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Even though the skill of sprinting is one of the most common skills performed by athletes in competition, the lack of knowledge on how to coach it is pervasive. While many books have been written on the biomechanical mechanisms in play during sprinting and others containing drills that coaches can apply to increase speed in athletes, few take the approach Bill Parisi pursues in The Anatomy of Speed.

Parisi includes only what is necessary from an anatomical and biological perspective and combines it with 30 years of practical speed training experience to break down the barriers of entry for speed coaches desiring to learn the nuances of developing speed in their athletes. Considering this level of experience, along with excerpts from leading researchers in the field of kinesiology and sports science, The Anatomy of Speed should be a prerequisite read for any coach who wants to learn how to develop athletes with game-breaking speed.

Overview

With “anatomy” in the title, the reader might expect a dry, textbook-like reading experience. Parisi, however, is able to convey the fundamentals of anatomy and physiology as they pertain to sprinting in an engaging manner that is accessible to the average reader. While Chapter 2 focuses exclusively on the anatomical qualities needed for sprinting, the rest of the book is highly informative on the process of speed development without getting too far into the weeds of biology.

Moving on from Chapter 2 (titled “Systems of Speed”), Parisi then takes the reader through 10 chapters of practical and evidence-based strategies that can be implemented immediately into any speed development program. He takes a linear approach by starting these next 10 chapters with one on the pre-warm-up and injury prevention strategies in a sprinting training session. These topics are fitting to start with, as they should be some of the first steps taken when creating and implementing a speed development program.

If they follow ‘The Anatomy of Speed’ chapter by chapter, a new coach will have a successful speed training protocol at their fingertips, says @DillonMartinez. Share on X

While Parisi goes about informing the reader on the characteristics of the pre-warm-up and its importance in injury prevention, he also models how much value we should place on the topic by its location in the book. He continues this linear approach throughout, deliberately giving the reader a training template to follow and a progression on how to teach the skill of sprinting. If followed chapter by chapter, a new coach will have a successful training protocol at their fingertips.

The Anatomy of Speed aims to peel back the layers of speed development for athletes by looking at speed in three easy-to-comprehend parts:

• How speed is generated.
• How speed is exhibited.
• How a coach can better develop speed.

Each chapter is comprised of a few pages explaining that chapter topic’s importance as it pertains to speed development in both a scientific and anecdotal way. Then, the author includes practical application ideas for the covered topic, with pictures and diagrams of how to teach those ideas to an athlete during a speed session, before moving on to the next chapter. This approach to writing about the topic makes reading entertaining and meaningful, as the reader gleans research-backed methodologies to speed development, personal stories, ideas from a coach with over 30 years of experience, and visual lessons on applying the content in an authentic setting.

Applications and Ideas for Coaches

Speed is the tide that raises all ships. Many of the goals that a strength or sport coach has for their team surrounding performance can be obtained through the specific goal of making their athletes faster. When the athletes under your charge get faster, they also exhibit an increase in strength, explosion, coordination, agility, and change of direction ability.

There is no other singular metric that, by improving it, can also make a difference in most all other tangible, measurable performance indicators. You can improve cardiovascular endurance through speed training, whereas this is not the same in the inverse. Speed gains are not seen when training specifically for increases in endurance—so those gassers you ran after practice do nothing to make your athletes faster and will only marginally increase endurance. Your athletes will wonder how screaming “fourth quarter” while running at submaximal speeds will make them better athletes.

Instead, using the ideas laid out by Parisi, a coach can create and implement a speed improvement plan that will benefit all athletes in all aspects of their athletic ability. The key will be to convince your athletes that speed is indeed a skill that can be taught and increased. The adage “you can’t teach speed” has been disproved repeatedly by the literature, as well as through my own anecdotal speed coaching experience. Once the athletes choose to believe that they can get faster, it is on the coach to provide the training protocols needed to capitalize on that buy-in.

The adage ‘you can’t teach speed’ has been disproved repeatedly by the literature, as well as through my own anecdotal speed coaching experience, says @DillonMartinez. Share on X

The Anatomy of Speed goes beyond just giving the drills to do; it also includes the “why” behind those drills from an easy-to-understand physiology perspective so that a coach can then create and implement drills with confidence in their effect.

Lastly, a point not made in the book—but one that goes a long way to increase athlete buy-in—is to time everything done in a speed session. Timing and recording all speed reps shows athletes their improvement over time, increases effort in a training session (as they are always trying to decrease their times), and also adds a much-needed element of fun to the training process. You can do this with a stopwatch, but using an electronic timing system such as Freelap or Dashr will prove to be more accurate and efficient for you as the coach, especially when working with large groups of athletes at one time.

Personal Thoughts

Sprinting is a specialized skill that gets viewed as a fundamental skill. This means that when we are taught how to run, many teachers believe that we now also know how to sprint. This is not the case.

As a pre-service physical education teacher educator at Winona State University and a speed coach, I see firsthand the discrepancies between what we teach in the PE curriculum and what we expect our students to be able to do as athletes later in their developmental progression. PE teachers are taught how to teach running using the following critical elements: make sure the arms and legs move in opposition, ensure there is a flight phase between ground contact times, toes pointed forward, and the foot lands heel to toe. But when we look at sprinting as a specialized skill, we see that these are not the critical elements of sprinting.

A methodical approach to teaching and training athletes on the skill of sprinting should be a fundamental ability of all coaches. The Anatomy of Speed does an incredible job of laying the foundation needed to do just that.

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

Parisi, Bill. (2022). The Anatomy of Speed. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL. $39.95 ISBN: 975-1-14925-9899-2

Unlike many field and court sports, football, out of season, traditionally has less skill development—especially in the area of small-sided games (SSGs) and agility training methods. This lack of specificity leads to increased injury rates, specifically in training camp, which is the onset of high exposures to those missing training elements in the off-season.

To prevent this, small-sided games should be implemented in the lead-up to the competitive season. This ensures the first time there are bodies flying and ensuing chaos isn’t in the players’ first team practice but in the off-season in a controlled environment. In this segment of my series of SSG articles, I introduce the reason for creating specific mailboxes based on positions, reinforced by GPS data that aims at attacking the training void between general training and specific training as it pertains to American football.

The use of small-sided games ensures the first time there are bodies flying and ensuing chaos isn’t in the player’s first team practice but in the off-season in a controlled environment, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

Agility and small-sided games are two important components of sports training. Agility refers to the ability to change direction quickly and efficiently in response to the environment, while small-sided games are modified versions of traditional sports that involve fewer players and smaller playing areas. Incorporating both training concepts into an off-season program will decrease the shock that comes with the chaos of play and lessen the chance of injury. In the previous article, I discussed the elements of play and factors that go along with increasing training specificity as the competitive season approaches.

How many of these elements to incorporate—and how frequently—will be based on GPS data that allows us to create SSG templates that fit position mailboxes so that sessions can flow and be efficient while preparing the players for the specific demands of their position. While we must incorporate the general training elements of agility—deceleration, acceleration, top speed, change of direction, and reaction time—to ensure increases in game play occur, understanding through the data which element needs more time will be a priority, as we don’t want to reach a point of diminishing returns within that positional mailbox.

Corners don’t need three exposures to collision prep in a session, just as linemen don’t need 120+ yards of max speed distances. I have made the mistake of prescribing elements of training to populations that rarely encounter those elements in the game, which took away from some of the main training themes necessary for increased performance for that athlete at their position. GPS allows the prescription to be precise and takes the guesswork out of the application of SSGs.

Creating the Playing Field Based on GPS Values

In the world of strength and conditioning, the word “conditioning” seems to be associated with the ideology of long, boring, tedious, and plain running sessions. When defined, “conditioning” means “to train or accustom someone or something to a certain state.” So, conditioning can be any type of training and is not confined to just running extensive tempos.

Throughout the evolution of the profession, conditioning became more synonymous with the cardiovascular adaptations of long-distance running and less synonymous with the physiological adaptations associated with exposure to the session’s mechanical stresses. Extensive and intensive tempos serve a purpose in times of general training but do not alone build the specific qualities to be prepared for in the chaotic and mechanically taxing demands of play.

Repeat sprint ability sessions are also valuable but, yet again, miss the agility and specificity of play. To go from such broad and general training to claiming players are “in shape” and “gameplay ready” is irresponsible. Small-sided games can move strength and conditioning coaches from very boring and general training sessions to enjoyable and specific sessions that actually prepare the players for game play. The metaphor “you have to walk before you run” holds true as we, as coaches, don’t want to go from these extremely rigid and structured running workouts to literally an entire unpredictable environment that involves car crashes on every play like football provides.

What is the purpose of conditioning? Conditioning is meant to prepare the athlete for the physiological and mechanical demands of their sport. Coaches check the box on the physiological side more times than not but miss epically on the mechanical side.

GPS allows for more precise prescription of training elements and takes the guesswork out of the application of SSGs, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

Tissue stress capacity is real, and the preseason epidemic of soft tissue injuries should drive home this point. Traditional models of conditioning lack the specificity and requirements SSGs provide to help zoom in on the mechanical and psychological factors of the game. Small-sided games are defined as a reduction in players or field size from regular game play, which American football uses in practice with inside run, 7-on-7, and even tackling drills. The use of SSG does not have to end once the season is over. In the off-season, it is critical to continue the skill development that results from exposure to SSG.

Using reduced field space in evasion/tracking drills allows players to focus on their position and gets them valuable reps in a scenario that occurs frequently in game play while increasing robustness to the mechanical stress associated with the cost of movement. In this article, we will piece together the why behind the design and volumes associated with off-season small-sided games. We will then look at the how when we explore the progressions of drills that climb the continuum from general to specific.

Big Rocks

Before going to the microscopic levels of stress that GPS shows, every coach should start with the needs analysis for football’s basic game characteristics when constructing the specificity of SSG in the off-season. Understand that practice duration and game duration are critical pieces of information that play an essential role in overall workload distribution.

After how long the game or practice is, the type of playing style is the next pertinent piece of information that must be discussed and understood. A hurry-up offense and a huddled offense are polar opposites from the standpoint of energy demands. This search for why by your coaching staff on principles of play will increase organizational communication and buy-in because, as the strength and conditioning coach, you’re trying to give the sport coach exactly what they want by optimizing your training to enhance their style of play.

Understanding the average time between plays can help piece together the physiological demands of play for your team. Knowing the average play count in a game and plays per series will help identify what level of reps are appropriate for off-season conditioning and practices.

You Wouldn’t Drive a Car Without a Dashboard

Technological advancements within the sports world have dramatically increased the precise explanation of game play and what players experience during every play and game. GPS is now to athletes what a dashboard is to a car. You wouldn’t go on a road trip without knowing your car’s oil level or how much gas is in the tank. The same goes for football players.

How do coaches plan practices without knowing how much volume players accumulate through total yardage, high-speed yardage, and acceleration load? The first time we used GPS at a practice, it was shocking to see how far we were off on the lower estimation of total yardage compared to what was really going on, and it was reflected in our planning in the off-season. Flat out, we underestimated and saw a huge workload spike going from the off-season to the in-season, which is not ideal.

Through data from GPS and research papers, any coach can now baseline practice averages for several metrics. There is no excuse for not knowing what is truly going on in the game at any given moment.

The GPS doesn’t only give the coach a detailed explanation of playing stress; for us, the data has really distinguished the different demands between positions. Understanding that football is a game of many games and positions with drastically different demands helps strength coaches create accurate conditioning sessions with merit and purpose behind their execution.

The GPS doesn’t only give the coach a detailed explanation of playing stress; for us, the data has really distinguished the different demands between positions, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

Zebras

When I speak about training and planning for football, I love to utilize the zebra metaphor. When a person looks at a pack of zebras, there are very noticeable similarities between them:

• They have black and white stripes.
• They look similar to a horse or donkey.
• They run with very similar gait patterns.

When you observe this pack of zebras more closely, however, many individual differences stand out, such as:

• Different stripe patterns.
• Different sizes.
• Different running patterns.

Like the zebras, football looks very similar from a distance in terms of running, collisions, and formations, but when observed through GPS, the game is very individualized to each unique position. When building out SSGs for the off-season, it’s extremely important to mailbox players into specific workload categories that will be comparable to the unique demands exhibited by their position.

As much as I would like to individualize every player’s conditioning plan, that is extremely impractical from a resource standpoint. Mailboxing positions by body type, movement signatures, and load enables the strength and conditioning coach to customize enough of the session to where there are noticeable differences in the session position-to-position. Without this data, it is very easy to make mistakes with intensities, modalities, and volumes when prescribing conditioning. There is no need for a 300-pound lineman to run over 3,500 yards in a conditioning session when the max amount they run in an average practice will be 2,800–3,200 yards. Giving the athlete what they need based on data and not just feel will provide you with a sniper’s view instead of a shotgun approach.

Four Subgroups

Based on similarities in game demands and anthropometric averages, we have created four subgroups that determine drill selection, distances, and overall total load when constructing our SSGs in the off-season. This mailboxing process allows us to check a lot of boxes from a mechanical and physiological standpoint while maintaining a competitive atmosphere, as the players in these subgroups tend to interact on the field frequently. Coaches utilizing these subgroups can control and customize each drill to fit the positions’ needs.

The four subgroups are:

1. Tanks/Bigs: Interior Defensive Line/Offensive Line
2. Pickup Trucks/Big Mids: Tight Ends/Outside Linebackers/Defensive Ends
3. Hellcats/Speed Mids: Running Backs/Boundary Safety/Quarterback/Inside Backer
4. Motor Bikes/Skill: Defensive Backs/Wide Receivers

Tanks: Interior Defensive Line and Offensive Line

In any given game or practice, the big guys up front go through 40–60 car crashes. We label them “tanks” because of the similarities in their need to handle body damage, their maneuverability, and the power of their offensive strike. It is in these big guys’ job description to “kidnap” people, meaning they have to take another player and move them against their will.

These big boys play in a 5-yard box and rarely go over 3,500 total yards in a game or practice. Their total yardage will be around the 13,000-yard mark for an average game week. The position does require extreme quickness, strength, and agility because of the lack of space and inability to fix a mistake due to the minimal time and limited space.

These tanks have extremely high acceleration loads because of the rapid decels and changes of direction that occur on each play. Their acceleration loads rival skill players due to the movements’ frequency, not necessarily their intensity. Wide receivers stop at -7 m/s but only do it 13–20 times in a practice, while these tanks will stop at -3 m/s but do it 100 times in a practice.

The top speed of these tanks in game play is around 13–16 mph. They rarely accumulate high-speed yardage over 16 mph, so their main stressors come from short quick accels, decels, and collisions. Their average peak acceleration is around 4 m/s, and average peak deceleration is around -5 m/s.

Pickup Trucks: Defensive Ends, Tight Ends, and Outside Linebackers

This group commonly gets the wrong prescription of conditioning volume, both below average and above average. Because of their versatility, these “pickups” cover a large amount of ground in games and practices, which is reflected in total yardage and high-speed yardage. They fit the pickup analogy well, as they have to travel great distances but also have to be tough enough to handle the violent nature of game play in the trenches.

On average, this group covers between 5,000 and 7,000 total yards in a practice and game. This stems from running routes, pursuit, and special teams. They play in a 20-yard box. Their total yardage in a week reaches over 28,000 yards.

Even though there is a high running volume, pickups also experience roughly two-thirds of the total collisions of the tanks. They also get high-speed running between 50 and 80 yards per practice/game. Acceleration loads are usually higher than the team average due to the impacts and high movement volume. Peak speeds sit around the 19 mph range, with peak accelerations around 5 m/s. They sit in that 11–16 mph zone for the majority of game play. Deceleration loads are less than that of tanks but more intense, with peak decels coming in at -6 m/s.

Hellcats: Inside Backers, Running Backs, Down Safety, QB

This group of players fits the hellcat analogy because they must be extremely agile and fast. They play in a 20-yard box dominated by short, violent accels, decels, and changes of direction. They experience one-third of the collisions that the tanks get, so training to have body armor is still necessary, but much of their gameplay stress comes from the mechanical stress associated with agility.

