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This past winter, I had a conversation with one of my collegiate baseball players (who I’ll refer to as JD) regarding techniques that are taught by current baseball coaches. Baseball has always paid homage to wisdom from the past and clung to the trends produced from this idolization—that is, until another “winning” coach comes up with something else. Unfortunately, this archetypal approach infiltrates the instruction of technical execution for hitting, throwing, and running.

Much of this classical instruction includes language embellished with pseudo-science that’s not much more than an old wives’ tale. While a coach’s words may seem good in theory, the opposite outcome may reveal itself in practice. With the dawn of video and advancements in biomechanics, baseball skill instruction in the modern era has evolved past the coach’s eye, as these movements are too fast to accurately analyze in live time.

Speed on the Basepaths

Returning to my conversation with JD: At this point in the pre-season, he and I were struggling to decrease his 10-yard dash time (from sideways start), which happened to be between 1.7 and 1.8 seconds depending on the day. Although undersized at 5’5” and 155 pounds, JD is strong and immensely powerful:

• Easily performs trap bar deadlift of more than 350 pounds for a set of five reps.
• Long jumps over 9 feet.
• Has a vertical jump of 32 inches.

For the moment, those boxes were checked off. So, I decided to look at his technique during the start. Although his alignment and angles looked solid, it appeared he was missing something that I could not quite put my finger on.

At that time, I recalled a SimpliFaster article by Chris Korfist that referenced the “0 Step,” citing the significance of projection at takeoff. Korfist discovered a way to measure projection distance via a gate system set alongside the runner, in which the objective was to hit a particular distance upon first step contact. Upon video review, I found JD was not covering much ground (if any) in the takeoff phase: at best, he was simply spinning off the lead foot to square his body to second base.

Video 1. JD performs a traditional crossover step in accelerating from a baseball lead.

Maybe this was the missing link?

When I asked JD how he was taught to steal a base, he replied: “My coaches have always taught me to crossover step.”

In contrast, what is referred to as a “wasted step” or “false step” becomes our optimal technique to steal a base. Here, the lead foot is lifted off the ground and “punched” toward first base with the foot, knee, and hip opening on an angle toward second base. This style lends itself to optimal acceleration in a few ways. From a posture and position standpoint, the negative step creates a positive shin angle in the direction of force, which in turn creates a forward trunk lean as the body’s center of mass is brought ahead of the base of support.¹ The key to this first step is to get momentum going in the direction you want, catch that momentum, and go.

What is referred to as a ‘false step’ becomes our optimal technique to steal a base…From a mechanical standpoint, it better utilizes the stretch-shortening cycle beginning with the foot. Share on X

From a mechanical standpoint, this “false step” better utilizes the stretch-shortening cycle beginning with the foot. The elastic properties of the tendon and the reflexive movements of the ankle, knee, and hip are enhanced as the foot aggressively returns to the ground after the lift. This action creates greater impulses via higher ground reaction force applied in a shorter amount of time, which decreases the time needed to reach peak force and overall push-off force. The combination of these mechanisms from the false step result in higher overall accelerations and sprint velocities via higher directional force, power, and velocity in the horizontal plane when compared against the crossover step.^1,2

This biomechanical explanation should stymie the argument that the crossover step eliminates losing ground and saves time generating forward momentum. But this explanation may leave many baseball coaches’ heads spinning. Instead, a simple remark of “losing ground to gain an angle” (Justin Kavanaugh) may have the trendy ring that communicates effectively.

How Do We Apply This Technique in Training?

As mentioned, JD checked off the requisite general strength and power boxes but needed to bridge the gap to the technical task. For us, this took shape in an exercise that was an evolution of the Yessis side lunge, where horizontal resistance is applied to the hip.

Technical points:

1. Begin by pushing off one leg (outside leg) laterally while displacing hips in that same direction.
2. Rotate the hips slightly in the direction of push as well as the same side knee and foot, at a 45-degree angle.
3. Land with the torso in an upright position with the spine long and head directly over the hips.

Benefits of the side lunge done with horizontal resistance (cords, bands, cable):

1. Athlete develops the “feel” of projecting the center of mass in lateral action.
2. Greater strength in the abductors in the push-off action. Elastic resistance lends itself well to more specific, explosive actions.³
3. Less stress on the spine via absence of axial load.

While this drill served as an effective entry point, we decided to increase specificity by adding the second step to further drive a precise and explosive path toward second base. This drill starts out as an explosive side lunge and finishes into a forward lunge.

On a closer examination of the first video, we can see JD does demonstrate a slight drop step and gets a good angle, but he lacks projection from his hips. His COM still lags, which creates a bit of a drag from the back leg (the swing leg is far behind the lead leg at ground strike). When his front foot hits the ground, his takeoff is delayed until his hips get ahead of his lead foot. While his position begins optimally, his torso dumps over his COM, and he stumbles his way down the basepath.

Video 2. Training the Stealer’s Two-Step with band resistance.

In the Stealer’s Two Step, we look to cue the movement of the COM with horizontal resistance around the hip and drive the reflexive action via an exaggerated lift of the lead foot. This forces JD to aggressively push his back leg to get his COM moving and elicits a stronger use of the SSC of the lead leg. As you can see, this puts his hips in front of the base of support upon ground strike that results in a reflexive action that eliminates drag of the swing leg. This reflexive scissor action of the legs creates a takeoff that takes less time, increases peak force, and optimizes acceleration posture for speed on the basepaths.

In the Stealer’s Two Step, we look to cue the movement of the COM with horizontal resistance around the hip and drive the reflexive action via an exaggerated lift of the lead foot. Share on X

This increase in speed was reflected our results, as JD dropped his 10-yard dash time to a best of 1.58, while clocking no slower than 1.65 on any given day during this six-week training period. No other part of the training was changed during this time to eliminate interference from other drills. If your baseball players are struggling getting out of the gate, give this drill a try!

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. Boss, S. “Comparison of three base stealing techniques in Division I collegiate baseball players.” Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2016; p. 4, 11, 13, 14, and 25. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/314

2. Miyanishi, T., Endo, S., and Nagahara, R. “Comparison of crossover and jab step start techniques for base stealing in baseball.” Sports Biomechanics. 2017; 16(4): 552-566.

3. Yessis, M. Biomechanics and Kinesiology of Exercise. Ultimate Athlete Concepts, 2013.

If a sports performance coach wants to optimize the development of their athletes, they should look for ways to frequently assess them throughout the year. The three main areas I like to assess during the course of the year are:

• Speed (acceleration and peak velocity).
• Power (singular and repeated).
• Strength (% of bodyweight 1RM and bodyweight force output).

The only way to adapt a program to maximize the development of your athletes is to constantly assess their progress and see where change needs to occur. In order to correctly perform these assessments, you need equipment that will give you reliable results and metrics that are valuable in carrying over to the sport itself.

I can say with confidence that I will never look back: MuscleLab is the gold standard in terms of testing and correctly assessing athletes, says @bigk28. Share on X

Remember, we are training athletes and not just lifters—our workouts must have the goal of optimizing performance on the field, court, ice, etc. I have used many different types of equipment over the years for measuring linear speed and was lucky to be introduced to MuscleLab. I can say with confidence that I will never look back: MuscleLab is the gold standard in terms of testing and correctly assessing athletes. In this article, I will go over the ins and outs of MuscleLab and walk through how I use the equipment to adapt programs to maximize performance.

Using the MuscleLab Continuous Laser

It doesn’t get much easier to measure linear sprint times than it does with the MuscleLab laser. Instead of having to measure out distances and set up individual marks with traditional timing gates, MuscleLab’s continuous laser does all the heavy work for you. The setup is extremely simple:

1. Set up the tripod behind where the athlete is going to sprint.
2. Connect the USB cord to your computer (or use the wireless component).
3. Turn on the laser.

That’s it, you’re ready to sprint. The only challenge of using the laser is that athletes must run in a straight line—so use cones to make a lane for the athletes to stay within when they are sprinting.

Another beautiful part of the setup is that you set the distance at which you want the laser to stop recording. In the case that you want to record a 30-meter sprint, you would just set up the finishing distance 1 meter past that (so 31 meters), and the laser would stop recording at that point while giving you 5-meter splits and times along every step of the way. To ensure my athletes are sprinting through the entire portion, I put a finishing cone 2 meters past where I want them to run—this ensures we get 100% effort throughout the entire run. 

In addition to this simple setup, for a solo sports performance coach who doesn’t have the time to set up multiple pieces of equipment, the MuscleLab laser offers other advantages as well. Having just the one piece of equipment to set up helps you keep it relatively safe—for those working in a facility with limited space, you understand how dicey it can get when setting up equipment where there are multiple activities going on. When investing a lot of money in a piece of equipment, the last thing you want is for that equipment to be damaged beyond repair. For me, the MuscleLab laser gets a 10/10 for time and ease of setup.

How I Use the MuscleLab Laser to Assess Athletes

While the ability to collect data is invaluable, it doesn’t mean anything unless you know how to implement it into your programming. Here are the simple ways I use the data I collect to assess my athletes and make prescriptions.

1. Splits at 10/20 meters: As I’ve stated in previous articles, I don’t know of a better assessment for athletes and sports performance programming than sprinting. Yes, there are ways we can get cute in the weight room to show imbalances or percentage of one lift versus another, but those are short-sighted when it comes to the goal of improving sports performance. I used to be hell-bent on improving 1RMs, but if my athletes aren’t moving better, what does it matter?

Most team sports rely heavily on the ability to accelerate; this is why I like to use it as part of an assessment. I use the 10/20 sprint tool by Cal Dietz: I plug in our numbers, and it shows what our athletes need to work on with regard to the weight room (strength, power, speed). If lifting will have an impact on anything under 20 meters, I want to make sure I use an assessment that I know will maximize our time in the weight room.

2. Instantaneous peak velocity: I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a number I look at when it comes to prescribing programs for my athletes, for the sheer fact that I think every athlete, regardless of their sport, should be sprinting at top speed. This is a metric we collect to check improvements in individual speed, to monitor daily readiness, and to evaluate our average team speed overall. No one will set a personal record every day—it’s impossible. But looking at the average of sprints over time will show how your athletes are progressing.

I especially like to use this number with our in-season teams. If I notice over a two-week period that our numbers are trending in the wrong direction, that might be an indication to scale back, as their nervous systems are depleted.

3. Strength-Speed Factor: There are different types of acceleration that we should focus on developing:

• • Strength-speed.
  • Power.
  • Speed-strength.

Not all athletes are going to be similar in their acceleration needs. Some athletes will be really  strong at accelerating but struggle at top speeds, others will be weak at accelerating but fast at top speeds, and some will be a mix of both. Those three types of scenarios require different types of training. Enter the strength-speed factor; basically, a number that looks at the slope of the force/velocity curve of a sprint and tells you where your athletes stand in acceleration versus peak velocity.

After having athletes complete a 30-meter sprint (or a longer distance), I will see exactly which part of the spectrum they fall in for acceleration. From here, I group athletes based on their specific weaknesses.

Collect Data That Matters

The data from a single sprint on the MuscleLab laser is unmatched to anything I have ever seen before. In addition to what I’ve mentioned above, these are the metrics you can get from a single sprint at 30 meters (or farther):

• Instantaneous peak velocity.
• Distance to peak velocity.
• Time to peak velocity.
• Average power.
• Peak power.
• Peak force.
• Strength-speed factor.
• Time at 5-meter intervals.
• Speed (m/s) at each 5-meter interval.

These metrics have value in assessing your athletes and getting meaningful data on how to manipulate your athlete prescription for programming. With one 30-meter sprint, I get an idea of my athletes’ acceleration, their top speed within that given distance, how much power they are producing, and how far and how long it takes them to get to top speed. Those are all key performance indicators that we should be looking to improve within our training to maximize our athletes’ genetic potential and performance within their sport.

Within a single sprint, we don’t just get the end result of speed—we understand the strengths and weaknesses of the athlete and how they get to that end result, says @bigk28. Share on X

Within a single sprint, we don’t just get the end result of speed—we understand the strengths and weaknesses of the athlete and how they get to that end result. The final product is amazing to see in and of itself, but the metric has little value if you don’t know each step in the process of how they get there.

Keeping It Simple

Assessments need to be integrated into all sports performance programs on a frequent basis. When it comes to measuring linear sprint performance, the MuscleLab laser is unmatched and invaluable based upon the amount of data it provides. When looking to properly assess your athletes, make sure you have a protocol in place that is convenient to set up, easy to understand, and even easier to then make correct exercise prescriptions for your athletes. MuscleLab provides the information you need in order to make informed decisions on training your athletes to maximize their genetic potential.

