I break down the workout I developed for an athlete featured in Acceleration and Power: Breaking Down the Start. I also include pictures from my initial assessment and from four weeks after he started the program.

Before participating in the training program, his best time on acceleration block 9.2 m was 1.79 seconds. After four weeks of training, his best time was 1.61. (Note: The start used a touch pad and does not include reaction time. When using a touch pad, athletes can begin to push before the thumb releases the start button. The finish transmitter was placed at 10 meters, the watch triggers 0.8 m before the transmitter, and the timed distance was 9.2 m).

I do not directly train this athlete. Some athletes send me videos, and I do an assessment and build a workout for them.

Day 1: Block 10’s (cycle of 2-3 weighted + 1 unweighted)

Day one is form day. We work some actual starts on this day, and the block work is for 10m. This works great when timed with a Freelap system or a Swift Speedlight timer.

With the beams set through an iPad, a coach can get splits for the distance that the athlete runs. When the athlete completes the distance, the coach receives an immediate force/velocity curve. This always helps determine which direction to go for setting up a training program. It also has a reaction function to measure reaction times from a signal, which especially helps in track. We’ve had athletes drop times based only on their improvements from this function.

When starting, the initial push needs to bring the athlete’s torso up by driving hips forward. The push from the back leg should be explosive and powerful. It’s important to have a good push from the back leg to move the center of mass forward. If the athlete pushes from the front, they lose this initial movement that’s so important for sprinters (JB Morin’s research).

My coaching cue is “boom-boom.” Push from the back foot and then the front foot. From this movement, the pelvis starts its job in the acceleration. The pelvis of the swing leg needs to start driving up the torso.

This is the big difference between runners who have a great start and those who have an average start. When the hips drive forward, they create length and space for the foot to land underneath, rather than in front of, the center of mass.

To further help this position, the coach can give a cue to keep the angle of the knee as acute as possible during the drive phase. If the coach is watching from the side or assessing film, the swing leg knee should not stop moving forward before the plant leg’s toe off.

There should be some hang time in the first steps of acceleration. Of course, the fancy arm split will also create forward movement and hang time. At this stage, if the foot lands too far in front, the hamstring has to do the job of the rectus femoris, and true triple extension will not occur. In fact, this is why some people pull their hamstring coming out of the blocks.

After the first (or balance) step, an athlete should strive for hips to reach 60-80 degrees of anteflexion, acute knee angle, a dorsiflexed foot, and free hip up. The knee is still moving forward or suspended at toe off. If the knees are even in the stance phase and the swing leg knee is lower than the stance leg, the athlete lacks stiffness.

All of this happens very fast, so we need to slow the whole process down. I like to take a heavy band, sled, EXER-GENIE, or Run Rocket and make it heavy. When the athlete starts, they focus on thinking they are like a gazelle.

The runner moves the hip up and forward while keeping the swing leg angle between the calf and hamstring tight for as long as possible. The chest should be upright at a 45-60 degree angle. When the leg comes down, the emphasis is to land “behind” the body and drive forward.

The support from the band also allows the athlete to stay low. I like to contrast 2-3 of these runs with a normal acceleration. To shake things up and challenge the runner’s form with various surfaces, the coach can put mats in the area of the start.

If this athlete were training with me, we would add the 1080 Sprint and go three contrasting starts and rotate. I like the heavy work for horizontal force, and the 1080 for smaller amounts of force for the actual start and a free start.

Day 2: Explosion Exercises

Day two is an explosion session where the athlete focuses on his first two steps out of the hole. This runner has a problem getting his chest up, so this is the focus of the session. The Swift SpeedMat would be helpful here to record jump heights.

1. Basic Box Jump

The first exercise is a basic box jump. The athlete finds a box that’s about the height of their mid-shin. They put the front leg of their start on the box which is placed off to the side. The athlete should allow as much dorsiflexion as possible and push the hips back. The amount they bend will depend on how they look in the blocks.

In this runner’s case, I don’t want him to go down very far because he lacks the stiffness to do so. He needs to develop the snap up. So he’ll go down to about 80 degrees (90 is vertical). From there, he initiates the movement with his hips driving forward and snaps his body straight up in the jump. His leg on the ground will drive forward as he tries to bring his knee as high as possible.

To make this drill more difficult, the coach can place a high box diagonally so the second step has to slam down on top of it and then the athlete can drive from that leg also. When they get stronger, they can drop the torso lower.

2. Bound Uphill on Moderate Angle

Another drill is to bound up a hill of moderate angle; parking decks have the perfect angle. I like to add some lateral motion as well. Again, the focus is on hip movement, knee angles, and stepping “behind” the body.

3. Good Morning to a Step

I like this drill because it’s similar to a start regarding hip movement. Keep the weight light to avoid creating slack or poor drivers.

4. Crouch to Stairs

Crouch to stairs is similar to the Good Morning to a step. Start from a bent position and have the athlete work their way up 2 to 3 stairs. They key is the hang time when stepping down to the stair. It is the “foot from above” principle that allows us not to decelerate when trying to accelerate. Watch the first part of this video.