On average, this group covers between 5,000 and 7,000 total yards in a practice and game. This stems from running routes, running plays, pursuit, and special teams, which are similar to the pickup trucks. Their total yardage in a week reaches over 28,000 yards. Hellcats’ acceleration loads sit in the middle of the pack in terms of total volume. Peak speeds sit around the 19 mph range but creep up into the 20 mph at times, with peak accelerations around 6 m/s. They sit within that 13–18 mph zone for the majority of game play. Deceleration loads are less than that of tanks but more intense, with peak decels coming in at -6.5 m/s.

Motor Bikes: Wide Receivers and Defensive Backs

These players have to be the fastest and most agile things on the field. They play in open space a majority of the time and experience the highest intensities of deceleration and acceleration. We have recorded peak decels at over -7.5 m/s and accelerations at 6 m/s. Their movement stress is the highest, their total movement volume is also the highest, and their collision volume is the lowest by a lot.

Our WR, on average, covers over 7,000 yards a game, with their acceleration loads topping the charts well above all other position groups. Game play is from 15–19 mph. Peak speeds exceed 21 mph. This group has to be able to tolerate high weekly running loads that reach well beyond 32,000 yards.

Drilling Down

The purpose of this article was to give the specifics of why I program and progress the drills I will outline in the next article. GPS has illuminated the fact that football is a game of many games. Even though game play falls under the same sport, the stress isn’t even close when looking at mechanical outputs. Having the data supports the mailbox approach outlined above to provide the players with what they need to be ready for actual game play.

GPS has illuminated the fact that football is a game of many games. Even though game play falls under the same sport, the stress isn’t even close when looking at mechanical outputs, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

This supports the application of SSGs over general and traditional conditioning methods closer to the competitive season. The next article will be the how, outlining how to model and progress from general to specific based on the GPS data provided here.

Lead Photo by Jason Mowry/Icon Sportswire.

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

When I started coaching sprinters over 30 years ago, the best piece of technology you would have on your person was a digital stopwatch that fit nicely in the palm of your hand. I remember owning a wind-up, analog Tag Heuer stopwatch in high school, but I knew the accuracy might not be up to speed. A digital stopwatch that recorded split times and stored them in the memory for transcription later was considered a high-tech luxury item.

But the most important thing for a coach back in the day was developing the skill to consistently and reliably start and stop that watch to track the progress of their athletes. Together, your eye and your thumb comprised a precisely tuned data collection system that didn’t need to be recharged or synced via Bluetooth to another device.

However, hand times were always considered to be inaccurate or biased, with credibility in doubt whenever anyone quoted a hand-timed result. Thus, it was imperative for coaches to get their hands on a “reliable” and “accurate” electronic timing system. We also knew we could not afford the big, clunky, and expensive timing systems often provided by Omega or Timex for elite track and field competition. It had to be a system that was practical, portable, and affordable.

The Early Days of Portable Electronic Timing

Shift to approximately 20 years ago, when I finally got my hands on a Brower Timing system package. It included three pairs of optical timing gates that allowed me to capture the start, one interval time, and a finish time. It also had a remote display that connected relatively reliably to the timing gates.

The system was generally stable, with the occasional dropped time and some irregularity with the start mechanism if you were breaking a beam to start the timers. I was never a fan of the touchpad start mechanism, as it would typically record much slower times and also confused the athletes on how to make it work. But if you didn’t mind recording times on a clipboard, it was a relatively simple and reliable means of incorporating electronic timing into your monitoring and testing protocols.

While the system was generally stable, the worst part of the old Brower system was the cheap and easily breakable tripods that came with the timing modules, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

The worst part of the old Brower system was the cheap and easily breakable tripods that came with the timing modules. The telescoping legs on the tripods are often dislocated and could easily be bent with the slightest contact. On a windy day, it wasn’t uncommon for the timers to get blown over and give you a heart attack, thinking your timers would be shattered. Needless to say, it wasn’t unusual to have more than half of your tripods held together with duct tape.

A quick search revealed that Brower continues to sell a similar system with the same tripods. However, they seem to have upgraded the system with the ability to connect to a smartphone or mobile device via Bluetooth. Aside from the tripods, Brower does provide a relatively robust system with options for mobile device connectivity that would likely satisfy a lot of coaches.

More Competition in the Electronic Timing Market

Since my old Brower timing days, I have crossed paths with several other electronic timing systems. While I could go into an exhaustive critical review of these systems, my intent is not to malign companies trying to provide affordable solutions for coaches and athletes. I will say that every timing system I’ve used since Brower made me long for the days of simple, remote, basic timing gate modules, crappy tripods, and a clipboard for recording results by pen and paper.

The main culprit in my disdain for modern timing equipment is the smartphone—it doesn’t matter which system I used; I would always have some problematic connection issues with my phone. Either the system would take an agonizing amount of time to connect with the phone during setup or within the midst of testing athletes, times would be dropped, or the system would freeze up for no apparent reason. And heaven forbid someone tried to call you by phone during the testing session.

The main culprit in my disdain for modern timing equipment is the smartphone—it doesn’t matter which system I used; I would always have some problematic connection issues with my phone. Share on X

The worst scenario ever for a coach with a timing system is having an athlete put in a maximal effort for a sprint test—such as a 40-yard dash as part of a testing combine—with recruiters or scouts watching and having the system fail to record a time for that effort.

You feel absolutely horrible because the athlete may have produced their best time ever, and you were unable to document that performance. In addition, you may have spent thousands of dollars on a system only to feel betrayed because it couldn’t accomplish the basic task of switching on and off at the correct time. This has been the case with optical and RFID systems I have used in the past.

I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this combination of disappointment, helplessness, and disgust. Although over 20 years had passed since my Brower timing days, I didn’t feel as though technology had appropriately progressed to reliably record times on a consistent basis.

A New System Enters My Radar

This past year, I’ve been experimenting with some jump protocols using VALD ForceDecks force plates in an attempt to correlate sprint segment performance with various jump types. The VALD system had been recommended to me by multiple clients who have used a number of different products in combination at their professional team or university.

I wanted to look at concentric jumps, countermovement jumps, and reactive hops to see if they corresponded with performance in starts, early acceleration, late acceleration, and maximum velocity with my athletes from various sports. I did not have a lot of experience using force plates. I was hoping to find a system that made data collection relatively simple while at the same time providing robust data that could be easily analyzed.

VALD Chief Commercial Officer Chris Rowe connected me with a local VALD representative—Ryan McLaughlin—and I was on my way with basic jump profile testing, thanks to his support. At the time, I was unaware that VALD also provided a relatively new sprint timing system. Because I was already using an electronic timing system I had purchased last year, reviewing a new one was not on my radar. It wasn’t until I had to use my existing timing system with a large group of athletes that I found myself pulling my hair out.

The unnamed timing system would not connect with the phone application, even after four separate times of re-downloading and installing the app and restarting my phone each time. We wasted more than 30 minutes of session time troubleshooting the app and timing system. On top of that, the timing system occasionally wouldn’t recognize a gate module, and we had to restart the whole system and reassign all the gates once again. The dread you feel while fully warmed-up athletes wait in the hot sun to test is profound and defeating.

Using the VALD SmartSpeed Plus System

Ryan from VALD was extremely supportive and didn’t push the VALD SmartSpeed Plus system on me. Instead, he suggested we run some trials in a future session with the new timers with his help so that I could complete my sprint and jump profile evaluations with the athletes before they moved on to their university summer training camp commitments. He volunteered to do all the setup and recording while I focused on shooting videos of the athletes that we could later correlate with the performances in our athlete summaries. 

Hardware

The hardware for the SmartSpeed Plus system follows a similar design concept to most electronic timing systems, with a light beam reflecting to a timing sensor to detect an athlete crossing the beam. Other systems may use RFID chips to detect an athlete via proximity. The SmartSpeed Plus kit comes with individual sprint gate modules that pair with a reflector unit.

The optical system used to detect movement for starts, splits, and finish times is comprised of LiDAR (Light Detection and Radar) technology. The pulsed laser is reflected back to the optical sensor in much the same way technology is used in self-driving cars to detect objects and hazards. The system records accurately to 1/1000th of a second.

The cylindrical optical units for each gate are approximately 900 grams (2 pounds) in weight and measure 23 centimeters (9 inches) high and 10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter. But the units also serve as display devices, with a revolving LED display providing info on individual athletes, including names and resulting times in real time. These units are powered by a removable, rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can supply power to the individual unit for up to 10 hours of regular use.

The individual timing gate units can be separated over a maximum 120-meter distance, with the primary transmitting unit needing to be within 30 meters of a recording mobile device. The individual gates can be placed a maximum of 4 meters’ width apart from the reflecting unit, depending on lighting conditions. A regular track setup may only need 1.22 meters (4 feet) of width that corresponds to an official lane width, while ice hockey players or larger athletes may require 2–3 meters of spacing to prevent athletes from running into the tripod legs.

The general build quality of the VALD SmartSpeed timing system is on the high side. The tripods provided are much more robust and sturdier than I’ve experienced with other systems, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

The general build quality of the system is on the high side. The tripods provided with the system are much more robust and sturdier than I have experienced with other systems. The total weight of a travel case, including equipment for four pairs of gates, can exceed 50 pounds (23 kilograms), allowing for an acceptable air travel size and weight. Unboxing the system is an impressive task, as you feel the weight and solid construction of individual components. Assembly is fairly intuitive for any coach who has previously worked with timing gates.

Software

The hardware for the VALD SmartSpeed Plus system is run by the SmartSpeed Plus app operated through a mobile device. The VALD platform supports both iOS and Android devices, although I prefer to run the app through an iPad because of the larger form factor for viewing times and managing team lists. You can create and organize team lists in advance using the VALD Hub application with easy import of spreadsheet files. I recommend creating team lists in advance, and it is easy to add athletes to the roster if they show up at the last minute for a testing or training session.

The SmartSpeed Plus app is very easy to navigate, and you can order athletes through a simple sort or drag-and-drop method. Similarly, timing gates can be detected and assigned a position—whether it is a start module, split timer, or finish module. Once individual timing gates are detected, you can easily move them around with the drag-and-drop method to correspond with their order and function. All in all, the system app is straightforward to operate and provides enough support prompts to walk the novice user through the process.

All in all, the SmartSpeed Plus app is straightforward to operate and provides enough support prompts to walk the novice user through the process, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Practical Operation

The hardware setup is similar to other systems where sprint distances must be measured accurately using a measuring tape, with tripods and sensors assembled and then aligned appropriately. I did not find that the SmartSpeed Plus setup took any longer than any other electronic system I have used previously. In fact, the LED display units help with the setup process by displaying the module number that correlates with the designation on the app so you can determine if the correct timing gate is assigned at the correct location.

Aligning the optical gate module with the corresponding reflector is very easy, particularly if all tripod heights are equal and you do your manual setup and eyeballing of the pairing before turning on the units. The alignment laser allows you to visually pinpoint the middle section of the reflector, and both the app and optical module let you know when the system has been aligned correctly.

The only shortcoming I encountered while using the SmartSpeed Plus system occurred when we used the system for athlete testing during a few evening sessions with the sun setting on the horizon. The horizontal projection of the sun’s rays created confusion with the beam sensor and disrupted the readiness of the system by giving a misalignment error. This was remedied by relocating the sensors to an area that did not receive direct sunlight at such a low trajectory. Sometimes, we even had a coach stand alongside the gates to cast a shadow over the tripods and block the sun. However, this situation is rare and possibly due to the long summer days found in the Canadian North. Needless to say, the precise siting and scheduling of your testing session is a significant consideration if you use any timing system with a light detection beam mechanism.

Once the system was up and running, the testing process moved ahead quite smoothly. The LED display on each timing gate displays the name of the athlete to be tested and then immediately displays the time result once the run is complete. The starting method can be designated as either an “in-beam” start—where the athlete blocks the beam and the reflector, only to start the timing process once the athlete leaves—or a “break-beam” option, where the athlete starts behind the timing beam and breaks it with a portion of their body to start the timing sequence. With a static, three-point start, we chose to use the “in-beam” start method, as it yielded a more consistent start sequence with all athletes and less probability of prematurely tripping the start beam.

A practical consideration of any technology is the price of buying and maintaining a system. The VALD SmartSpeed Plus system is subscription-based, covering hardware, software, and customer support. Share on X

Another practical consideration with any technology is the price of purchasing a system as well as maintaining it. The VALD SmartSpeed Plus system is priced under a subscription-based model, covering the inclusion of all hardware, software, and customer support. The minimum term for the subscription is three years, with the units approximately priced (at the time of the writing of this article) as follows:

• Two-gate system – CAD 2,600/year or USD 2,210/year
• Three-gate system – CAD 3,200/year or USD 2,860 /year
• Four-gate system – CAD 3,800/year or USD 3,510/year

Payment frequency is flexible based on a client’s needs, with smaller facilities deciding to pay monthly or quarterly and larger organizations adopting an annual payment plan. The arrangement includes a full warranty for the term with a complete replacement at no cost if any part of the system malfunctions or is damaged. For a private operation that is testing, training, and rehabilitating new clients all the time, there is a significant ability to recover costs right away. An organization may simply identify these fees as operating costs that could be deducted as a business expense every tax year, as opposed to a one-time capital expenditure.

Video 1. The whole process of setting up and executing a session using the VALD SmartSpeed Plus system.

Recommended Users

Because the VALD SmartSpeed Plus system may be priced outside the means of many individuals, private coaches, small businesses, and public schools, it may only be an attractive solution for larger organizations that can afford the subscription fee but also justify its use with a large number of high-performance athletes or teams on hand.

A professional sports team with significant financial resources may only have 12–20 athletes at any given time but may not be deterred by a higher price point, given the reliability, accuracy, and ease of use of this system. A university athletic department could easily justify the investment in this type of system, given the large number of athletes for testing as well as the diversity of sports teams that could be tested and monitored throughout the year. The system may also be attractive to private training facilities that constantly evaluate athletes but also want to show clients (and parents) that they use the latest technology that provides instant, visible feedback.

Another potential user of this system could be a privately run physical therapy or rehabilitation group that focuses on return to play for athletes of all ages and abilities. A private healthcare-based operation would be able to justify the use of this timing system to manage a running-based return-to-play process. Being able to accurately record running times with direct feedback being presented to the athlete would allow them to manage output at safe levels. I have used this monitoring approach with soft-tissue injuries, guiding athletes to run consistent acceleration reps in a “safe zone” of output. The accumulation of submaximal reps at a low risk of reinjury helps to build overall strength and confidence in repeat sprint scenarios.

Data management through the VALD Hub can make long-term tracking of athletes and patients more efficient, particularly for larger organizations collecting hundreds of thousands of data points weekly. Share on X

In both cases presented above, data management through the VALD Hub—their proprietary data management platform for all of their testing systems—can make long-term tracking of athletes and patients more efficient, particularly for larger organizations collecting hundreds of thousands of data points in a typical week. The Hub also allows you to correlate data between other testing modalities, such as with my interest in jump performance and sprint outcomes. These larger organizations can also justify the subscription rates for multiple testing devices to create greater efficiencies and reduce overall labor and data management costs. Rehabilitation centers could easily import and integrate data from RTP patients into their EMR (electronic medical record) system to track rehabilitation progress.

Final Observations

I’m always hesitant to recommend products that may be out of the price range of many coaches because I understand how resources can be limited for equipment and technology purchases, especially at the high school and sport club levels. I don’t want coaches to feel as though equipment and tools define their coaching, credibility, and reputation. It should be about coaching expertise and, ultimately, results.

My own personal decisions around using a timing solution such as the SmartSpeed Plus system go back to my original frustrations with time being wasted fiddling with connectivity and reliability with any technology. If a lesser system that you purchase fails in front of a client team with a large number of athletes, how much does that cost you personally in terms of wasted time and overall credibility? Your own cost-benefit analysis should factor into any selection of technology or equipment before making a significant capital investment.

