Blog

Are we strong? It’s hard to determine progress if you don’t have anything to compare to. We must define what it means to be strong if we’re going to say whether we are or not.

Differentiating between larger and smaller bodies is also valuable. If a 160-pound male and a 200-pound male can both bench press 225 pounds, are they equally strong? Per relative strength, the 160-pounder is much stronger with a relative strength ratio of 1.4x BW compared to the 200-pounder, who is actually pretty weak for his size with a relative strength ratio of about 1.12x BW. Judging an athlete solely by the weight on the bar is not a fair or accurate measurement, because it doesn’t tell the full story.

Also, at a certain point we become strong enough. This means that solely increasing 1RM strength will not lead to any further on-field improvement (training transfer). Once this happens, the emphasis of training must shift toward methods that will directly transfer.

Again, we need to define what “strong enough” is and measure how close we are to achieving it. Using this information to drive programming decisions is really what matters. Continuing to progress maxes for a team that doesn’t need them is a waste of time and a huge opportunity lost.

Strength Standards Defined

These standards are benchmarks I use to determine an athlete’s relative strength, which is the load they can handle well compared to their body weight, or how strong they are in certain movements or lifts. Usually, this is measured as their one rep max in the lift divided by their body weight. For example:

• 300-pound bench press at 220-pound body weight
• 300/220 = 1.36

This athlete can bench press 1.36x their body weight, which is really good for a male and insane for a female.

For other lifts, I’ll determine relative strength by a weight they can handle for a common amount of reps. I use this method for lifts we don’t test maxes for, such as:

• Barbell RDLs
• Lunges
• Neck work

I usually program RDLs between five and 10 reps and most commonly from six to eight reps. So, our standard for barbell RDLs is the weight they use for eight reps with flawless form and technique. These I don’t compare to body weight; just the load itself is the benchmark.

For other lifts, I’ll just make a mental note of the weights used by most athletes in the group and do some quick math in my head. Reverse lunges are an example of this. If my average baseball player weighs 180 pounds and most of them use 185 pounds for reverse lunges for 6-8 reps, that’s pretty solid. This means most of the team can reverse lunge their body weight for at least 6-8 quality reps. If that same group is only using 95 pounds, we need to work on strength in that movement. That information drives programming decisions: In the second case, more focus on improving strength in the lunge is required.

The strength standards I use for common main lifts are:

How Did I Come Up with These?

Some of these are accepted standards supported by evidence, some are long-held norms in the field, some I found in random articles, some we figured out just by watching what our beginner, intermediate, and advanced athletes do, and others are extrapolated by math.

The back squat standards are pretty common across the field. The front squat is about 80%-85% of the back squat, so the front squat standards are 20% less than the back squat standards. Understand they are benchmarks and measurements, not hard and fast gospel rules. Your experience may be different from mine.

How Do I Test Them?

We test major lifts throughout the off-season, usually at the end of the semester after we’ve been training the team or group consistently for 16 weeks. With some teams, we do work up to a true 1RM; for different groups we also use reps in reserve and estimate a max, and for others we just make a mental note of how much weight they use. RDLs, lunges, and the neck machine are all examples of this.

This is actually becoming my preferred method of evaluating strength over set maxing and testing weeks. Yes, we do share these standards with them—our athletes are very driven by measurements (and grades), so they want to be able to hit each one and see how they stack up.

Using Standards to Dictate Training

What does the athlete or group need from their training? Are they strong enough, or do they just need to continue what they’re doing and get stronger? The team average in each movement allows you to determine that.

I often find groups are strong enough in certain lifts, but not others—male athletes tend to hit the trap bar and squat standards faster than the bench press standards. In this case, the training for lower-body movements may be shifted more toward dynamic effort and power emphasis, where upper body strength will continue to follow basic progressive overload and more repetition assistance work. You can be strong enough in one lift/movement but not another.

If you only have one team to train, you could also break them into different subgroups based on what they need. Large rosters, like football or swimming, will not all be at the same level. If it’s logistically possible, you could use these measurements to tailor training for different ability levels (see beginners, intermediates, and advanced athletes).

Beginners, Intermediates, and Advanced Trainees

Training age refers to how many years an individual has been training in a supervised setting, not their actual age. Training level or ability refers to the:

• Level of skill
• Movement quality in major movement patterns like the squat, hinge, and lunge
• Base level of strength demonstrated by athletes (usually compared to their body weight).

All athletes will fall into one of the three levels:

1. Beginners (novices)
2. Intermediates
3. Advanced

Beginners

Beginners are exactly that. They have no real consistent experience training in a structured and supervised setting and do not possess any base level of strength, work capacity, or movement skill. Their training should reflect this.

Use the most basic variations of exercises that they can execute well with confidence. Apply minimal but consistent progressive overload and strive for continued quality movement. Strength, size, and power gains for this population will come simply by following that formula.

Beginners do not need advanced methods and likely will not be able to truly get the most out of more complex movements and methods anyway.

Intermediates

Intermediates are those with at least one to two years of direct and consistent training experience in a structured setting under a qualified coach. This population can execute basic variations of the major movement patterns well and can handle moderate training loads with consistent great technique and form, but they still have room to progress in gaining strength. They can hit the minimum strength standards but have not reached the point of diminishing returns for strength gains.

This population can begin to use heavier loads and more progressed exercise variations and learn more advanced methods. Training for this population should still be rooted in consistent movement quality, progressive overload, and simply continuing to get stronger and generally more explosive and powerful.

Advanced

Advanced groups are those athletes with at least three years of direct consistent experience under a qualified coach and who can move heavy training loads with flawless technique. This population can hit every strength standard goal and be considered “strong enough.” They have reached the point of diminishing returns to improving athletic performance solely by improving strength. Their training must be tailored toward increasing speed, power, and training transfer to the playing field for their sport. Individualization of the programming to improve weaknesses is also a great way to progress this population if it’s feasible with your logistics. I discuss training for advanced athletes like this further in my Advanced Training Manual.

Training for each level must be tailored accordingly (SAID principle). Beginners cannot execute to the same degree that advanced trainees do. Conversely, beginner training will not be a sufficient-enough stimulus for advanced populations. It’s your job as the coach to determine what level the group you are working with is currently at and tailor the training accordingly.

Beginners should be able to hit the “minimum” in each movement. Intermediates should strive to hit the “goal” for each movement. Once an athlete can hit the “goal” numbers, they’re considered to be strong enough.

Long-term training can really be simplified to this: Teach and develop movement mastery and quality, then work to reach the strength standards through progressive overload.

That will encompass anywhere from 90%-99% of the athletes you’ll work with. Strength is the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of improving performance and reducing injury risk; it’s also very easy to train. Follow that formula, and I truly believe you’ll cover about 90%-95% of all transfer from the weight room to the field. Once an athlete is “strong enough,” training becomes an ongoing pursuit of that last 5%-10% of improvement.

At this point, bridging the gap between developing strength and translating it to sporting action becomes the emphasis of training. Shifting emphasis in training from strength dominant to power and explosive strength dominant is one way to reach that last 5%-10%.

Considerations for Larger Bodies

There will always be outliers with measurements like this. Do I expect every 300-pound player to squat 600 pounds to hit 2x BW? That’s a tough ask, but 450 pounds to make 1.5x BW is certainly reasonable. If they’re more than 300 pounds, they’d better be strong. If you have a 280-pound lineman who can’t squat 225 pounds, put two and two together.

Tall athletes are the real outliers. Think 6’4” and up. It’s much more difficult for the 6’5” forwards to squat to depth than the 5’9” running backs. For very tall athletes, I compare them to similar-sized bodies. Though they should still be able to hit the strength minimums, just understand it’s a little more impressive for them. I’ve found that very long-limbed athletes need a much longer emphasis on just developing strength and movement quality than their shorter peers. Progressing them to the next step in training will take longer and is less of a priority.

Will These Standards Work with High School or Youth Athletes?

I developed these standards based on our college athlete population, but that’s not to say they won’t work at the high school level. I wouldn’t worry about measuring relative strength for that population until they have a full year of supervised training in your program. They will get stronger and improve just by training properly and consistently. This is really the case with untrained college freshmen, too.

That said, if you have high school upperclassmen who have been in your program for 2-3 years, they should at least be able to hit the minimum numbers. You probably have a few athletes in mind who can definitely hit these standards.

For youth athletes not yet in high school, I wouldn’t worry about testing at all. Just continue to improve movement quality and confidence and give them a great experience. If they enjoy training and do it consistently, the rest falls into place. That’s really the case at every level.

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

Data is pragmatic because it simply answers the question are we actually doing what we say we’re doing? Especially with the 1080 Sprint, we can directly answer are we specifically doing what we say we’re doing with our resisted sprint training? Now, that’s not to say it makes the decisions for you or takes the human coaching component out of it—you still must decide what it is you want to do, and then data comes in and supports that process of how do we make that happen?

Most sports aren’t dictated by how strong you can be—they are about how fast you can be strong. One of the biggest variables of sport is the time (or lack thereof) that constrains the movements and skills that need to be performed.

Using basic physics, power is force x distance all divided by time. In a post on his LinkedIn page, Matt Rhea—Director of Performance Science for University of Alabama football—shared an insight about training his football players that influenced my thought process: “Improvements in strength with a power-focused program were occurring simultaneous to power whereas power was not improving significantly with a strength-focused program.”

This makes total sense: training something not exactly as specific as power, like strength, won’t directly lead to power improvements. If we know power is relevant for sports and want to improve it, we must specifically train power. Although this referred to training power for lifting, the concept is still the same: if we say we’re training max power with our resisted sprints, are we actually doing that?