Day 3: Speed Work

So we don’t get away from speed work, I’ll add a day of fly 10’s with some extra drills.

1. Fly 10’s with No Arms for Time

Do fly 10’s with no arms. I call it “hugs not pugs.” This stance forces the athlete to drive to their big toe more. We take time on this as well.

2. Single Leg Cleans

To help drive the pattern of fly 10’s with no arms, add single leg cleans to a toe.

3. High Knee Skips Uphill

High knee skips uphill force the hips to drive the knees up and forward. The skip creates tension in the body between knee lifts and allows time to complete the knee action.

4. Lateral High Knees Uphill

Lateral high knees up a hill are like a Pom line doing the can-can. The height of the ramp pushes for high hip movements, and the angle drives to the big toe.

5. Daily Toe Pops Uphill

Daily toe pops up a hill drills rigidity and ankle stiffness. When an athlete does ankle pops on a flat surface, the bounce allows them to move forward. Or in some cases, they use their neck to help move forward (seahorse). This is not ideal.

To make the drill better, have the athlete keep the ankle rigid on contact. The ankle has to rock forward to create movement. When an athlete does a toe pop up an incline, the ankle stays stiff for the landing but must bend forward to move the energy in the body to propel forward. The athlete can do one or two legs.

At this point, wait until the athlete’s times stop improving. Then do one speed workout in a seven-day period and film the run. Based on this, the coach can make some decisions on what to work on next.

Sprint Acceleration Before and After Photos

Here are the pictures from my initial assessment and post-workout four weeks later. The pictures on the left are the before shots, and the photos on the right are the after shots. Although the surfaces and shoes vary in the videos, all the timing was done on a track with same shoes and weather conditions. All times recorded were using a Freelap timer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about the whole process, come to the Track and Football Consortium IV in Chicago on Dec. 2-3.

To have your workouts customized, check out Slow Speed School.

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Xceleration Sports Performance Labs in Austin, Texas was among the first sites in the US to acquire a 1080 Sprint to evaluate and improve athlete sprint performance. Matthew Neel explains the benefits of the system for speed training.

Xceleration Sports Performance Labs Founder Matthew Neel explains the benefits of the 1080 Sprint.

Transcript

We spent nineteen years developing the most comprehensive speed training program, and in those nineteen years we have never come across something as game changing as the 1080 Sprint.

Our whole business is based on finding what limits an athlete’s speed and finding as many limiting factors as possible and doing everything we can to correct them. The 1080 Sprint allows us to see those things instantaneously. We can see whether it’s a force production problem, whether it is a turnover problem, or whether it’s a peak speed issue and just their movement speed alone.

The 1080 Sprint has really allowed us to expand our teaching and coaching capabilities. The instant feedback and the ability to give cues that we were never able to give before has really been one of the greatest advantages of the 1080 Sprint in our facility.

The ability to not just measure and see what an athlete’s made of, but actually being able to give them real-time cues and being able to change what they’re doing instantaneously as they feel it and see it visually coming back to the screen and looking at it has been a great asset to us.

The 1080 Sprint has allowed us to expand our teaching and coaching capabilities. - Matthew Neel Share on X

For instance, when we are training athletes to run a faster 40-yard dash, we need to see exactly when they are reaching their peak speed, how much power they are producing and where they produce that power. We also like to see how long they’re producing that power. And if we can look inside an athlete’s 40-yard sprint and start to break it down and start to tear apart things and look at, well, they may have hit their peak speed at ten yards, and we need them to hit it at twelve yards, for instance. Or they can only hold their top speed for two or three meters, then we know exactly what area we need to train and develop.

The information that you get back from a 1080 Sprint test is going to give you more data that is applicable to a specific sport of specific position, more comparable than any data that you are going to receive out of typical combine test that we use currently. And used in conjunction with it’s a great tool to look inside that athlete and see what level they can actually play or perform.

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Electronic data is very valuable when it’s easily acquired, consistently used, predictive, and cataloged. The beauty of new technology designed by such companies as Freelap is that they’re created with the sprint coach in mind. As the systems upgrade, coaches become more informed about their athletes’ progress.

A coach who commits to the process over several seasons will create an environment where everything that was done at the track is accounted for during training and life outside of practice. This culture of accountability will lessen the number of injuries, subpar performances, and the gap between potential and actual personal bests.

Improve Performance

Increased expectations improve performance. With electronic timing, a savvy coach can point to practice run times and show an athlete how specific race performances are tied directly to individual training paces. If the athlete cannot consistently hit the necessary intensities in practice, they will not be able to hit certain goals later in the competitive or championship phases of the season.

When all athletes on a team are measured, everyone is held accountable for what they are, or are not, doing. Accurate timing of every repetition combined with realistic expectations helps athletes stay on task. Accountability can prevent sprinters in a training group from hiding in a slower pack or sandbagging until the last few repetitions.