My decision to use a timing solution such as the SmartSpeed Plus system goes back to my original frustrations with technology connectivity and reliability wasting our time, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

The SmartSpeed Plus system is a high-quality measurement tool that does a very good job of collecting times consistently and reliably and integrating that data with your athlete-monitoring database. The system will cost you approximately $240 per month to maintain. A three-year commitment will likely run you $8,500 for that period. If you work for a professional team or university athletic department, this may seem like an easy cost to absorb if you use the system regularly to test your athletes, track the quality of sprint efforts, and manage return-to-play intensities. A private training facility or rehabilitation center may be able to justify the cost as part of a cost-recovery strategy, ensuring the system is used with a minimum number of clients and patients each month.

This timing system is also a very visually appealing apparatus that will attract attention and give athletes, clients, and parents a distinct impression of high performance and advanced technology. Seeing the split times and final time displayed immediately can motivate athletes to manage effort and mechanics, and return-to-play patients can regulate output to minimize risk while carrying out precise training. You must consider these features and benefits as part of your calculation of contribution to your business or program and weigh them against the cost of the monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription fee.

Some individuals or organizations may opt for the one-time cost of purchasing a timing system for $2,000 and live with the potential reliability, connectivity, and data management issues associated with a lower-priced system, and many coaches on a budget can live with these quirks and idiosyncrasies. I have a friend who uses a wired timing system that cost him $1,500, and he swears by it for reliability and consistency even though he has the added labor of connecting wires between each pair of gates every session, with the added headache of athletes accidentally tripping on the wires at any given time. Your decision and perception of value will depend on your tolerance for the time required for setup, implementation, and data management.

The VALD SmartSpeed Plus timing system is very visually appealing and should provide athletes, clients, and parents with a distinct impression of high performance and advanced technology. Share on X

Because I currently wear the hat of “sports performance consultant,” with less of my time dedicated to coaching athletes directly, I may not need a robust and slick-looking timing system throughout the year. However, I am always on the lookout for good products to recommend to my clients, particularly if the tools help save time, speed workflow, and produce actionable data. In the case of the VALD SmartSpeed Plus system, my own experience has shown that this product is worthy of recommendation for many of my high-performance, institutional, and private-sector clients without reservations.

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I’m going to share with you my experiences in coaching athletes for over two decades, focusing on the changes I’ve seen along with the lessons I’ve learned. Now, these may not be the changes you’ve seen or experienced, so this article is by no means meant to stand as a be-all and end-all statement or an assumption of what is happening elsewhere. I’ve seen a different culture with regard to strength & conditioning when I visit places like Ohio, Texas, North and South Carolina, and Indiana. These are my journey and experiences in New Jersey, and I hope you can learn something from these lessons.

I began coaching in the winter of 1995. In my first year as a trainer, I worked predominantly with adults in a hospital fitness center, and then during the summer of 1996, a few parents brought their teenage athletes to train with me as well.

The teenage boys were actually quite easy to train, and I thought nothing of it—I taught them squats, pull-ups, bent-over rows, military presses, and all the basics. Jumping into basic barbell and dumbbell exercises was easy, and they all moved with no apparent “problems.” Their backs were flat on all ground-based lifts, and nobody struggled with strength or mobility. Nobody had “tight ankles” or “tight hips.”

The girls did all the same exercises except pull-ups; instead, they performed one-arm rows, lat pulldowns, and cable rows. None of these athletes struggled to move correctly. Maybe I was lucky with these kids in the summer of ’96, or perhaps fit and athletic kids were more the norm in the mid-’90s? I personally don’t recall classmates in the late ’80s and early ’90s struggling to do push-ups or run a mile for phys ed class or sports.

My time at the hospital fitness center taught me how to communicate and work with adults with unique personalities and different fitness levels. With my background teaching (health and physical education) and coaching wrestling, I felt at ease when I trained athletes who came in looking for a performance edge because I had experience working with such a wide variety of fitness levels and personalities. In the mid-’90s, multisport athletes were also the norm, and many of the athletes I trained at the hospital fitness center were two-sport athletes.

The New Millennium

Fast forward to 2002—I began training athletes in my parent’s backyard, in our garage, and at local playgrounds. Similar to before in the mid-’90s, the training was basic and modeled after Rocky movies and golden-era bodybuilding: barbells, dumbbells, and calisthenics. I had no trap bar, slant boards, or special equipment to accommodate someone’s lack of mobility—because none of these athletes struggled with mobility. They all deadlifted with a straight bar, conventional style, and no one had a round back while deadlifting because high school athletes were showing up with a solid foundation of strength.

I also didn’t know athletes needed an intro phase of training or unilateral training for six weeks or any other “rules” we have created since the internet started. All of the athletes I trained sprinted hills without me getting into wall drills or sprint mechanics. I pointed to the hill, and they sprinted. I demonstrated “box jumps” onto a picnic table, as that was our only option. Most could jump onto the picnic table, and the rare few who couldn’t jump high enough would jump onto a park bench instead.

Pull-ups? I didn’t have pull-up bars, but we had trees in my backyard, so the athletes did pull-ups from the tree branches. These athletes were wrestlers and football, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, and baseball players. With the wrestlers, I threw a beach towel over the branches for added grip strength, and they did towel pull-ups. No one had to do recline rows. We all thought it was normal to be strong enough to do pull-ups in high school, including the football players who weighed over 200 pounds. We thought nothing of it. Calisthenics was a normal activity.

Every coach, from youth to the high school level, had athletes doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups as part of a warm-up. My physical education classes in middle and high school always had push-ups and crunches in the warm-up. “Fitness Day” was once a week, and we ran. I don’t recall my phys ed teacher giving students an option to walk the entire class. The option was to run or walk a lap for a C grade. If you wanted a B, you had to run 1 mile non-stop; for an A, you had to run the entire class. Again, I grew up learning that being fit enough to run a mile was a normal activity.

Around 2010, I began to see some changes that I will describe below, along with how we can push to solve this problem of athletes being unprepared, not just physically but also psychologically.

The De-Evolution Era

After the period of roughly 2010–2012, I noticed there was something different about the athletes I was working with compared to those of my earlier years in coaching. I call this time “the de-evolution of the athlete.” It’s something I’ve watched happen as a strength coach in both the private sector and the high school realm since 2019. It’s also something I pick up on simply by seeing the physiques of athletes who compete in sports today. In a nutshell: athletes have gotten weaker. Certainly, some young teenagers are strong and fit, and often they’ve been training at a private facility throughout their younger years. But never before have I seen so many athletes unable to perform a push-up coming into high school.

General fitness goes beyond training for competition. We need kids to thrive throughout the season instead of breaking down physically and mentally, says @ZEvenEsh. Share on X

If you have ever listened to Jim Wendler, he often talks about how high schoolers should have basic fitness levels, regardless of whether they are athletes. This all starts at home, in my opinion. Kids should be able to run 1 mile and perform push-ups and pull-ups. Instead, I am seeing athletes sign up for combat sports such as football and wrestling who cannot do ONE push-up. Unable to run 1/4 mile without collapsing.

This is a scary situation, as kids are signing up for a sport without giving much thought to what it takes to be prepared. Athletes need overall fitness to physically and mentally handle the rigors of practicing every day and competing throughout the season. General fitness goes beyond training for competition. We need kids to thrive throughout the season instead of breaking down physically and mentally.

NEVER Underestimate How Weak Incoming Athletes Are… and Create an Intro Phase for Your Athletes

Seeing this decline in strength led me to create introductory phases at The Underground Strength Gym and implement this same system at my high school (as well as while I was at the collegiate level). From this intro phase, we transition to the intermediate phase, and then eventually, we get athletes performing the training that I believe is where they need to be to compete at the varsity level in high school.

I suggest you do the same—essentially, reverse-engineer what it takes to get athletes to a place you want them to be. Even if your philosophy or exercise/coaching style is different from mine, simply create regressions of the training so you can safely and effectively build up the athletes in a manner that also builds them up emotionally/mentally. Many young athletes lack confidence, and one of the best ways to combat this is to get them to experience success every day. If the training is too intense or the exercises are too complex to learn, they will feel defeated and likely quit. Slow and steady wins the race.

An intro phase focuses on GPP and building muscle (aka body armor)/introducing athletic movements that are easy to learn and teach. This means we use plenty of bodyweight drills, basic gymnastics tumbling and animal crawls, dumbbells, kettlebells, med ball training, sleds, and light resistance bands.

Here’s a sample intro session after a dynamic warm-up, including light sleds, one-arm KB carries (suitcase and rack position), and band work for shoulder health and strength.

• 1A) Wheelbarrow Hand Walk (Partner holds ankles or uses glute ham roller) 4 x 50 ft
• 1B) Recline Row or Pull-Ups 4 x Submax Reps

NOTE: if the athlete struggles on the partner wheelbarrow/hand walk, we regress to the bear crawl or perform lateral push-up hand walks for 15 ft left and right.  

• 2A) KB Farmer Walk 3 – 4 x 100 ft (Emphasize proper body position/posture when picking up & putting down weights)
• 2B) Squat Jumps 3 – 4 x 5 reps (Hold the last rep at mid-point for 5 seconds iso hold)

• 3A) Sled Push 2 x 100 ft
• 3B) Hammer Curls 2 x 10

The above looks extremely simple, and it is! But for the athletes today who struggle to do one push-up, this is perfect. The dynamic warm-up includes skipping, side shuffles, walking lunges, animal walks of all types, one-leg hops, frog jumps, etc. Our warm-up is where we segue into our speed, acceleration, deceleration, and some jump training as well.

Benching Before Push-Ups?

I have found that our female athletes and heavier boys struggle with push-ups. They barely bend their elbows, and their entire trunk/core sags. Don’t be afraid to implement dumbbell exercises such as benching on flat and incline, one-arm military presses, and lying triceps extensions to build these pushing muscles.

My friend who coaches at a high school said he prefers benching before push-ups for this exact reason. Again, it’s up to you. You should assess what your athletes need and create a program that is best for them physically and mentally. I also understand that training large versus small groups will change your exercise selection because at the high school level, we need to make sure the training has flow, or there will be lots of standing around.

Here is a sample intro workout for my freshman football team that we did two weeks in:

Warm-Up:

• 1A) Pause squats x 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (three-count pause at bottom)
• 1B) Push-ups x 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
• 1C) Alternate forward lunges x 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, each leg

• 2A) Squats jump 2 x 5 (hold last rep for a five count in bottom)
• 2B) Reverse lunges 2 x 5/5

Six Rounds of:

• 1A) Chest support row x 6 reps
• 1B) KB farmer walks x 100 feet
• 1C) Squat jumps x 6 reps
• Finished with hill sprints for 3 x 100-foot walk down the hill and sprint back up

In the training session before this, the players learned how to DB bench. I had three benches on an incline and three on flat. They did a very similar session, which is broken down below:

• 1A) DB bench x 6 reps
• 1B) Squat jump x 6 reps
• 1C) Med ball or KB farmer walk x 100 feet

• 2A) BB or DB curls x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2
• 2B) Push-ups (skill guys) x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 OR one-arm military press (anyone struggling with push-ups) x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 each arm

Another tip that has helped our athletes a lot: tell them to do calisthenics every day at home. Don’t worry; no one will “overtrain” from push-ups. I tell the big guys to hold the top or mid-range of a push-up for MAX time. Iso holds are great for building strength, and you’re also instilling a culture of commitment, preparation, and work ethic when athletes do extra on their own without a coach or parent telling them what to do.

On the larger timeline of events, you can see when smartphones became the norm around 2010, and year-round travel and club teams also exploded during this era. This was a pivotal time, as we began to see fewer multisport athletes, and smartphone/internet access seemed to push the speed of skill acquisition for younger athletes. In my opinion, this early specialization in sport is where we see young athletes with greater skill than I would see pre-2010, but we are also seeing these imbalances, mobility issues, and “pain.” It’s not unusual for baseball players to mention sore biceps, sore shoulders, an aching back, etc.

The abundance of club sports that push year-round training in almost every sport (baseball, wrestling, basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc.) also creates athletes/families who are “too busy” to strength train and protect their bodies from the excessive wear and tear of sports. When we have athletes performing club sports for 3–6 months in addition to their sports season, we have athletes who are accumulating a volume of sport 2–3 times greater than the days of multisport athletes.

For example, in high school during the 1990s and early 2000s, a baseball player would throw three months every year. Now, they throw nine months a year; in four years, that is 36 months of mileage on the arm and body versus 12 months of mileage.

If an athlete feels better from an exercise, we don’t wait for research to prove its effectiveness. Our research is on the floor when coaching and training, says @ZEvenEsh. Share on X

Keep this in mind when training your athletes because we must now become experts at helping an athlete achieve longevity in a world where overuse injuries and pain are becoming the norm.

Picking up on this communication from athletes, we began focusing on a lot of unilateral work in our warm-ups. Additionally:

• We address shoulder health with band pull-aparts, face pulls, and hanging leg raises to traction the shoulders and back.
• We also teach kids how to foam roll because they feel better from rolling out. If an athlete feels better from an exercise, we don’t wait for research to prove its effectiveness. Our research is on the floor when coaching and training.
• We often implement one-arm KB carries and side planks to stabilize and strengthen the trunk. Athletes and their parents call this “core,” so we use their language because they believe in the program, and it builds confidence in the athlete.

Before 2010, the majority of my athletes were athletic and often two-sport athletes. They picked up skills in new exercises quickly and rather easily compared to many of the athletes I see today. The athletes pre-2010 showed up with a solid base of fitness and strength, and calisthenics were not a struggle for 90% of these athletes. These athletes often didn’t specialize in one sport until 11th grade, and even then, many continued to play two sports throughout high school.

Part of this could have been the fact that I was only in the private sector at that time—even though it was my garage, we attracted a unique type of athlete, someone determined and motivated to get better.

Our football players would play pick-up basketball in the spring a couple of times a week (we called this “street ball”). Pick-up basketball was their “speed and agility.” Some may argue that there is no skill development with street play, but I disagree. Speed and change of direction can certainly be coached skills, but coaches often implement too many closed-loop drills that don’t significantly transfer to sport. Street ball and other pick-up games breed intensity, competitive drive, and thinking for yourself without a coach constantly telling you exactly what to do and how to do it.

Some people may argue that there’s no skill development with street play, but I disagree, says @ZEvenEsh. Share on X

Before 2010, “speed and agility” wasn’t on my radar because our athletes were active on the field, the streets, and the court all year. Parents and kids didn’t request speed and agility. They didn’t request “core strength” and “first step quickness.” They wanted to get stronger, and they wanted to build size. The buzzwords began to be used after 2012 as social media exploded and hype videos became the craze.

My first gym (home gym business started in 2002, and warehouse gym in 2007) was located in Edison, New Jersey. The athletes I trained often had jobs on the weekend mowing lawns or working for a contractor, pushing wheelbarrows filled with sand and carrying cinder blocks and bricks. They were “strength training” without even knowing it.

I grew up in Edison and began mowing the lawn around age 8 or 9. Biking and running were a daily form of transportation all year round, whether I was going to school or meeting up with my friends. When kids grow up in towns like this, they have an advantage; because they are working in the early years, they build tremendous GPP levels.

Today, when kids get their driver’s licenses, they don’t often look for a job that involves manual labor. They don’t try to start their own lawn care business. They want to work for Uber Eats or something similar that is easy and convenient and has a flexible schedule so they can work when they want and choose their hours. The smartphone has made all of us fans of convenience, and it doesn’t always work in our favor. Having everything available at our fingertips has made many of us lazier, including our youth.

Some rural areas will certainly hang on to that blue-collar work ethic. However, once smartphones became popular, bringing with them convenience and speed (ordering food from your phone, getting information on YouTube, etc.), I noticed a decline in the strength and athleticism of teenagers.

If you’re a coach, this is crucial to understand. My advice to other coaches is never to underestimate just how weak and deconditioned teenagers are today. There have been hospitalizations and deaths during “conditioning workouts” run by sport coaches and even D1 strength coaches who try to push kids too far too soon. This tends to happen during the summer or after winter break.