Lastly, training power must be actionable to help you do your job better as a coach. Assuming all things are equal, that your resisted sprint training is always at max effort with appropriate sets, reps, and distances, load will be the most modifiable variable and the biggest influence on speed and power. In the remainder of this article, I will answer:

1. Why I compared load-velocity and load-power relationships, and what the difference between the two means for you as a coach.
2. How I used the 1080 Sprint to answer, “are we actually training at max power with resisted sprints?”
3. How the insights from this evaluation get turned into action for answering “how much load should we use to achieve max power?” 

Resisted Sprinting

What we currently know about resisted sprint training is that max power occurs around a 50% (48%–52%) velocity decrement (Vdec) or a load used that makes the athlete sprint at half of their max speed. This came from a study¹ that had athletes perform resisted sprints with increasing loads until 50% Vdec was achieved and then evaluated the force-velocity and force-power relationships. Building on that, we also know general Vdec zones and their training emphases:

• 0%–10% Vdec is the technical zone. This zone is light enough to maintain the natural rhythm and timing of sprinting while using slight resistance to draw out more effort.
• 10%–40% Vdec is the speed-strength zone. This zone is a combination of resistance and speed to develop some sprinting-specific strength while still focusing on speed.
• 40%–60% Vdec is the power zone.² This is the optimal zone that’s heavy enough draw out maximal effort and develop sprinting-specific strength while being fast enough to still be powerful.
• 50% Vdec is about where max power is.¹ This specific Vdec has been found to be the sweet spot of load and speed to maximize power in sprinting.

Load-Power Profiling

Language is important, and we should be precise about the words we choose when describing our profiles and protocols. It IS important to differentiate that force-velocity and force-power relationships were evaluated in prior research, whereas I’m evaluating load-power and load-velocity relationships. Can both profiles end up at the same answer for choosing a load for max power? Yes. Are they the exact same thing? No.

If we want to know precisely what load gives the most power for each athlete when resisted sprinting, we need to evaluate the LOAD-power relationship. Using the protocols outlined in this article using the 1080 Sprint, my athletes completed a series of four sprints at 35 yards, 30 yards, 25 yards, and 20 yards, each with increasing load. The set of loads (kg) were either 1/5/10/15 (beginner), 2/8/14/20 (intermediate), or 3/10/17/24 (advanced). The 1080 Sprint calculated the highest 5-meter split of both velocity and power for every sprint, and we used this to compare load-velocity and load-power relationships.

We know load and velocity have a negatively linear relationship: as load increases, velocity decreases. We also know load and power have a parabolic relationship: as load increases, power increases up to a certain point before decreasing. This means there’s a sweet spot of load that’s not too heavy and not too light that yields max power. Linear relationships have an equation that follows y = m(x) + b and parabolic relationships have an equation that follows y = a(x)^2 + b(x) + c. In this case, y is velocity sprinted and x is load. M, a, b, and c are all numbers generated by a regression individual to each profile.

Coaches can directly turn this into action by calculating the regression (equation) of each athlete’s load-power profile and working backward to determine which load yields max power. This is important because you program resisted sprints based on load, not force or velocity. With that being said, the goal of your program can be either a certain Vdec or max power, but you still have to pick a load to achieve that. Although 50% Vdec is similar to max power, load-power profiles literally answer the question “are we actually doing what we say we’re doing [training max power]?”

Protocols

At TCBoost Sports Performance, I collected resisted sprint profiles using the 1080 Sprint with 79 high school athletes, 8 college athletes, 8 post-college/professional athletes, and 1 middle school athlete. Sixty-three of these athletes were male and 33 were female. With protocols from the article I mentioned before, 82 profiles were completed on the “beginner” protocol, 4 on the “intermediate” protocol, and 10 on the “advanced” protocol. All loads, fastest 5-meter trimmed velocities, and highest 5-meter power outputs were charted on a dual-axis graph. The load-velocity data points were fitted to a linear regression and load-power data points were fitted to a second-order polynomial regression.

Forty-two percent of the profiles achieved greater than a 50% Vdec during the four sprints. It is important to note this, as 50% Vdec was achieved during all profiles in the previous study.¹ Additionally, my athletes fall into a different demographic than those of the previous study (12 recreational-level mixed-sport athletes and 15 highly trained sprinters).

The resistance for 50% Vdec was calculated by solving for x with the equation 0.50b = m(x) + b. The resistance for max power from the load-power profiles was calculated by using load = -b/(2a) from the power regression equation y = a(x^2) + b(x) + c. Here’s an Excel tutorial on how to do all this.

Results: Comparing Load-Velocity to Load-Power Profiles

Using a paired-samples t-test, the loads needed for max power when compared to the loads needed for 50% Vdec were statistically different (p<0.001, ES = -0.417). This means a moderate difference existed between the two loads. There was a very high correlation (0.875, p<0.001) between the loads needed for max power and 50% Vdec. The correlation but statistical difference means the loads are similar but not close enough to be called the same.

The average “residual,” or difference between the load needed for max power and the load needed for 50% Vdec, was +0.9 ± 2.2kg. This means, on average, max power would be achieved with a load of 0.9 kg more than what would achieve 50% Vdec. With that being said, the residual had a huge standard deviation; meaning, there was a big range of overestimations and underestimations of the loads needed for max power when compared to the loads for 50% Vdec. The load for max power for 95% of profiles (two standard deviations) would fall between needing 5.3 kg more than 50% Vdec and needing 3.5 kg less than 50% Vdec. The maximum and minimum residual for max power was 9 kg more and 4 kg less than 50% Vdec, respectively, showing a lot of individual variation.

On average, 52.6% ± 6.1% Vdec was where max power was achieved, which is pretty similar to previous research. However, this came with a huge standard deviation. Ninety-five percent of the profiles (two standard deviations) had max power between 40.3% and 64.9% Vdec, with the minimum being 40.7% and the maximum being 81.2%. Again, showing a lot of individual variation.

For the sake of following protocols as illustrated in research, let’s look at just the profiles of the 40 athletes who achieved greater than a 50% Vdec during their four sprints. The average Vdec of max power was 54.2% ± 6.4% with the average load needed for max power being +1.3 kg ± 1.9 kg greater than that of 50% Vdec. Using an independent-samples t-test to compare the residuals of the profiles that achieved a 50% Vdec during their four sprints versus the profiles that did not, there was not a statistical difference (p<0.05, ES = 0.320). This means achieving 50% Vdec or not during profiling did not create a difference in the residual.

The average coefficient of determination (R²) for the 96 load-velocity profiles was 0.992 ± 0.007 and load-power profiles was 0.998 ± 0.002, showing reliable protocols. However, the correlation between the R² of the load-velocity profiles and the R² of the load-power profiles was low (0.372, p<0.001), meaning that a more reliable load-velocity profile didn’t necessarily mean a more reliable load-power profile.

If You Can, Create a Load-Power Profile

In summary, this data confirms, on average, the load needed for 50% Vdec is a good estimate of the load needed for max power. This has practical applications for coaches whose resisted sprint equipment doesn’t measure power, such as sleds and timing gates. However, with the 1080 Sprint and the ability to evaluate max power directly, the load needed for max power was achieved with as little as 41% Vdec and as much as 81% Vdec.

Each athlete is unique and will have their own strengths and weaknesses relative to not only their sprinting ability but also their resisted sprinting ability (hence, all the variability in the data above). Thus, if you have the ability to measure power and want to truly individualize programming for your athletes and answer are we actually training max power?, then you should create a load-power profile and calculate max power.

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

References

1. Cross, MR, Brughelli M, Samozino P, Brown SR, and Morin JB. “Optimal loading for maximizing power during sled-resisted sprinting.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2017;12:1069-1077.

2. Cahill, Micheál. (2020, December). “A targeted approach to resisted sled training for speed development: Assess, prescribe and coach.” Track Football Consortium.

It was that time of the year again. Summer training camp was here for the upcoming football season, with two practices a day under the blistering-hot Pennsylvania sun. You can still hear the whistle screech and the coaches yell on the line. We headed toward the end line, and the next 20 minutes or so were filled with repeat 100-yard gassers. “We gotta get fast!” “Speed is king!” “Fourth-quarter legs are what we’re after!” Soon 100% became 90%, then 80%, 70%, 60%…until we got to a point where it was all we could do to just survive the next rep.

I’m sure if you’ve played any sport, you’ve likely had a similar experience when it came to coaches and their philosophies about training. But are chronically high-intensity efforts the way to train the power-speed athlete?

While high-intensity training is not necessarily a bad thing, chronically elevated intensities can be quite detrimental to performance and health—especially when coupled with the stressors of sport and life. The nervous system can only handle so much, and this system is the lifeblood of athletes. Why compromise it for the sake of crushing yourself in training as a badge of honor? Some of the most successful lifters in history rarely, if ever, missed a training rep. They used loads that they had to respect, but they also knew they could technically “wax” during sets.

The prevailing thought when it came to training athletes was to increase their capacity to handle and push through fatigue. Pushing back against that status quo was sport scientist and coach Yuri Verkhoshansky, who is credited with developing “anti-glycolytic” training (AGT) in the late 1980s. Instead of training the athlete to tolerate increasing concentrations of metabolic byproducts, why not instead focus on training the athlete to produce less of it?

This style of training can be used in a variety of ways. It is a favorable method for the speed-power athlete that finds themself needing to reproduce high-level outputs over an entire competition or contest. Let’s take a deeper look at AGT and discuss what it is, how to do it, and why it works for athletes.

What Is AGT?

The basic premise of AGT is to train athletes away from producing excessive amounts of lactate and other unfavorable byproducts. AGT doesn’t mean you can’t train athletes to produce these types of things—you can do it, but you must give sufficient recoveries to counter negative effects.