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

In my experience, coaches either absolutely love medicine ball training or completely despise it (or, as a rare third option, simply don’t know or care that much about it).

I’ll be the first to admit that there are 4-5 times as many useless medicine ball exercises out there as there are actual useful exercises.

Medicine ball Russian twists? Toss those in the trash.

Chin-ups while holding a ball between your feet? Garbage.

Plyo push-ups with your hands on a med ball? I’m actually embarrassed these even exist.

Though there are poor applications for medicine balls, I’m a huge fan of them as a training tool. A tool is really only as good as its application, after all. There are plenty of instances where a medicine ball may be the right, or wrong, tool. It’s simply up to the coach to make those calls with the athlete’s best interest in mind.

A Bit of Background

In November 2020, we moved our facility, PACE Fitness Academy, from a 3,200-square-foot building to a 65,000-square-foot building, joining together with another sports performance team and a physical therapy clinic to build a full-service, performance mecca. Together our trio, PACE, Pro X & Team Rehabilitation, operates as one synergistic unit now under the blended Pro X PACE brand.

That alone could be an article in itself, as I’ve learned so many things throughout the process. One element that stood out, however, was just how much medicine ball training we had missed out on with our old, paper-thin walls and 18-foot roof.

Our new partners, Pro X, have carved out a solid niche in the baseball community, and from their youth programming all the way up to the big leaguers, I watched how masterful baseball players are when it comes to medicine ball training.

On the flip side, I’ve carved out a strong niche in the basketball community—in this realm, medicine balls are not a tool that’s part of the culture the way they are in baseball or golf. Unfortunately, what we do see is a lot of sport-mimicking movements with medicine balls, which just doesn’t cut it.

In the past, I’ve used medicine balls where I could, but not to a great extent; after all, when your ceiling is only 18-feet high, it limits all indoor overhead throwing for most athletes. If you’re familiar with Indiana weather, you know that training outdoors is only a real option for about half of the year, and that’s if Mother Nature is in a good mood.

These… can be specifically beneficial to hoopers due to the unique customization of force vectors, intent goals, and body angles you can use with medicine balls, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

While many basketball players may have been exposed to slams, chest passes, and occasional speed, agility, and quickness (SAQ) work, the exercises I’ll share in this article can be specifically beneficial to hoopers due to the unique customization of force vectors, intent goals, and body angles you can use with medicine balls.

The Downside of Medicine Ball Training

Like anything, there are pros and cons to med ball training, and on paper the cons look like they should outweigh the pros. One big question floating around the strength and performance industry is does medicine ball training really work?

I guess the answer is, define “work.”

For example, one major downfall is that most med ball training is not highly trackable. Unlike barbell training, we can’t quantify every little detail of a medicine ball exercise. The throw or slam speeds aren’t typically measured. The height or length of throws isn’t typically measured. Yes, there are ways to do these things, but usually we don’t. It’s just a really tough thing to track accurately.

Some coaches also say that it’s really difficult to get a true overload with medicine balls. For advanced athletes, medicine balls aren’t heavy enough for power or strength adaptation, in theory. But they aren’t light enough to move with velocities that elicit long-term neurological adaptation, in theory.

So far, this sounds like a dud of a training method. What a waste of time, right?

But then you see it in action, and the value is undeniable. Though there are research papers that support med ball training and research papers that don’t, it all comes down to context. We can’t rely strictly on research for everything we do as coaches—there is some level of instinct to this game. What I see with my own two eyes, in action, every day, tells me medicine ball training is 100% legit.

The Upside of Medicine Ball Training

As far as the pros go, I guess I could just add my two cents and rebut the cons above.

Most of all, I think medicine balls are an outstanding cueing tool: something physically tangible, connected to the body, providing constraint or feedback to the drill/athlete. This is huge. Whether you can track velocity, power, overload, or any of the so-called “cons” of medicine ball training, if you can help an athlete move more efficiently, that is a big win.

I think medicine balls are an outstanding cueing tool: something physically tangible, connected to the body, providing constraint or feedback to the drill/athlete, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Additionally, I still do consider speed, power, and potentiation to be a key benefit of medicine ball training. For example, as a gross oversimplification of power production, we need two components:

1. Force (load or strength).
2. Velocity (move the load fast).

Medicine balls allow us to take jumps and throws that athletes typically perform with a much lighter load, or just body weight, and add a small amount of load to the force end of that equation to generate more power.

Something like a trap bar jump, which I love, is a great tool to use for very heavy loading. Something like a dumbbell jump could be useful for lighter loaded jumps. But both of these options take away one key component of a jump—the arms.

Incorporating medicine balls seems to exaggerate the arm swing in many cases, which makes it in a league of its own for heavier loaded jumps. Both arms-fixed and arms-free loaded jumps are amazing, and they can be used together.

Basketball players tend to get hundreds of game speed jumps per week. Game speed. The fastest and highest intent possible, which can never be replicated in a training session. That should drive adaptation to some extent.

If it doesn’t, and you determine that an athlete needs to improve their power output to improve those jumps, a medicine ball could provide that overload. Not only globally, but in specific postures or projection angles that the coach chooses. If the athlete’s most intense efforts in games and practices aren’t leading to these gains, implementing 2- to 8-kilogram medicine ball throws, jumps, slams, etc. is definitely a way to increase the force end of that power equation. This can help athletes bust through that performance plateau.

Another example of power comes from looking not just at force production, but at the rate at which that force is produced. Some athletes are very elastic and springy, while others are very muscle driven. Muscle-driven force producers typically have a slower rate of force development.

Using medicine balls to drive maximal intent and velocities in certain movements can expose these slow-twitch athletes to the higher rates of force development needed to break through their speed or power ceiling.

Using medicine balls to drive maximal intent & velocities in certain movements can expose slow-twitch athletes to the higher RFD needed to break through their speed or power ceiling. Share on X

Even if the initial changes are acute, over time with consistency and intent, they can be changes that “stick.” Medicine balls are incredible bridge tools, meaning they bridge gaps in our training. They can enhance not only our other exercise selections, but the performance and execution of those exercise selections.

The figure above shows the time (seconds) it took the player to reach 90% of peak force, power, and speed in a 20-meter sprint against 2.5% of his body weight in resistance. Not only are his outputs greater, but he reached those outputs in a shorter amount of time. I can anecdotally say that medicine ball training was a large factor in these changes.

Lastly, medicine balls are extremely versatile. They can be vector specific. They can be multiplanar. They can be skill specific. They can be load specific. They can be completely general. They are durable and moderately cost-efficient. They have a very low level of entry and easy learning curve. And they have stood the test of time. This isn’t always a good thing… but in this case, it is. Coaches are smart, and bad tools eventually fade. Medicine balls are, literally, ancient.

How We Incorporate Medicine Balls for Hoopers

The four main qualities we utilize medicine balls to train are mobility, power, SAQ, and conditioning. Below are some of my go-to exercises and why each one is a powerful tool for driving performance improvements in basketball players.

1. Mobility

Video 1. Hip IR slides are a simple drill you can incorporate into an athlete’s warm-up or as a daily mobility task.

Hip internal rotation (IR) plays a major role in the gait cycle, as well as two-foot jumping. Some of the best jumpers and sprinters in the world have tons of hip internal rotation during their takeoff and acceleration phases, respectively. Should we always mimic the top 1% of the 1%? Not always, but success leaves clues.

On the other hand, not all athletes have that natural ability to internally rotate. There are about three times as many hip external rotators as internal rotators, and they’re all mostly larger muscles and more overused muscles. Sometimes an athlete can get stuck in external rotation and use compensation patterns to navigate around their lack of hip IR. This is just an accumulation drill to expose them to some active hip IR and hopefully restore some of that function.

Video 2. Other than hip internal rotation, T-spine extension and rotation is another highly vital mobility attribute for basketball players to address. Not only is it a functional movement for the sport—think one-hand, cockback dunks—it’s also something that basketball players lack in terms of posture.

With long limbs and tall, slender frames, basketball athletes can develop forward head postures, anterior rolling of the shoulders, and just generally “round backs” over time. Some simple thoracic spine work may help free up some range of motion up or down the chain. I’ve seen this lead to better movement as well as mitigation and/or management of pain.

2. Power and Speed

This is the bread and butter of med ball training. Since the balls come in various weights, shapes, and sizes and can be thrown, slammed, or jumped with at various projection angles and velocities, this is a perfect tool for developing power, speed, and agility for basketball.

The lens I view this through revolves around three themes:

• Intent.
• Angle.
• Stance.

What is the intent of the drill? What do you hope to see the athlete achieve with the drill? What is the most important part of the drill?

The methods we use to get there are jumps, throws, slams, and catch and react actions. With the intent in mind, what is the best action to get the athlete to meet that goal? What projection angle of the ball works best with the intent in mind? What projection angle of the athlete’s body works best with the intent in mind? What will the athlete achieve by reaching these desired coordination and angular goals?

The stances we use are standing on one or two legs, staggered or split stance, tall-kneeling, half-kneeling, or supine. What stance connects the dots best with the given intent and angles selected for the drill? What stance can the athlete use free of compensation? What stance best lends itself to the action that the athletes will display?

Any of these methods, stances, and training goals can be combined as well. It’s all context dependent.

Using a medicine ball is not a mindless task. To get the absolute most out of medicine ball work, I think focusing on those themes and methods will help point you in the right direction. Below are some of my favorite variations targeting vertical, horizontal, and multi-planar power production.

Vertical Power Production – Overhead Throw Series

These are also jumps disguised as throws. The beautiful thing about this overhead throw series is that—similar to the physics of a box jump—you get maximal concentric intent on the throw/jump while minimizing the eccentric (or landing) loads on the joints.

Video 3. Bilateral: Static-start overhead throw.

Video 4. Unilateral: Single-leg overhead throw.

Video 5. Two-foot gather throw.

Working from most general to most specific, these are great options to add to increase any athlete’s raw power in a vertical vector. The violent triple extension, the maximal intent, the gamification of trying to touch the ceiling—it all transfers nicely to jump performance.

Video 6. Kneeling split stance static start overhead throw.

Video 7. Static start, single-leg overhead throw.

Both dynamic and static split stance throws are great “tweener” variations that aren’t really single leg or completely bilateral. The benefit of the split stance is that you have the freedom to go from a dynamic stance or a static stance. A dynamic stance will allow the athlete to utilize more of the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC), gain momentum during the eccentric phase, and rebound out to create power. The static kneeling stance will remove that from the drill, and the athlete will be forced to create power with no countermovement.

Speaking of the stretch-shortening cycle, if you want to utilize any of the above exercises in a reactive manner to challenge the SSC, you can perform them from a depth drop. Then, these overhead throws put more of the focus on rate of force development, creating peak power faster, and improving reactive strength.

Athletes who are very muscle-driven (or slow-twitch) may benefit more from these reactive variations because they lack the ability to generate their power quickly.

Video 8. This is great example of transfer, where an athlete’s reactive strength index (RSI)—or maximal flight time with minimal ground contact time—went from a 1.89 to a 2.45 on the Just Jump mat after a training cycle incorporating SSC-based med ball drills before each heavy lifting session.

Horizontal Power Production – Broad Jump and Chest Pass Series

These are jump and throw combinations that target an athlete’s horizontal power production. They can be completely customized based on the goal and level of the athlete by mixing and matching combinations of bilateral, unilateral, single response, or multi-response.

There are also coordination demands at play during these variations, as it requires a little bit more self-organization to land from a horizontal jump than a vertical jump since the body is actually displaced from the original takeoff space. The variations we use here are bilateral, multi-response bilateral, unilateral, and multi-response bi/unilateral.

Video 9. Unilateral variation: single-leg broad jump throw.

Video 10. Med ball throw to multi-response broad jump.

The classic chest pass series focuses mostly on upper body performance, although you can turn it into a full-body movement. These are great for targeting power through the torso and arms—again, you can choose the focus based on what the athlete needs by making it reactive (elastic), reset reps (muscle-driven), or supine (strictly upper body). I really like to use these as contrast exercises following heavy upper body lifts.

Video 11. Reactive variation: Standing med ball wall chest pass.

Multi-Planar Power Production

Medicine balls are a staple in rotational sports like hockey, baseball, softball, golf, and lacrosse. They’re also a key focal point in training with overhead athletes, which again covers baseball and softball along with volleyball.