No matter the percentage of effort, it’s critical sprinters hit the expected times in practice. As proven by research, if an athlete throws off an entire workout by running the incorrect effort, far-reaching negative ramifications can occur. It can mess up the training day, the next day, and even the next meet.

If runners are training under a bi-polar system that calls for a 70% effort on a recovery run day, and they go out and blast 90% effort, they won’t be able to regenerate properly. Most likely, the eve of the recovery runs will be too tough, and the body will be so exhausted, it will take more days than planned to recuperate from multiple high-intensity sessions.

On the other hand, if the sprint group is supposed to run a maximum velocity workout by hitting intensities that are at least 93% effort to create adaptations for speed, a coach can use less than optimal times to encourage athletes to move faster.

Intervene During Sessions

Coaches sometimes have athletes who are workout warriors. These sprinters have a “never say die” attitude and will run through a brick wall for their coach or team.

Many coaches were raised under the old school mentality of toughness, never complaining, and having a “do or die” leadership style. Combining a coach and athlete who are both super tough can lead to what can be called a “harmonious disaster.” It becomes a harmonious disaster because neither side sees the potential pitfalls when training. Both are willing to sacrifice future great performances at the altar of toughness.

Using a timing system helps coaches relinquish their grip on completing a workout no matter how ugly the intervals look on the stopwatch. It can be difficult for a coach to stop a session once it’s begun. However, if the coach is trying to target performance in practice, and an athlete fails to hit the expected effort, the coach needs to decide how to proceed.

Does the coach increase the rest, reduce the number of intervals, or stop the workout entirely? These questions can be answered based on a myriad of factors. The coach needs to have a conversation with the athlete who’s not hitting their times to figure out why. Could there be a hidden illness or injury?

If these questions are not answered, both the coach and the athlete risk making matters worse. If the coach uses a timing system, the decision about whether to adjust the training session becomes a moot point.

Typically, if a hardworking consistent performer fails to hit an appropriate pace for three intervals in a row, it’s wise to drastically reduce or wholly shut down the workout for the day.

Train Groups

When training many sprinters, catching the times of all athletes as they cross the finish line of a training interval is one of the biggest challenges of coaching. Even the most experienced stopwatch operator will struggle to capture all of the splits for each interval.
Freelap’s new device, the Freelap Relay Coach BLE & Tripod, captures many performances simultaneously, uploads the times directly to a cloud or database, and sends the data directly to an iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.

 

Before this innovation, electronically timing large groups was difficult at best. Now coaches no longer need to furiously scribble down times between repetitions. The Relay allows a coach to spend more time talking with their athletes throughout the workout and significantly cuts the time it takes to set up the next flight of sprinters.

If a coach has a limited number of staff members and no electronic timing, their only option is to hold the stopwatch. Electronic timing ensures that everyone’s results are tabulated. With longer intervals, it’s not a huge issue to be off by a tenth or two. With short intervals like 10, 20, and 30 meters, accuracy becomes much more important.

When sprinters bury themselves in a pod of athletes, it’s difficult to catch a dramatic fall off during practice. Coaches who review the data in real time during recovery periods between intervals can make individual and correct choices about what to do when a practice seems to go off the rails.

In my experience, Freelap Relay grabs all the times almost instantly and removes as a factor the speed of a coach’s trigger finger. A coach can accurately evaluate significant figure deviations among athletes in a training group. Some coaches could argue that they’d just have the athletes run individually. But even with short intervals, this is time consuming and reduces the competitive boost athletes get from pushing one another down the track as they run side by side.

Train Individually and Coach Remotely

Athletes occasionally have to train away from their coach. Some are even self-trained. Electronic timing may be most valuable when an athlete trains remotely due to an international schedule or family vacation.

Electronic timing may be most valuable when an athlete trains remotely.

Electronic timing works as a second set of digital eyes to help a sprinter keep tabs on their efforts. Feedback is imperative to assure the intended quality is met so the sprinter doesn’t go too fast or too slow.

Professional camps like ALTIS, MVP, and HSI have to contend with athletes training a great distance away from their coaches. It’s difficult for an athlete to get accurate data when trying to start and stop a watch on their wrist at exactly the right moment.

Electronic timing allows the coach to remotely access results in real time during long distance training or competition. Coaches can track an athlete’s training, make suggestions for upcoming practice sessions, and talk to the athlete about concrete aspects of their training.

Assess Technique and Event Drills

The best coaches in the world have the ability to use their naked eyes as if they were high definition slow motion cameras. These coaches are also excellent communicators.

Some coaches have become videographers or stopwatch heroes. Using a watch or camera erects an imaginary wall that detracts from the visceral experience. When a coach has their eyes up, they can take in every step. A coach can often immediately tell if an interval was run at the right speed just by looking at the sprinter’s biomechanics and hearing their cadence off the ground.

If a coach is race modeling or doing technical drill runs, watching becomes even more important. Race modeling and technical runs are very taxing on a sprinter’s central nervous system. It matters for the coach to focus on the athlete, making sure they’re executing the drills to perfection and offering feedback. Electronic timing frees up the coach’s eyes to make the most of every moment they’re on the track with their athletes.