On the opposite end of AGT, you have the early CrossFit style of training: high-intensity exercises done for moderate durations with minimal rest periods. These acid baths might not harm you right away, but in the long term they can have side effects such as:

• Low energy.
• Elevated levels of “walking around” stress/tone.
• Hormone profiles are out of whack.
• Accumulation of free radicals that lead to oxidative stress and damage to cells.
• Unfavorable adaptations to the heart structures.

AGT, in the simplest form, is using brief, high-intensity efforts with structured rest periods to fully recover from previous work to complete future work in the same manner. If intensities and outputs are maintained over increasing levels of work, you get better. In sports where repeatability is key, AGT seems pretty good. There is an element of specificity that I need to appreciate when it comes to repeatability, but for general power-speed, I like AGT for athletic populations.

I’ve used AGT-inspired training with most of my athletes. I implemented an autoregulatory system with my basketball athletes to manage fatigue and create a training bandwidth that emphasizes power-speed. I measure certain sprints, jumps, and key lifts, then prescribe a drop-off range: typically, 5–10% of their best. Once they pass that threshold, we cut training that movement and move on. It has also created a competitive nature during sessions, where my athletes are more engaged and are having fun.

AGT takes advantage of the short-term energy system, better known as the ATP-PC system. Depending on the athlete, work sets can be anywhere from 5–20 seconds of high-intensity work. Rest periods should be enough to recover from each set. You may have to compromise the rest a bit to fit a specific time frame, if needed.

An example would be a seven-second all-out sprint effort. It can take upward of 10 minutes for the body to recover, but most coaches don’t have that time during sessions. A good compromise would be in the 2.5- to 3-minute range. It is enough time to replenish for the next sprint and also make sure that you get in enough sprint volume to produce the adaptation. AGT can be used in the weight room and on the field.

The target quality when using AGT is power training, which is dynamic in nature. To stimulate fast twitch muscle fibers, you can either use force or velocity means. Loads between 30% and 70% can be used for power training. Dynamic lifts such as squats, pulls, Olympic lifts, medicine ball throws, kettlebell swings, upper body presses, and push-ups are all great tools for power training.

Sprinting and jumping are also forms of power-speed development—the key to power training is low reps with generous rest. This allows for maximal efforts that can be sustained through working sets. To be fast and powerful, you have to train fast and powerful. Fatigue is the enemy.

Why Does AGT Work?

As an athlete, you need to be sound in many different capacities. Speed, power, strength, and endurance are the major ones. To improve at any of these requires some sort of specificity in order to target the required mechanisms. Power training, however, has been shown to have positive carry-over into all the abovementioned capacities. This makes training for power a popular training means for the team sport athlete.

A few years back, I came across Pavel Tsatsouline, who I knew from his kettlebell stuff and from his laconic speaking. After a deep dive into his books and his writing, it was clear to me that Pavel has a fundamental understanding of all things strength. Pavel has also written extensively about AGT.

Here are some major concepts I took from his work:

• Take longer rest intervals and use active rest: Longer rest periods allow for the body to regenerate ATP stores and clear waste products that interfere with muscular contractions. Active rest helps promote blood flow and aids in the process of restoration (shaking out arms and legs).

• Strength is a skill: As in sprinting, coordination and rate coding are key elements. Grinding lifts throw off that balance. Manageable loads done with pace and great technique will ingrain better movement patterns (greasing the groove). 

• Power feeds all other qualities: F=M*A, using lighter loads with higher velocities is another way to stimulate fast twitch fibers. Even Westside uses their dynamic effort day to increase the work capacities of their lifters outside of max effort work.

• Acid is the enemy of both tension and relaxation: Once you start getting into the burn, you are no longer fast and powerful. Charlie Francis said it best, “If you have a Ferrari, you don’t plow fields with it.”

AGT aims to develop power, stimulating the nervous system and the preferred fast twitch fibers. If you look at elite-level sprinters, many have fairly muscular physiques. This is a byproduct of running fast, jumping, and other dynamic movements in training. That type of training makes for a solid overall athlete, especially in sports that require said athlete to be competent in a wide variety of abilities and qualities.

Training in this manner also keeps acid at bay within the body for prolonged periods. When muscles perform work, they produce byproducts that impair their contractile abilities and coordination after a certain time point. This cuts power and speed noticeably. If athletes train this way for too long, they begin to develop what some call a “dynamic stereotype.” James “The Thinker” Smith (@thethinkersmith on Twitter) describes this phenomenon in his book Applied Sprint Training as:

“From a neuromuscular training aspect, the repetitive exposure to the same/unchanging CNS intensive stimulus presents the possibility of a halt in the adaptation process.”

In essence, you are practicing slow and tired to be slow and tired. The goal of training is to stimulate, not annihilate. Some acidosis in training is fine, but when the threshold is passed, that is where performance and health take the hit.

For the power-speed athlete, a majority of training is away from glycolytic mechanisms. In sports that may require glycolytic contribution, there is no harm in adding a training block to introduce the athlete to it—you’d hate for them to experience this state for the first time in competition.

Mitochondria

One area of focus for AGT is the mitochondria within muscle fibers. Mitochondria are commonly known as the “powerhouse of cells.” They help to generate energy for muscles to contract and produce movement, and mitochondria also work to buffer out unfavorable byproducts that begin to accumulate during exertion.

Without bigger and better mitochondria, our room for error is much slimmer than it would be if our mitochondria were trained to be healthier. Mitochondria are present in both fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. Slow twitch fibers are pre-equipped with a fair number of mitochondria to aid in aerobic functions. Fast twitch fibers, however, have fewer concentrations, which leads these fibers to fatigue more quickly.

There are ways we can train mitochondrial capacities in both sets of fibers. The concept of AGT shows us some ways we can do it in our programs. This post by strength and conditioning researcher Chris Beardsley gives a more detailed view of the role of mitochondria in both fast and slow twitch fibers.

How to Program AGT?

In my judgment, both the aerobic and alactic systems should be trained in athletes. The commonality of approach to training both systems would be to reach the brink of acidosis in the muscle without overflooding and experience the perennial dip in performance. This can be accumulated through training to reach the desired fitness levels needed for the athlete’s sport.

In fast twitch fibers, AGT has been shown to somewhat increase the mitochondrial quantity (size and number), although it is not optimized for it. The goal is to provide an aerobic environment within fast fibers that triggers the generation and effectiveness of mitochondria. Upgraded mitochondria are better able to handle the increasing influx of acid as it makes its way into cells. Taking the underlying message of AGT, there are a few routes that coaches can implement to realize these adaptations.

• The duration of high-intensity efforts should be around the 5- to 15-second mark depending on athlete qualification.
• Rest periods should optimize for full recoveries while respecting time constraints.
  • 3–5 minutes is a good starting point.
• Don’t exceed 10 sets of a movement or 100 reps (that is the ceiling).
• Manipulate set/rep schemes into series to allow for repeatability of outputs.
  • Pavel and others have found these to be the best:
    • Five reps per set, one set every 30 seconds, four sets per series, keep total volume under 100 reps.
    • Ten reps per set, one set every 60 seconds, two sets per series, keep total volume under 100 reps.
  • Choose simple exercises with light to moderate loads to emphasize power.

Programming this for weight room exercises will be different than for field work. When sprinting, we must consider what high-speed running can do to the unprepared athlete. Like anything, we have to build up to it.

Structuring speed sessions with reps, sets, and series can allow for better runs without the accumulation of fatigue. This is a key factor for sports that involve repeated bouts of high-intensity efforts. Timing sprints for a certain drop-off threshold is a good way to establish a floor and ceiling with your athletes.

The same concept applies for jumping/plyometrics or velocity-based training. If you can get some baseline data, then you have a cut-off point to use so that power isn’t lost because athletes are gassing out. Your ending volumes for both sprints and jumps will match your needs analysis. Step progress to match the demands of sport.

When training the mitochondria in the slow twitch fibers, the best way is through steady-state aerobic exercise below the lactate threshold. I am not sure if science has looked at tempo runs and zone 2 cardio and what goes on at the cellular level, but empirically, both seem to work.

One protocol that I have seen successfully work is Peter Attia’s zone 2 training. Peter trains on an exercise bike at the highest watts per kilo while maintaining a lactate level below 2.0 mmol. His weekly sessions are either 4×45 minutes or 3×60 minutes. A rule of thumb when using tempo runs is to go under 60–65% of best time and maintain a pace where you can pass the talk test.

Training slow twitch fibers through strength training has also been successfully done by coaches. Professor Victor Selouyanov developed a slow twitch hypertrophy program that you can find if you do some digging: the basic premise is light, very slow movements through a limited range of motion. Selouyanov recommends very long rest periods between these types of sets: upward of 5–10 minutes of active and passive rest to fully recover for the next set. If you are interested in this type of training, I recommend looking deeper into it. (Please see the bottom of this article for some resources to start with.)

Another major takeaway when implementing AGT principles is using rest periods to your advantage. Active rest is a good option when paired with power-speed training. Fast and loose movements, like shaking the arms/legs, can help the process of clearing fatigue. Passive rest can be used, but recovery periods might take a bit longer. If you have the time to optimize rest intervals…use it.

Biological Power

I’ve come across a few variations of this concept of what Verkhoshansky would describe as biological power.Paraphrasing from the great professor, the 50,000-foot view of this is:

“The mechanical power of a biological system is supported by physiology. This is the power of the living organism. To increase mechanical power is to increase the mechanism of energy through the development of the energy systems.” 

The big idea that I took away from my own research is that the overall health of the organism and the capacity of each biological system has a direct impact on what they can “give.” If an individual has not built up the reservoir to pull from, they are hindered in their resource allocation to training/competition.