My advice to other coaches is never to underestimate just how weak and deconditioned teenagers are today. Share on X

More than 20 years ago, a wrestling coach gave me advice that I will always remember. This coach was a physical education teacher who also coached football and baseball in a blue-collar town where the kids were known for being tough; his advice then shocked me because I was young. He said, “Zach, when I first began coaching wrestling, I would lose a lot of athletic kids who could have become great wrestlers, but I broke them down and destroyed them in the first two weeks. Now, my first two weeks are easy, and I make sure they leave wanting to come back.”

I implement this advice with all new athletes, regardless of age. As I keep emphasizing, over the past 12 years, the majority of incoming freshmen struggled to do ONE push-up. They need a slow build-up process.

Below is a sample intro training session for new athletes for reference.

Large Group Prep: 2–3 Rounds of:

• 1A) Pause squat x 5 reps (five-count hold at the bottom to emphasize depth and proper body position/posture)
• 1B) Push-ups x 5 (if easy, give the athlete the opportunity to do 10)
• 1C) Lunges (forward one set, reverse the next set) x 5/5
• 1D) Recline row x 5

Notice how the reps are kept to five. The following week we will do 6–8 reps, and the next week there’s an option to get to 10 reps.

Prep Part 2 (More Power): 2–3 Rounds of:

• 2A) Squat jumps x 5 (hold last rep in landing position for five counts)
• 2B) Vertical pogo jumps x 15 seconds
• 2C) Side/side pogo jumps x 15 seconds
• 2D) Lunge iso hold x 15/15

Training Session:

• 1A) DB or KB goblet squat 5 x 5
• 1B) Flat or incline DB bench 5 x 5 (I would prefer 10 reps here, but we have five adjustable benches and approximately 45 freshmen on the football team.)

• 2A) Chest support DB row 3 x 10
• 2B) One-arm DB military press 3 x 5/5

• 3A) DB reverse lunge 3 x 5/5
• 3B) DB or BB curl 3 x 10

• 4) Hill sprints 3 x ~100 feet

The sets and reps can vary. Once the athletes build some skill in the lifts—returning weights, organizing, etc.—we can adjust rep ranges. Giving them sets of 5 or 10 makes it easy for them to remember and minimizes confusion. New athletes are already nervous and a bit overwhelmed, so the key here is simplicity and effectiveness.

Freshman football trains three times weekly. One of the days, we start outside before going into the weight room. We perform a basic dynamic warm-up and then segue into calisthenics. After calisthenics, we hit our hill sprints and then some tag games to work real-time “speed and agility.” We play two, maybe three, games of Capture the Fox. To play this, start with four guys who are the wolves; the others take their shirts off and tuck half of it into the side of their shorts. Once a wolf captures a fox, the fox joins the wolf pack, and the game continues until they capture the last fox.

In the video above, I lined up the players side by side, and they had to race one another and curve around the trees. Racing breeds competition and challenges the athletes. It’s easy to overthink training and question if our skill guys and big guys need different things, but we must remind ourselves that these are high school kids. Ninety-three percent of them will NOT compete in college.

We aren’t just training these athletes for the game; we’re training them to be able to get through an entire season. Let the specificity happen when they’re on the field of practice and competition. Share on X

We need to develop a broad base of all-around athleticism and fitness. Being “in shape” makes them durable. Remember, we are not just training these athletes for the game; we are training them to be able to get through an entire season. Let the specificity happen when they are on the field of practice and competition.

Mindset and Attitude

The athletes I trained pre-2012 had a different mindset toward training than the athletes today. Strength was something they wanted and chased. It was an admirable trait that helped athletes earn the respect of their teammates and helped them develop self-confidence and self-respect. The athletes all seemed to understand that in athletics, it was a clear-cut advantage to be stronger than your opponent.

Phone calls from parents pre-2010 were requests to get their son or daughter stronger. Phone calls from parents post-2012 are where I began to hear buzzwords such as “core strength,” “first step quickness,” and “speed and agility.” Baseball parents also added the buzzword “arm care.” These were the parents of kids who couldn’t perform basic calisthenics. The travel teams added longer seasons, and athletes had less time to get strong because they were on the road, constantly traveling to play club sports in the off-season.

I learned to speak their language and give them a little of what they wanted and a lot of what they needed. At the high school level, it isn’t odd for me to give them options to choose an exercise once a day or give them the last five minutes to do “extra on your own.” You’ll see most kids doing curls or triceps pushdowns, but as time goes on, you’ll also see kids doing things like front squats, benching, and rowing for their extra.

Today’s generation loves to have some autonomy. This builds their confidence and keeps them coming back for more. Keep that in mind and play the long game, says @ZEvenEsh. Share on X

Today’s generation loves to have some autonomy. This builds their confidence and keeps them coming back for more. Keep that in mind and play the long game.

Before social media, the “influencers” for athletes were the strongest athletes at their school or in the private facility. The athletes who trained before the advent of social media were yet to be exposed to “online influencers” and the infinite marketing dollars that get put behind the most popular information athletes come across today. There was admiration and a sense of pride if you were stronger than someone on your team or in the same gym/weight room. There was pride in how much weight you could lift.

Today, with technology, we can measure more than the weight on the bar, which is an advantage for driving competition. Teenagers today will compete when they see numbers, whether it’s a flying 10, bar speed, or bar weight.

At my high school, I currently do NOT have any technology. I have to get creative to inspire competition, but not at the expense of poor technique.

Don’t confuse the measure of strength pre-2012 with the ability to move a barbell for a 1RM—strength was measured in many ways, such as racing against someone on a sled for 50–100 feet or seeing who could push the heaviest sled. The weight on the squat bar was one thing, but comparing two athletes on a box jump (who could land with less of a knee bend?) and seeing the impact that squats had on their sprint time, racing against others, or the height of a tire jump inspired them to earn more strength.

If someone ran faster and was also stronger in certain lifts, this was explained to the kids. If someone could lift heavier but was slower, then bar speed and showing up to train on Dynamic Effort/Speed days became the topic of conversation.

Today, the word strength is often viewed as a negative. Strength is being demonized by many people, including “strength coaches.” I hear talk of how being too strong is some sort of common problem we are dealing with. Over the past 3 1/2 years, I’ve trained around 150–200 high school athletes and 25–35 middle school athletes every day. I have yet to struggle with athletes being “too strong.” Seeing so many athletes on a daily basis has only confirmed to me that we need high school athletes focused on becoming GREAT at the basics.

Social media influences coaches to share advanced, flashy exercises/drills when it’s not what these teenagers need. In fact, I often question if a video was posted for “more views and more likes” and if the coach would actually implement such an exercise. Do teenagers need weight releasers when benching and squatting? Do they need advanced training methods or training tools when they are struggling with push-ups, pull-ups, full-range squats, and consistency in the weight room? High school athletes don’t need these advanced methods or tools, but they do like them. And I am not a fan of using these tools unless the athlete has earned them through consistency and achieving some base levels of strength.

Social media influences coaches to share advanced, flashy exercises/drills when it’s not what these teenagers need. I’m not a fan of using these tools unless the athlete has earned them. Share on X

If I have a small group at my private facility, and the athletes are experienced lifters, sure, we might use chains and advanced methods. It excites them and motivates them. But when groups are larger, and the kids are weaker, there is no reason for the fancy. I find other ways to add some novelty, such as pause reps, speed reps, five-second eccentrics, etc.

Jim Wendler often reminds me how high school athletes should ALL be able to run a mile in seven minutes, including football linemen. It is a basic form of overall fitness for a teenager, but we’re so scared that it is not “specific” enough for their sport. Remember, a broad base of GPP/overall fitness helps the athlete recover from the daily practices—kids who are only trained with a focus on specificity tend to be the same kids complaining about their knees and ankles.

Learn and Understand the Difference

There is a difference between training athletes who train for free at a high school and those who are screened and whose parents pay for them to train. (I interview parents before their son or daughter can train with us.) Usually, the athletes at my private facility are locked in with nutrition and consistent with training and intensity. (But over the past two or three years, we have seen less consistency, even from those who pay for the training.)

One of the football coaches at my school reminded me, “Zach, you can’t treat these kids the same as your kids at The Underground.” He was right! After two decades in the private sector and coaching at the D1 level, I had to slow things down a bit and reduce the culture of intensity. I’m still getting better at trying not to scare away kids who could become great but need a slower approach.

They Will Judge You According to Your Instagram

The majority of warehouse gyms pre-2010 were a basic weight room—very few locations had turf. At my first location, all of our sprint work was done outside in a parking lot or on a neighboring patch of grass. There was no change of direction or agility work; it was all linear acceleration and speed work. Jumps were primarily performed indoors, and we would jump and land in multiple directions in addition to using boxes, hurdles, and benches to jump on, over, or off of.

In 2012, I opened the second location of The Underground Strength Gym in my hometown of Manasquan, New Jersey. I knew I needed turf, not just for the training I wanted to implement, but because parents of athletes were not asking about strength training—they wanted to see a place that looked like it was set up for speed and agility.

I’ve learned that social media has taught people to judge a book by its cover, and so your website, videos, and photos need to convey the message that people want to see. When a dad tells me his son needs “core strength,” I think about developing full-body strength. When a dad tells me his son needs “speed and agility,” I think about building overall athleticism.

Most videos on Instagram only get around six seconds of play time before the person scrolls to the next distraction (check your video insights and you will see this). The rare few (including coaches) will watch a 30-, 60-, or dare I say, 90-second video from start to end. The majority will not read the text explanation—we’re in a time and place when shock and awe capture attention.

How does this negatively impact coaches? People watch your work online, but only in bits and pieces. People are enticed by what they see. Is it a highlight reel? Is it a hype reel? Sure, the rare few will want to learn, and they will dig deep and watch your educational video from start to finish. But today, the majority are “too busy.”

Training at The Underground Had to Evolve

Today, we place a premium on all-around athleticism. In the early years, the focus was on “stronger, faster, tougher.” When asked about my training philosophy, I don’t say, “I’m a speed coach,” or “I’m a conjugate coach,” etc. I am a “do whatever the kids need” coach! In the videos from old (pre-2010) to the current day, you’ll notice the evolution in our training and my coaching cues/skills as I improved as a coach according to what athletes need both physically and psychologically.

When asked about my training philosophy, I don’t say, ‘I’m a speed coach’ or ‘I’m a conjugate coach,’ etc. I am a ‘do whatever the kids need’ coach! Share on X

I also want to emphasize that everything I’ve presented in this article (and everything I share) is done with the understanding that every training session is flawed. They are based on my experiences. I don’t expect my experiences to be the same as others, nor do I expect every training program to be perfect. There is truly no such thing as the perfect program.

If I was at your school or in your town, the experience might be different. That being said, competition is flawed! Nothing goes perfectly or according to plan during a game/match/competition. As a coach, you must keep that in mind and keep striving to improve in your efforts to give athletes the best opportunity through preparation. I always say if we expect greatness from the kids, then we must expect greatness from ourselves as coaches. Therefore, we must keep learning and improving.

Is “Speed and Agility” Bad? Absolutely Not. However…

If an athlete is in a “program” that is based entirely on speed and agility or based entirely on strength training, there will be many gaps in this athlete’s overall performance. This generation of athletes is missing the big picture of all-around athleticism, and there are a lot of coaches claiming to be “a speed guy” or a “strength guy.” Athletes need a well-balanced, athletic-based program, and the way to make this happen is for coaches to be a “whatever the athlete needs guy.”

In the field of sports performance, like other fields, we have the good and the bad. There are “quality control” issues with any field that doesn’t have much in the way of obstacles before entry. The bad comes from the fads and gimmicks that have no purpose or drills that are too advanced for a weak and/or inexperienced athlete. When an athlete comes to The Underground Strength Gym and previously spent 6–12 months elsewhere in a program that was only speed and agility, we see an athlete who was not trained outside of cone drills on turf. These athletes tend to lack muscle, strength, confidence, etc.

We are in a time when athletes need it all: strength training and speed and agility work. It is not one or the other; it is both. Both of these styles and methods build the athlete beyond the physical.

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

Standing for application programming interface, an API is a component of a product or service that enables other programs or services to extract or exchange data easily.

Third-party APIs are embedded into applications that we use every day. For example, if you use online banking (exchange rates APIs used by online banking systems) or GPS in your car (geo-location APIs used by automobile navigation), that application most likely uses a third-party API.

In the same way that everyday applications use APIs, coaches can leverage third-party vendor APIs to streamline data collection and integration. Share on X

In the same way that everyday applications use APIs, coaches can leverage third-party vendor APIs to streamline data collection and integration. Some popular third-party APIs include:

• GPS APIs (Catapult, STATSports, etc.)
• Velocity-based training APIs (Perch, GymAware, etc.)
• Force plate/jump mat APIs (Vald, Hawkin Dynamics, Skyhook, etc.)

Benefits of Accessing Data via an API

Combining and aggregating data from multiple sources can be time-consuming, but leveraging vendor APIs makes this process seamless. Below are a few benefits of using APIs.

1. Automation—No need to go to each third-party application and manually download data or manually type data into sheets.

Automatically schedule data pulls from third-party APIs, eliminating the need to export the data manually. You can also manually run an API extract with one button click from your API Caller application if you do not want to use a scheduled data refresh (an athlete management system, or AMS, is an example of an API Caller.

2. Integrate and connect your data—No more combining data by copying/pasting data from Excel and Google Sheets.

Since data is pulled directly from APIs into a single location, your third-party sources can be seamlessly integrated based on athlete names and/or unique identifiers without manual intervention.

3. Spend more time coaching—Dedicate more time to your athletes instead of managing data processes.

APIs simplify the entire data management process. Coaching reports can be set up to automatically update as the data flows directly from the vendor API into your dashboards.

How Do APIs Work?

APIs are sometimes thought of as agreements between two applications with two primary functions:

• Caller: How to request data/call the API
• Receiver: How the API will respond. The receiver displays the data structure format in which the data will be returned to the caller.

The third-party vendor publishes their API “interface,” which enables any API Caller to connect and pull data. Think of the API “interface” as the instructions for how the API Caller and Receiver will communicate. If there is no published API “interface,” there is no way for the two applications to connect.

How Are APIs Used?

For example, if you are collecting GPS metrics for your athletes, your GPS vendor is most likely storing the collected data in the cloud. The GPS data stored in the cloud can be directly extracted using the vendor’s API (provided the vendor has an API). For this to happen, the vendor provides you with your unique API key (think of an API key as a password to extract your data). After receiving your API key, there are various methods to access the data. Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, an AMS, and a preferred software development language are applications that can be used to pull data from APIs.

APIs become extremely valuable if you want to automatically synchronize athlete data from multiple data sources. Share on X

APIs become extremely valuable if you want to automatically synchronize athlete data from multiple data sources.

RockDaisy LLC: Who We Are

Built by sports data experts, RockDaisy’s superior athlete management system provides a powerful competitive advantage to sports organizations throughout the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NHSSCA and other elite sports leagues around the world.

Interested in learning more about how APIs can streamline your data collection?

Visit: rockdaisy.com or contact us at [email protected].

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

How do I get my athletes stronger? This is one of the main questions we strength and conditioning coaches ask ourselves. Strength lays the foundation for all specialty strengths—explosive strength, speed strength, strength endurance, etc.—and is a quality athletes of all levels need to possess and improve.

As a coach in the private sector working with athletes of all different skill levels and training ages, I had to determine a way to help them all gain strength with methods that were appropriate to them individually. The 14-year-old first-time lifter and the 26-year-old Pro Bowler need different stressors to elicit the adaptation of strength—so I needed to figure out how to get all types of athletes stronger.

Let’s take a deep look at the principles and methods needed to improve strength in all different levels of athletes. Whether you’re a high school, collegiate, professional, or private-sector coach, you likely see athletes of all different training ages and strength levels. This article will cover how to continue to build strength over time and what athletes of varying strength levels should focus on.

What Is Strength?

Strength—specifically absolute or maximal muscular strength—is commonly defined as the measurement of the force that a muscle can produce. This is not to be confused with strength endurance, relative strength, or different types of speed strength. So, strength is how much force a muscle can produce, and force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration (F=MA). Acceleration is the increase in velocity or speed, and mass is the load. The heavier the load being moved, the more force being exerted.