Measure Progress and Collect Data

Coaches will quickly see trends in training when they create databases of all athlete times from daily training sessions. Coach Holler has used Record, Rank, and Publish as program staple for decades. Every day his athletes see, within their own program, where they rank next to their peers. Coach Holler believes this helps motivate his athletes during what can be a very long indoor/outdoor season for Illinois high school kids.

The trends help show what athletes typically produce on a given day or week in training and help predict the end of season outcomes. The data gives a glimpse of what to expect from future workouts and performances. Narrowing down what can be expected in the near term helps guide the coach in what should happen in future training or event selection.

Data collection helps the coach and athlete know whether they’re on, ahead, or behind schedule from previous seasons. A coach can also use this information to help sell rookies on how they compare in training to successful athletes who have come before them.

Having a date base to monitor progress gives an athlete a statistical roadmap for what’s required to run an All State, All American, or Olympic standard performance. The digital road map gives some insight on what it will take to achieve greatness, and this knowledge can be empowering. The information also helps set up daily goals. A sprinter, for example, can apply the data to set paces for future longer sprints like the 400-dash or 800-meter run.

All of the acquired data should be cross-referenced with data and charts developed by other coaches who have done the intellectual heavy lifting. The charts of Daniels, Mann, McMillian, Purdy, and Winckler are mentioned throughout the Sprinter’s Compendium.

Eventually, a coach will have a database to guide informed decisions instead of a gut feeling. Date becomes predictive, and the coach becomes a statistical soothsayer.

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The Transfer of Physiological Training Effects

While the activities encompassing strength training and endurance training are substantially different in technique and movement patterns, they have a direct link where the learned adaptations of one can have positive influences on the other.

Strength training improves an endurance athlete’s work economy and enhances peripheral blood circulation for better perfusion of oxygen during local muscle contraction. By increasing the absolute strength of muscles, an endurance athlete can increase the efficiency of the muscles; this allows for operation under low levels of blood circulation common in intense exercise.

A direct transfer of learning from strength training also improves endurance capacity by having a positive effect on the growth of slow-twitch muscle fibers and increasing the oxidative energy in local muscle mitochondria.

For muscles involved in both activities, strength training increases tendon stiffness and the muscles’ elastic properties. This transfer increases storage capacity and function during the eccentric contractions of running mechanics.

Also, hormonal responses to training are directly tuned to the intensity, duration, and type of exercise being performed. Strength training’s anabolic effect combined with the catabolic effect of endurance training sometimes lead to a negative transfer of learning. The correct prescription ratio of strength-endurance is key to maximizing hormones’ positive effect in training.

Theories: Identical Elements and Transfer-Appropriate Processing

There are two theories about why positive transfer occurs.

Under the identical elements theory, the degree to which two tasks are similar determines the efficacy of transfer. These elements can be abstract, like an athlete’s mental state, or grounded, like the specific characteristics of a skill movement pattern.

The second theory is transfer-appropriate processing. This refers to the similarity of cognitive processing between two tasks. Examples include dual-task, rapid decision-making, and attention control.

Although strength and endurance training are very dissimilar activities, the identical elements theory does apply physiologically. Transfer-appropriate processing may have a role in strength training’s cognitive effects on endurance performance, especially when hormonal influences are considered.

Transfer of learning occurs when prior motor skill acquisition impacts subsequent motor learning, positively or negatively. Positive transfer occurs when previous learning experience allows for easy facilitation of learning a new skill or performing within a new context. It’s theorized that positive transfer occurs because of an already established motor pathway as it applies to a similar skill and/or similar performance framework.

The overhand throw of a baseball, for example, positively transfers to the overhand throw of a football. Although the throws are not identical, the motor firing sequence is similar, and learning one after the other benefits from positive transfer.

Under the identical elements theory, positive transfer can also apply to training adaptations in endurance athletes. The idea is that physical training enhances the performance capacity of untrained muscles in a generalized manner. This is seen in endurance athletes who primarily train the legs yet see an increased capacity for endurance in the upper body.

Keep in mind, there are many other influences at play yet to be uncovered by the research.

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…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

• Issurin, V. B. (2013). Training Transfer: Scientific Background and Insights for Practical Application. Sports Medicine. 43(8), 675-694. doi: 10.1007/s40279-013-0049-6.
• Magill, R., & Anderson, D. (2013). Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

 

Waiting until the final few weeks of the season to finally focus on speed is a thing of the past. The old-school long-to-short approach of training sprinters, which has been a staple of track and field coaches for decades, has steadily been phased out and replaced with a more modern “speed first” approach.

In my first few years of coaching, I struggled to get the best athletes—specifically those that had never experienced the sport, to come out for Spring track at the high school level. They thought track was “just conditioning,” and they believed that sprinters trained by jogging lap after lap around the track. I knew that I would have to change that perception in order for us to become an elite program. I wanted our sprinters to get faster, learn that the focus is always on “speed first,” and maybe most importantly, enjoy the training.