What blows my mind is that nobody considers basketball players to be rotational or overhead athletes when the sport demands so much of both of those qualities.

What blows my mind is that nobody considers basketball players to be rotational or overhead athletes when the sport demands so much of both of these qualities, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

In this case, the benefits of these multi-planar medicine ball drills are just as relevant to the game of basketball as they are to any other more traditional overhead or rotational sports. We want to see weight transfer, balance, coordination, and rotational or lateral power. The footwork may be different, but the actions are all alike.

Video 12. Rotational wall throw from a scoop.

Video 13. Figure 8 rotational scoop throw.

Video 14. Med ball reactive bounds (as part of a lateral series including standard bounds).

3. Speed and Agility

Medicine balls are also fantastic speed and agility tools, but not necessarily for the same reasons they’re used for power training. That’s not to say that all of these qualities don’t cyclically enhance each other, but it’s just not the same focal point.

In power training, the ball is the loaded implement moved at high speeds to generate that power. In speed and agility training, I believe the best use of medicine balls is as a coaching tool—meaning it serves as feedback, aid, or a constraint to make the drill work in a certain way.

Video 15. Acceleration throws are a classic drill that every coach has probably utilized at some point. I love these for basketball players because the sport is such a short distance game that it’s very acceleration/deceleration dependent.

By adding some load to an acceleration—getting great momentum and force production going—you can enhance those takeoff qualities as well as challenge “the breaks” by adding a controlled deceleration to end the drill. This can come at a distance, a reaction to a command, or even a reaction to another person in the drill.

Hip Turn Series

This series focuses on utilizing hip and torso dissociation to create levers and positions out of which athletes can maximize their movements.

First, the hip turns get the athlete used to swiveling at the hips while the ball stays in front of their torso. Second, the hip shift turns into a plyo step, projecting them into whatever direction they choose with the ball adding an element of momentum as they transfer it from extended arms back to the hip. Last, the hip turn to shuffle marries the two first drills together for a more functional outcome.

Video 16. In the hip turn to shuffle drill, the athlete drops the ball: This is the “start gun” telling them to begin that phase of the drill. We challenge the athlete to get into their plyo step and first shuffle before the ball hits the ground.

The hip turn series does a great job at repatterning lateral change of direction, getting athletes to flip the hips and create momentum from the ground up rather than pivoting and putting themselves at a disadvantage.

4. Conditioning

Last but not least, an overlooked benefit of medicine balls is their value as a conditioning tool. I am a big fan of the HICT training (high-intensity continuous training) popularized by Joel Jamieson, which is the perfect conditioning for basketball players.

Building a robust aerobic system is vital for athletes, supporting the systems that improve performance—lactic and alactic—while also helping the athlete keep their overall health in check. The issue is that most aerobic training (like jogging, for example) is terrible for athletic performance.

So, what do you do? HICT.

This develops aerobic capacity of the fast twitch muscle fibers, rather than the slow twitch fibers. By utilizing these methods, athletes can improve ATP production, access explosive bursts for longer periods of time without fatigue, and maintain performance levels while still building up their aerobic base.

HICT is performed for durations of 8-20 minutes, with continuous and consistently high-intent reps every 2-3 seconds of the chosen exercise. I love to use very simple and easy-to-learn medicine ball exercises for HICT so there is not a chance of the athlete butchering an exercise for 8-20 minutes straight. Any movement featured thus far, or anything they’ve mastered, will serve them nicely in this case. Of course, actually playing basketball is an irreplaceable conditioning tool for basketball players, but this is just a helpful way to build up a foundation.

Selecting the Right Ball

Giving exercise variations and rationale to thousands of strangers is one thing, but me trying to give concrete answers on how you should program them in your own world would be negligent and flat-out arrogant of me. I don’t know your athletes or your coaching situation better than you.

What I can offer is some practical programming uses that have led to success for our athletes. This is far from a one-size-fits-all system, but it will at least help put some puzzle pieces together in terms of how to use some of these concepts.

First, let’s start with medicine ball choices. My favorite three options are:

1. Synthetic leather medicine ball.
2. Heavy-duty rubber medicine ball.
3. No-bounce medicine ball.

There are literally dozens of other types of balls out there, but these three are the best choices for most anything you could possibly need medicine balls for.

Synthetic Leather

Synthetic leather balls include brands like Dynamax and Rogue. These are 14-inch diameter balls that are extremely durable and versatile. You can accomplish every exercise I’ve discussed here with this type of ball. Although I like some smaller diameter balls for certain exercises, the 14-inch ball can still get the job done.

These balls are rugged and strong enough to throw and slam forever, but soft enough to be the safest option of any ball out there.

Heavy-Duty Rubber

Heavy-duty rubber balls are smaller in diameter, usually between 9 and 11 inches, and are exponentially easier to access when shopping for balls. Rubber balls also tend to come in more increments than other options, with extremely light and heavy options that are easy to find.

Unlike the synthetic leather balls, these balls are much harder to handle. They have a harder surface so aren’t as comfortable to catch. Also, while synthetic leather balls can be thrown against walls or the floor and bounce back at a manageable speed, heavy-duty rubber balls often fire back to the athlete too fast, which could be a health and safety concern. I’ve seen athletes pop themselves in the face by underestimating the bounce-back speed of rubber medicine balls, or simply not know the difference.

I would highly recommend using synthetic leather balls for anything that would cause the ball to come back toward the athlete, such as a wall throw, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Any of the exercises discussed today could be executed with rubber balls, but I would highly recommend using synthetic leather balls for anything that would cause the ball to come back toward the athlete, such as a wall throw.

No-Bounce

Lastly, “no-bounce” balls—or dead balls—are a unique kind of rubber ball that have absolutely zero bounce back. The internal makeup of the ball is iron sand, which allows the ball to be weighted down in any situation. These balls come in 9- to 11-inch diameters and various weight increments as well.

A disadvantage of these balls is that the iron sand inside feels “loose” and athletes can feel the weight shifting around within the ball. Sometimes this can alter slam or throwing speed because of the awkward feeling of the ball in the athlete’s hands. Also, wherever the ball goes, it stays. So, if they’re standing 7 feet away from a wall and throwing the ball against it, the athlete will have to go pick it up and reset their position between every single rep. On the flip side, if you throw it straight up or down, it may decrease the amount of time between reps since it should land in the same vicinity it was launched from.

These three types of balls will be able to serve your athletes in any way you need. It’s nice to have all three types around, but any combination of weights and types is still a great scenario to get work done.

Choosing the Right Weight

I welcome any and all weights of medicine balls. I don’t think there is a non-negotiable limit that is too heavy or too light. I’ve had athletes use 2 pounds and I’ve had athletes use 30 pounds. Selecting a weight for the athlete comes back to intent. In general, this is a template that has worked for us when choosing a weight to begin a new drill with:

• For vertical power exercises: Medicine balls equal to 1-5% of the athlete’s body weight are a great place to start. More-advanced athletes can start closer to that 5% mark, while less-experienced athletes can start closer to 1%. This ensures that the overhead throw or jump will remain at high speeds with a moderate amount of relative load. It’s just a starting point, as a coach you can adjust as you see fit.
• For horizontal power exercises: The same scale applies, with a few deviations. In chest pass variations, I often like to contrast those exercises after a heavy upper body lift like a bench press. In some cases, I use a percentage of the load on the bar to select the weight of the ball. For supine passes, 1-2% of the bar weight, and for standing passes, 3-5% of the bar weight has been a nice starting point for our athletes.

This helps mitigate doing advanced power training for athletes who don’t need advanced power training. In other words, it might do them more good to just simply gain strength. If your 1RM bench press is 95 pounds, and you’re looking for a 1- or 2-pound medicine ball to throw, there’s your sign.

The other deviation is that I think the jump- and throw-based horizontal exercises are a good time to push it and maybe break some rules. Horizontal exercises come a lot more naturally to athletes than vertical force production options. Athletes will catch on more quickly and likely need to progress in weight faster.

Not to mention, acceleration requires a great deal of horizontal power. Loading up some extra weight on these without an exact percentage behind it is totally fine. It’s probably totally fine for all of these exercises, actually, but you have to pick and choose your knockout punches. This is one of them.

As far as the speed & agility exercises go, I think the best plan of attack is to choose the ball that the athlete can control with vicious intensity without losing the mechanics of the drill. Share on X

Lastly, as far as the speed and agility exercises go, I think the best plan of attack is to choose the ball that the athlete can control with vicious intensity without losing the mechanics of the drill. Most of the time, medicine balls under 8 pounds should be perfectly fine for all purposes along these lines.

How We Program Medicine Ball Throws

Finally, the million-dollar question: How should I program them?

I think some variation of these exercises should be in an athlete’s program year-round. Everyone has their own systems and programming templates, but I see these fitting the most on a universal level in one of three ways:

• In a warm-up before a lift, game, practice, or speed session.
• As a part of a contrast, complex, or superset scenario.
• Toward the end of a program as a technique refinement or conditioning drill.

None of these are your main lifts. You don’t get to never squat again and just toss medicine balls around. The medicine balls enhance existing lifts and bridge gaps in the training program.

You don’t get to never squat again and just toss medicine balls around. The med balls enhance existing lifts and bridge gaps in the training program, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Our programming revolves around speed development. In early phases of training, we focus on acceleration. This training includes longer ground contact times, greater levels of eccentric and isometric strength, longer ranges of motion, and more closed chain drills. This means we tend to use heavier balls and force-dominant throws or slams, and synergize those segments of training.

As we progress the athlete, we focus more on power and speed-strength, turning some of the strength gained in the previous phase into power with higher velocity movements than they’ve been exposed to in training thus far. This includes now shortened ground contact times, shorter ranges of motion, and more reaction-based drills. Our ball training might be lighter and faster with more multi-response and RSI-based exercises.

Lastly, our programming leans toward absolute max velocity in the final phase. In this phase, we see our shortest ground contact times, our highest velocity outputs, our highest RSI outputs, and more partial ranges of motion. We then match our medicine ball training to enhance those traits. In this phase, the ball may be utilized for technique optimization and extremely high velocity slams, throws, or jumps. In a perfect world, we can execute all three phases of training with room for a slight deload or transition phase before going into a team camp, tryout, or season environment.

Medicine balls don’t replace the basketball or barbell—they bridge the gaps between them. For our basketball players, we can cover a multitude of athletic traits, postures, and purposes with a simple and easy-to-use tool. If you have the facility space and available equipment, I would highly suggest making medicine balls a year-round training tool for all the hoopers you train.

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

As a strength and conditioning coach in Minor League Baseball, being sent home from 2020 Spring Training meant a stop to hands-on work for what I initially thought would be eight to twelve weeks, not a year. Because of this, I lost time around our equipment and figured that would mean no more time around much—if any—strength and conditioning/sports science until returning for Spring Training 2021.

If you are at all unfamiliar with Minor League Baseball and how it is structured, strength and conditioning coaches are in multiple locations throughout the year. Therefore, during a normal off-season, we are not always at our organization’s facilities and likely are not able to use all the equipment we had at our disposal throughout the in-season.

Fortunately, not too long into quarantine, a LinkedIn message showed up from someone in Ireland. If not for it being on LinkedIn, I probably would not have given it a second look. I must admit, if there are two things I believe strength coaches need to invest their time in (beyond reading SimpliFaster articles and other relevant books/articles), they are having a professional looking LinkedIn profile and subscribing to Strength Coach Network.

Coaches in our field strive to appear professional and want to be taken that way, so it is imperative to act as such. Having a LinkedIn profile that is professional and investing in a network that allows for constant development and networking is ideal. However, without digressing further, it is through the fortune of that one LinkedIn message that I found out about Output Sports. At the time, they had yet to enter the U.S. market so the team sent me a system so I could be an early tester of their product to assess its potential for U.S. practitioners.

Having a LinkedIn profile that is professional and investing in a network that allows for constant development and networking is ideal, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

While remaining home for a year, it has been an absolute pleasure to use and watch the Output Sports system constantly improve, and to learn more and more about monitoring in a hands-on fashion. With all I have learned through using the system, I feel it is proper to share it with those who have not heard of or used it before and to help them determine if it is a system that suits their needs.

VBT and More

The Output system is quite simple and easy to use. All you need is a sensor, straps specific to the action being performed, and an Android device (all of which are provided in their kit). Functionally, it operates just like the Vmaxpro when used for barbell tracking, in that it is a sensor attached to a bar that uses a tablet or smartphone. By mentioning Vmaxpro I hope to show that these systems, while accomplishing some similar tasks, can be used together in the weight room. This is not at all to pit one against the other. However, at least for now with regards to bar path, Vmaxpro does have some features that the Output system does not yet have.