An isokinetic dynamometer is the gold standard in exercise science research for measuring muscular strength.¹ If you are unfamiliar with isokinetic dynamometers, it is because they are not commonly (if at all) found in weight rooms but are instead in scientific laboratories. Force plates are some fancy pieces of training equipment becoming more and more common at the collegiate and professional levels. These high-tech scales can also be useful for strength measurements like the isometric mid-thigh pull.

The most common and most affordable way to measure strength is through 1 repetition max strength testing with specific exercises such as squats, benches, and deadlifts, but you can use any exercise. Test how much an athlete can lift with a bench press, then try again after six weeks of training. If they can lift more, they got stronger.

How Do Athletes Get Stronger?

Two main categories of adaptations lead to getting stronger: neural and muscular. Neural adaptations refer to the changes in how the brain tells the muscle to contract. The brain has to tell the muscles to move the weight.

Two main categories of adaptations lead to getting stronger: neural and muscular. We like to think that a bigger muscle has the potential to be stronger, but neural adaptations are needed as well. Share on X

Neural Adaptations 

1. Motor unit recruitment – activating more muscle fibers. Untrained lifters may only activate 71% of the muscles used to complete a lift.² Obviously, being able to utilize more muscle fibers would be beneficial, and the body gets better at this with more training.
2. Motor unit synchronization – Motor unit recruitment is about the lifter being able to utilize more muscle fibers; synchronization refers to activating them quickly. When it’s time to press the weight, it’s good to have all hands on deck immediately.
3. Decreased Golgi tendon organ inhibition – Golgi tendon organs are proprioceptors (sensory receptors that receive information from the body and communicate with the central nervous system) that sense tension, and they’re located in the tendon. The job of Golgi tendon organs is to measure the tension being produced and keep the lifter in a safe range of tension. Too much tension/force/stress can lead to injury, which is precisely what these proprioceptors are trying to avoid. To avoid too much tension, the Golgi tendon organs tell the central nervous system to limit the amount of force being produced. Training with heavier weights inhibits this and allows the muscle to exert more force.
4. Intra and intermuscular coordination – Intramuscular coordination refers to how muscle fibers within a muscle work together. Intermuscular coordination is how different muscles work together. Both of these are important to get the muscles and muscle fibers to activate and fire in the proper timing and order.

The muscular changes can be less complicated. Muscle fibers get bigger with strength training. A bigger muscle is typically a stronger muscle. We like to think that a bigger muscle has the potential to be stronger, but neural adaptations are needed as well. Bigger muscles are not always stronger (look at bodybuilders versus powerlifters). The muscle has to literally move the bones; they are the tissue responsible for producing force. Muscle growth gets explained a little more in-depth in our previous article focusing on hypertrophy.

So, to get stronger, an athlete needs a muscle big enough and strong enough to complete the task, along with the central nervous system activating more muscle, activating the muscles quickly and in the proper order so that they work together.

Strength Adaptations for Beginner Athletes

As always, to create a change, there must be a signal or a stressor that forces the body to change. If there is no stress, there is no adaptation. For strength improvements in the beginner athlete, we want to focus on proper form, consistency, and progressive overload—specifically, increasing load over time. These are all the same principles we look for to elicit hypertrophy in beginners.

With younger athletes who cannot build adequate muscle mass, it is important to develop strength appropriately since they can still obtain the neurological benefits of strength training. Share on X

Strength and hypertrophy are relatively similar, and there is a lot of carryover between the two. As we coaches know, prepubescent athletes do not have the hormonal profile to develop meaningful hypertrophy. With younger athletes who cannot build adequate muscle mass, it is important to develop strength appropriately since they can still obtain the neurological benefits of strength training. For any fitness adaptation, it is always crucial to perform the movement properly, be consistent, and progress over time.

1. Lifting technique. As always, form and technique are important for the safety, health, and longevity of the athlete. Specifically for building strength, you want the athlete to use the best form possible because strength is often movement specific. In the beginner stages, very little hypertrophy takes place, yet athletes get stronger. Most of the strength gains in the beginner stages come from the neural adaptations listed earlier, and part of newbie strength gains come from just getting better at performing the movement.
2. Show up. Don’t worry or stress about getting your beginner athletes in the weight room as often as possible. For building strength with a first-time lifter, you can have them do very little and still improve. The most important factor for long-term development is consistency. If they can only commit to one day per week or the sport coach does not want them to get sore during this time of year, it’s fine. One day a week is all that newbies need to gain strength; just get them in consistently over a long period of time.
3. Increase load. Almost by definition, the best way to get an athlete stronger is to have them use more weight than they did last time. With a newbie, this is a pretty straightforward process; they can expect to see it happen within a week. There is no need for a special rep scheme with a beginner. Yes, to improve strength, you typically want your athlete to do six or fewer reps per set, but a beginner can do sets of 10 or 12 and still gain strength. The only focus and main principle to gaining strength is to continue to add weight each week, if possible. (With a beginner, this is not only possible but also easy.)

Strength Adaptations for Intermediate Athletes

Your athlete has been training with you for around two years and can lift about 1.5 times their body weight on squats, benches, and deadlifts. There may have even been some strength plateaus recently. We now have an intermediate lifter on our hands who still needs to gain strength. To continue to see strength improvements in my intermediate athletes, I tell them to lift 2–3 days per week with adequate rest between sets and use lower repetitions per set with more working sets. I teach them about the intent of moving the weight as forcefully as possible.

1. Days per week and rest intervals. One day a week won’t cut it anymore. If your athlete wants to continue to gain strength, it’s time to put more time in the gym. Two to three days per week seems optimal, though there seems to be controversy over how many days per week is best for strength gains (strength coaches love to find stuff to argue about).

Some research has suggested five days a week is best,³ while other research has found even one day a week to be equal.⁴ Many of these studies are done with the general population, elderly, and untrained individuals—not athletes. There has been some non-clinical and anecdotal evidence of higher frequency training being beneficial for strength improvements: the squat everyday program and the Bulgarian method (I know they were loaded on “supplements” and most people crashed) have been well-known for this. Westside barbell lifters are known to have four main lifts per week, with many smaller workouts throughout the week. Coaches like Cory Schlesinger have established the concept of microdosing strength training with six sessions per week.

We have not established an optimal number of days or sets per week, but quality reps, not fatigue, drive strength gains, says @steve20haggerty. Share on X

We have not established an optimal number of days or sets per week, but quality reps, not fatigue, drive strength gains. The trouble with heavy loads is that they can be difficult for the central nervous system to recover from, especially as athletes get stronger and stronger—ask a powerlifter to squat 800 pounds three days per week and see how that goes. Rest intervals are a little more established in the literature. Three to five minutes of rest between sets is optimal for strength training.⁵ Too short of rest and the ATP-CP energy system does not fully replenish (more on this another day), and too long of rest between sets can cause an athlete to feel “cold” and make the workout last too long.

2. Fewer reps, more sets. Again, strength improvements are dictated by quality reps, not a large quantity of reps. As a beginner, the number of reps per set is a little less important—a beginner will get stronger by simply looking at the weights. As athletes get more advanced, they need to get more specific. Absolute strength is a 1RM, so to get more specific, the athlete needs to do sets that have fewer reps. Typically, utilizing sets of six reps or less is specific to training for strength. It is not uncommon to see 5×5, 6×4, 8×3, and even 10×2 in a strength training program. More exposure to heavier weights is the best way to get better at lifting heavier weights.
3. Intent of movement. This might be my favorite concept in the intermediate category. Anytime an athlete can focus better on their intent, the growth or adaptation is enhanced. We saw something similar with hypertrophy as well; focus on the muscle being worked, and the muscle grows better. Focus on pushing the weight as forcefully as possible, and the athlete gets stronger than when just going through the motion.⁶ Who would have thought that if the goal is to get better at producing more force (strength), attempting to produce as much force as possible in each rep is better than not?

Intent of movement might be my favorite concept for intermediate athletes. Anytime an athlete can focus better on their intent, the growth or adaptation is enhanced, says @steve20haggerty. Share on X

This goes hand in hand with using fewer reps per set, as the amount of force that can be produced decreases as reps increase. Using fewer reps with longer recovery while pushing (or pulling) the weight as hard as possible is a great formula for improving strength.

Strength Adaptations for Advanced Athletes

The concepts and principles from the earlier stages of athletes looking to improve strength still apply to the advanced lifter. Those are foundational principles that won’t really change. With an advanced athlete who is already very strong relative to their body weight but just needs to add a little more strength for their sport, it’s good to start using some more advanced methods.

NFL linemen love to feel strong at the end of their off-season training. I think it gives them the confidence they need going into training camp. These are some methods we have used with players who love to showcase their strength, like Noah Spence and Jason Poe. These are for advanced athletes: those who are already strong and just need a little more strength for their sport. Most of these methods have been less effective with lower levels of strength. These are very stressful to the neuromuscular system and should only be used at specific times of the year and with low volume.

1. Overcoming isometrics. Overcoming isometrics is pushing or pulling a bar into an unmovable object. To maximize motor unit recruitment, the athlete should push or pull as hard as possible for 3–7 seconds. Durations shorter than three seconds don’t allow enough time to fully contract as hard as possible (but can be used to improve power development—this will be discussed in the future), and durations longer than seven seconds can lead to fatigue and a drop-off in motor unit recruitment.

Isometrics are incredible for improving strength in specific ranges of motion. As a coach, you can have the athlete perform ISOs in their sticking point or weak position to strengthen it or in a very strong position to recruit as many motor units as possible. Overcoming isometrics allow the athlete to exert over 20% more force than they can with traditional concentric movements.

2. Supramaximal eccentrics. Similar to isometric contractions, eccentric muscle contractions allow the muscle to produce more force than concentric movements. Utilizing eccentrics can enable the body to recruit more muscle fibers and exert more force than usual. Supramaximal eccentrics are an advanced method to improve strength by using a load heavier than the athlete can lift concentrically.

As with all of these advanced methods, for safety and to maximize benefits, this should be reserved for the advanced lifter. Supramaximal eccentrics can be used on compound movements with spotters available to assist on the concentric portion of the lift. The athlete should control the eccentric portion of the lift for 5–8 seconds. There are also some safe ways to do this without two spotters to help (listed below).

Warning: Your athletes will be sore when utilizing any of these methods for supramaximal eccentrics. We suggest not doing these in high volumes and potentially not in season. For the methods below, single-joint exercises are typically easier to perform.

• Two up, one down method. This is a way to do supramaximal eccentrics for unilateral exercises. Two limbs work on the concentric, and one limb controls the eccentric. We have had success using these for leg extension and leg curl machines, single-leg RDLs, single-leg squat to benches, single-arm DB bench presses and shoulder presses, single-arm lat pulldowns, single-arm TRX rows, and chin-ups—although this is not a true single-arm eccentric. Possibilities for this method are endless, honestly, but as a coach, you should pick and choose when to use it. Biceps curls are another easy example, but unless your athlete is coming back from a wrist/elbow injury, I’m not sure how useful this is.

Video 1. Two-up, one-down pull-up. Do a regular pull-up on the way up and emphasize one arm on the way down.

• Cheat up, control down method. This is similar to using a spotter to assist during the concentric portion but uses movements that don’t require spotters. Pull-ups, push-ups, and Nordic hamstring curls are our favorites for this method. Again, biceps curls are another example of this technique, but it all depends on whether they are needed. A bonus idea for this method is doing one type of exercise on the concentric and another on the eccentric—deadlift up, RDL down, push press up and control down, etc.
• Partner-resisted method. This method is typically easiest to use with machines. Have the athlete use a weight they can manage concentrically and a partner who manually adds resistance on the eccentric portion. Leg extensions, leg curls, and lat pull-downs are some favorite exercises with this method, but most machines can be used for this method.

3. Accommodating resistance. News flash: Louie Simmons knew what he was talking about. Accommodating resistance—chains and bands—is great for strength improvements. Chains and bands work by increasing load throughout the concentric phase of the movement. Think of the bench press, for example: As the bar is lowered to the chest, the band is shortening and therefore providing less resistance. As the concentric phase begins and the bar rises, the band gets stretched more, providing more resistance to the movement. This is important because the bottom portion of the movement (when muscles are stretched the most) is typically when a lifter is weakest.

I cannot remember the last time I saw someone fail a squat rep when they were 2 inches away from standing straight up; they typically fail toward the bottom of the lift. So, the top portion of the lift never gets stressed maximally. Chains and bands allow the movement to remain equally difficult throughout—providing the lifter with the experience of a heavier load at the top of the movement when they are strongest and a lighter load at the bottom when they are weakest.⁸

Video 2. Accommodating resistance deadlift. During the concentric portion of the movement, the band stretches, adding more resistance throughout the range of motion. 

4. Partials. Similar to the idea of accommodating resistance and the strength curve throughout a range of motion, partial ranges of motion can be beneficial to stress the top portion of a given exercise. Examples include floor press, board press, pin press, and rack pulls. If we take a look at what the strongest people in the world do (powerlifters), partials have proved to be beneficial. Again, these are typically used at the top of the range of motion where the lifter can use more weight than they would throughout the full range, but they also can be used in a specific range of motion that may be very specific to the sport.

If we look at what the strongest people in the world do (powerlifters), partials have proved to be beneficial, says @steve20haggerty. Share on X

5. Clusters. This training method was made popular by Jake Tuura… or was it Charles Poliquin… or Carl Miller? It depends on which era you heard it in, but this is a method that has been proven to be effective. For whatever reason, it seems to gain popularity every 10 years or so. It goes like this: instead of doing five sets of four reps with a four-minute rest between sets, the athlete rests 10–20 seconds between each rep within a set, then rests two minutes between sets. This has been shown to allow athletes to maintain bar velocity throughout a set and use a heavier load for the same amount of total reps. There is evidence that this leads to better neural adaptations.⁷
6. Walkouts and carries. I learned about both these ideas during my internship at Arizona State University under Joe Connolly. At the time, I could barely trap bar deadlift 365 pounds. At the end of one of our workouts, we carried a trap bar (365 pounds) across the width of the football field and back. As much of a struggle as it was to stand up with that much weight, I found a way to carry it 53 and 1/3 yards. This gave my body time to feel that amount of weight and the stress of holding that amount of load. When just doing a trap bar deadlift for a 1RM, your body may have to feel that load for five seconds. Carrying it for a distance with the same weight is an opportunity for the nervous system to get acclimated to that load. This can also be done with yoke carries.

Walkouts, which I also learned about for the first time at ASU, are a very similar concept. The athlete doesn’t actually complete a movement, not even a partial range of motion, but instead just unracks the weight and holds it for some time—generally around 10 seconds. For this concept, an athlete should use a weight about 10%–20% heavier than their 1 rep max (this is best on squat or bench press). They simply need to unrack the weight and hold it. This supramaximal load allows the body to activate high-level motor units without the stress of completing the movement. This is a great concept for in-season training to maintain strength while sore and fatigued from sport or during a peak phase.

Video 3. Squat walkout. Simply unrack the weight and brace during the duration of the hold.

All of these advanced strength training methods have been utilized for football players preparing for the NFL Combine. These methods are not only found to be effective in practical settings but in research labs as well.

A Career-Long Lifting Program

Athletes should utilize all of these methods to gain strength throughout their athletic careers. These are the tools we coaches need to know to continue to help our athletes grow and adapt over a long period.

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

Alex Roberts is the Strength and Conditioning Coach at R. Nelson Snider High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In this role, he’s responsible for the year-round athletic development of all student-athletes. Coach Roberts’ main responsibilities are teaching strength training classes during the school day, leading after-school training sessions, and running the summer strength and conditioning program. He holds a Master of Science in Kinesiology and is CSCS certified through the NSCA.

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7. Haff G, Burgess SJ, and Stone M. “Cluster training: theoretical and practical applications for the strength and conditioning professional.” UKSCA Journal. 2008;12:12–16.

8. Berning JM, Coker CA, and Adams KJ. “Using Chains for Strength and Conditioning.” Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2004 Oct;26(5):80–84.