Out With the Old and in With the New

Remember the old go-to workout, a 10x100m at 70 percent with one minute of rest? A few years back, this was one of the first workouts that popped up if you typed “track and field training for sprinters” into Google. One day of the week could have been 10x100m, and another day might have been 8x200m with short recovery. Don’t get me wrong: Extensive tempo workouts have their place in the training program. However, they are much more relevant in the off-season or possibly on recovery days.

If you want fast athletes, you have to train them fast. Speed, speed, and more speed. When determining how you are going to set up your training plan, you first have to know the demands of the events your athletes will be running. For short sprinters, the focus should be heavily on the alactic anaerobic energy system and training at max speed in the five-second range (give or take a little).

As a high school coach, you may only get two to three actual training days per week after you take into consideration your meet schedule (meets have to be considered training sessions, and hard ones at that) and the recovery or easy days in between training days. Each mesocycle of your training plan should have at least two themes (maybe three): a primary and a secondary. The goal is to train your primary theme twice a week and your secondary theme once per week. But this is in an ideal world, and high school coaches don’t live in that world.

Maximize opportunities to train by incorporating a primary and secondary theme into each mesocycle. Share on X

Most weeks don’t have four or five optimal days of training, so we really have to prioritize and train what is most important when we have the opportunity to do so. Extensive tempo isn’t going to be very high on my priority list, so after I plug in the acceleration, max velocity, and speed endurance work, there probably won’t be any room for those 10x100m workouts. Trust me, that’s OK. When you find yourself able to incorporate the themes that are most important to your athletes, everything else just seems to fall into place.

Recruiting the Modern-Day Sprinter

 

Just about every town has that person who watches all of the fancy training drills on Instagram and YouTube and then magically transforms themselves into a self-proclaimed “speed trainer.” They go out and buy fancy equipment in an attempt to look like they mean business. There’s no rhyme or reason to what they are doing, as it’s usually just based on the latest training video that popped up on their social media feed. Yet, athletes still gravitate to them.

This has to change. The speed trainer in every town should undoubtedly be the sprint coach for the track and field team. That would only make sense, right? To make that the case, we as coaches have to do our part to run a proven, effective, and appealing sprint program and recruit—yes, recruit—these athletes from the hallways of our schools.

First and foremost, we need to take the “speed first” approach to training our sprinters. This is not only an effective way to make our athletes faster, it is also appealing to those that haven’t been exposed to the sport of track and field. If you aren’t building your sprint program with this approach, and instead continue to put your sprinters through long/slow reps with short recoveries on the track to get them “tougher,” and laid-back jogs around the neighborhood to “get them in better shape,” then this could be the reason why that speedy wide receiver scoring a bunch of touchdowns on Friday nights won’t come out for your track team.

Athletes love to compete (well, most of them anyway), right? Just like the old saying, “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,” the more competitive your practices are, the more your athletes will improve. This is where the Freelap Timing System comes into play. The Freelap electronic system was a recent purchase of mine, and I’ll start using it when we begin training for our indoor season in November.

I’m the head middle school coach in my district, which is a huge advantage for me when developing relationships with our football players and getting them out for the track team in high school, but that’s a story for another day. I’m currently in the heart of football season, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t already been brainstorming ways that I’m going to implement the Freelap system into my track and field training program. It’s a game changer, bottom line.

What better way to make your practices more competitive than to time and rank EVERYTHING? With Freelap, that’s possible with minimal effort. We will time our athletes during all of their training sessions throughout the week. (I’ve always timed them, but there’s something about electronic timing that makes it more official than the trusty old stopwatch … not to mention how difficult it is to accurately time multiple sprinters at one time with a stopwatch). They’ll be timed and ranked in their block work, fly runs, and exchange zone run-throughs for spots on our relay team.

When athletes enjoy training, they tell their peers—thereby helping you recruit naturally. Share on X

The more my athletes enjoy the training, the more positively they talk about it with their peers. What better way to get more athletes to join your team then to have your current members do the recruiting for you?

Record, Rank and Publish (aka ‘The Tony Holler Approach’)

 

I’ve always been the type of coach to keep detailed and organized records. Recording, ranking, and publishing the results from meets, workouts, lifting sessions, etc. is a great way to add legitimacy and excitement to your program. Athletes love to see where they rank against their teammates, where they rank in the state, and how much they’ve improved over the course of a season and throughout their career. They’ll talk about this during the school day, and before and after practice. This is another great way to get the word out about your program.

I created a website for our program and post all necessary information to it, including schedules, meet results, records, etc. (see image above). I try to post as many photos and videos as possible throughout the season. The kids love to watch race videos and flip through photos of themselves competing.

If creating or even purchasing a website for your team isn’t an option, don’t fret—Google Docs is here to save the day. Google Docs allows you to create spreadsheets, text documents, and slideshow presentations. Most importantly, it allows you to share those documents with anyone on the internet. If you have a social media account such as Twitter or Facebook, you can post links to the Google docs you create that include your training results, photos, and videos for everyone to view.