Output was designed to be more than just the next prototypical predominant velocity-based training device. If we looked at these two systems as if they were track athletes, we could say that it is like comparing a short sprinter and a decathlete. Output alone has a plethora of functions that allow it to work in all facets of a program.

Output was designed to be more than just the next prototypical predominant velocity-based training device, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

Jump Metrics

Through its sensor technology, Output has loads of jump metrics for both power and reactivity that it measures very easily. This is not to say that Output utilizes or is in competition with force plate technology, as they are two totally different devices. However, for a device that deals with velocity-based training, Output provides additional metrics for use that go beyond the standard ones measuring bar speed, the jump power and reactivity metrics being some of them.

As someone who loves having the chance to use a Hawkin Dynamics Force Plate, I will always want a force plate to use when and where I can. However, both force plates and contact grids, like the MuscleLab, are not at all inexpensive products. Fortunately, as Output continues to evolve, they do provide some of the metrics that both of the other products provide.

The Output sensor tracks and tests jumps including the countermovement jump (CMJ), drop jump (DJ), and 10-5 test. Performing these is as simple as putting the sensor with a strap on your foot, pressing record, and jumping. Some of the metrics Output has added to their jump testing include takeoff velocity, contact time, RSI, height, and others.

When it comes to the jump testing, Output has the ability to measure numerous metrics that a force plate system will cover without all of the bulk. While it may miss some of the variables a force plate will catch due to the constant shifting of forces throughout a CMJ, DJ, or any other jump test, the Output system still provides ample quality data. Overall, the data Output can provide for a bevy of jump tests is an excellent part of the system.

When it comes to the jump testing, Output has the ability to measure numerous metrics that a force plate system will cover without all of the bulk, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

Sprint and Field Metrics

Through their consistent development over the past year, Output has made the sensor far more versatile as they track contacts that go beyond the weight room. If the goal of tracking data for velocity-based training is truly to track all movements with velocity from 0.3m/s up to over 10m/s, then having a device that can measure all of these is a possible gamechanger. With the inclusion of all jump- and sprint-based field contact metrics, Output makes this possible.

Some of the features Output has recently added include airtime, contact time, and peak acceleration force. These are great additions to the timing feature they already had in their system, although it is not possible to use one system in multiple ways at the same time with the same device. Using these features to look at sprinting, sprint drills, bounding, and hurdle hops among other exercises really helps to create a more complete athlete picture.

Using these features to look at sprinting, sprint drills, bounding, and hurdle hops among other exercises really helps to create a more complete athlete picture, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

When profiling athletes, having data that includes both sprint speed and power can go a long way, and the ability to pair all this data with video makes it even more useful. Understanding how our athletes sprint and jump and move in general can likely tell us even more about them than understanding just their lifting capabilities. Within this system we are able to capture information that shows us metrics that can be directly translated to sport-specific activities.

Providing a system that allows sport-specific profiling is a major benefit of the Output system. While it is neither a contact grid nor a force plate, the Output system goes beyond that of a velocity-based sensor and can proves to somewhat successfully replace a grid and/or a plate.

Other Assessments

Depending on the sector you are in, not all strength coaches are accompanied by athletic trainers or other similar professionals as coworkers. Having an Output system can help replace others who may run specific assessments, including range of motion tests.

Of the multitude of tests the Output system allows for, there are a plethora of mobility tests for all limbs. From head to toe, having an Output system allows a user to see if their athletes can check off proper mobility at each joint. Additionally, the Output system can measure the angle of failure and speed of movement for Nordic hamstring curls, which can be used in return to play settings for eccentric hamstring strength. There are also balance options, which offer the ability to measure an athlete’s steadiness when standing, and stability options to observe trunk stability throughout planks.

Having diagnostic and assessment tools within their software makes Output systems a one stop shop for practitioners. Overall, they have created a product that works very well to capture not only velocity-based training but also metrics that fully provide details into every athlete’s whole profile.

Having diagnostic and assessment tools within their software makes Output systems a one stop shop for practitioners, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

Constant Improvement

As a newer system to the market, it is imperative that Output makes sure they develop at a rate that ensures they can compete and/or collaborate with other devices. Launched in February 2020, this is only year two for the company commercially, though the research behind the tech commenced in 2013. Nonetheless, their company has already proven that it truly is dedicated to consistently developing and improving their product in all facets. They are able to provide such great improvements by having a staff who knows both the back end and front end of what they are working with.

Staff and Accessibility

The Output team is led by their CEO, Martin O’Reilly, a former lecturer in biomechanics with a Ph.D. in Machine Learning in Sports. O’Reilly co-founded the company with sports medicine lecturer and researcher Dr. Darragh Whelan and award-winning physicist and national handball player Julian Eberle. The team prides itself on listening to the needs of practitioners, and constantly taking feedback and advice from end-users like me. They then aim to use their interdisciplinary skills to create new features and improve the value of the technology.

The team prides itself on listening to the needs of practitioners, and constantly taking feedback and advice from end-users, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

Even more important than their knowledge both of coaching needs and product creation is their easy access and constant development. While COVID times have created far more physical distance than ever and limited in-person events, connectivity has not felt too much different overall. While time zones and distances can feel like worlds apart, the ability to link up via Zoom and WhatsApp at almost any time creates social connectedness regardless. Having the ability to communicate at all times and input suggested changes or improvements will go a long way towards the success of Output.

Peak Behind the Curtain

Because it is such a young company, Output Sports is not quite yet at their full development. At the moment, a drawback is that they are only supported on Android platforms. As such, there are plans for iOS product workability in order to be accessible to most users by the end of 2021. Additionally, there are more functions to come for velocity-based training that may improve things like capturing bar path, among other options.

The additional features are almost never-ending with all the work the team does at Output Sports. Even more impressive is their willingness to listen and true desire for feedback to develop their product endlessly. This cannot be understated as it is certainly what it takes to become one of the better and more multipurpose products on the market.

Even more impressive is their willingness to listen and true desire for feedback to develop their product endlessly, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

Efficiency

Within college and professional organizations, travel is a mandatory part of the weekly routine. Having traveled with a force plate and NordBord previously, I can safely say that traveling with larger items like those is not an easy task. Of course, it can be done, but it is not exactly the most ideal thing. As force plates continue to develop in lighter fashions, though, that may change.

However, traveling with an Output system is so easy, you can practically forget you have brought it with you. If you already travel with an Android phone or tablet, then the heftiest piece of their travel kit has already been accounted for. If not, traveling with a tablet is quite simple as many of us already know.

If you have Output, even if you use other systems as well, the number of items you need when you travel decreases significantly. Having all or most systems combined into one is a great benefit of this product and can go a long way towards managing travel stress and hassle.

Hub

One of the greatest features of the Output software is their Hub. Their Hub allows for easy access of trends for all athletes throughout all uses of the device. Within the Hub are easy-to-make charts and graphs that highlight all of the device’s components.

The Hub provides great feedback for athletes to view their progress, and for coaches to see trends as well. Because Output provides a wide range of metrics, the Hub truly gives great insight as it does not require input from outside sources that then have to be merged—all the data is already right there.

From a behind the scenes perspective, navigating the Hub is very user friendly and great to work with. Within it there is the ability to shuttle between one athlete or a created group of athletes. Reports can be created within the Hub or exported to Excel to adjust further, and leaderboards offer the chance to rank athletes from event to event. Of course, having this to show to athletes can only help further incentivize them and make the system far more effective overall.

Cost

In general, any sort of sports science kit is no inexpensive cost, and many offer some sort of yearly subscription service. Having some combination of contact grids, timing gates, velocity-based training devices, and force plates can take no small amount of money and even potentially time to acquire and gain familiarity with.

That said, Output is not the most inexpensive itself and will run more expensive than a similar sensor system like that of the Vmaxpro. It also uses a yearly fee for service based on its features—but for all that it encompasses, the Output Sports system is very reasonably priced.

Takeaway

Overall, the Output Sports system is a great sports science kit. Especially when looking for a cost-effective versatile solution, the company provides a wonderful product.

One of the absolute greatest qualities about the company is their team and commitment to constant and consistent improvement. They are steady in their effort to develop a product that can serve just about all sports science needs in one place. With this effort, they have already created a user friendly system that works very well.

One of the absolute greatest qualities about the company is their team and commitment to constant and consistent improvement, says @sgfeld27. Share on X

While they are a very young company, their early returns show much promise for a successful long-term product. Although they may never be like their Irish countryman Conor McGregor and be the leader in a specific area of sports science, they are rightfully earning their name as a Swiss Army-type product by providing a plethora of options all in one place. As a company, they are also deeply focused on the potential for diverse performance data in one system.

Output Sports has started off well and the future is bright for them. If you have limitations in budget, space, or kit amounts, they are the perfect company to work with. I would definitely recommend getting to know them while they are still a younger company and building a relationship.

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

Most plyometric and jump training is like plum pudding. And even though nobody has talked about plum pudding in about a hundred years, I’m not the first to use this traditional British dessert as a point of comparison.

We used to compare atoms to plum pudding (hang with me, I swear this is going somewhere). In 1904, physicist JJ Thomson discovered that the electrons of an atom were negatively charged; however, the positively charged nucleus of the atom remained undiscovered. With this knowledge, he proposed that the electrons were like negatively charged specks (the plums) amidst a positively charged space (the pudding). This was termed the plum pudding model. A few years later, when Ernest Rutherford discovered that the positively charged part of the atom was congregated in the nucleus, the previous plum pudding model had to be adjusted.

Thomson’s discovery was revolutionary, but it was incomplete. Most jump training today is like Thomson’s plum pudding model: all the talk centers around minimizing ground contact time and the importance of the stretch-shortening cycle. This could be a hurdle jump, traditional bounding, or many other drills that fit into the original definition of plyometric proposed by Yuri Verkhoshansky in Supertraining. These plyometric exercises teach athletes how to transfer their stored strength from one movement to the next, like a rubber band. All else being equal, the athlete with a more efficient stretch-shortening cycle will be more explosive and faster because they’ll transfer energy more efficiently.

Plyometric exercises teach athletes how to transfer their stored strength from one movement to the next, like a rubber band, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

But very few talk about (or train) another significant piece (like the nucleus) of the jump training equation: the longer impulse, or static plyometrics.

Energy Transfer

Beginning with ice hockey as an example, the sport has one big difference from land sports: it’s played on ice. Quite the astute observation, I know. What’s important to understand about that, though, is that skating is not the same as sprinting. One of the main differences is that the ground contact time of a hockey stride is longer compared to a running stride.

Because the ground contact time is longer, a hockey player can’t transfer elastic energy via the stretch-shortening cycle as much as a sprinter or football player can in the course of their sport.

That means an elite hockey player has to rely on other means to generate force. With less value put on elastic force from traditional plyometric training, hockey players need to learn how to create force in a more static position. If you’re training hockey players, that means less time, energy, and resources should be spent gaining incremental improvements in the stretch-shortening cycle and more time generating power from a static position.

With less value put on elastic force from traditional plyometric training, hockey players need to learn how to create force in a more static position, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

Instead of consisting of all the “bouncy” plyometric exercises, a hockey player’s training program should be a mix of static and elastic.

How This Applies to Other Sports Besides Hockey

This insight is not only valuable for hockey players, however; all strides, land or ice, have varying demands. For running sports, the acceleration phase has longer ground contact times. When you think about this logically, it makes perfect sense because there is no stored elastic energy to transfer when you haven’t started moving yet.

Athletes who don’t effectively generate force without the aid of the stretch-shortening cycle will struggle in the first few strides of a sprint. Adding static jumps to your training programs can become one of the most effective means for training acceleration.

That makes it a crucial component of nearly any athlete training program. After all, in most team sports, athletes are intermittently accelerating and decelerating and often don’t make it to top speed. Therefore, training these skills should be a priority in any training program.

Adding static jumps to your training programs can become one of the most effective means for training acceleration, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

Assessing the Need for Static Jump Training in Each Athlete

Some athletes will need more static jump training, while others should focus their attention on traditional plyometrics. Regardless of what the athlete thinks their weak points are, the only way to know is to test them. With regards to their limiting factor in their force development, a few simple assessments can show a lot.