Almost 10 years ago, I wrote an article for this website highlighting some research on the role sleep plays in elite performance. The article was hugely popular at the time and is still frequently shared on social media, suggesting that the topic of sleep—particularly the role it plays in performance—is of interest to many in the sporting sphere. Sleep has also captured the interest of many researchers in the field of sport, meaning that our knowledge in the area is accelerating rapidly.

Given this interest—and the amount of new research since that original article was published—a close look at what we now know about the connection between sleep and elite athletes is well worth a close look. Updating our knowledge in an area is always important, especially when we consider that over 80% of all peer-reviewed research on the topic of sleep and athlete performance comes from 2011 onwards.

Why Do We Sleep?

Sleep is essential for both the brain and body, with research highlighting that even just one to two weeks of partial sleep restriction:

• Impairs cognition and our ability to learn and form memories.
• Harms mental health.
• Disrupts cellular growth and recovery.
• Changes our metabolism.
• Weakens our immune system.

Sleep is a normal part of the typical human 24-hour day-night cycle, in which a period of alertness and wakefulness is followed by sleep, a period of recovery. Normal human sleep has two main types: non-rapid eye movement sleep (non-REM), and rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Non-REM has three progressive stages: stage 1 and 2, which are termed light sleep, and stage 3, which is termed deep (or slow wave) sleep. During non-REM sleep, the brain is mostly inactive, while it is highly active during REM sleep; the vast majority of dreams occur during REM sleep. In young adults, around 60% of all sleep is light sleep, 15% is deep sleep, and 25% Is REM sleep.

When we sleep, a number of hormones are released, including growth hormone. This hormone is crucial for the repair and growth of the body’s tissue—of particular interest to athletes are its beneficial effects on muscle growth, repair, and bone building. Around 95% of the daily production of growth hormone occurs during stage 3 sleep, highlighting the importance of sleep for adequate growth and repair. Other important hormones related to sports performance, such as cortisol and testosterone, follow a circadian rhythm. As such, their release can be disrupted by sleep deprivation.

While it is generally considered that there are no serious consequences from moderate sleep loss—defined as around 6 hours sleep per night—over reasonably prolonged periods, there is evidence that chronic, sustained sleep loss (around 4-6 hours per night) does have long-term health implications. Individuals who habitually sleep for around 5 hours per night tend to have an increased risk of type-II diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, along with an increase in overall mortality.

There is evidence that chronic, sustained sleep loss (around 4-6 hours per night) does have long-term health implications, says @craig100m. Share on X

The true reason(s) as to why animals sleep is currently unknown and hotly debated. There are several theories, which include sleep having an overall restorative effect on the body, allowing it to recover and repair following the waking state, as well as a clear cognitive component with sleep having a vital role in learning and memory consolidation. Whatever the true reasons for humans needing to sleep—and it’s unlikely there is just one—it’s clearly something that is important for all of us to do, and do properly. And yet, we don’t; the average total sleep duration of adult humans has steadily decreased, from around 9 hours per night in the 1950s, to just over 7 hours in the 1980s. A 2013 survey in the US reported an average sleep of 6 hours 51 minutes on workdays, despite respondents reporting, on average, that a total sleep time of 7 hours 17 minutes was required for them to operate optimally the next day. If the normal population of people have such poor sleep, what does it look like in athletes?

Sleep and Elite Athletes

Perhaps the best paper on sleep in elite athletes comes from 2017 from a group of researchers in the UK led by Luke Gupta. In their paper, the authors had two aims:

1. To understand the patterns and quality of sleep in elite athletes.
2. To understand what may harm sleep in elite athletes.

In total, they found 37 studies that met their inclusion criteria, comprising athletes from Olympic, Paralympic, and team sports. Overall, the results suggest that elite athletes typically have a lower sleep efficiency, spend more time in bed, experience greater sleep fragmentation, and take longer to fall asleep than non-athletes. When comparing between sports, individual athletes tend to have poorer sleep quality than team sport athletes.

Elite athletes also tend to experience sleep disturbances, with ranges of 13-70% reported in studies. There is some research that suggests sleep disturbances are more common in female athletes. One way of measuring sleep quality is the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a validated survey. Research using the PSQI suggests that as many as 60% of athletes report disordered sleep and up to 26% of athletes experience highly disturbed sleep. As part of a large-scale project driven by the Australian Institute of Sport, researchers examined various markers of performance health in athletes prior to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. There were strong relationships between increased levels of stress and poor sleep—defined as lower sleep quality, increased sleep disturbances, or increased time to fall asleep. In addition, in the same group of athletes, over 50% scored above 5 on the PSQI, which is indicative of poor sleep.

There were strong relationships between increased levels of stress and poor sleep, says @craig100m. Share on X

These findings are potentially worrying for a number of reasons. As outlined above, sleep appears to somewhat regulate the release of a variety of hormones important for recovery. In addition, there is a growing body of research which suggests that disturbed sleep is associated with poorer mental health outcomes in athletes, as well as burnout and mood disturbances. A lack of sleep also appears to negatively affect cognitive function; REM sleep is crucial for developing memories and learning motor skills, and so a reduction in this type of sleep will harm learning. A 2014 review, published in Sports Medicine, highlights the effects of sleep loss on exercise performance, as well as the response to exercise. The results make for sobering reading. Reductions in sleep appear to harm exercise performance—especially aerobic exercise—and increase the post-exercise inflammatory response, meaning recovery time will increase.

Sleep and Youth Athletes

Clearly, elite athletes need to ensure they get sufficient sleep—and many of them don’t—but about youth athletes? A 2020 paper from Current Sports Medicine Reports provides a thorough review on how sleep affects performance in youth athletes, and it makes for interesting reading.

Sleep for youth athletes can be a challenge due to the various competing demands on their time. Youth athletes typically spend 6-8 hours per day at school (including travel to/from and extra-curricular activities), along with homework, spending time with friends, training, and, in some cases, undertaking part-time employment. This leaves little time in the day for sufficient sleep; and, often, youth athletes will prioritise other activities at the expense of sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that teenagers aged 13-18 get 8-10 hours of sleep regularly; we know from at least one study that many youth athletes get less than 8 hours of sleep per night. For example, this study on youth gymnasts found that over 91% slept for less than 8 hours per night. In this study, a group of adolescent athletes consistently got less than 8 hours sleep per night; in another, 40% of collegiate athletes regularly sleep for less than 7 hours per night during the week; and, finally, athletes from state netball teams in Australia regularly achieved less than 8 hours sleep per night.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that this isn’t just a problem that affects young athletes; it affects youngsters regardless of whether they’re an athlete or not. This was highlighted in a 2019 paper, which compared 625 adolescent elite athletes to 391 adolescent non-athletes. The authors found that the athletes slept for longer than non-athletes, but that both groups fell short of the up to 10 hours recommended sleep. This can have further implications, as evidenced by a 2018 study on elite Gaelic athletes. Here, the authors found that “poor sleepers,” as quantified by the PSQI—a validated sleep assessment tool—had significantly lower general health, increased stress, and increased confusion when compared to athletes who were classified as good sleepers. This connection with wellbeing has been reported elsewhere; for example, in a group of youth athletes, daily reported wellbeing scores were correlated with sleep duration, a finding that has been replicated. This highlights that the very perception that they have not slept well means they typically feel worse the next day, which can harm their performance and wellbeing.

“Poor sleepers,” as quantified by the PSQI, had significantly lower general health, increased stress, and increased confusion when compared to athletes who were classified as good sleepers, says @craig100m. Share on X

Even getting enough sleep—in terms of hours—may not be enough for youth athletes. In a study on Dutch elite youth athletes, the researchers reported that 41% of the athlete cohort were classified as “poor sleepers” on the Global Sleep Quality Score, despite the average sleep duration time being above 8 hours. This holistic score includes aspects such as sleep quality (how deep is your sleep), sleep latency (how long it takes you to fall asleep), sleep disturbances, sleep medication use, and daytime dysfunction.

This all has an impact on the performance of youth athletes. For example, in the study on Australian netballers mentioned earlier, the best two teams in the competition achieved an average of just over 8 hours of sleep per night, while the worst two averaged just over 7. In addition, there is an increasing amount of evidence highlighting the role that a lack of sleep plays in increasing the risk of injury. In a study from 2014, the authors found that school-aged athletes who slept for less than 8 hours per night were 1.7 times more likely to have experienced an injury than those who slept for more than 8 hours. As such, it’s clear that a lack of sleep is common in high level youth athletes, and with this lack of sleep comes a whole host of problems.

Why Don’t Athletes Get Enough Sleep?

Returning to the study from Gupta and colleagues mentioned earlier, the second part of the paper aimed to explore some of the reasons elite athletes may have poor sleep. They identified three key risk factors for why athletes may have poor sleep:

1. Competition—Research highlights that a number of athletes report poor sleep the night before a competition, although this is somewhat inconsistent. In research where sleep quality is determined via questionnaire (i.e., the athletes self-report), typically athletes have poorer sleep immediately before competition, and there is some evidence that this effect is greater in higher standard athletes. However, when sleep is measured by objective measures—most commonly wrist actigraphs—there appears to be no difference in sleep efficiency or sleep onset latency before a competition when compared to normal training. In fact, using this method, there is some research that reports increases in sleep time and sleep efficiency in athlete pre-competition (i.e., they slept better).

This suggests that athletes may perceive they sleep worse prior to competition—perhaps due to stress—but actually there may not be any differences. There is less inconsistency in the results of studies exploring sleep post-competition; here the research is clear that athletes tend to have less total sleep and a significantly delayed bedtime (the two likely being linked). This suggests that competitions, likely because of the late start and use of stimulants such as caffeine, may harm sleep quality post-event—an important consideration when it comes to planning recovery techniques. There is some evidence that increases in cortisol, as a result of the stress of competition, also harm sleep. Specifically in track and field, there is evidence that, as they get closer to competition, elite athletes have worse sleep.

2. Travel—Having to travel for competitions or training camps is a common occurrence for elite athletes. Travel itself appears to have no impact on sleep (aside from early-morning or late-night travel), but the jet lag associated with travel across time zones can negatively affect the time taken to fall asleep, as well as the time spent asleep.
3. Training—The research suggests that athletes wake earlier, and, as a result, sleep less on days that they’re training. There is a consistent and strong relationship between training start time and total sleep time, such that the earlier training starts, the less athletes sleep. I know this sounds obvious, but it highlights that athletes don’t typically go to bed earlier when they have morning training, they just sleep less—meaning, it’s something coaches must keep in mind when scheduling training. The intensity of training also appears to affect sleep, with more intense training periods associated with a decrease in sleep efficiency and an increase in time taken to fall asleep. 

Another potential reason why athletes don’t get enough sleep is their regular use of caffeine. Caffeine is a common and well utilized ergogenic aid, with clear performance enhancing effects; a review I was part of back in 2020 highlighted the consistent beneficial effect of caffeine on performance. Caffeine also harms sleep quality and duration, as highlighted in a 2017 review. These effects were present at surprisingly low doses of caffeine; for example, consuming 1-2 double espressos (~200mg caffeine, the same as most pre-workout formulas) sixteen hours before sleep had a negative effect on the sleep quality. Because athletes regularly use caffeine, they are therefore likely to suffer some sleep disturbances as a result.

Because athletes regularly use caffeine, they are therefore likely to suffer some sleep disturbances as a result, says @craig100m. Share on X

This effect is increased post-competition, especially if the competition is in the evening. As a moderate caffeine user during my competitive days, I regularly would not sleep, or only get to sleep for a couple of hours, the night after a competition. This effect is not limited just to me; a 2018 study in elite rugby union players reported an average of 1.5 hours less sleep the night after a game (with bedtime being 3.5 hours later), which was linked to the use of caffeine by these players. The authors found that increases in caffeine concentration in the saliva of the players was associated with an increased time to fall asleep, a reduction in sleep efficiency, and less sleep overall. 

The environment in which we sleep is crucial in setting the foundations for optimal sleep. Ideally, we need it to be cool, dark, and quiet. Getting it wrong can have significant implications. For example, in a study of collegiate athletes based in the US, 42% of athletes had poorer sleep quality on campus—their primary place of residence—than when travelling for sport. These various drivers of poor sleep in athletes are good to know—but what can we do about them?

Sleep-Based Strategies to Support Performance

Given that we know sleep quality and duration are important, and we know that elite athletes don’t always get enough sleep (or enough high quality sleep), an obvious question is: “How can we improve this?” Fortunately, that’s the topic of this review article published in 2018; here, the researchers explored a variety of sleep interventions designed to improve athletic performance and recovery.

One easy, low-cost strategy is sleep extension—increasing the amount of time we spend asleep. This was explored in a 2011 study, where the authors supported a group of basketballers to increase their nightly sleep from 6.6 hours to 8.4 hours. As a result of increasing their sleep, the athletes improved their sprint speed, shooting accuracy, and reaction times, as well as their overall mood and feelings of fatigue. A similar study, this time from 2015 and in tennis players, showed that increasing the sleep time of athletes for a week improved their serving accuracy.

Another simple solution is improving the sleep hygiene of an athlete. In studies where athletes have ensured their room is cool and dimly lit, had access to sleeping aids such as ear plugs, and avoided technology use for 15-30 minutes before bed, they tend to sleep for longer and experience better quality sleep than those with poorer sleep hygiene. Even in studies where improving sleep hygiene doesn’t increase the quality of sleep, the athletes reported that they felt their sleep was improved, which is important in and of itself.

Interestingly, a couple of studies have identified that enhancing post-exercise recovery may enhance night time sleep. In one study, athletes utilized cryotherapy post-training, which maintained their sleep to a greater extent than in athletes who were in the control group. Similar results were reported in a study using red light irradiation as a form of recovery.

Enhancing post-exercise recovery may enhance night time sleep, says @craig100m. Share on X
The 2018 review article discussed above also outlines what an optimal sleep intervention for athletes might look like, which they summarize here. Similarly, a 2021 expert consensus article, published in the prestigious British Journal of Sports Medicine, also devised a “sleep toolbox” for practitioners to use with athletes. Their key steps are:

1. Provide sleep education for athletes. In a sample of coaches, less than 50% had discussed sleep hygiene best practices with the athletes they worked with, even though the evidence suggested sleep hygiene education enhances the sleep of athletes. As such, sleep education is a low-cost first step to enhancing the sleep of your athletes.
2. Sleep screen athletes and refer to help when needed. There are a number of sleep monitoring tools that could be utilized by athletes to better understand their sleep. Some of these require technology that may be expensive, but some are also low-cost, such as a sleep diary or sleep questionnaire. A common questionnaire that explores overall sleep hygiene is the Athlete Sleep Behaviour Questionnaire (ASBQ). It’s important to realize your scope of practice here; sleep issues may require support from medical practitioners. If you’re interested in finding out more about monitoring sleep, this review article provides an excellent summary.
3. Encourage opportunities to nap. Sleeping in the daytime for a short period has a number of potential benefits, including improvements in alertness, concentration, motor performance, and overall mood. Naps can become increasingly important if the athlete cannot get sufficient sleep overnight—for example if they have an early morning wake-up for training or travel. There is even some evidence that naps are beneficial even when overnight sleep is sufficient.

There is even some evidence that naps are beneficial even when overnight sleep is sufficient, says @craig100m. Share on X

4. Utilize sleep banking and extension. Sleep banking is where athletes get more sleep before a period of anticipated sleep loss, for example before a long haul, overnight flight across multiple time zones. Sleep extension involves sleeping for longer than normal. Both have been shown to improve performance and, in the case of sleep banking, mitigate the effects of sleep loss.

Finally, in 2019, the NCAA Interassociation Task Force on Sleep and Wellness published their guidelines for optimizing sleep in high level athletes. Their recommendations are:

1. Maintain a regular sleep schedule as much as possible, including on weekends.
2. Seek bright light during the day, especially in the morning, and avoid bright light at night where possible.
3. Keep the bedroom cool, dark, and comfortable.
4. Avoid caffeine for at least 6 hours before bed, as well as other stimulants. Alcohol has a negative impact on sleep quality, and should be avoided.
5. Avoid consuming excessive food and drink pre-bed, as these may disrupt sleep by increasing trips to the bathroom.
6. Avoid obsessive clock watching if you can’t sleep; it increases mental activity, making it harder to fall asleep.
7. If you find it hard to fall asleep at night, avoid napping during the day.
8. Use beds for sleep only, with all other activities taking place outside of bed. This is especially true if you can’t sleep, with the recommendation being that you get up and try to sleep a short while later.