A short and sweet quote I think of is that a rising tide raises all ships. Doug McGuff, a full-time practicing emergency physician and owner of the facility Ultimate Exercise, calls this concept “physiologic headroom”: the difference between the most you can do and the least you can do. This concept speaks to the importance of common sense training along with proper sleep, nutrition, hydration, and lifestyle management in order to set the stage and allow for more to be directed toward training. Don’t start from a deficit because we couldn’t get the simple stuff right in our time outside of training.

Why is this important in AGT? The training methodologies that we use should have the interdependence of the human body in mind. There are downstream effects to every decision we make and stressors we incur. If we can promote health in athletes along with boosting performance, we have a win-win.

Anti-glycolytic training (or similar philosophies) is not anything revolutionary. These approaches tend to get lost in the fray due to the flashy and grinding methods popular with social media, but this style of training is effective.

The concept of AGT is fluid in strength and conditioning: depending on what you are trying to train, your training variables will mirror that of using alactic + aerobic mechanisms. There may be no definitive template, but as a coach, you can develop your own sample size through some simple data collection. The education piece upfront is important to get buy-in from athletes. The job of strength coaches is to prepare and support sport-participating athletes, keeping precious resources allocated to the field or court.

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

Resources

Smith, James. Applied Sprint Training. Vervanté, 2014.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. “How to Build Your Slow Fibers Part III.” StrongFirst, 3/17/21.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. “How to Build Your Slow Fibers, Part I.” StrongFirst, 10/20/17.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. “How to Build Your Slow Fibers, Part II.” StrongFirst, 10/19/18.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. “The Patience of Strength: The Russian Science of Rest Intervals.”

StrongFirst, 10/20/17.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. “The Quick and the Dead vs Strong Endurance™-What Is the Difference?” StrongFirst, 2/7/20.

Verkhoshansky, Y. and Siff, M.C. (2009). Supertraining. Verkhoshansky SSTM.

During your journey of coaching speed, these questions are important to answer. Each will create a different mental approach in defining progress for your athletes, since one is a “fixed mindset,” while the other is a “growth mindset.”

How does one define fast? Fast for track & field or team sports? Fast for a school, region, state, or country? Fast for college recruitment? The answer to each question demands comparison to others who play no role in the development of the athletes you coach.

Coaching “Fast” Athletes vs. Coaching “Faster” Athletes

The desire to coach “fast” athletes is a short-term motivator. It signals a deadline to speed development. By deadline, I am referring to a sports season, a calendar year, or an age group career such as high school or college. Although deadlines are a reality of our world, they are externally imposed by others.

Comparison with others and deadlines can lead to a fixed mindset where one either meets the standard or does not. The result of this is usually satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Whether athletes and/or coaches are satisfied or dissatisfied, a similar effect occurs: progress often stops. Why? Satisfied athletes and coaches have nothing more to prove, and dissatisfied athletes/coaches have a tendency to lose hope. In both situations, a fixed mindset reduces motivation.

A different way to approach coaching speed is through a growth mindset of developing faster athletes. The desire to coach “faster” athletes is a long-term motivator with no specific end. It signals to the athletes, assistant coaches, and others that there is no deadline to speed development. In addition, a coach who emphasizes “faster” signals internal improvement without comparison. The only comparison is to the athlete’s previous self, which could be years, months, or even days before.

The growth mindset of coaching “faster” is liberating—it sets no limits for progress and development. And, because comparison is removed, athletes and coaches begin to realize that competition is an opportunity for personal improvement rather than a final score, victory, or defeat. Therefore, a core belief emerges that progress has no limits.

The result? The desire to coach “faster” athletes enhances short-term AND long-term motivation for training.

The Impact of Youth Sport

Motivated athletes are driven to succeed. How they define success early on can play a significant role in the path of their long-term development. Extrinsically motivated athletes seek to avoid negative outcomes or acquire external rewards. This reward-based motivation can be very powerful in the short term, especially during elementary and middle school where ribbons, medals, and trophies for participation are commonplace. The intentions by adults providing these rewards are to keep young athletes confident while developing a “love” for sport.

However, these actions can backfire as athletes transition into high school and college. When these external rewards become more and more difficult to attain or don’t exert the same influence, the extrinsically motivated athlete tends to hit a wall because the experiences at younger ages define success as external.

Intrinsic motivation—beginning at the youngest ages—can set the path for a long-term career of improvement. The “reward” for intrinsically motivated athletes IS the challenge of improving speed. Internal motivation can be very powerful in the short term AND long term because external rewards are inconsequential to the definition of success. As a result, the “love” for speed becomes a long-term mission due to success defined by oneself rather than others.

Therefore, the environment we foster as coaches plays a significant role in developing intrinsic motivation and the mission of long-term speed development.

The Role of the Coach

A coach plays a significant role in developing their athletes’ mindsets. Every word and expression of body language before, during, and after training and competition provides signals that others receive. When these signals are repeated over the course of a practice, season, and career, the coach’s mindset can strongly spill over into their team’s mindset.

From my personal experience, here are some coaching DOs to encourage a growth mindset of coaching “faster” athletes and things to AVOID to prevent a fixed mindset of coaching “fast” athletes.

What to Do and What to Avoid:

• Speak to your athletes about making progress by using the term mission. Missions are ongoing and never-ending.

Do: “Today our mission is to become better accelerators.”

Avoid: “Our goal is to become .10 faster from 0-30 meters.”

• Leave current expectations and future expectations open-ended. In other words, don’t engage in communication that allows the athlete to think there are limits to their performance.

Do: “Our mission is to be faster at the end of the season than the middle of the season.”

Avoid: “Our goal is to break a school record and qualify for the national championship.”

• During practice and competition, reflect on the athlete’s mental approach/mechanics of performance rather than the final time/distance.

Do: “You executed the runway with aggression, speed, and consistency at takeoff but need to improve your flight and landing mechanics.”

Avoid: “In order to jump 7 meters, you must have better flight and landing mechanics.”

• During competition, refrain from asking about or commenting on the final number performed. Instead, ask how the athlete felt during the physical performance.

Do: “You looked excellent during your float phase! How did you feel during the last 50 meters?”

Avoid: “Your 200m time was broken down with a 0-100m split of 11.2 and a 100-200 split of 11.7.”

What if you receive an athlete/team with a fixed mindset? Here are some suggestions:

1. Minimize discussions about final performance metrics in practice and competition.
2. Place a greater emphasis on mechanics. Video analysis of technique shows the “why” of a given performance. Regardless of the performance result, the discussion of improvement should begin with technique.
3. When measuring speed in practice, use the first rep as a baseline. (Do not share the number with the athletes.) On the following reps, share whether improvement was made. This, combined with video analysis, can be a very motivating tool!
4. Celebrate growth through % improvement rankings over the course of a season, career, or both. This is one of the best indicators of good coaching, because it values ALL athletes in the program versus a select few. See sample below.


This chart is valuable because of what is purposely missing. We do not know final times, rankings, or accolades. What this chart does is signal to the athletes we coach what is most valued: season and career improvement. In other words, coaching the mission of faster rather than the goal of coaching fast.



Key Takeaways

When coaches approach practices and competition with a heightened awareness to create a culture that values a growth mindset, their athletes will likely respond with:

1. Risk taking – Each competitive event becomes an opportunity for athletes to experiment with techniques and strategies for growth, knowing that evaluation of the final metric performed is not an endpoint but a new beginning.
2. Limiting the extreme highs and lows during and after competition – When athletes and coaches demonstrate extreme highs, it sends signals that goals have been accomplished. When athletes and coaches demonstrate extreme lows, it sends signals that goals are becoming impossible. Approaching competition with a growth mindset emphasizes the “how” of technical feedback rather than the “what” of the final performance and/or place.
Approaching competition with a growth mindset emphasize the ‘how’ of technical feedback rather than the ‘what’ of the final performance and/or place, says @AthWestchester. Share on X
3. Trust between the athlete and coach – Athletes recognize that a coach who creates a culture with a growth mindset is there to help them improve rather than “using” the talents of the athletes for their own winning percentage, career advancement, etc.
4. Increased respect/camaraderie among teammates – When coaches emphasize improvement over final performance, ALL athletes are invested. This creates increased respect/camaraderie among the team because self-worth and celebration are not just for point scorers and/or those who receive accolades but anyone who demonstrates personal growth.
5. Intrinsic motivation – Coaches who commit to developing a growth mindset contribute to greater intrinsic motivation for the athletes they coach. The result can be a better follow-through with their team’s long-term training journey that can continue well into adulthood. This also means greater opportunities for the athletes to “pay it forward” to new athletes they encounter throughout their extended career.

Are these likely outcomes a coincidence? A coach with a fixed mindset says yes, but a coach with a growth mindset says no.

Hamstring injuries are a common occurrence in athletics, representing the most common cause of lost training and playing time in running-based sports.¹ Hamstring injuries also have a fairly high recurrence rate, with 1 in 5 athletes re-injuring their hamstring after the initial injury.¹ These injuries typically occur during high speed running and sprinting, as commonly seen in field sports such as soccer and American football.

Return to sport times vary by individual, with some athletes returning within a matter of days and some athletes taking multiple months to get back. The time it takes to return to sport is influenced by a multitude of factors beyond just physical characteristics, but this article will focus on loading and strengthening the hamstrings.

From Compliance to Resilience

Part of the rehab process with any muscle injury is, at some point, to apply load directly to the muscle to stress the specific tissue and create adaptations to facilitate healing and better prepare the system to encounter the stresses of sport. One exercise that has gained a lot of popularity in the realm of hamstring injuries is the Nordic hamstring exercise. One meta-analysis found that utilizing the Nordic hamstring exercise alone or in combination with injury prevention programs could reduce hamstring injury rates in soccer players by up to 51% compared to teams that did not include it.²

A key component of these interventions, however, is compliance; meaning, we actually have to do the interventions to get the effect. One study found compliance of above 50.1% of performing exercises targeting the hamstrings had a positive effect on future hamstring injury, and when compliance was above 75.1%, this resulted in a further risk reduction of future hamstring injury.³ This is another reason why the Nordic hamstring exercise can be so beneficial: because it is easy to implement and has been shown to be effective.