30-Meter Sprint Times with the 10-Meter Splits

Remember that acceleration—regardless of the sport’s playing surface—requires the ability to produce force with less momentum and elastic energy. So, if two athletes have the same 30-meter sprint time (on ice or land), they might get there in different ways. One athlete might have a bad start but pick it up, and vice versa. If you look at their 30-meter sprint times and their 10-meter sprint times, that will tell you more information about how they got to that 30-meter time.

Were their first 10 meters slow compared to their peers? If so, that’s an indicator they need more static plyometrics to work on developing force without elastic energy, and vice versa.

Comparing Vertical Jumps

First, you measure two kinds of vertical jumps:

1. Elastic or “countermovement” vertical jumps
2. Static or “non-countermovement” jumps

When coaching athletes, I prefer the terms elastic and static over countermovement, because as much as I love big words (and crushing people with them at Scrabble), most athletes don’t.

The elastic jump is a typical vertical jump, where the athlete can do whatever they have to do to jump as high as they can. For the static jump, the athlete places hands on hips, sits down into a comfortable position to jump from, pauses, and without creating countermovement, jumps as high as they can. Measuring both static and elastic jumps will give the coach a good picture of how they produce force with and without momentum.

Measuring both static and elastic jumps will give the coach a good picture of how they produce force with and without momentum, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

Now, obviously the elastic jump is going to have a higher score. The key is to look at their scores within the context of the whole team—let’s say the average difference between the two is five inches, but one athlete has a 32” elastic jump and a 24” static jump. That’s a sign the athlete’s weak point is their static ability, so their jump program will include more static jumps.

If the two jumps are very close together, the first thing to look at is the athlete’s jumping technique on the elastic jumps. Personally, I primarily work with hockey players, who often can’t jump because they didn’t spend enough time playing other sports. If you fix their jump technique and they still have a narrow discrepancy, it’s a sign their stretch-shortening cycle is lagging behind their static power generation.

Static Plyometric Exercises

In terms of what to do, perform the same simple plyometric and jump training exercises. But instead of going from one to the next in an elastic manner, pause completely before each jump in the posture that you’d jump from.

You can go forwards, sideways, 45 degrees, unilateral or bilateral, and more. Play around with the plane of motion and loads necessary for the athlete just as you would for typical plyometric drills.

Static Hurdle Jump

Set up your hurdles like normal and emphasize exploding out of the bottom position. Athletes will not be able to jump as high without the support from the stretch-shortening cycle, so you’ll have to lower the hurdles.

Static Broad Jump

Static Bound

Static Hex Bar Jumps

Just as the athletes will be limited in their explosive capacities during the hurdle jumps and bounds, the weight for the hex bar jumps will likely have to go down compared to elastic weighted jumps.

Box to Hurdle Jump

This variation shows how difficult it can be to jump without using any previous momentum. The athlete starts on the box at the angle they are prepared to jump from. Because the box will be immediately below them, they won’t be able to load up any sort of elastic energy.

Even for athletes used to springing over hurdles like they’re nothing, this exercise may be humbling.

Non-Countermovement Vertical Jumps

For these vertical jumps, start at the bottom position of where you would jump from, keep your hands on your hips, and then jump. They’re great as a diagnostic tool but can also be inserted into a program. The Just Jump System is ideal to assess NCM jumps.

Variations & Progressions

You could likely extrapolate this concept to any power exercise you perform. While I personally haven’t experimented much with Olympic lifts or kettlebell swings performed with the emphasis on pausing completely at the bottom and exploding up, I think those could make for interesting experiments.

As in any exercise, you want to be able to keep challenging your athletes as they improve. Static jump training can be progressed in a few ways:

• Put Your Hands on Your Hips. By placing the hands on the hips, you take away the momentum generated by the arm swing, making it even more difficult.

• Add Weight. The goal is to create as much force as possible in the shortest amount of time, and one easy way to challenge that is to add more load. For hex bar jumps, obviously you can add more weight. For other exercises, a weight vest will work best.

In absence of a vest, if you have the athlete hold a med ball or a dumbbell, you’ll notice they’ll want to “swing” the weight forward as they jump. Acting like a counterbalance, this will actually make the exercise easier. So, if you do opt for a med ball or dumbbell, make sure the implement moves with them and not in front of them.

• Move to Single Leg. Another simple option is to go to one leg.

Through each of these options you can pick and choose and create enough options and variability to continue to make static jump training challenging and engaging.

As in any exercise, you want to be able to keep challenging your athletes as they improve, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

Adding Static Jump Training to Your Program

The first step is recognizing that static plyometrics should be in most training programs. Next, determine whether your athletes need more or fewer of the simple tests. Depending on the athletes’ strengths and weaknesses, the program should have more or fewer static jump exercises than before.

For sports like hockey, static jump training should be a part of every athletes’ training program because of the demands of skating. For other sports, this can be more on a case-by-case basis depending on each athlete’s individual needs. Regardless, static plyometrics and jumps should be a part of your coaching arsenal.

Static plyometrics and jumps should be a part of your coaching arsenal, says @dwrosalesvt. Share on X

More broadly, whether it’s in evolving our jump training or discovering more info about the atom, remember that all of the information we have is incomplete; it’s just the best model we have available right now. There are plum pudding models all around us in our world, and it’s going to take experimentation, curiosity, and the willingness to learn if we’re to discover the nucleus.

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

There aren’t many certainties in the modern world: perhaps only death, taxes, and Tom Brady winning Super Bowls. However, one thing is certain about the human race—we all sleep (some more than others, as any new parent will tell you). Every human and animal on the planet sleeps, and when you consider how vulnerable we are when we sleep, it must be pretty evolutionarily important to have stuck around all this time!

Despite technological advancements, sleep is even more important in the modern world than when we lived in caves and had to fend off predators. Knowing sleep’s evolutionary importance, you would think it would be a key tenet when we talk about human high performance. Yet if you were to look at your own athletes, how much time do you spend talking about sleep? How much education have your athletes received about sleep? How much is practiced and lived, day in and day out by your athletes?

If we were to look at what the ‘big rocks’ in recovery truly are, they would undoubtedly be sleep and nutrition, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Take, for example, the concept of recovery—often, the first modalities that get stressed with players are things like ice baths, saunas, recovery tights, massage guns, and so on. Yet if we were to look at what the big rocks in recovery truly are, they would undoubtedly be sleep and nutrition. Maybe it is due to marketing or a carryover from the popularity of the marginal gains approach, but we sometimes get caught putting too much emphasis on the sand rather than ensuring the big rocks are in place first.

Starting the Conversation

When we do place an emphasis on sleep, the performance benefits can be large. For example, I coach in academy-level rugby, and a lot of our young players live in shared housing in large, but dated, buildings. This can be great for their social lives, but it isn’t that conducive to a good night’s sleep…for a variety of reasons.

One of these athletes asked me help him improve his sleep environment. This started with an audit of his bedroom, and frankly it wasn’t geared at all to a high-performance athlete. He was 6’ 5” and more than 115 kilograms, but he was sleeping on a short single mattress that looked like it had been made in the 1980s. He complained that the springs dug into his back, and this was because it probably had been slept on since the ’80s! The sheets were cheap polyester that made him sweat at night, and his window blind was old and didn’t work properly. To compound this, he was unlucky enough to be on the side of the building facing the rising sun, so the sun would shine in and wake him early in the morning.

With a sleep environment that bad, the fixes were simple: convince him to buy a mattress that fit him, try to get him to invest in some breathable sheets, and then fix the light pollution in his room. After a trip to IKEA to pimp out his bedroom hardware on a budget, we then restricted as much light as we could in the room by “thinking like a vampire.” Following these changes, his sleep hygiene greatly improved.

Subjectively, he said the new arrangements helped massively, and he felt it made him feel “more ready for the day.” Objectively, we used his Fitbit to see if anything had changed. Although the reliability and validity of sleep trackers are questionable—especially when the athlete knows they are being tracked, as realizing a coach is going to see the results causes them to change their behavior—the results were astounding. We had added an extra hour of sleep per day on average in the first week we tracked, and he was spending much less time awake while in bed trying to get to sleep.

Sleep and Performance

If I told you I could give you a pill that would improve your sprint time by 0.7 seconds, you’d probably take it, right? What if I offered you a pill that would improve your shooting percentage by 9%? You wouldn’t believe what I was offering was available…or legal! Yet that is what a study of Stanford basketball players showed.¹ Sure, okay, they may not have been elite basketball athletes, but how about Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors having more than one-third fewer turnovers and a 29% increase in points per minute?² Elite enough?

You’d want to know what the pill was that they were taking, wouldn’t you?!

The pill that both studies shared was the same, and in fact it wasn’t a pill at all—it was sleep. When Andre Iguodala had more than eight hours of sleep, that’s what happened to his numbers. When the Stanford basketballers extended their sleep, they ran faster and shot better.

This isn’t limited to basketball either—in a longitudinal study of MLB baseball players, the sleepiness scores recorded over a three-year period correlated with whether the players were able to stay in the big leagues or not. Those who reported feeling sleepy found themselves more likely to be out of the league by the end of the study.³

In a longitudinal study of MLB baseball players, the sleepiness scores recorded over a three-year period correlated with whether the players were able to stay in the big leagues or not. Share on X

There could be many reasons for this, one being that when we are sleep deprived, we gas out much quicker. It has been shown that we reach exhaustion 30% quicker in time trials when sleep is compromised.⁴ Can you imagine being a middle-distance runner and your time is 30% slower just because you got less than six hours of sleep before the race? The consequences to performance are huge.

Luckily, the consequences are not as large for athletes as they are for other industries: In the medical world, getting less than six hours of sleep increased the likelihood of a surgical error by 170%!⁵ Compare a misjudged pass or errant throw to an error on the treatment table having potentially fatal consequences.

Sleep and Injury Prevention

Sleep doesn’t just enhance performance on the field, it can enhance our body’s functions off it too. Perhaps most relevant right now is that sleep can aid our immune system. Sleep is our first line of defense against things like infections and viruses, with less sleep linked to a far higher chance of catching the common cold.⁶

Sleep doesn’t just help with prevention; it can be the cure as well. For example, think about the last time you were ill or if you were unlucky enough to have contracted COVID-19—what did your body spend a lot of time doing? Sleeping! Your best defense is also your best offense.

Training days missed due to illness can be attenuated via sleep, but sleep has been shown to have links to the prevention of injury as well. Athletes who sleep less than eight hours a night have a 1.7 times greater risk of injury.⁷ That’s a large number, especially when you think across all professional sports and how much money is spent on injury prevention. How much of that money is invested in sleep though? It is often the forgotten strategy when it comes to combatting injuries.

Sleep is often the forgotten strategy when it comes to combatting injuries, says @peteburridge. Share on X

After an outbreak of injuries in baseball, the New York Times ran an infographic that totaled all the collective payroll that was out injured at the time. At one point the NY Yankees were missing 34% of their payroll, which equated to $17,747 per hour being spent on players who couldn’t take the field. I’m not saying that if they had just slept better they wouldn’t be injured, but with such distinct evidence showing how sleep affects performance and injury, shouldn’t we at least pay it a bit more attention? Especially when the investments are that large?

Sleep and Body Composition

Most sports demand that you be in good shape to perform at your best; in sports like sprinting, for example, any non-functional mass will make you slower. In sports like soccer, too much fat mass will limit your ability to go 90 minutes at the tempo that the modern game is played. Do you know what can help your body composition? If you haven’t guessed it already, yes, it’s sleep. A large decrease in sleep (~4 hours) can lead to an increase in the number of calories we consume the next day of around ~300 kcal.⁸ This is because when we are sleep deprived, we switch on more primal areas of our brain that make us crave calorie-dense food. Sleep loss basically gives us the munchies!

When athletes lose weight, we know that some weight will come from fat mass and some will be muscle. Ideally, we want most of this loss to be fat while clinging on to as much muscle as possible. One study showed that this is largely influenced by the amount of sleep that we have while on this weight loss regimen.⁹ With sleep dictating where we lose that mass from, you really can sleep your way to a six-pack!

To clarify how profoundly sleep affects body composition, take two athletes: They’ve both been put on calorie-controlled diets, and you’ve prescribed them a tough training regimen to support it. The program has worked and both athletes have lost 5 kilograms of body mass. Great news!

The only difference between the two athletes is one has been getting 8.5 hours of sleep and the other athlete has been staying up late at night playing Fortnite and has only been getting 5.5 hours of sleep. For the athlete who got good sleep, of the 5 kilograms that they lost, 40% was muscle mass and 60% was fat mass. The athlete who didn’t sleep well: 70% was muscle mass with only 30% of their weight loss coming from fat.