Final Takeaways

Getting enough sleep—and of sufficient quality—is critical for athletes, with poor sleep linked to reduced performance and increased injuries. Typically, both elite and youth athletes don’t get enough sleep, putting them at risk of underperformance.

There are many steps we can take to support the sleep of the athletes we work with, which are outlined in this article. It’s worth taking some time to consider how you might support the athletes you work with to get more sleep, as the research suggests many of us have the knowledge to do so, but don’t quite take that first step. Doing so may lead to the performance breakthrough your athletes deserve.

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

By Bill Miller and Barrett Snyder

In the realm of rigorous exercise and performance training, you’ve likely encountered the phrase, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” This mantra, along with various other quotes, encapsulates the notion of pushing through discomfort and exhaustion to achieve fitness goals. It’s the relentless pursuit of things like endless drop sets, subjecting yourself to grueling lower-body training sessions that rival marathons, or enduring hours upon hours of stadium stairs amidst stifling humidity, all to prove your unwavering determination and commitment to the “grind.”

We’ve all experienced these moments. Contemplating further, however, we must question the true efficacy of these methods for athletes over the long haul—particularly athletes who participate in overhead sports that require a formidable display of power and explosiveness, as well as rapid concentric and eccentric movements.

Crafting a truly effective strength and conditioning program is often predicated on striking a critical balance between stimulating repetitions and managing muscle fatigue and damage. The key question arises: How can coaches skillfully navigate this delicate tightrope, maximizing athletes’ time in the weight room to ensure that muscle stimulation and progressive overload continue while minimizing muscle damage and fatigue throughout the process?

In this installment, part one of a two-part series, we will unveil essential training considerations coaches should explore before hastily jotting down exercises, sets, and rep schemes on an athlete’s program sheet. We begin by exploring factors such as fiber type proportion, level of voluntary activation, and working sarcomere length and their impact on muscle damage and, consequently, training frequency. In addition, we will unravel the enigma of calcium ion-related fatigue and its detrimental effects on athletic performance progression. Our goal during this two-part series is to empower coaches with invaluable insights to craft training programs that maximize results.

Training Considerations

When developing your program, consider the answers to these two important questions:

1. How susceptible is each specific muscle to damage during the course of an overhead athlete’s workout routine?

This will prove to be consequential because the total amount of muscle damage experienced (specific to each muscle) during a training session will determine the amount of time required for adequate recovery. To decipher this answer, we can use three key metrics initially proposed by infographics architect Chris Beardsley:

1. Fiber type proportion
2. Level of voluntary activation
3. Working sarcomere lengths

A detailed analysis of these metrics reveals that not all muscles possess the same vulnerability to muscle damage. This directly affects our programming for overhead athletes, especially during a competitive season in which they must maintain a state of freshness to perform at their peak on the field.

2. How much calcium ion-related fatigue does our program induce?

Calcium ion-related fatigue is essential to measure and understand because it significantly affects muscle function and performance. During muscle contraction, calcium ions are released from storage sites within muscle cells, initiating the process that allows muscles to contract and generate force. However, as muscles repeatedly contract and relax, the accumulation of calcium ions can lead to fatigue.

Calcium ion-related fatigue is essential to measure and understand because it significantly affects muscle function and performance, says @billmills. Share on X

Key Metrics That Help Determine Muscle Damage

As stated above, these three metrics show how muscles differ in their vulnerability and resiliency to muscle damage. Knowing these differences can help you with the optimal programming of your training sessions.

1. Fiber Type Proportion

As we recall from academia or certification materials, muscles with a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers exhibit lower oxidative capacity and tend to undergo a more pronounced inflammatory response when subjected to various training modalities. Consequently, our fast-twitch muscle fibers are more susceptible to heightened muscle damage, leading to increased levels of fatigue.

On the other hand, muscles characterized by a higher proportion of slow-twitch fibers, known for their oxidative nature, have demonstrated greater resistance to muscle damage resulting from repetitive contractions. This resilience is likely attributed to their elevated mitochondrial content. In practical terms, this information suggests that we can program a greater number of stimulating repetitions for these muscle groups during training sessions, leveraging their slow-twitch tendencies and enhancing the potential for recoverability.

Examples:

The biceps and triceps brachii have both been shown to require greater amounts of rest between workouts than other muscles in the body because of greater muscle damage susceptibility. This conclusion was likely reached because these muscle groups are two of the most fast twitch in the body. In addition, the pectoralis contains a greater percentage of fast-twitch fibers, making it more susceptible to muscle damage. Conversely, on the other side of the spectrum, we have slow-twitch muscles, a prime example of which is the quadriceps, which can be trained more frequently and does not require as much time to recover.

Incorporating biceps, triceps, and pectoral movements into the training programs of overhead athletes can yield significant benefits from a performance and health standpoint, says @billmills. Share on X

Incorporating biceps, triceps, and pectoral movements into the training programs of overhead athletes can yield significant benefits from a performance and health standpoint. The pectoral muscle plays a key role during the acceleration phase of the throwing motion. In contrast, the triceps play a crucial role in rapid force production and joint stability around the arm. In addition, the biceps and brachialis are essential during the deceleration phase of the throwing motion, decelerating the extending elbow and pronating forearm. As such, you can use the exercises below to improve force production and deceleration during the throwing motion. Just be mindful that these muscle groups are more susceptible to increased muscle damage and fatigue due to their higher concentration of type-II fast-twitch muscle fibers.

• Medicine ball chest pass
• Dumbbell Zottman curl
• Overhead triceps pull-apart
• Triceps push-downs
• Band-assisted explosive push-up
• One-arm explosive landmine press
• Dumbbell hammer curl

Videos 1&2. Medicine Ball Chest Pass and Overhead Triceps Pull-Apart.

2. Voluntary Activation

The concept of voluntary activation pertains to the regulation of the number of high-threshold motor units that are engaged during each contraction. Although it would be inaccurate to make a sweeping generalization that all fast-twitch muscles consistently exhibit high activation levels, it is generally observed to be the case (except for hamstrings, which we will discuss in the following paragraph). On a similar note, like fast-twitch muscles, muscles with a high degree of voluntary activation are more susceptible to damage than those with slower activation rates.

Examples:

The biceps brachii and the triceps brachii have previously demonstrated 94%–99% levels of voluntary activation and 94%–96% levels of voluntary activation during maximal isometric contractions, respectively. Compare this to the oxidative quadriceps, which have expressed deficiencies of 15%–20% beneath the anticipated force production amid voluntary contractions, according to Beardsley.

Like fast-twitch muscles, muscles with a high degree of voluntary activation are more susceptible to damage than those with slower activation rates, says @billmills. Share on X

Regarding the hamstrings, it is noteworthy that they experience a high level of voluntary activation even though various studies have not consistently classified them as predominantly fast-twitch muscles. However, apart from the hamstrings, lower-body muscles have generally been observed to exhibit reduced levels of voluntary activation compared to their upper-body counterparts.

As previously mentioned, biceps and triceps movements can offer valuable benefits in an overhead athlete’s workout routine, aiding in acceleration and deceleration capabilities during the throwing motion. In addition to the exercises listed above, we can incorporate isometric movements to aid in the performance enhancement of these muscles. Further, given the hamstrings’ essential role in the sprinting motion, we should look to incorporate ways to isolate the hamstrings during training bouts to enhance their capabilities.

However, as we expressed a word of caution in the former section, it is essential to exercise prudence in managing the training volume for these muscle groups, considering their elevated levels of voluntary activation.

We can look to isolate the bicep, triceps, and hamstrings by incorporating the following:

• Iso bicep curl
• Iso triceps push-down
• Straight leg deadlift
• Seated hamstring curl
• Prone hamstring curl
• Nordic hamstring curl

Videos 3 & 4. Iso Triceps Push-Down and Straight Leg Deadlift.

3. Working Sarcomere Lengths

These are described as follows: “The lengths of the sarcomeres inside a muscle over its joint angle range of motion. It allows us to see if the muscle can experience (1) active insufficiency (and so will be trained poorly by exercises involving peak forces at very short muscle lengths) and (2) stretch-mediated hypertrophy (and so will be trained more effectively by exercises involving peak forces at very long muscle lengths).”

While it is acceptable and often necessary for a coach to program longer-length exercises (stretched positions), we are aware that muscle damage, and thereby calcium ion-related fatigue, becomes much more prevalent as a consequence of training at longer lengths and stretched positions. As coaches, it is crucial to be mindful of this aspect, especially when designing training programs during the in-season period, when athletes will be participating in multiple field competitions throughout the week.

Muscle damage, and thereby calcium ion-related fatigue, becomes much more prevalent as a consequence of training at longer lengths and stretched positions, says @billmills. Share on X

Examples:

Stretched position exercises can be defined as movements where the most demanding phase occurs at the lower end of the range of motion. These types of exercises include overhead pull-downs, chest presses, and various squat variations.

• Rear foot elevated split squat
• Reverse lunge
• Walking lunge
• Single-arm pull-down
• DB chest press
• Overhead lat pull-down
• Hack squat

Videos 5&6. Reverse Lunge and Single-Arm Pull-Down.

Calcium Ion-Related Fatigue

The onset of fatigue related to calcium ions happens when there is a rise in the concentration of calcium ions within the cytoplasm following prolonged and failure-driven training sessions, inadequate rest periods between sets, and long, drawn-out sets with excessive repetitions. This phenomenon has a significant risk of hindering the progress of our athletes during the course of their training sessions and impeding their future advancements. It is crucial to note that the more fatigue our athletes accumulate, the longer the recovery time required before noticeable enhancements in performance can be observed.

In terms of programming application, the main question remains: How can we provide our athletes with enough stimulus to enhance performance without causing excessive calcium ion-related fatigue? Below are several examples that coaches can employ to accomplish this objective.

Concentric-Only Contractions

While concentric-only training will cause muscle damage (there is still a contraction), the damage remains minimal compared to exercises encompassing an eccentric component.

Examples:

• Squat from pins
• Concentric DB row
• Concentric trap bar deadlift
• TRX sled row
• Floor press
• Pin press

Videos 7&8. Concentric Trap Bar Deadlift and TRX Sled Row.

It is important to acknowledge that eccentric movements do play a crucial role in athlete training, as they contribute to increasing muscle fascicle lengths, reduce the risk of muscle strain injuries, and aid in deceleration capabilities. However, it is equally essential to recognize that these eccentric exercises tend to induce greater fatigue. Therefore, we highly encourage careful programming of eccentrics to allow the athlete ample time to recover, especially during the competitive season.

Eccentric overload training modalities can be incorporated into an overhead athlete’s program by performing the following movements:

• Eccentric overload rotator cuff movement
• Eccentric overload one-arm row
• Eccentric overload single-leg split squat

Videos 9&10. Eccentric Overload Rotator Cuff and Eccentric Overload One-Arm Row.

Low Rep Sets with Heavy Weight

Coaches can increase the load the athlete is using, thereby minimizing the repetitions performed during a given set. A set of 5–8 repetitions with a moderate to heavy load will ensure the athlete is provided with the necessary stimulus to forge adaptations while curbing calcium ion-related fatigue for the duration of the training session.

For advanced athletes who possess knowledge of their one-repetition maximum capabilities, a prudent approach involves instructing them to maintain 1–2 reps in reserve during the completion of each movement. Although training closer to failure facilitates enhanced activation of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which is particularly beneficial for sports demanding speed and power, it is essential to recognize that these very fibers are more susceptible to muscle damage and fatigue caused by calcium ion accumulation, owing to their lower mitochondrial density. By adopting a training strategy that incorporates relatively heavy loads while leaving a few reps in reserve, we can effectively ensure that the athlete receives sufficient training stimulus while mitigating the risk of excessive fatigue.

It is essential to recognize that fast-twitch fibers are more susceptible to muscle damage and fatigue caused by calcium ion accumulation, owing to their lower mitochondrial density, says @billmills. Share on X

Below is a chart based on the research and information laid out above. It details each muscle group, the prevailing fiber type, and recommendations for athletes.

In the second part of this discussion, we will delve into the influence of central nervous fatigue (CNS) on an athlete’s performance and explore successful strategies to alleviate its effects. Additionally, we will present sample training programs featuring exercise variations carefully selected to foster consistent progress for overhead athletes, both in their on-field endeavors and within the weight room.

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

Barrett Snyder is a CSCS and holds an M.S. in Sports Management and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Drexel University. He is currently a J.D. and Ph.D. candidate.

As S&C coaches, the role and responsibilities of a nutritionist often fall onto our plate by default. Why? We are the “experts” in the human body, we train the athletes, and nutrition falls within the scope of physical preparation.

While it would certainly be beneficial to have a registered dietitian on staff at your school or facility, the industry has yet to expand into every space and every sector—so if you find yourself wearing the “nutritionist hat” at your institution or space, here are five key tips to get you going and help you be an asset in that area.

1. Get Certified

Yes, it is okay to give recommendations on what athletes should eat without being a certified dietitian (depending on where you live). This can be as simple as letting athletes know how much protein they should be eating per day, how many carbs they need to fuel themselves for their activity level, how much water to drink to stay hydrated, or how many calories they need for their body composition changes (muscle gain, fat loss, or maintenance).

For me, this all comes down to how educated you are on the subject. After all, the more you know, the more you can confidently share with your athletes. Instead of going back to school for a master’s degree in sports nutrition (or diving in and becoming an RD), getting a certification can help you learn as well as prove you are at least somewhat qualified in this area.

The first thing to do when tackling the nutrition side of training is to ensure you know what you’re talking about; the second is to ensure you know how to communicate it to your athletes/clients. Share on X

I have my Precision Nutrition (PN) Level 1 certification and highly recommend it. I wanted a certification that not only gave me expertise on the science of nutrition and how the body uses food for fuel but also taught me how to coach my clients through making big changes—which are inevitable when dealing with nutrition. There are other certifications that might dive deeper into the actual science and bioenergetics of nutrition (ISSN, ISSA), but PN offered both the science and coaching I was looking for, so I went with it. After all, the first thing to do when tackling the nutrition side of training is to ensure you know what you’re talking about; the second is to ensure you know how to communicate it to your athletes/clients.

You also don’t need a Ph.D. in Nutrition to work with most athletes. They may be elite in their sport, but they often reach that level in spite of their diets. I have found that my knowledge of nutrition and eating habits is often far above what is required to assist my athletes. For example, I have only had to refer out two people in the last five years. 

2. Ask Questions

As I just mentioned, most athletes don’t know what they don’t know. So, it’s silly to expect them to come and ask me about how much protein they should be eating or if Pop-Tarts are really the best breakfast for them. Athletes (especially at the university level) live by an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality—so you need to show them that what they’re doing is broken (if it is). This can take many forms, but some options are:

• Weekly nutrition tips (how much protein to eat, why your body needs carbs).
• Social media posts or sharing others’ content.
• Asking athletes what they had for breakfast/lunch/dinner that day.

The main thing you’re trying to do is start a conversation and get them thinking about their eating habits. Once again, most athletes believe that the chicken in their salad at lunch is good enough because “Yeah, I ate protein today,” but they don’t understand how much they need. I have found that after doing a tip of the week on something like “Start Your Day with Protein!” (see image above), the lights turn on, and the questions flow in because you now showed them that what they’re doing is broken, and they need to fix it.

For example…

Q: How much protein should I have at breakfast?

A: Aim for 20 grams to start your day. But some is better than none!

Q: What if I don’t eat breakfast?

A: Then I recommend you start. It doesn’t have to be anything big (e.g., bacon and eggs); just try eating something, and we can build on that.

Q: Is cereal a good source of protein?

A: Most cereals are not. Some, however, (like Vector) do have a decent amount of protein—so if you add 1–2 cups of milk, you have a decent, protein-filled breakfast. Otherwise, you can still have your cereal (e.g., Cheerios, Corn Flakes), but I recommend adding another protein-rich food such as Greek yogurt, a couple of eggs, or a scoop of peanut butter.