With any rehab, we aim to get back to the individual’s goal activity—which in the context of a hamstring injury is often a sport that involves sprinting such as soccer or American football. Is the Nordic hamstring exercise enough to finish up rehab and send the athlete back to their sport? Or is there more that can be done?

Where Sprinting Comes In

One study assessed hamstring muscle activity and force production in various exercises compared with sprinting. Exercises including the Nordic hamstring exercise and isometric upright hip extension were similar in force production to sprinting, but they were not able to reach similar EMG activity of the hamstrings as the ones induced by sprinting.⁴ None of the exercises tested, including the Nordic hamstring exercise, induced >60% of the maximal hamstring EMG activity compared to maximal sprinting.⁴

Another study compared a Nordic hamstring group, a sprint group, and a control group that just participated in regular soccer activities. Both the Nordic and the sprint group showed improvements in hamstring (biceps femoris specifically) fascicle length with better adaptations noted in the sprint group; the sprint group also improved in both sprint mechanics and performance, whereas the Nordic group did not.⁵ Maximal sprinting activities appear to be the best way to achieve high muscle activity in the hamstrings and allows neuromuscular adaptations to occur during sprinting.

When we start to search online, it is hard to know if we should “just do Nordics” or sprint to reduce the risk of sustaining a hamstring injury, but we do not have to dichotomize this. Both can be incorporated along a progression to ultimately return athletes back to high speed sprinting and sport. The Nordic hamstring exercise is a key component of hamstring injury rehab and injury risk reduction, but it appears that sprinting may provide other benefits as well:

1. Hamstring muscle activity; sprinting appears to be the exercise that loads the hamstrings the most and therefore is essential to incorporate into the return to sport process after a hamstring injury.
2. Due to the nature of hamstring injuries, which are typically locomotive in nature (or performed while the athlete is running), sprinting is a task-specific, locomotive intervention to strengthen the hamstrings and also work on neuromuscular control during high-speed running.
3. Sprinting is specific to the athlete’s goal to return to their sport and is an integral component of performing in their sport.
4. Performing sprints in the return to sport process can address potential psychosocial barriers such as fear of re-injury during sprinting, as this is likely the action that led to their injury, and it helps them maintain their identity as an athlete by performing high speed running during the rehab process.

Beyond the Sprints

While this article is very pro sprinting, what it is not is anti-Nordics or any other hamstring strengthening exercises. Exercises like bridge variations, hip extensions, RDLs, and Nordics are key components of hamstring injury rehab. It is beneficial to utilize the Nordic hamstring exercise as a bridge for hamstring strengthening/loading, but it is essential to incorporate sprint work which integrates hamstring strength into locomotion to adequately prepare the athlete for return to sprinting and return to field/court sports that require sprinting.

As a loading progression for the hamstrings during the rehab process, we want to start with lower threshold exercises within an athlete’s capacity during the process of their hamstring injury. The extent of the hamstring injury will determine the athlete’s starting point during rehab. Thus, a thorough assessment should be performed to individualize the program to the athlete and the context of their unique injury.

A simple, general progression for loading the hamstrings would initiate with upright hip extensions and double leg bridge exercises with the knees bent and progress to double leg bridges with less knee flexion to bias the hamstrings. From there we can progress into single leg bridges to increase loading on one side. Then we can progress into Nordics and RDLs to increase the intensity and magnitude of loading on the hamstrings. And finally, we can then initiate a return to sprinting program with shorter distance accelerations first and increase the intensity, volume, and distance of the sprints to reach higher velocities and load the hamstrings further. There are other appropriate interventions and components to incorporate into a full, holistic program, but that is beyond the scope of this article.

Final Thoughts

Physical therapists, athletic trainers, strength coaches, sport coaches, and anyone who is working with athletes after a hamstring injury must not end the rehab without exposure to sprinting or we will likely continue to see high re-injury rates with hamstring muscle injuries.

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

References

1. Bourne MN et al. An Evidence-Based Framework for Strengthening Exercises to Prevent Hamstring Injury. Sports Med (2018); 48: 251-267.

2. Al Attar WSA et al. Effect of Injury Prevention Programs that Include the Nordic Hamstring Exercise on Hamstring Injury Rates in Soccer Players: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med (2017); 47: 907-916.

3. Ripley JN et al. The Effect of Exercise Compliance on Risk Reduction for Hamstring Strain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses. International Journal of Environmental and Public Health (2021); 18, 11260.

4. Prince C. et al. Sprint Specificity of Isolated Hamstring-Strengthening Exercises in Terms of Muscle Activity and Force Production. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living (2021); 2:609636.

5. Mendiguchia J. et al. Sprint versus isolated eccentric training: Comparative effects on hamstring architecture and performance in soccer players. PLoS ONE (2020); 15(2): e0228283.

With the passing years, I’ve realized that percentage-based training continues to play less of a role in my programs; yet my athletes still get stronger and build muscle. Not that there is anything wrong with percentage-based training, but I feel it’s a waste of time to spend a whole training session on determining 1–2 numbers when we could spend that time instead focused on training.

However, I find having athletes pick their own weights to be a real hit-or-miss scenario, and it takes them too long to really understand what a light to heavy load at a certain rep scheme feels like. I still want athletes to have numbers to reference and be able to collect data over time rather than a couple times a year. This is where APRE hit my radar—I consider it an effective tool that solves problems and allows athletes to constantly push themselves with either more weight or more reps.

In addition, this program incorporates an autoregulatory component, which helps drive individualization for large groups.

What Is APRE?

If you are not familiar with APRE, it is an acronym created by Bryan Mann that stands for autoregulatory progressive resistance exercise. With APRE, you incorporate the barbell back squat, bench press, and deadlift and perform two warm-up sets and two working sets for each exercise performed on separate days (e.g., Back Squat Monday, Bench Press Wednesday, and Deadlift Friday).

There are three phases of APRE that coordinate with a certain rep range depending on your goals for the athletes: APRE 10 (10-rep range between 65% and 75% of 1RM), APRE 6 (6-rep range between 75% and 85% of 1RM), and APRE 3 (3-rep range between 85% and 95% of 1RM). APRE 10 is used for work capacity and hypertrophy, APRE 6 is used for hypertrophy and strength, and APRE 3 is used for heavy strength focus. (You can find the APRE book here.)

How to Perform APRE Training

You can incorporate these phases for 3–8 weeks before moving on to the next phase or using a different program. First, the athletes perform two warm-up sets. Second, on the first working set, athletes perform as many reps as possible at the designated rep max (10RM, 6RM, or 3RM) based on whether you are using APRE 10, 6, or 3 (75%, 85%, 93%, respectively). Depending on how many reps you perform, the reps completed will determine whether you decrease, increase, or keep the same weight for your second working set using the APRE chart.

On the last working set (this should be your fourth set at this point), you perform as many reps as possible again with your adjusted weight and record both the weight and the reps. How many reps you performed on set 4 will help you determine how to adjust your first working set the next time you perform that exercise using the same APRE chart. Here is the APRE chart as a reference:

Using APRE this way allows you to adjust the weight each training day and the following session to ensure you are hitting the desired rep ranges at optimal volume and intensity. Once you teach it to your athletes the first week, you can have them record their own data, allow them to keep pushing for new goals, and watch their weight or reps climb. From there, they can see immediate results from the program, which then builds buy-in much faster.

This becomes important in large group settings because you’d most likely be able to record smaller groups yourself, but a large group may prove inefficient to get through everybody in a timely fashion. If you can teach your athletes to record their own data and have leaders hold the team accountable, you can focus on watching the reps and making sure proper technique is always utilized.

How I Use APRE

While I was the strength coach at Western Technical College and training the baseball team, I decided to try APRE with my athletes and was amazed at how successful this program was. After a four-week technical and work capacity block to ensure the team could move effectively and perform the main movements with good technique, I started with APRE 10 for three weeks:

• Mondays we back squatted.
• Wednesdays we deadlifted and dumbbell bench pressed.
• Fridays we did barbell split squats (though I didn’t use APRE for this, as it is not designed for unilateral movements).

After warm-ups and plyometrics, we would go right to the first main movement of the day and perform three warm-up sets. (I didn’t want my athletes making huge jumps in weight between the two warm-ups and the first working set, so I added an extra one.) Then, we did our two working sets using APRE as the guide to adjust the weight.

The first step was teaching the athletes what the system was and how to execute it correctly. I explained that you perform three warm-ups sets and two working sets, increasing the weight to work up to a 10-rep max (we are in APRE 10) on the first working set. Based on the reps performed on that first working set, refer to the chart (I put the APRE chart on their workout card) to adjust the last working set and perform as many reps as possible with good technique, leaving 1-2 reps left in the tank—I didn’t want them going to failure and potentially hurting themselves. Then, they needed to write down the weight and reps performed on that last set to reference the following week.

After the first week, my athletes understood how the system worked and had no problems obtaining good data, which they wrote on their workout card every session we used APRE. I was able to successfully implement APRE without an estimated training max for any of the athletes to reference and used the first week to set the baseline and adjust the weight from there.

Every week, I would see 5- to 10-pound increases from the prior week, or the athletes were able to perform 2–6 more reps of the same weight. Technically, you’re not supposed to use APRE on dumbbell movements, but I tried it with the dumbbell bench press after deadlifts because we lacked the space and equipment to do the barbell bench press. From what I saw, it works just fine, and I didn’t run into any issues when using APRE 10 in this instance; however, always be cautious when adjusting a program in ways it wasn’t designed for.