A Blended Approach to Training the ‘All-Around’ Sprinter

 

In 2014, I had a special group. Maybe it was my “once in a lifetime group.” My top four sprinters all had the potential to run sub 11.00 100-meters, sub 50.00 400-meters, and a legitimate 200-meter in between. The toughest decision was how I should train them. Should their training be focused on speed and speed endurance, just letting the 400m take a backseat? Or should it be Special Endurance 1 and 2 to ensure they were primed to make a run for the 4x400m state title? How about a blended approach that just might give them the opportunity to make a run for state titles in anything from the 100m up to the 400m? I chose to experiment and go with the blended approach. This was against my better judgment, and initially I was hesitant to steer away from the “speed first” approach, but I convinced myself it was best for this group in order to give them a chance to go for the gold in everything.

Early in the season, the mesocycles focused on acceleration, max velocity, and speed endurance; later, it was Special Endurance 1 and 2. That doesn’t sound too far off base, right? But the issue was that absolute speed development wasn’t present in the later mesos. Don’t get me wrong—there were positive results from this approach. But I feel that I sacrificed speed, and that proved a costly mistake.

Our top four guys in the 100m that year had season PRs of 10.69, 10.83, 11.14, and 11.20. The 200m season bests were 21.88, 22.01, 22.06, and 22.82, and our best 4x400m splits were 48.5, 48.8, 49.2, and 49.9. (Unfortunately, those splits were not all run during the same race.) This group stood atop the state rankings and was one of the elite teams in Ohio that season in all three relays. The 4x100m team ran a season PR of 41.75 and was third at the state championships. Our 4x200m group ran 1:26.75, finishing second at state with a time that ranks them in the past decade’s Top 10 in Ohio. The 4x400m guys had a season PR of 3:18.47, but ran 3:22.89 at state and finished eighth.

What if I had stuck with my initial plan and kept their training focused on developing them as short sprinters? Would each of my four runners have been able to run at least a tenth of a second faster in the 100m, running 41.3 and some change as opposed to 41.7, putting them on top of the podium as state champions instead of in a respectable third-place finish? Their 1:26.75 state runner-up finish in the 4x200m was impressive, but this group was capable of running in the 1:25s. Was too much time spent blending their training and attempting to make them dominant in both the short and long sprints? Did this approach prevent them from reaching their full potential? The goal was a state title and we fell just shy of that.

The Road to Redemption

 

The only option was to regroup and shift the focus to the New Balance Nationals. The All-State foursome went on to run at nationals two weeks later. In the two weeks between the Ohio state championships and the New Balance National Championships, we took more days off from training, to rest, relax, and focus on some fine-tuning before we packed up and headed to North Carolina.

 

This group went on to feature three-time All-Americans, with a third place in the Swedish relay (100m-200m-300m-400m), fourth place in the 4x100m relay, and sixth place in the sprint medley relay (100m-100m-200m-400m). This was just what they needed after falling just short of their goals at State. I couldn’t have imagined a better way for them to end their high school careers together than to become All-Americans.

The school records and All-State and All-American performances from this group etched their names in the history books of our school and community. They hold nearly every one of our school records in the sprints and sprint relays. All four athletes were also very successful in other sports for our school. Yes—successful multi-sport athletes do still exist.

Set Your Athletes Up for the Future

My intentions for this article were not to talk about individual success stories of the athletes I coach, but since I mentioned so much about this group, I figured it was only right to give a little background information on where they are now. Two of the mentioned athletes are currently running track in college at the Division 1 level, while another is a running back who gets meaningful carries for a well-respected football program in the ACC.

Establishing relationships with college coaches and consistently sending athletes to the next level, regardless of division, is a great way to build your program while helping your community develop well-rounded and educated student-athletes.

 

Gary Gibson had high school PRs of 7.04 in the 60m, 11.02 in the 100m, 22.06 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 48.5. Gary was All-Ohio six times and a three-time All-American in track and field. He is a walk-on member of the track and field team and a biology pre-med major at Ohio State University.

 

Darrin was an athlete that I was extremely proud to have for four years of high school track and field. Darrin was a three-year starter at running back on our football team and started getting offers after his sophomore season. He could have easily chosen the popular “I’m just going to focus on football” route, but he didn’t. This was huge for our track and field program. He enjoyed the sport and knew it helped him on the football field. Darrin’s high school PRs include 11.14 in the 100m, 22.30 in the 200m, and a 49.8 4x400m split. He was a five-time All-Ohio and a three-time All-American in track and field. Darrin attends Pitt University, where he is obtaining his undergrad degree in natural science and then heading to PT school.

 

Joe Harrington was another football standout that ended up falling in love with track and field. Joe’s high school PRs are 6.87 in the 60m, 10.69 in the 100m, 21.54 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 49.2. He is an eleven-time state qualifier, nine-time All-State, and three-time All-American, and holds six school records. Joe is attending the University of Akron on a track and field scholarship and majoring in criminal justice.