3. Food Logs

Another interactive thing I have found to be successful is asking athletes to complete a two-day food log: one weekday (Mon–Fri) and one weekend day (Sat/Sun). That way, as a coach, you can get a sense of what they eat on a typical day. This is huge, as most athletes I speak with about their eating say, “I eat pretty healthy.” Okay, what is “pretty healthy” to you? As I have found out, it can range from not eating any processed sugar at all to only eating fast food two meals a day instead of all three meals, like some people they know.

Getting athletes to complete a food log allows you to see what they eat and give specific recommendations instead of shooting in the dark with general tips, says @chergott94. Share on X

Getting athletes to complete a food log (as shown below) allows you to see what they eat and give specific recommendations instead of shooting in the dark with general tips like “eat breakfast,” “drink more water,” and “eat more protein” (even though those alone would cover about 80% of the issues…). An additional benefit for the athlete is that having them write down everything they consume in a day (food and drink) allows them to see their whole “diet” in front of their eyes, which can often help them realize the changes they need to make on their own. (“Oh, I should stop eating a box of cookies at midnight,” or “I should eat more for lunch before training.”)

4. Be Available

One of the best things I did was set a “Nutrition Office Hour” each week. Weekly, I send out the link to sign up for a 15-minute block during this hour. I believe this is crucial, as most people are not comfortable opening up about how they want to lose weight in front of a large group after their team training session. This gives them a more intimate setting to do so.

This one-on-one format also ensures they have your undivided attention instead of you trying to watch athletes finish their lifts while contemplating how to tell this athlete that they shouldn’t go Keto. Some weeks I don’t have anyone signed up, but other weeks people couldn’t sign up because it was booked. I have found that if they know you will have a slot each week, there will be times for them eventually. And if it really is important, they will wait until there is a slot.

5. Follow-Up

Following up is something I have recently started to get better at. After giving tips and meeting with athletes about their eating, it is important to follow up and make sure they are actually doing it. I have recommended to most athletes who sign up for my office hour for them to sign up again in a couple of weeks so we can go over their progress…but that rarely happens.

After giving tips and meeting with athletes about their eating, it’s important to follow up and make sure they’re actually doing it, says @chergott94. Share on X

As a coach, it is important for you to follow up with them to make sure they are doing what you planned together and see if it is working. This could be a quick email or, after a lift, just asking, “How are your eating habits coming along?” This may open a can of worms for you to deal with, so be ready to hear all the excuses in the world as to why they couldn’t eat breakfast this week.

But the follow-up is crucial so they know you truly care, you are holding them accountable, and you are with them for the long haul that most nutrition and eating journeys are. I keep a list of all the athletes I have met or chatted with in this area and reach out to them at least once a semester to see if I can help with their next step (if they have one).

Keep the Hat Light

Again, I want to clarify that I am not implying registered dietitians or sports nutritionists are not valuable members of a high-performance staff or that you shouldn’t implore your administration to hire them. But we all know that budgets are tight, and those roles (among many others) often fall to us. This is kind of crazy when you think about it because everyone eats multiple times a day, and we then have no one in charge of what athletes put in their bodies to fuel the rest of their day/performance/recovery.

So, if you are going to put on that hat, it is essential to be prepared so you can actually help your athletes and be an asset to your department without adding too much extra load to your own demanding schedule. The tips I outlined above take very little extra time (aside from studying for the certification exam). The others (tips, social media, office hours, follow-ups) take me an extra two hours a week (with one of those being my office hour), so, not a ton more work for a ton of payoff.

Peace. Gains.

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

Strength coaches are always looking for the next best exercise or training tool, but often what’s “new” is rediscovering the best of what’s old. The iron boots I used over a half-century ago have been transformed into MonkeyFeet, and the Super Killer Squats I first read about in a muscle magazine in the 70s are now wedge board squats. Another training method that is getting a double-take is the abdominal rollout.

As “core training” is an important topic in physical and athletic fitness training, I want to trace the history of a few of the most popular methods to train the abdominals. Included will be a discussion on the ab wheel, sit-ups, crunches, ab rockers, and ab crunch machines. After discussing the good, the bad, and the worthless of these methods and devices, I’ll make a case for the barbell rollout as a “go-to” core exercise for athletes interested in achieving athletic superiority.

(Lead photo by Karim Ghonem)

Enter the Ab Wheel

I was introduced to this device in the late 60s by magazine advertisements. The ab wheel was promoted to the general public as an easy tool to tone your abs and reduce your waistline (Image 1), and sales quickly exceeded millions of dollars.

For the untrained or deconditioned, the high levels of tension an ab wheel can produce may cause abdominal injury and lower back pain, particularly if the exercise is performed incorrectly. To reduce the risk of injury, it’s essential to maintain a neutral spine (posteriorly rotating the pelvis) throughout the exercise. More specifically, the exercise should begin with the lower back flat or slightly rounded, and you should extend as far as you can maintain this posture.

For the untrained or deconditioned, the high levels of tension an ab wheel can produce may cause abdominal injury and lower back pain. Share on X

The end range of an ab wheel (when the arms begin to extend) is especially challenging. One way to assist beginners is to perform the exercise while kneeling on a low platform, such as an aerobic step. An analogy would be a push-up progression where you start from a standing position with your hands on a wall (vertically), move to a push-up on a bench where your body is positioned at an angle, then finish on the floor (horizontally).

There are many types of ab wheels. One type has a spring attachment that winds up when you extend and uncoils to assist you on the return. Fitness model and former collegiate softball player Jordan Dwyer demonstrates one of these devices in Video 1.

Video 1. The basic ab wheel exercise is performed on the knees. This modern ab wheel unit has a spring device that helps the athlete return to the start.

Not living up to the promise of reducing waistlines quickly contributed to a lack of interest in the ab wheel and a renewed interest in traditional exercises, such as sit-ups. “Bootcamp” programs, inspired by military training, became popular—but not for long, thanks to the pioneering research of Spine Biomechanics Professor Stuart McGill (Image 2).

McGill’s research on the effects of spine bending and compressive loading included direct loading on pig cadavers, which he says are a reasonable representation of human spines. He also conducted epidemiological investigations comparing groups that performed sit-ups and those that did not. McGill concluded that flexion of the spine during these exercises and the muscle activity needed to perform them created stresses that could eventually damage the discs. McGill added that he was involved in several case studies involving military and law enforcement personnel who were required to perform the sit-up test for time. He said they all “had a history of discogenic back disorders, which reduced when sit-up training was replaced with a core stabilization approach.”

With sit-ups getting a bad rap, many in the fitness community endorsed crunches as the go-to abdominal exercise. Crunches were easy to do and required no special equipment. Performing crunches on a Swiss ball also became popular because they increased the range of motion of the exercise and, unfortunately, the potential risk of a sports hernia (i.e., athletic pubalgia).

With sit-ups getting a bad rap, many in the fitness community endorsed crunches as the go-to abdominal exercise. Share on X

Next, home ab crunch rocker devices soon appeared that supported the neck to relieve neck strain (Image 3). However, there are several ways to prevent neck strain with crunches. One is to reduce tension on the back of the neck by pressing your fingers against your forehead. Through an effect known as reciprocal inhibition, providing resistance that causes the muscles on the front of the neck to contract will cause the muscles on the back of the neck to relax. That said, ab rockers and traditional crunches do not provide enough resistance to create a significant training effect for more than a short period. This issue inspired the development of seated ab crunch machines.

Seated ab crunch machines provide progressive resistance, usually with a selectorized weight stack. In the early 80s, I was a Nautilus instructor at the San Jose YMCA (where many elite track and field athletes trained, including world record holder Al Feuerbach). This YMCA, along with many others, purchased a complete circuit of Nautilus machines.

Unquestionably, the abdominal crunch machine was the most popular, and members wanted to perform several sets (which was against the Nautilus protocol, but I often let them slide if there wasn’t a line). Many other gym instructors also told me about the popularity of these ab crunch machines; other equipment manufacturers took notice with their own variations.

Although crunch machines are here to stay, the next core training phase the general public latched onto was planks. Planks also got the seal of approval from McGill.

And that brings us back to the ab rolling, which could be considered a dynamic form of planks.

Although it’s reasonable to assume that those who created the ab wheel invented the exercise, its history goes back to the early days of professional strongmen. To perform the exercise, they would use a barbell so they could progressively increase their resistance (Image 4).

Although it’s reasonable to assume that those who created the ab wheel invented the exercise, its history goes back to the early days of professional strongmen. Share on X

One notable Iron Game athlete who performed barbell rollouts was Mark Cameron (Image 5). In 1980, Cameron became the second (and still the lightest) American to clean and jerk 500 pounds. He told me he would use 242 pounds (110 kilos) for reps during workouts.

One of my colleagues who has been prescribing barbell rollouts to his athletes for over 30 years is strength coach and posturologist Paul Gagné. He says it’s one of the most unique abdominal exercises “because the range of motion is large and it’s all anti-gravity.” However, he only prescribes it after a preparatory period of lower abdominal training—let me expand on his approach.

Facts and Fallacies of Lower Ab Training

The rectus abdominis extends from the top of the sternum and rib cage to the pubic bone and is the muscle that gives us the envied “six pack” (Image 6). The rectus abdominis is a single muscle, but for program design purposes, Gagné divides it into two sections: supraumbilical (above the belly button) and subumbilical (below the belly button).

The entire rectus abdominis is somewhat activated in nearly every abdominal exercise, but Gagné says it is possible to emphasize specific segments. Compare this approach to how bodybuilders (including Arnold!) target the upper area of their pectorals by performing bench presses on an incline.

The entire rectus abdominis is somewhat activated in nearly every abdominal exercise, but Gagné says it is possible to emphasize specific segments. Share on X

Many strength coaches are fond of saying, “Train movements, not muscles.” In the case of the lower abdominals, Gagné asserts that all macro movements depend on micro movements. “Functional training that simulates the movements in sports is fine, but only so long as each segment is strong enough to coordinate those movements properly.”

The lower abdominals play a critical role in preventing injuries and producing the highest levels of athletic performance. For example, lower abdominal weakness may cause the pelvis to rotate excessively forward during sprinting. These mechanics can affect stride length, increase stress on the hamstrings, and reduce the shock-absorbing qualities of the spine (Image 7). Research supports this theory, even suggesting that pelvic posture may be more important for preventing hamstring injuries than stretching.

A study on the link between hamstring injuries and flexibility was published in 1993. The 34 subjects included rugby, hurling, and Gaelic football athletes. “The results of the study indicate that while differences in hamstring flexibility are not evident between injured and noninjured groups, poorer low back posture was found in the injured group.” They concluded that coaches should regularly monitor the posture of these athletes.

Gagné says the problem is compounded if one side of the lower abdominals is significantly weaker. This imbalance could cause excessive spinal rotation, leading to possible disc injury.

According to Gagné, before performing barbell rollouts (or using an ab wheel), you should have sufficient lower ab coordination and strength to maintain a neutral spine during the exercise. This involves screening athletes with two simple tests.

Abdominal Testing Basics

The first test determines if you have the body awareness (proprioception) to activate the lower abs.

Lie on your back with your knees bent at 90 degrees. Place your hands on your chest and rest your head on the ground. Try to lift your hips straight up a few inches, exhaling hard as you do so (Image 8). If you can’t perform this movement without pulling your knees towards your head, or if you have to brace your elbows on the floor or lift your head, you have weak lower abdominals. “This lower abdominal raise is just about the only movement you could say is purely subumbilical,” says Gagné.

’This lower abdominal raise is just about the only movement you could say is purely subumbilical’, says Gagné. Share on X

If one of his athletes fails the lower abdominal strength test, Gagné would have them practice this movement (or other exercises) until they can pass it. Often, athletes can pass the test after just a few training sessions.

The second test measures the coordination between the abdominal muscles and the muscles that flex the hip. It is discussed in the popular physical therapy textbook Muscles: Testing and Function, first published in 1949. The difference between this test and a straight-leg raise exercise is that you must keep the lower back pressed against the floor during the movement.

To perform the test, have a partner place their hands underneath your lower back, lightly touching the vertebrae directly under your belly button. Have your partner extend your legs until they are perpendicular to the floor, supporting them briefly. Press your spine against the floor and slowly lower your legs, exhaling as you do so, with your partner holding their free hand a few inches away from your ankles so your legs don’t collapse (Image 9).

To score 100 percent, a male must lower their legs all the way down without arching their lower back, and a female to about 15 degrees from the floor. The two standards are needed because women carry more of their total muscle mass in their lower extremities.

The two standards are needed because women carry more of their total muscle mass in their lower extremities. Share on X

With those prerequisites out of the way, you’re ready for the next phase of abdominal training: barbell rollouts!

Next-Level Ab Training with Barbell Rollouts

When an athlete is ready for barbell rollouts, there are several ways to progress. Gagné recommends starting from the knees, then from a low platform, and finally (for the super advanced) from a standing position. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Level 1: Kneeling on the Floor. As with the ab wheel, one of the key technique points in performing a barbell rollout is to keep the spine in a neutral position (Image 10).

Placing a towel or padding under your knees will make the exercise more comfortable. You should initiate the exercise by moving your hips forward and stopping if you feel your lower back arching. Only when your hips have moved as far as they can do you initiate the use of your arms.

During the exercise, keep your head in line with your spine, which will help prevent you from arching your lower back. Also, grip the barbell hard to stabilize your upper back. Gagné says gripping hard is also an exercise to help correct round shoulders.

As for breathing, during these barbell rollouts, you exhale during the most challenging part of the exercise. More specifically, you inhale as you extend, hold your breath at the fully-extended position, then slowly exhale (with pursed lips) as you return.

To help you perform the exercise correctly, wrap an elastic band around your upper thighs, close to your hips (Video 2). Have your partner stand behind you. As you extend, the pull of the band will help you maintain a neutral spine and enable the trainee to extend further.

Video 2: Using a band across the upper thighs provides feedback on exercise posture and assists the trainee with the exercise.

Level 2. Kneeling on Low Platform. This variation requires a low platform (Image 11), about 4 to 6 inches, such as the height of an aerobic step. While using a platform makes the ab wheel exercise easier, it’s harder with a barbell. “Because of the barbell’s higher position, I prefer performing two progressions before standing,” says Gagné.

An alternative to kneeling on a low platform is to use smaller diameter plates, although they tend not to roll as smoothly as the large bumper plates. Again, placing a towel or some other padding under the knees would make the exercise more comfortable.

Level 3. Standing. This is the most challenging variation and requires good hamstring flexibility. You should perform it on a non-slip surface or with your feet against a wall to prevent slipping. Before trying it, do a few workouts without the barbell to get accustomed to the movement (Image 12).

From standing is the most challenging variation of barbell rollouts and requires good hamstring flexibility. Share on X

When you’re ready for the barbell, start with the barbell close to a wall or power rack to prevent you from collapsing and falling facedown (Image 13). After a few sessions, you should be comfortable with the movement to perform it away from a wall.

Start with the bar close to the shins, head down, and slowly extend as far as possible under control (14). Don’t be discouraged! You may only be able to extend a few inches at first. If hamstring flexibility is an issue, start with your knees slightly bent until your flexibility improves from performing this movement.

Coach Gagné has developed many other variations of barbell rollout exercises, along with more extensive abdominal training protocols. However, the approach described here is a good start and one that he has used with Olympians, professional athletes, and the general population. The bottom line is to find ways to increase the resistance progressively with abdominal training. Barbell rollouts are a practical option to help you accomplish just that!

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

McGill, S. Personal Communication. June 26, 2023.

McGill, S. Low Back Disorders: Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation, 3rd Edition. Human Kinetics, May 8, 2015.

Schwarzenegger, A. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, pp. 308-309. Simon & Schuster, 1998.

Hennessey L., and Watson A.W. Flexibility and posture assessment in relation to hamstring injury. Br J Sports Med. 1993 Dec;27(4):243-6.

Kendall, F.P., et al. Muscles Testing and Function, 4th Edition, pp. 156-157. Williams & Wilkins, 1983.