The amount we sleep clearly dictates from where on our body we lose our weight. For anyone on a diet or cutting weight like a boxer, this is huge, says @peteburridge. Share on X

The amount we sleep clearly dictates from where on our body we lose our weight. For anyone on a diet or cutting weight like a boxer, this is huge. You might have the same number on the scale, but where would you rather lose it from? Fat or muscle?

Sleep and Learning

Most sports require their players to know detailed tactical systems and plays, and this requires a large amount of learning from week to week. This is to say nothing about many student-athletes who also have to learn their actual studies as well! Either way, good-quality learning and retention of information is key to optimizing training time.

Sleep helps this mental side of the game too, with a decrease in memory learning by as much as 40% in sleep-deprived individuals.¹⁰ Studies that have tracked school start time and indirectly tracked sleep opportunity in adolescents have shown that a later start time (which gave the kids more time in bed) leads to a significant increase in grades, taking grade averages from B- to A.¹¹

Whenever we have meetings, we want our athletes to be A-grade students—fully engaged and retaining all the information, not yawning in the back and fighting the urge to doze off. Believe it or not, if you have been awake for 20 hours, your motor function decreases to such a level that it is equivalent to being legally drunk.¹² If you think how your speed of thought slows down and your memory gets a bit fuzzy when you’ve had a few beers, you get an idea of what might be going on!

This calls into question how much we truly help our athletes by having workouts scheduled so early in the morning. As much as we’d like them to #SeizeTheDay, we may not be helping as much as we think. Certainly, as coaches it should at least make us think a little more deeply about how we schedule workouts and practices to truly optimize performance. Should we spend lots of money on fancy recovery gadgets, or should we just schedule practice an hour later to give the players a bit more time in bed?

Should we spend lots of money on fancy recovery gadgets, or should we just schedule practice an hour later to give the players a bit more time in bed?, asks @peteburridge. Share on X

Improving Your Sleep Environment

Once you acknowledge how important sleep is, the next step is having interventions to optimize the sleep environment. These fit into two categories—sleep routine and sleep hygiene.

Sleep Routine

Having a consistent wake and sleep time is one of the most powerful tools at an athlete’s disposal when it comes to improving the quality of their recovery. As anyone who has dieted can tell you, our bodies love a state of homeostasis. The body hates change! It takes a lot of hard work to will it to lose 10 pounds or to gain a couple kilos of muscle.

Having a consistent wake and sleep time is one of the most powerful tools at an athlete’s disposal when it comes to improving the quality of their recovery, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Much is the same with sleep. For example, when you’re at university and living the party lifestyle, if your professors schedule 9 a.m. lessons, it seems like an affront to your human rights. But then you enter the real world, and a 9 a.m. start equates to a substantial lie-in. After an adjustment period, our body clock shifts itself, and the earlier start becomes the norm, even to the point of waking us up on weekends at 6 a.m. (regardless of whether we have anything to be awake for).

Genetically, some of us will be better suited to an earlier or later start, which is due to our chronotype. The easiest way of thinking about your chronotype is deciding whether you are an evening or a morning person. Understanding when you are at your sharpest and trying to fit your training schedule around that will allow you to be much more productive.

Physiologically, our bodies need to drop around 1 to 2 degrees in temperature to drift off to sleep. This is why having a warm bath or shower helps us sleep: not only does it help us unwind mentally, but the water draws heat from the skin, cooling us down. Getting in a regular routine of having a bath or shower before bed is a great way of improving our likelihood of falling asleep quickly when we hit the pillow. This is also why we like to sleep on the cool side of the pillow or dangle our feet outside of the covers. It’s simply temperature control.

With body temperature in mind, as admirable as it is to try and do 100 press-ups and sit-ups before bed because some Instagram guru told you to, that’s not going to be great from a temperature regulation perspective. So, if you are going to jack your heart rate up and have your body temperature rise through exercise or other bedroom activities, be sure to get done long before it’s time to sleep.

Another key intervention is the control of caffeine usage. Caffeine has a half-life of around five hours¹³ and will stay in your system for a long period of time. So a coffee in the middle of the day may taste nice, but it is still in your system when you want to go to bed. In fact, a cup of coffee six hours before bedtime doubles the time it takes to get to sleep and on average decreased total sleep time by 41 minutes when compared to a placebo.¹⁴

This can be especially problematic when caffeine is used as a performance enhancer before competing in the evening. It isn’t uncommon for athletes to be wide awake at night after competition. Ideally, if you can periodize your caffeine intake in the week, you won’t need as much come game day to have a performance effect, which will help limit the side effect of not being able to sleep at night afterward.

Ideally, if you can periodize your caffeine intake in the week, you won’t need as much come game day to have a performance effect, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Sleep Hygiene

Once you have a steady sleep routine in place, the next area for improvement should be improving your sleep hygiene. This includes things like your exposure to light, how comfortable your sleep environment is, and how you go about regulating your temperature when you are in bed.

The most publicized intervention centers on the use of electronic devices around bedtime and how this affects our bodies’ natural functions to prepare for sleep. The issue is that phones and tablets emit a large amount of blue light, which blocks the release of melatonin (the body’s natural hormonal signal for sleep). This keeps us from falling asleep as easily and disrupts the quality of sleep we get when we do fall asleep. Unfortunately, the use of electronic devices is also the hardest habit to shake, especially with young players.

Ideally, there would be no use of electronic screens at least 30 minutes before bed, but having worked with many young athletes, I know this can be unrealistic no matter what you tell them! Night Shift mode on an iPhone—a screen setting that dims the amount of blue light emitted from the phone—can be set to help reduce the damage if the player will be on their phone regardless of your advice. For those athletes who must check their social media, a compromise of no phones in the bedroom is a feasible strategy. It might not be 30 minutes before bedtime, but at least leaving the phone off or out of the room completely as they prepare to go to bed can stop the temptation to mindlessly scroll through social media or have notifications wake them from their slumber.

An audit of the bedroom can reveal many other sources of light, and restricting light before bed should be encouraged. Utilizing blackout blinds, covering TV standby lights, and blocking electrical charging lights can make a big difference in how dark your room is. The darker the better! A simple strategy to achieve true darkness is to wear an eye mask. This can be particularly useful when crossing time zones or trying to nap during daylight hours.

On the flip side, light in the morning is an important signal to start feeling awake. So, a light alarm clock, which progressively gets brighter and acts as a steady sunrise, can help you keep your sleep routine. Light alarm clocks won’t make up for a poor night’s sleep, but they can help you feel more awake and focused when you do wake up.

Anyone who has lived on a busy street or had neighbors performing house renovations knows that noise pollution is also a big threat to a good night’s sleep. Some of these factors that affect our sleep environment are uncontrollable, but there are some things you can do to at least reduce the effect. For example, sleeping in a bedroom that faces the quiet side of the house, using ear plugs, or employing white noise machines can all reduce the likelihood of being rudely awoken by loud noises.

The second biggest factor when it comes to sleep hygiene is how comfortable our sleep environment is, and it makes a huge difference in how effectively we sleep. The British Cycling team was renowned for their attempts to improve their sleep environment on the road by bringing their own pillows and mattresses, and even using trash bags to black out hotel windows to ensure all variables were controlled.

Getting the right pillow and mattress for your sleep style makes a big difference, with some products better suited to whether you sleep on your side, your back, or your front. Furthermore, ensure that the comforter/duvet is the correct weight for the time of year, so you aren’t shivering or sweating while sleeping. Having your comforter/duvet and bedding made from natural fibers will help better regulate your temperature. Alongside the pillow and mattress, your sheets can make a big difference in comfort too, with hypoallergenic, natural materials like cotton with higher thread counts bringing about better comfort and helping to keep you cool.

Once you have all the pieces in place, it makes sense to maintain them well too. Sleeping on fresh sheets regularly should be the goal. Think about how you feel when you sleep on fresh sheets…how good did that feel? So why wouldn’t you want to have this feeling regularly? If you think of all the dead skin and dirt that starts to accumulate, there’s no wonder bedding doesn’t feel as comfortable when you’ve been sleeping on it for a while. Among academy rugby athletes, it is frightening to hear how bad their sleep hygiene is—some players are unable to remember how long it was since they last changed their sheets, if at all!

Don’t Forget About Sleep

With so much focus on training and competition, it is important that we don’t forget about sleep due to its effects on performance, immunity, body composition, injury prevention, and learning. Share on X

A lot of these small interventions can add up to large improvements in our athletes’ sleep environments. With so much focus on training and competition, it is important that we don’t forget about sleep due to its effects on performance, immunity, body composition, injury prevention, and learning. We should continue to look for opportunities to optimize our athletes’ sleep environment by improving their sleep routine, temperature control, and comfort while being aware of pitfalls like excessive light and caffeine consumption. Luckily, these things aren’t very costly, but they will have a huge effect on performance.

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

References

1. Mah CD, Mah KE, Kezirian EJ, and Dement WC. “The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players.” Sleep. 2011;34(7):943-950.

2. Berger K. “In multibillion-dollar business of NBA, sleep is the biggest debt.” CBS Sports. 6/17/16.

3. Potenziano BJ, Pfeifer PE, Rogers SL, and Winter WC. “Predicting major league baseball (MLB) player career longevity via sleepiness measurements. Sleep. 2013;36 (Abstract Suppl, A326).

4. VanHelder T and Radomski MW. “Sleep deprivation and the effect on exercise performance.” Sports Medicine. 1989;7(4):235‐247.

5. Rothschild JM, Keohane CA, Rogers S, et al. “Risks of complications by attending physicians after performing nighttime procedures.” JAMA. 2009;302(14):1565-72.

6. Prather AA, Janicki-Deverts D, Hall MH, and Cohen S. “Behaviorally assessed sleep and susceptibility to the common cold.” Sleep. 2015;38:1353-1359.

7. Milewski MD, Skaggs DL, Bishop GA, et al. “Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes.” Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics. 2014;34:129-133.

8. Greer SM, Goldstein AN, and Walker MP. “The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain.” Nature Communications. 2013;4:2259.

9. Nedeltcheva AV, Kilkus JM, Imperial J, Schoeller DA, and Penev PD. “Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity.” Annals of Internal Medicine. 2010;153:435-441.

10. Simon HB. “Sleep helps learning, memory.” Harvard Health Blog. 2/15/12.

11. Wahlstrom KL. “Later School Start Times.” Presented at Teens & Sleep Conference, 2013.

12. Williamson AM and Feyer AM. “Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication.” Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2000;57:649-655.

13. Institute of Medicine (U.S.) Committee on Military Nutrition Research. Caffeine for the Sustainment of Mental Task Performance: Formulations for Military Operations. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (U.S.); 2001. Chapter 2: “Pharmacology of Caffeine.”

14. Drake C, Roehrs T, Shambroom J, and Roth T. “Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 2013;9(11):1195-1200.

15. Wahlstrom KL. “Changing times: Findings from the first longitudinal study of later high school start times.” NAASP Bulletin. 2002;96:3-21.

There may be no bigger blessing or curse than social media. It allows us to cultivate a circle of influence to access information, but in our search for confirmation bias, we often narrow the scope of information. I regularly find myself auditing those I follow, trying to ensure that I include some who may have different viewpoints that can assist in my development. At the same time, I attempt to find balance with not getting involved with too much dialogue regarding items I do not agree with.

I am certainly far from perfect in this regard, and there is no question that engaging in bickering on social media has wasted time that I could have better spent elsewhere. I feel that one of the primary issues of social media debate is conversations take place at a very superficial level. Trying to communicate complex ideas in 280 characters is a wonderful cognitive activity. However, it is a battle that can never be won, as there are always exceptions, and we ALL are quick to pounce on a post where we can point one out!

One social media debate that I have engaged in over time has been the utilization of tempo running within sprint training. Most of the time, I leave the debate feeling that nothing has been accomplished. All parties involved end up frustrated and bewildered, causing the ditches between parties to become canyons, when the athletes we serve would probably benefit if we put more effort into building bridges.

This article is an attempted deep dive into my own journey with tempo running. One problem I see in coaching—and one I am, of course, guilty of myself—is passing judgment on a program or system without having a true understanding of the situation that the coaches involved are dealing with. Here, I will go into the why behind the decisions I have made over time based on the realities I faced. I think this will provide a unique perspective, as it covers an area that is probably underrepresented in the information that is distributed.