 

Not every elite athlete has the aspiration to compete in college athletics. Everyone chooses their own path. Nathan’s high school PRs are 10.76 in the 100m and 22.01 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 48.8. He had one of the most decorated high school careers in our school’s history, as he was an eight-time state qualifier, seven-time All-State and three-time All-American. He certainly ended his athletic career on a high note.

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

 

Creating generalized adaptation and aerobic conditioning may have its place in the general population of untrained to moderately trained non-competitive individuals provided the risk remains low.

But it has no place in the sport-specific world of athletic training.

I would be surprised to hear any professional athlete’s coach say that they plan “workouts of the day” which have no sequence nor progression under an annual training program, macrocycle, or even a microcycle that’s designed to achieve peak athletic performance.

The importance of training specificity cannot be overemphasized for high-level athletes. Generalization only goes so far in developing top-level sport skills and efficiency. Too often, coaches neglect to research what methods are best for optimum training benefits for an individual athlete. Instead they operate traditional conditioning programs that serve an entire team as a whole.

General training creates general athleticism and average athletes in my opinion. In this article, I challenge CrossFit’s claim that it’s a “survival of the fittest” sport. I rest my case on the fact that the world’s most elite athletes across all professional sports train by the “survival of the smartest” theory to preserve their longevity in sport and maximize peak performance via specifically calculated and cyclical, periodized programming.

Established Recommendations

Assigning high-volume repetitions and speed to technically demanding exercises opposes USA Weightlifting’s (USAW) recommendation to keep “repetitions to three or less on technical exercises [Olympic movements] and five or less for strength exercises (e.g. squats), and never continue repetitions if form is breaking down,” (Mullins, 2015).

Assigning fast high-volume reps to technically demanding exercises opposes USAW, NSCA guidelines.

CrossFit’s entire foundation is based on a total-body fatigue, forced-adaptation model, risking form breakdown and injury with every passing repetition. The National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA) aligns with the USAW philosophy, and stresses the importance of exercise order for maximal adaptation gains and the insurance of safety (Mullins, 2015):

“Power exercises require the highest level of skill and concentration of all the exercises and are most affected by fatigue. Athletes who become fatigued are prone to using poor technique and consequently are at higher risk of injury. The explosive movements and extensive muscular involvement of power exercises also result in a significant energy expenditure. This is another reason to have athletes perform such exercises first, while they are still metabolically fresh.”

This rule is ignored in most CrossFit programs.

High-repetition power and strength exercises are interspersed with high-volume multi-joint movements which ultimately lead to the exhaustion of all metabolic systems. The body responds with generalized fatigue and poor recovery and, accordingly, generalized and incomplete adaptation between workouts.

Going forward, this company’s mission should emphasize educating its athletes on the proper execution of movement as well as the risks involved when undertaking this inherently intense form of activity.

Target Populations

Some CrossFit facilities are run by well-educated exercise science professionals who make an effort to ensure all participants are practicing safe technique and sound progressions with individualized program design. One such individual is Dr. Mike Young, Director of Performance and Research with Athletic Lab in Cary, NC. When incorporating CrossFit programming into his Sports Performance and Athletic Development facility, he takes the following approach:

“I look at health on a continuum with diseased state being on one side, healthy being somewhere in the middle, fit being somewhere beyond that and performance oriented on the far side of the continuum. Generally speaking, I’d say CrossFit is best for people in the middle. I don’t think it’s appropriate for people who are not yet ready for intense training. Likewise, it’s not appropriate for the more specific training that CrossFit, by its very nature, does not provide.”

It’s one thing to teach a skill, but it’s an entirely different undertaking to teach the skill and have the ability to explain why this skill is applicable in a performance capacity and how it fits into an athlete’s long-term progression. If one cannot back up a workout or an exercise on a physiologically sound basis for future adaptation and progression, it has no business being executed.

General adaptation and aerobic conditioning programs have no place in sport-specific training.

In the sport-specific world of athletic training, Dr. Young states:

“When training for sport, I recommend training progress from general to specific over the course of a training program. Likewise, I generally suggest that intensities start lower and progressively increase over the course of the season. Finally, I like to see volume operate inversely to intensity over that time. So intensity and volume should rarely, if ever, be high concurrently. CrossFit has the potential to violate all of these recommendations.”

CrossFit Benefits

CrossFit’s long-term benefits are under researched. Several studies, however, have found there are potential benefits to aerobic capacity and body composition from this type of high-intensity functional power training.

High-intensity interval training attracts individuals looking to improve their fitness levels with minimal time commitment. Typically, the workouts take a very short amount of time, averaging between 5 to 20 minutes, and reap maximal caloric burn due to the continuous nature of the workload, relative intensity, and minimal rest periods.

In some workouts, the goal is to achieve as many rounds or repetitions as possible before the allotted time is up. Other workouts focus on the best time to completion of a given set of exercise rounds. A combination of power and Olympic lifts, cardio activity, gymnastics, and other body weight movements is used to stimulate positive adaptation of maximum aerobic capacity and improvement in body composition.