I did not get the chance to try it with APRE 6 or APRE 3, as I moved on to another job before I was able to do so. You are also not supposed to do APRE with more than one movement per training day, but based on how I set up my program, I ended up doing APRE deadlift and APRE dumbbell bench press on the same day because I wanted Wednesday to be a high-intensity day—this left Friday as a lower-intensity day, as I was following a daily undulated pattern. Because I used dumbbell bench press instead of the barbell version, it was less strenuous and more manageable to perform after doing APRE on deadlifts. In short:

• Monday (moderate intensity): APRE back squat.
• Wednesday (high Intensity): APRE deadlift and APRE dumbbell bench press.
• Friday (lower intensity): no APRE, using a standard set and rep scheme (4x10e) on the barbell split squat and letting the players decide the appropriate weight.

After doing APRE on the main movements, we would move on to accessory movements using regular set and rep schemes. Each day was still a total body lift three times per week. Every workout had a squat, hinge, upper press, and upper pull, and mobility work. All I essentially did was add APRE to the main movements of the day and keep the accessory work simple.

This was another factor that helps with large groups, because I didn’t want to completely change my program and wanted to merge APRE into what we were already doing. This made it easier to teach large groups what to do since they had the workout structure down. I just needed to teach the set and rep schemes and structure of APRE to our main movements.

Another tip with large groups is to pair your exercises. I paired my APRE movements with our accessory work to have built-in recovery and get through the training sessions faster. We always focused on getting out of the gym within an hour. Workout structure example:

Day 1:

Warm-ups: Dynamic Warm-up

Plyometrics:

A1. Upper Body Plyo with Medball

A2. Lower body Plyo

Strength:

B1. APRE 10 Back Squat

B2. Upper Body Pull (Chin-ups/Pull-ups, Lat-Pull downs, etc.)

B3. Lower Body Mobility

C1. Upper Body Press (either as double or single arm)

C2. Upper Body Shoulder Prehab/Rehab exercise (Being baseball players, I wanted to add shoulder work here to prevent injuries and keep them loose and fresh.)

C3. Upper Body Mobility (focused on thoracic mobility here)

D1. Hinge

D2. Core

D3. Lower Body Mobility

Finish with Grip/Wrist Work.

6 Reasons Why It Works

1. Volume: This program is very volume focused; therefore, it provides a strong training stimulus to achieve adaptions.

2. Athletes push themselves harder: Since the athletes know what they did the week before, they now have a weight to “beat” or can use that same weight and try to do more reps than the previous week.

3. Daily and weekly data: Instead of having a 1-rep max that they may have done weeks or months ago, I always have data from the latest weight and reps to know where my athletes are at for each training session.

4. Autoregulation: Because this program constantly adjusts for each athlete, every athlete will always hit the optimal volume and intensity every session. If they are having a bad day, we take off weight; if the iron is hot and their CNS is fresh, we add on weight and push the athlete.

5. Athletes can do it themselves: Once you teach APRE to the athletes, the program essentially runs itself, and you can focus on making sure technique is optimal for the movements. This is huge for doing this in large groups because it would be extremely difficult to write down and keep tabs on 20+ athletes by yourself and get out of the gym within an hour. College kids are smart enough to learn APRE and utilize it themselves, which is awesome to let them have more say in their training.

6. The program adds another invisible coach in the room: Because the program helps athletes adjust weight, you essentially have another coach in the room to ensure the right weight is being used.

When to Use APRE

I use this program when I’m working with people who are looking to add size as their main goal. This is essentially a great hypertrophy program with a bit of strength added in, so if you need your athletes or clients to get bigger and stronger, this is the program to use. I would recommend doing this program early in the off-season because the training volume is extremely high for both APRE 10 and APRE 6, and it therefore creates high fatigue.

You could use APRE 3 in the preseason or even in-season if you play your cards right, but I’d be hesitant because this program does fry the athlete’s CNS quite a bit. So, if they have a big game or competition, I’d recommend doing APRE 3 at least two days before competition to allow time to recover. For example, if they have a game or competition Friday, you can run APRE 3 on Monday or Tuesday, at the latest. If that is not possible, I would lean toward using other methods to keep your athletes fresh, as competition should always take priority.

Also, keep in mind that this program is for athletes who know how to properly perform the back squat, deadlift, and bench press with good technique. If your athletes are still learning how to perform these lifts, I’d wait to use APRE until they become proficient in those exercises to get the full benefit. APRE is a tool in the toolbox—only use it when it’s the right tool for you and your athletes.

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 this article, it wasn’t specific to the high school setting. But then I realized most of my career has been specialized in high school—a fact I take great pride in—and there are unique insights only those of us in this field can share. What I have to say may help prepare or deter you from pursuing the high school avenue. Either way, my hope is to help.

Coaching high school isn’t for everybody, and strength and conditioning isn’t for everybody. Before you fill yourself with unrealistic dreams or saturate your transcript with kinesiology credits, please read on.

For some background and context on my coaching path, I completed two collegiate internships, one while in graduate school and the other post. Between and during the two, I worked as a personal trainer, physical therapy technician, and lifeguard. I moved across the country from Alabama to California and in a span of five years only had one full-time job. It took five years post graduate school to get the position I have today.

This may resonate with you, or it may not, but I hope these insights provide some realistic guidance to help you navigate this turbulent sea we call strength and conditioning.

1. Know YOUR why.
2. Get certified to teach.
3. Bet on yourself.
4. Train anyone you can.
5. Know how to freestyle.
6. Be prepared to be a staff of one.
7. Make the most of less than ideal.
8. Teach and do other duties as assigned.
9. Prepare for parents and principals.
10. Reap the rewards.

1. Know YOUR Why

On a surface level, strength and conditioning sounds fun. And it is. Wearing athleisure every day, working in a weight room, experiencing success on multiple levels, building relationships—there are numerous reasons it’s a fun and fulfilling career. However, if you don’t approach this field with honest intentions and a servant attitude, the journey will be fraught with more than just the standard challenges.

There’s no part or room for selfishness in coaching. Coaching is a service, and coaching is not about the coach. If you’re reading this and your reasons for wanting to be a strength coach stem from anything other than wanting to help people, you need to reconsider your path right now.

Nobody can decide your why for you. This is something you must know, and it’s the something that will drive you to get up every morning. And yes, it will be early. Your why is your intention, which is everything.

The field of strength and conditioning is saturated with applicants, and before you spend thousands on a degree that may not benefit you—or before you quit your day job—please scrutinize your why.

2. Get Certified to Teach

At the very least, find out if certification is required in your state. In Texas, where I’m located, certification is required. I don’t teach any classes, but I’m thankful I became certified before applying because I met all the minimum requirements from the start.

Don’t let something like this be the reason another candidate is hired over you. You could be the best candidate on paper, but if someone else is already certified, admin doesn’t have to wait on a contingency. 

3. Bet on Yourself

You must rely on yourself for everything. As I’ve worked and reflected on my career, I’ve realized the most valuable lessons were the ones I learned on my own. They weren’t taught in a lecture or discussed during an internship. Nobody sat me down and gave me a lesson on any single one of them.

This not to say my internships and learning experiences weren’t crucial in my development— they were. But at some point, I decided to trust that I could be my own teacher, and I had to chart my own course. Nobody will do that for you. You can put the entire alphabet after your name and do some internships at championship schools, but in the end, you have to take responsibility for the outcomes you strive to achieve.

Betting on yourself requires confidence, and there are a lot of ways to build it. For me, confidence was developed by having an open mind and being open to learning. I love textbooks and learning about science. But my real education came from hours and hours of reading articles and books written by actual strength coaches.

My advice to you is to read about all the training methods you can and go down rabbit holes on topics that interest you. Take notes, record your thoughts, and have discussions to build practical knowledge. Form your own thoughts and reasons about what you think and why. This is where true confidence comes from, and confidence (not arrogance) is critical if you’re going to bet on yourself.

4. Train Anyone You Can

This absolutely means populations who aren’t athletes. I trained one athlete the entire time I worked as a personal trainer. The rest were a diverse pool ranging from a middle-aged male looking to gain muscle to a nurse who worked nights and wanted to explore strength training as a potential sleep aid. I trained people who needed to lose weight, people who just wanted to feel better, and people who had specific goals, like benching 225.

Was it exactly what I wanted to be doing? No. But it was practice, and it was a step in the direction I wanted to go. If you want to be a strength coach and are not currently training people, this is probably the point I’d emphasize the most.

Working with a diverse population provides a diverse set of problems and an opportunity to create a diverse set of solutions. If you want to specialize in training athletic populations, it’s imperative you develop your latitude as a coach by building your abilities. In other words, fill your toolbox with options.

The strength and conditioning community preaches ad nauseum the importance of the multisport athlete, but the same concept gets little attention when it comes to our career field. Find a way to train regular people and broaden your ability to coach, communicate, and problem-solve.

5. Know How to Freestyle

Freestyling is my less-boring term for critical thinking. By this, I mean be prepared to write workouts that may seem unorthodox or don’t follow a popular periodization scheme. Be able to take what you know (see point 4) and piece it together to make it work for your specific situation. Trying to implement someone else’s program or scheme in your house is like trying to use a roadmap of Texas in Virginia.

A qualified strength coach is one who is secure enough to implement what’s best for the given situation. Freestyling calls for an understanding of different methods and exercises or sometimes no method at all. It’s simply the ability to get the job done in a way that won’t hurt or hinder the athlete.