Too often we pass judgment on a program or system without having a true understanding of the situation that the coaches involved are dealing with, says @HFJumps. Share on X

While we all love seeing “new” exercises and their variations, a key part of coaching remains understanding the “why” behind everything in your program. Often the arrival of the “why” occurs through the process of solving a problem. I intend to lay out my thought process in this piece, and the bonus will be having a resource I can refer people to in the future so I will not have to get into any social media wars regarding tempo running!

Narrowing the Scope

I think that one of the reasons debates get extremely heated when tempo is the topic is that the topic is not specific enough. I’ve seen tempo described as anything from 60% to 90% of race pace, which is a very wide range when referring to any specific distance but gets quite a bit broader when basing the percentage off different distances. For example, 70% of an 11-second 100m is approximately 15.7 seconds. If the same runner had a personal best of 50 seconds in the 400 meters, 70% of 50 seconds would average approximately 17.9 seconds per 100 meters. Anyone who has taken part in a tempo session knows this 2+ seconds is quite a big difference in pace.

I think that one of the reasons debates get extremely heated when tempo is the topic is that the topic is not specific enough, says @HFJumps. Share on X

While many adaptations take place within a tempo session, what distance the target pace is based off of, the distance being run within the rep, and the percentage all combine to form a hierarchy of adaptations. I think bickering on social media regarding tempo training would be quite a bit less heated if we were more specific about these items, which can be traced back to the following non-exhaustive list of desired adaptations.

Recovery

To the “stress is stress” crowd: I hear where you are coming from, but I do think there is good stress and bad stress. In general, I think the stress of 20-30 minutes (or beyond) of a heart rate of 120-140 beats per minute is good for anyone who has a heart that beats, and it can be restorative for those whose target is improving speed and power. Of course, the activity or activities being performed are EXTREMELY important, and the lines of energy systems being utilized are blurred, but if we zoom out and identify our target (ATP-PC, lactic acid, aerobic), we can create workouts that complement each other and lead to greater adaptations.

Enhance Technique

We all are familiar with the idea that slowing down to enhance our ability to perform a skill is a sound method. It is commonly used in playing a piece of music (regardless of the instrument) and in sports such as golf. So, can reducing intensity be a viable way to improve technique in sprinting? I think the answer to this question is “absolutely.”

When athletes are challenged to showcase an optimal performance in sprinting (such as a timed flying sprint), I prefer for them to have as little thought running through their head as possible, but when they are operating at a submaximal level, they have a better chance to think about what they are doing or, more importantly, feel what they are doing. When utilizing submaximal sprinting to improve technique, I like to use Joel Smith’s terminology of “rhythm sessions” as opposed to tempo. I feel that “rhythm” better describes what I am often looking for—a synchronization of body parts to produce efficient movement down the track.

Ability to Buffer Lactic Acid

When rest times are crunched and/or higher intensities are addressed in the sub-maximum spectrum (usually 80% and above), athletes begin to get acidic. Like anything else in training, appropriate exposure to this stimulus will help athletes improve their ability to process lactic acid, and tempo training is one way to get there.

My Evolution

Most of the information I put out has to deal with the benefits of sprinting at maximum velocity. This is by design, as I believe it to be the most underutilized training modality, particularly in youth through high school settings. I bang on the maximum velocity drum in the hopes that more people will hear my sweet beats and begin to utilize it within their programming.

Since I am so pro-maximum velocity, people often extrapolate into thinking that I am anti-submaximal work, which is simply not true. When it comes to training, I am not opposed to any stimulus. However, I am opposed to the improper use of stimuli, and I feel tempo training is one of the most misused modalities in program design. In short, if you refuse to leave the middle, you do not get the perks of the penthouse or the basement.

Since I’m so pro-maximum velocity, people often extrapolate into thinking that I’m anti-submaximal work, which is simply not true… I’m opposed to the improper use of stimuli, says @HFJumps. Share on X

Many have stated that tempo is too slow to be specific and too fast to be restorative. While I think there is truth there, I also think it is an oversimplification. The truth is, in order for tempo work to be most effective, a coach must be extremely skilled. I abused tempo for years, and part of my eventual choice to scale back its use was the realization that I was not skilled enough to navigate the deceiving waters of the middle.

My personal experience in track and field involved quite a bit of tempo running. In my high school, 12 x 200m was a Monday tradition, and despite not much exposure to true sprinting, I did get faster. College was the first time in my life where I was exposed to true speed sessions, and in a well-balanced program that also included extensive tempo (ET), intensive tempo (IT), glycolytic short speed endurance (GSSE), alactic short speed endurance (ASSE), speed endurance (SE), long speed endurance (LSE), and special endurance (SE1/SE2), I continued to improve my speed and overall explosiveness.

Like many, when I transitioned into coaching, I used programming similar to what I was exposed to. The problem was that my understanding of the programming was faulty, as I viewed volume as the primary driver of enhancing performance. It took quite a bit of time for me to understand that the best programmers are able to conduct training volume, intensity, and density like a symphony, and the appropriate amount of each together elicits results that are superior to each as a standalone.

I began my track coaching career at Homewood-Flossmoor with the girl’s program, which had been very successful, but recently had quite a bit of turnover in the staff. Because of that, I was given full control of the training of sprinters, hurdlers, and high jumpers. Our season was 18 weeks long, beginning in January and ending in May. Because we were in a southern suburb of Chicago, the ability to train outside regularly was not a reality until April. Fortunately, we had an indoor 160-meter track which we shared with our boy’s program.

As I mentioned, volume was the driver in the programming, and below is a week taken from the very beginning of our outdoor season (week 11). It is important to note that dual meets for us in the mid-2000s were a big deal. We had wonderful rivalries with the schools in our conference, and we typically placed all of our athletes in three or four events.

Monday – Intensive Tempo

• 100/200: 2 x 100, 150, 200, 250 @ 80% of best 200
  • Rest 2 minutes/rep, 4 minutes/set
  • Add 1 second for 250 target time
• 400: 2 x 300, 400, 500 @ 80% of best 400
  • Rest 3.5 minutes/rep, 5 minutes/set
  • Add 2-3 seconds for 500 target time
• Weight room

Tuesday – Speed

• ALL: Plyos
• ALL: 3 x 40 meters (rest 4 minutes)
  • Relay Athletes – exchanges
  • Non-Relay Athletes – additional 3 x 40 meters
• Specialties

Wednesday – Dual Meet

Thursday – Extensive Tempo

• ALL: 5 x Diagonals @ 70%
  • Run diagonal of football field, walk the width, and run the other diagonal = 1 rep
• Weight room

Friday – Meet Prep

• Blocks, handoffs, approaches

Saturday – Invite

While it would be exhaustive to outline the programming for the entire 18-week season, I can give some key points that, in combination with the specific week above, will help you understand my reflections.

• We ran a double peak, targeting peaks in weeks 9/10 and weeks 17/18.
• Indoor (weeks 1-10)
  • Speed was present throughout.
  • ET built volume from weeks 1 through 5, then decreased and was utilized as needed.
  • IT built volume from weeks 2 through 7, then decreased and was utilized as needed.
  • GSSE and/or ASSE were present from weeks 3 through 7.
  • SE/LSE was primarily addressed in competition, besides an SE/LSE workout in weeks 8 and 9.
• Outdoor (weeks 11-18)
  • Speed was present throughout.
  • ET was used as a recovery modality.
  • IT was reintroduced from weeks 11 to 13, and then utilized as needed.
  • SE/LSE was once again present in competition and addressed during workouts in weeks 14 through 18, competition dependent.
  • SE1 and SE2 were utilized with special athletes.

Observations and Alterations

We dealt with repetitive use injuries (primarily shin splints) from day 3 through the end of the season. Having dealt with shin splints myself, my initial reaction was, “Shin splints are part of track and field.” In a life full of stupid statements, this may reign supreme. Our program really became survival of the most durable. We were fighting a war of attrition that was self-created. However, we did try to incorporate the following remedies:

• Preventive maintenance exercises – think of any lower leg exercise. I bet we tried it and gave it a fair chance.
  • We did not notice any improvement.
• Foam rolling, massaging, etc.
  • We did not notice any improvement.
• Making athletes ice their lower legs after every practice.
  • We did not notice any improvement.
• Running tempo workouts clockwise and counterclockwise.
  • We did not notice any improvement.

The highest volume in our season came during the indoor portion of our season, and remember that due to the weather, we were almost always confined inside. While our 160-meter track was certainly better than being in hallways, the surface was still hard and slick, and the turns were tight. It took me years to realize that this did not mesh well with high volume. The primary reasons for this were the bias of my own grind mentality that I had when I was an athlete and the fact that we were having quite a bit of success. This included a state championship in the 4×400 meters in 3:50.50 in 2005.

The shin splint epidemic was not enough to steer me away from high-volume tempo workouts, but something else occurred near the end of the decade that resulted in programming changes. We acquired a greater number of athletes who were true sprinters. My definition of this was potential state finalists in the 100 meters and/or 200 meters.

While our top athletes in the past could handle long tempo reps, these athletes truly struggled. There were many intensive tempo workouts that did not end well. Despite my best efforts to motivate, for a handful of our top athletes, anything more than 200 meters would eventually have reps that ended in a death march. We made the following interventions over the next couple of years:

• Cut overall running volume by up to 50%. We tended to do bodyweight and medicine ball circuits with multiple movements prior to the tempo workouts. The thought was that lactate levels would rise during the circuit and heart rates would fluctuate in the 120-160 beats per minute range, giving us the general fitness adaptation that we were after. We could then use tempo and stay in that range or increase the intensity and challenge anaerobic threshold.
• Try to minimize the reps done on the curve. We began using wickets on the straightaway on a regular basis.
• Split reps into smaller segments. Instead of 4 x 300 @ 80% with four minutes of rest, we would do four sets of 2 x 150 @ 80% with one-minute rest between reps and three-minutes rest between sets. The quality of movement increased substantially. The death march became much less common.
• Eventually, extensive tempo workouts were replaced almost entirely with bodyweight circuits, medicine ball exercises, and weight room activities.

Finally, shin splints became much less common. In fact, the only athletes who continued to have them were those with excessive plantar flexion upon ground contact. The resulting extreme forefoot contact followed by the heel slamming into the ground remains a shin killer!

For those who followed our program during that time, our performance in the 4×400 and the longer sprints did regress, but it was mainly from allocating our resources to the shorter sprints, jumps, and hurdles. This was dictated by our athletes’ strengths and the order of events in Illinois. With the 4×400 immediately following the 200-meter dash, there were times we did not have the depth to handle having our top two sprinters in the 200 and still field a state finalist 4×400 team. I do not think the reason for this had to do with how our approach to training evolved. Of course, the programming was not perfect for everyone, but athletes program-wide still improved from year to year, and the repetitive use injuries were way down.

Percentage Issues

Around the same period, another situation occurred that once again took me too long to realize and develop a solution for. We had an indoor meet on Tuesday, and the following day, our boys team had a meet. Because of what we had going on later in the week, I wanted to get a quick 75% tempo workout in prior to the boys’ meet.

We warmed up, and afterward one of our top athletes came up to me and told me her legs felt like “stones.” She had run three events the previous day: the 55-meter hurdles, 4 x 160-meter relay, and 300-meter dash. I told her that the workout should help her feel better. We were doing 160-meter repeats, and their individual target time was based off 75% of their 160-meter time (established four weeks prior).

The first two reps did not look good, as she was clearly straining to keep up with her training group. We talked, and because she was very dedicated, she wanted to continue. Despite the red flag raised while watching the reps, I allowed it, and I remember thinking in my head that we have never had anyone get seriously injured from the thousands of tempo reps we had run. On the third rep, she pulled her hamstring. Fortunately, the injury occurred early enough in the season where she was able to compete during the last half of the outdoor season, but the detour she had to take could have been avoided if I had been better.

I remember thinking that this was a complete anomaly, but years later, I realized it was not. While assigning target times based on percentages of performance makes us feel as if we are having athletes hitting a desired training target, it is far from a perfect system. This is because a certain effort needed to hit a 75% target time one day may feel like 75%, but the following week it may feel like 90%.

Assigning target times based on percentages of performance is far from a perfect system because a certain effort needed to hit a 75% target time one day may feel like 90% next week, says @HFJumps. Share on X

It probably felt like 95% for this athlete. The diet and sleep habits—as well as the stress from friends, family, and school—are far from predictable for high school athletes. It must be stated that daily communication (face-to-face and/or surveys) and observation during warm-up are imperative so situations like this do not slip through the cracks. Furthermore, having quality plan B options in place can help hit certain training objectives, along with keeping the hard-working athlete’s mindset in a good state, as they do not want to feel like they are missing out on training stimuli.