Researchers in one study had participants follow a 10-week CrossFit-based high-intensity power training (HIPT) program of traditional power and Olympic lifts. Specific exercises included squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, and overhead presses performed in a nontraditional fashion; participants completed the designated number of repetitions as quickly as possible (Smith, Sommer, Starkoff, & Devor, 2013).

After HIPT training, body fat reduced by 3.7% among all individuals, both males and females. Oxygen consumption relative to body weight increased in all participants with a 13.6% and 11.8% improvement in VO2 max for men and women, respectively. This was independent of the changes in body mass, which are often attributed to improvements in oxygen capacity.

Safety Concerns

With more than 10,000 CrossFit gyms (boxes) throughout the country, intense scrutiny should be placed on this company’s mission and training principles to decipher whether this is an efficacious and safe form of athletic conditioning.

Any emerging form of exercise or diet should be challenged using evidence-based practices to properly validate that the program is safe and effective for the long-term health and well-being of all participants. Long-term is the key word here.

In a review of the pros and cons of extreme conditioning programs such as CrossFit, a 2013 survey asked CrossFit participants to disclose any injuries that had prevented them from working, training, or competing over the past 19 months (Knapik, 2015). The 132 respondents averaged 5.3 hours a week of exercise during this time, and 74% claimed to have sustained an injury during that time, with 7% having an injury which required surgery. The most common injuries were to the shoulder (32%), spine (28%), and arm (20%).

Others reported carotid artery dissection (CAD) and exertional rhabdomyolysis related to CrossFit activity. The four CAD cases were attributed to lifting significantly more weight than previously lifted (20% more) and/or performing exercises with rapid twisting movements.

CAD can result in a partial blockage of the carotid artery, a partial tear in the vessel wall resulting in a hematoma, or a total rupture and subsequent aneurysm. The goal of treatment is to reduce the neurologic deficits and stabilize blood flow.

Repetitive eccentric contractions produce the muscle damage leading to exertional rhabdomyolysis (Su, 2008). Extreme muscle breakdown causes muscle enzymes and electrolytes to leak, including creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, and myoglobin, and potassium.

When myoglobin levels in the blood exceed 3mg/L, it spills into the urine (myoglobinuria) and produces a tea or cola coloration. Myoglobin damages renal tubules, which can lead to tubular necrosis. If renal blood flow is further limited by high exertion levels and dehydration, the kidneys become less capable of clearing the muscle breakdown products which can lead to fatal complications (Su, 2008).

The very nature of CrossFit workouts brings an increased likelihood for these overexertion injuries to occur.

A similar survey using CrossFit’s main website included 386 participants who met the inclusion criteria for CrossFit participation (Weisenthal et al., 2014). Data from the study concluded that injury rate during the previous six months was 19.4% of total participants who experienced at least one injury; males were injured more frequently than females. Reported injuries were fewer among individuals working with a trainer. And females had a lower incidence rate, likely because they sought a coach before training.

Shoulder injuries occurred the most during gymnastic movements, and the lower back was most often injured while power lifting. These participants had no discomfort before performing these movements.

High-risk should not be confused with ineffective since most exercises provide some benefits, although the aim of exercise should always be to maximize benefits and minimize risks (Mullins, 2015).

Two very high-risk exercises commonly performed in CrossFit boxes are unassisted pistol squats and kipping pullups, which are rarely executed with proper technique.

In the pistol squat, the lordotic curve of the lumbar spine should be maintained, the knee should track over the toes with virtually no mediolateral shift, and the heel should remain in contact with the ground. Rounding the back is a compensatory mechanism to achieve depth and places unnecessary strain on the lower back.

Kipping pullups hyperextend the lumbar spine, unlike traditional pullups which allow the spine to stay neutral. Hyperextension of the spine has long been contraindicated by medical professionals due to the high potential for injuring the spinal discs, nerves, and joints.

With a nearly 20% injury rate, however, the jury is still out about whether the risk-benefit ratio is in an athlete’s favor. Similar rates of injury are seen in gymnastic and power and Olympic lifting sports.

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References

• Knapik, J. J. (2015). “Extreme Conditioning Programs: Potential Benefits and Potential Risks.” Journal Of Special Operations Medicine: A Peer Reviewed Journal For SOF Medical Professionals, 15(3), 108-113.
• Mullins, N. (2015). “CrossFit: Remember What You Have Learned; Apply What You Know.” Journal Of Exercise Physiologyonline, 18(6), 32-44.
• Smith, M. M., Sommer, A. J., Starkoff, B. E., & Devor, S. T. (2013). “Crossfit-Based High-Intensity Power Training Improves Maximal Aerobic Fitness and Body Composition.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27(11), 3159- 3172. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318289e59f.
• Su, J. (2008). “Exertional Rhabdomyolysis.” International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training, 13(5), 20-22. doi: 10.1123/att.13.5.20.
• Weisenthal, B. M., Beck, C. A., Maloney, M. D., DeHaven, K. E., & Giordano, B. D. (2014). “Injury Rate and Patterns Among CrossFit Athletes.” Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 2(4), 2325967114531177. doi: 10.1177/2325967114531177.