There are a lot of reasons you need to be comfortable with this concept. Resources, equipment, and space are three, which I’ll touch on later. But the impact of club sports is probably the biggest reason. It does depend on where you’re located, but in certain states, like Texas, club sports will (or should) strongly influence how you train your kids. As an example, from January to May, a handful of my volleyball players do not squat with me because they check that box at their club workouts.

When an athlete tells me Tuesday morning that she did back squats 5×8 the previous night, it would be harmful to subject her to more of the same. It doesn’t matter what I want to do or what would be ideal. Ideal only exists in textbooks, so don’t expect to find it in athletics at any level.

Be secure enough to stray from the conventional, and freestyle to meet the needs of your specific situation. The talking heads of strength and conditioning aren’t the ones making a daily impact on your athletes. Do right by your athletes; that’s all that matters. 

6. Be Prepared to Be a Staff of One

You’re going to wear multiple hats as a high school strength coach. I don’t know of an area more concentrated with high school strength coaches than the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, and we’re all a staff of one. What I’m about to say may seem insulting or silly, but there are a few things to consider when it’s just you:

1. Equipment maintenance will be your responsibility, and you should understand how to use basic tools like screwdrivers and Allen wrenches. You should also be knowledgeable and familiar with different equipment brands. Understanding equipment and how to assemble or disassemble it is part of the job. The flow and function of your room will depend on it.
2. Cleaning the weight room will fall directly on your shoulders. There isn’t a staff to divvy up chores. Sweeping, vacuuming, wiping down, and organizing will be part of your weekly tasks. Of course, you can employ the kids, but if you’ve only got 30 minutes twice a week to train, cleaning probably isn’t the best use of anyone’s time.
3. Continuing education will only happen on your initiative. This one is hard because you don’t have a staff of other coaches sitting next to you, pushing you to get better. There are no staff development meetings, and you will most pay for continuing education out of your own pocket.

Owning this role can be challenging, especially if you’re coming from the collegiate setting. Being your own boss and doing things exactly how you want to do them is great but holding yourself accountable and answering “why?” to yourself are critical components for success.

7. Make the Most out of Less Than Ideal

There are numerous ways to make my point with this, but suffice it to say, nothing will be ideal. As I said previously, ideal only exists in textbooks. You’ll have sport coaches who doubt you and club sports to contend with, you may have no budget, you may have a class with regular kids and athletes, and the list goes on.

I’ve been nothing but fortunate in the seven years I’ve held this role. I started with a room that was barely 1,000 square feet with eight Power Lift racks. For some that sounds like a dream, but there were still limitations and less-than-ideal scenarios. Training an entire program—from freshmen who could barely hold a barbell to seniors who had advanced abilities—was challenging. Freshmen often did the entirety of their lift in the adjacent hallway. Scheduling was tight, as there was only room for one team or program at a time, and equipment quantities didn’t meet our needs.

But I more than got the job done utilizing plates and body weight or structuring lifts in unique ways. I cut my teeth as a coach and further deepened my confidence and abilities through challenges and less-than-ideal situations. I rose to the challenges and succeeded, just as we hope for our athletes.

Solving problems and challenges as a high school strength coach will require a humble attitude, open mind, and extensive communication skills. Be prepared for that, and through the chaos, you’ll emerge a competent, highly skilled coach. 

8. Teach and Do Other Duties as Assigned

As I discussed in point 2, some high school positions require a teaching certification…because you may be required to teach. There are some positions that do not, but these are often the exception to the rule. If you don’t teach, you can expect to have other duties assigned:

• Lunch duty
• Hallway monitoring
• Proctoring an exam for state-mandated standardized testing

The role of strength and conditioning coach is a new position in high schools, and many on staff may not even know you exist, much less know what you do. In their minds, you just show up in sweats and write workouts on a board. If you’re assigned other tasks and do a poor job of them, you taint the entire profession. School districts can remove positions just as quickly as they create them. So don’t be that person. Strive to do the best job at every job you have within the school.

High schools are small communities within themselves, and it’s important for others in the school to know you and be able to speak of your character. Even if you don’t have “other duties as assigned,” it would behoove you to volunteer to help in other ways.

9. Prepare for Parents and Principals

You want a good rapport with your principal(s), for numerous reasons. Among other things, the principals are responsible for the master schedule, the teaching responsibilities, and the general budget of the school. It’s extremely important you have a relationship with them, especially if you rely on them for resources or need something changed. Build a relationship and get them vested in what you do; invite them to watch the kids train and help them learn the value you bring to their school.

You also want a good rapport with parents because parents are powerful. Whether you’re a jerk of a coach or an amazing coach, word travels home every day. Parents will learn who you are through their children’s experiences. They want what’s best for their kids, and they want to understand what it is you do with their kids. They’ll approach you at the grocery store or after games or reach out via email, and you’ll need to be able to communicate with them effectively. 

10. Reap the Rewards

Each sector and level of strength and conditioning is unique and rewarding in its own way. For me, currently, there’s nothing better than where I am: the pride I feel hearing, “Hey, Coach Hayes” in the hallway or looking around the room and witnessing a once awkward group of ninth graders work though a session with precision and efficiency.

Although volatile, the adolescent years are the most formative, and being able to be part of their journey is powerful. This is a time to impact them for life, whether it be through character development or teaching them a lifelong skill. They’re also still kids, and with that comes an endless supply of laughs and learning. I can promise you there are things that happen in a high school weight room that you’ll never see or experience anywhere else (see image below).

Some Closing Thoughts

The fact that you can aspire and decide to be a high school strength coach is a positive sign the field is growing. However, I’m sure that could be debated along with today’s “hot take” you scroll past on your timeline. When I began 13 years ago, opportunities were much more limited, and full-time high school positions were virtually unheard of. As a collective field we still have work to do, but the realist in me can acknowledge progress and a flicker of light ahead.

If these reflections created more questions or uncertainty, please reach out. The high school strength community is tightknit across the country and if someone can’t help you sufficiently, they’ll connect you with a coach who can.

If you’re given the opportunity to hold the title of high school strength coach, please respect and earn that title every day. By doing so, you help pave the way for these roles to become standard in every high school. We’re still pioneering this faction of strength and conditioning, and it’s important our intentions and actions reflect our long-term goals.

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 first walked into the weight room at the University of Nebraska Kearney (UNK), I was greeted by an exciting, newly renovated space. The school had just purchased 18 Samson racks, complete with new Olympic bars and bumpers at each. I was, however, surprised by the complete lack of technology being utilized in the weight room. I’d been hoping to see at least a few pieces of technology: perhaps a jump mat to monitor readiness or a few old Tendo units to use on occasion. We had nothing—not even a TV.

Clearly, I was in a different world than the more privileged one I had been in before. I knew then, with limited resources to go around, that it would be a challenge to convince our administration to help usher in a new age of strength and conditioning at UNK.

Leading up to my graduate position at UNK, I’d been fortunate to learn how both Husker Power and Prentiss Hockey Performance (PHP) use technology to enhance athletic ability. Technology in our field has absolutely exploded, and I did not want to be stuck in an analog world after seeing how high tech was successfully leveraged at my previous stops along the way.

Upon arriving at UNK in 2020, I pushed hard to get a velocity-based training system installed in the weight room, and last year we were finally able to get it done. Luckily, that was just the beginning. Even at the D2 level, we have found a way to integrate more technology into the weight room without overstretching our limited budget. We utilize a combination of VBT, GPS, jump mats, body composition testing, and recovery wellness questionnaires to shape our programming and philosophy.

Technology can add so much value to any program, at any level. With a well-thought-out, strategic approach to integrating technology into the weight room, coaches at schools with any type of budget can leverage technology to make more informed decisions and accelerate athlete development.

The purpose of using technology with our athletes is to make informed decisions, but the implications are deeper and more expansive. Our goal is to create an integrated approach to sports science and strength and conditioning. At the surface, we can use many data points to see how athletes trend from day to day or week to week, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

By assembling more puzzle pieces from other data sources and technology, we can unveil a bigger picture of where our athletes stand and what they need. For example, at one point last season, our sports science team alerted the football staff of some alarming trends in our players’ recovery and wellness surveys during the week. The football staff then adjusted their practice plans to allow for more recovery leading up to game day that week, and we were able to come away with a key win on the road.

Forge Athletic and Academic Partnerships

In addition to the football team, we use technology with many of the Olympic sports on campus. Managing countless data points while also coaching on the floor for hours each day can be quite a challenge. We have been lucky enough to get the additional help and support we need by partnering with the Kinesiology department on the academic side of campus.

Our greatest resource is the people we work with, and we were able to work with some superstars last year who provided the strength staff with much-needed support. Dr. Joe Eisenmann helped us integrate and leverage new technology before leaving for his current position as Head of Strength and Conditioning at IMG Academy. Our strategy for data management was many hands make light work. We were able to utilize undergraduate students who needed hours for internships and data for research projects to collect and manage our data. This ability to use undergraduate students allowed us to focus on coaching while still gathering valuable information during workouts and practices.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to develop a working relationship with academia on campus—they are typically a free resource that will jump at the opportunity to help athletics. Plus, most of the time you’ll come away smarter after getting to know those involved. So, if you’re looking to establish a sports science program on a budget, make sure you take full advantage of all the resources on campus first. They might even be willing to share their equipment if you’re lucky.

Velocity-Based Training System

Out of all the technology we’ve utilized in the last year, my favorite is our velocity-based training system from PUSH. At UNK, we decided that an accelerometer-based VBT system was more practical and budget-friendly than a system that used cameras or linear encoders.

Initially, when approaching our administration with the idea, we were a bit nervous to ask for an expensive system that they might not see as necessary. Before going directly to our AD with what we wanted, we made a detailed presentation explaining all the potential benefits of a VBT system and how it could be leveraged. We then presented our ideas to the sport coaches and the administration.

We provided them with three options: a cheap option; the one we wanted; and then, of course, the most expensive, top-tier option. That way, asking for a $20K system would seem more practical than asking for a $40K system. After a couple more conversations and further explanations of the possibilities, we ended up with the one we wanted.

Thus far, we’ve primarily used our sensors with football and track & field. We let every athlete on our football team use the VBT sensors immediately; with our track team, however, we held off until our athletes demonstrated strong technical ability in each of our main lifts.

I recommend this approach: start by implementing your VBT system with a smaller portion of athletes, and then let the rest of the athletes use it when they’re ready. This makes it easier to manage the few systems being used while also coaching. Then, eventually, the athletes who have learned how to use the technology will be able to help teach others how to navigate it.

We use VBT to improve our athletes’ power production abilities, and so far, we have tracked strength and power exercises ranging from squats and trap bar deadlifts to hang power cleans and snatches, and every exercise in between. In the last semester, we collected data for more than 5,000 reps of hang power cleans from our track & field athletes alone.

We also developed load-velocity profiles for every athlete on the track team and used that information to set up more individualized peaking blocks leading up to the end of the fall semester. We used the graphs to determine what weight and velocity each athlete should target to reach their peak power output in the hang power clean exercise. Our findings indicated that peak power output usually ranges from 70–80% of their 1RM, which is consistent with the already established research.¹

In addition to preventing unnecessary injuries, we were able to track return to play programming and metrics. With our PUSH system, we can see where an athlete was prior to an injury and then track their progress on their way back to competition.

Overall, this velocity-based system adds an incredible amount of value to our strength and conditioning program. The athletes were quick to grasp the ins and outs, and it’s a great driver of intent and performance.

We try to foster a competitive environment by posting a live leaderboard that ranks the athletes based on who has the fastest peak velocities for Olympic lifts during each workout. Taking it a step further, we hand out a thick gold chain to the person with the fastest peak velocity on their Olympic lifts each day. This gives the athletes a sense of pride, fuels their competitive edge, and lets everyone know who the top performer is that day. Athletes have gotten into this new tradition and want to win. Sometimes, in the middle of a busy session, athletes will ask where the chain is or who’s won it—the system really takes things to another level.

Perhaps the most important result of the VBT system was that we were able to take our data to our head coaches and athletic director. By showing them the value that our work with this technology brings to the program, it becomes easier the next time we ask the administration for extra funding or new equipment. That’s where technology has a huge impact—it shows just how much value your performance team brings to the table.

Jump Testing

Last year, the staff at the Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab (NAPL) turned us on to the idea of integrating our KPI testing into weekly training sessions. In this way, testing is training, and training is testing. In addition to the data gathered from our VBT system, we also regularly conduct jump testing to track athletic performance. We utilize the Just Jump System twice a week, measuring both the countermovement jump (CMJ) and 4-hop test during the week.

• The CMJ test is a reliable measure of lower body power.²
• The 4-hop test measures an athlete’s ability to use stored energy.³

We also use both as proxy tests to monitor readiness throughout the season.

We learned that the most efficient way to conduct jump testing was to bake it into our warm-up before lifts and used undergrad research students to record and monitor the data on Google Sheets. Having undergrad students conduct the jump testing frees us to coach on the floor, which is essential with teams coming through every 30 minutes for several consecutive hours.

It only takes about an additional five minutes to conduct jump testing during a training session, so in the grand scheme of things, it is a small time commitment. We test the CMJ at the beginning of the week when we train a longer or slower stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). Then, in the latter part of the week, closer to competition, we conduct the 4-hop test in conjunction with the training of faster or shorter SSCs. I like this schedule of jump testing because it potentiates the athletes for their training that day and perhaps for competition as well.

Similar to the VBT data, we were able to monitor trends in jump testing through Google Sheets. The data that our undergraduate students collect is graphed and combined with the data from the VBT system to give us a clear picture of how an athlete is progressing throughout the semester.

Jump testing is a good indicator for athletes who may be struggling and opens the door for conversations about what athletes are dealing with and how they’re feeling. From that point, it’s easier to adjust. At one point last semester, we noticed one of our best track athlete’s CMJ numbers going down from week to week. Having the objective data to spot a negative trend allowed us to have a conversation with the athlete and their coach before things got progressively worse. After talking with their event coach and making some programming changes, we were able to get them back on the right track.

Recovery-Wellness Survey

In addition to the insights provided by weekly jump testing, we also utilize a recovery-wellness dashboard to monitor our athletes’ health and habits. With this dashboard, we can monitor trends from day to day or week to week. We track a multitude of metrics across the semester, ranging from body weight to residual soreness. Like the jump testing data, we can visualize trends for both the team and the individual. Our dashboard collects data through Google Forms that is then automatically filtered into Google Sheets and graphed.

We found the best way to use the dashboard is to have our athletes take the recovery-wellness survey right as they come into the weight room. We have iPads stationed at every rack so they can take the survey, which only takes about two minutes to fill out. This allows us to see their survey results before the beginning of each training session.

Usually, there are a few athletes with undesirable results that need to be addressed. Sometimes we have a hunch that something is off with an athlete, and the survey gives us the objective data to support our coaching sense. As with our jump testing trends, these results are a good conversation starter that allows us to check in on athletes’ well-being and address issues before they become a bigger problem.

For example, the thing I have been stressing the most is the importance of getting a full eight hours of sleep. They need this constant reminder, because college kids aren’t great when it comes to their sleep habits. Simply put, the survey takes the guesswork out of the important questions around sleep habits, nutrition, soreness, mental and physical well-being, etc. The dashboard really helps us stay on top of the smaller details that have a big impact outside of the weight room.

GPS

Aside from these “big three” technology tools that we use daily, we also use a GPS system from SPT. This type of technology can be extremely expensive, which is another reason creating a relationship with academic departments on campus is incredibly important. They are a resource that can provide so many benefits if you’re willing to do a little in return. Fortunately, the Kinesiology department on our campus was willing to invest some of their own funds into sports science equipment for teaching and research purposes, including this GPS system.

The GPS system is a massive resource when used for conditioning. For our football team’s summer conditioning program, we were able to prepare for the exact demands the players would see in games and practice. The big advantage with a GPS system is sharing the data with the coaching staff. It was a great tool to help them get a sense for what a weekly practice schedule should consist of and how to taper volume throughout the week.

Our main message to the coaching staff was to ensure players weren’t playing “multiple games” in one week; meaning, they shouldn’t be running the equivalent of a full game’s distance during practices. Were we perfect on that? No. However, we made some much-needed changes after what we saw in the spring season.

As a strength coach, I’m not trying to dictate what they do at practice. My goal is only to inform the coaches so they can make the best decisions for their teams. If I’ve done that, then I have done my job.

What the players really liked about the GPS system is that it helped settle some longstanding disputes. We were more than happy to help with that problem. They don’t really care all that much about how much hard running they do in practice or conditioning, but they do care about who is the fastest person on the team. The top speed data is fun to look at and provides us with a much-needed KPI.

The athletes like to stop by our office after a speed session or a practice to see who the fastest player was for the day. Similar to the VBT system, the players get into the data, and the competition helps drive improvement. Our Director of Sports Performance, well known as “Sarge,” always says “the greatest equalizer in all of sports is speed.” While that may be disputed, it is cool when your starting D-lineman learns that he can hit a top speed of 18.6 mph.

An Integrated Approach

Another piece of tech we have used this year is a Dashr laser timing system, which we leverage to create force-velocity curves with the calculations published by JB Morin⁴. This provides valuable information on an athlete’s ability to accelerate and maintain their top end speed. Couple that with data from a BIA scale and the other technologies we use, and now we have a fairly complete athlete performance profile.

With a profile, we can start to establish normative data that should allow us to program more effectively for certain individuals. There’s no reason a 300-pound lineman should be doing the exact same training program as a 180-pound wide receiver. In this way, technology helps us see the importance of individualized training despite having a small D2 staff where it may be more challenging.

Although I have only been doing this for a few years, I think there is immense value in having an integrated approach to strength and conditioning, technology, and sports science. Technology can add so much value to your program and help prove your credibility and worth to an administration that may not understand what you’re doing or the value of your department. It can also be an incredible driver of performance and intent in the weight room and on the field.

The right tools can eliminate the need to schedule testing days or weeks, allowing you to keep moving forward with training; those tools can also help keep athletes out of the training room if leveraged properly with autoregulation. Technology also provides valuable data in both the long and short term that can help remove guesswork from programming. Not to mention, it’s quite the recruiting tool.

Let’s face it, most of the time at the D2 level of college athletics, we aren’t able to recruit the same talent as the Alabamas and Georgias of the world. So, it’s vital that we develop athletes for our program’s success. When incorporating technology, I have two recommendations:

1. Start with a single piece of technology, whether a Just Jump System or a full-on VBT system. Then leverage it to the best of your ability. If you do it right, more doors will open.
2. Reach out to those around you for help. Especially those in the academic side of campus. The worst they can say is no.

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

References

1. Takei, Seiichiro, et al. “Is the Optimal Load for Maximal Power Output during Hang Power Cleans Submaximal?” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2020:15(1);18–24.

2. Nuzzo, James L, et al. “The Reliability of Three Devices Used for Measuring Vertical Jump Height.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2011:25(9);2580–2590.

3. Davenport, Shane. “How Coaches Can Maximize Their Just Jump System.” SimpliFaster, 17 Apr. 2020.

4. Morin, J. B. (2018, June 6). A spreadsheet for Sprint Acceleration Force-velocity-power profiling. JB Morin, PhD – Sport Science. Retrieved December 9, 2021.