Synthesis

In 2016, I made the shift to primarily coaching jumpers for our boy’s program. While I had a desire to have jumpers who could successfully navigate any race from 60 meters to 400 meters, I recognized that some of the training that would lead to greater success in the 400 meters could be detrimental to the athlete’s performance in the jumps (especially long jump and high jump). Nevertheless, we had athletes who had strengths in both the longer sprints and the jumps, and surfing the wave of addressing both in training remains a challenge. Many of the jumpers I coached were what I would classify as “elastic,” meaning they had the ability to recycle energy well. That elasticity was also why the longer sprints were a strength for them.

During a standard week in our indoor season, our weekly schedule looked like this:

Monday

• Acceleration and/or maximum velocity (workout specifics can be found here)

Tuesday

• Event technique, lactate

Wednesday

• Regeneration

Thursday

• Acceleration and/or maximum velocity

Friday

• Event technique, meet prep, individual potentiation

Saturday

• Competition

Keep in mind that there are numerous factors that went into the construction of this schedule. We all have our own facility scheduling restrictions and equipment access issues to deal with. In the high school setting, we have to be okay with simply providing the best structure we can, not what would be ideal.

Within this structure, you could address tempo type activities on Tuesday and/or Wednesday. Our Wednesdays tend to consist of restorative activities that do not involve running. If the use of extensive tempo is desired, I have suggestions in this article, such as diagonals and segment runs.

With Tuesday both including event technique and providing a stimulus to raise lactate levels, it took me a season to realize that it would be most efficient with my group of 15-20 jumpers to create circuits to help with the flow of practice. Having an athlete wait 10 minutes between short approach jumps was not a great use of time. I go into further detail in the evolution of this thought process and circuits I’ve used in a previous piece, but I will share a new circuit here.

The following would occur after our 25-minute Tuesday program warm-up, which includes multi-planar movement and multi-planar submaximal plyometrics.

• Short approach jumps x 2-3
  • 4-10 steps
  • Push to vertical posture in one-third of the step number
• Resisted sprint (band or Exer-Genie): 1-2 x 10-20 meters
  • Any acceleration drill can be used here
• Wicket run x 2 (approximately 50 meters in length)
  • Crouch or rolling start
  • Push to vertical posture in six steps
  • Enter wickets at step 8
  • Exit wickets and maintain technique for 20 meters
  • If possible, have a board to steer to between 15 and 20 meters after the wickets.
    • If the athlete will “pop” off the board, I’d encourage them to land in sand or on a mat.
  • Note : On this day, I instruct athletes to run the wickets submaximally ~90%.
• Hip circles x 10-20 (clockwise and counterclockwise)
• Towel curl to press x 10-20 (until intensity drops)
• Jump drill on the curve x 1 (clockwise and counterclockwise)
  • Submaximal skipping, galloping, or run-run-jumps
• Shoulder drops or rebounds x 10-20 (until intensity drops)
• Extreme isometric lunge x 30 seconds (each leg)
• Repeat 2-4 cycles

Video 1. Towels and 1- to 3-pound weights (or water bottles or bean bags) are cheap ways to bring speed-strength to any practice field.

The beauty of this circuit is that it addresses all three of the tempo adaptations mentioned earlier (recovery, technique, and buffering lactate). My guess is that athletes’ lactate levels rise as they work through it. I have not had the ability to measure lactate levels, but I do know that their heart rates are between 120 and 160 beats per minute.

If we seek to create a bigger spike of lactate levels, we will close out the workout with submaximal runs that can range from 80%-99% perceived effort. The percentage addressed will often come from a conversation with the athlete to determine what they feel they need to be prepared. There are many roads that lead to booty lock, and while I have my preferences, I find that the athlete’s mental state is more important than my bias.

Volume is dictated by the percentage and by watching the repetitions. If the rep does not look like sprinting, we cut the workout. Our most common pace is what I refer to as “runway speed,” which I generalize to be 90% of an athlete’s top speed. (There is definitely a range as to what percentage athletes show on the runway.) While I have used “runway speed” for years during these types of workouts because they have passed my eye test, a recent study shared by Derek Hansen gives us a little more to think about when assigning percentages.

Another benefit I have found of assigning reps at 90% or higher is that athletes are more likely to communicate with me if something bothers them… The higher intensity acts as another athlete screen. Share on X

Another benefit I have found of assigning reps at 90% or higher is I feel that athletes are more likely to communicate with me if something is bothering them. This is of course anecdotal, but I think athletes feel they can “grind” through workouts at lower percentages. This opens up the possibility of the pulled hamstring story I shared earlier. The higher intensity acts as another athlete screen.

To Tempo or Not to Tempo

I hate the answer “it depends,” but it does. I think I would use tempo more often if:

• I had a fall season to work with track athletes.
• I had the ability to be outside on grass during our indoor season.
• I had access to a quality hill close to campus.

However, none of these are a reality. I know my journey with tempo is far from over, and I am sure the debate will continue forever, but hopefully the future contains more bridge building and less ditch digging.

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

Lower limb stiffness is an interesting balance—while I want my athlete’s ankles to be stiff enough to get good rebound/push off from the floor to produce power, I don’t want their ankles to be like bricks! Ankle range of motion is key for athletes: they need to be able to dorsiflex, invert, and evert effectively, so I don’t want their ankles and feet to be so stiff they can’t move well. On the flipside, if there is no ankle stiffness, the foot has a hard time producing force: the elastic energy produced from plyometrics is dissipated as heat because the athlete can’t rebound/push off from the ground quickly enough to use this energy created from the stretch shortening cycle.

So, here’s the debate in my head:

• Do we seek to make an athlete’s ankle/foot hyper-mobile so they can actually flex/extend/invert/evert correctly?
• Or do we work on training ankles that are stiffer and can produce more force, therefore improving athletic ability in literally every athletic movement possible?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle. I want my basketball players to have good range of motion in the ankle and foot joints, while also having the ability to produce force quickly (through stiffness) without the use of deep knee flexion and hip extension.

Ankle range of motion is key for athletes, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

Polish Boxes and Low Box Training

I was pretty hyped when I read about Polish boxes and the linked Lee Taft article on low boxes as a tool for producing lower limb force. My only issue was that I wanted to implement the newly acquired knowledge and exercises now, and the Polish boxes looked pretty pricey and hard to come by. Looking at what our weight room did have, I came across my PRIME Squat Wedges—the angle looked very similar to the Polish box so I knew they would work. Also, related to Lee’s article, I knew that our DC Blocks would work as low boxes.

The first time I had an athlete perform some related exercises was with an athlete who really needed to develop stiffness and more force from his lower limbs. This particular athlete has very flat feet which, as we know, aren’t optimal for force development. Flat feet are better for force absorption, and high arches are more advantageous for force production. I feel this is an important point to make when discussing any plyometric exercises with athletes—their biomechanics and anthropometrics will significantly affect the results of whatever jump training you have your athletes do. In fact, they probably should be programmed different jumps and points of emphasis according to their foot type, but that’s for another article perhaps.

Their biomechanics and anthropometrics will significantly affect the results of whatever jump training you have your athletes do, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

Video 1. This clip is from the first time I asked my athlete to do some quick jumps back and forth on the slant boards.

The idea behind this is that in theory, manipulating the foot landing slightly will increase the neuromuscular response to the area and create adaptations favorable to performance when the body is expressing movement in sport.

Video 2. Athlete performing lateral hops.

In both of the above videos, the ground contact time isn’t quick enough—the athlete has to hop with more force and speed in order to actually replicate an on-court physical demand (such as cutting in basketball). In hindsight, the athlete’s speed of action would likely have improved if I had decreased the distance the athlete had to laterally hop by moving the two squat wedges closer together. Also, my coaching cues were minimal since it was the first time I had ever done these with an athlete. Really, I just wanted to observe and ask for feedback on the exercise.

It was only when I performed the same jumps with a different athlete that I saw more of what was written about in both the Valle and Taft articles—speed and intent!

Video 3 & Video 4. The same slant board jumps and lateral hops, performed with greater speed and intent.

I would love to tell you I coached this athlete up and cued him exactly right so he could perform the exercise more efficiently than the previous athlete; the reality, though, is that this athlete is able to produce more force. He has a higher vertical jump (both standing and approach), a longer broad jump, and is faster at any distance in comparison with the first athlete.

This taught me a few things:

1. Athlete 1 NEEDS this in his program. Right now, he is slow and isn’t producing much force at all from his lower limbs. The progression here will be similar to that of a novice weightlifter when compared with an experienced one: the novice’s gains after six weeks will be achieved at a faster rate and will show more improvement because they aren’t used to the basic stimulus of lifting weights. Athlete 1 will see a tremendous improvement in foot stiffness and subsequent power improvements from the lower limbs with well-timed doses of this new stimulus.
2. Athlete 2 NEEDS this in his program. It is a well-known fact that to improve your max speed, you have to run at max speed! Same goes for plyos. Athlete 2 is good at this, but he isn’t great at it—he can improve significantly too.
3. Based off points 1 and 2, I decided that ALL my athletes needed this in their program. I wanted to see how well they performed the low box jumps. This was where I had to get really creative, as I only have a few squat wedges. The thought came to me during a practice: we have ramps at either end of our game court, and these are something I have used in the past with injured players during practice. I have had them squat and lunge on these ramps and also use them as a great ankle/foot dorsiflexion stretch. I decided to incorporate the jumps into a pre-practice warm-up.

Video 5. Using the ramp at the baseline of the basketball court for a team warm-up.

So often in our jobs, we have access to resources that can be used for so much more than what they seem. Have a look around your practice court, game court, weight room, pitch, or field and think about creative ways you can use the various equipment. Be resourceful and add value in every aspect of what you do as a coach.

Be resourceful and add value in every aspect of what you do as a coach, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

After this, I wanted to take it a step further and try out some low box straddle jumps. I really enjoyed Taft’s article and wanted to give my scout team a different stimulus during their extra lifts with me. This happened to be the time in the basketball schedule when our scout team was being formed (players that are usually seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth off the bench as well as any walk-ons). During this time (two weeks before the first game), the starters don’t lift as frequently as they did a month previously—indeed we went from four sessions a week to two for the team. However, the scout team gets some extra top-up lifts outside of the team lifts they also perform. These extra sessions are usually 20-30 minutes, 2-3 times a week.

I use these extra sessions as a time to reinforce the athletes’ strengths, to address some deficiencies, and also to experiment with some different training methods/stimuli. The different training methods/stimuli over the past two seasons have been:

• Javorek barbell complexes
• Tumbling (including handstands, cartwheels, and somersaults)
• Barefoot training
• PosturePro foot, eye, and vestibular exercises
• Vertical core training
• Functional range conditioning
• Lower limb stiffness training

Below are videos of five different athletes completing the straddle jumps exercise.

Video 6. Quick game: Who of the five has the highest approach vertical jump? What order would you rank these athletes from fastest to slowest?

Correct answers:

1. The first athlete has the highest VJ.
2. Fastest to slowest: Athlete 1, Athlete 5, Athlete 3, Athlete 4, Athlete 2.

From the Weight Room to the Court

Still think that lower limb stiffness and drills to improve this won’t impact athletic performance? From filming these videos and processing what I saw, it made me think about performing the straddle jump test on my athletes to see how many touches they could get in seven seconds. The results are shown in the table below:

As we can see from the table, the highest straddle jump score was 16 touches by Athlete 14. What’s interesting to note is that Athlete 14 also has the highest power output on the team. By that I mean he has the highest approach VJ, highest Penta Jump score, and is what we as strength coaches like to call “fast twitch!”

An interesting hypothesis from this would be that by improving their lower leg stiffness, I can improve their overall force production. This is exciting, as performing hurdle jumps and resisted or assisted jumps can be taxing on the nervous system. But by performing a smaller movement with fewer muscles and joints involved, I can hit this type of training 3-4 times a week in-season. Instead of making the athletes sore, we can microdose some jump training to improve their power production during the biggest training block of the year (in-season).

By improving their lower leg stiffness, I can improve their overall force production, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

Final Thoughts

Everything we do in the weight room is an experiment, every athlete reacts slightly differently to the stimuli we impose on them. Two freshmen can have vastly different training backgrounds, body composition, anthropometrics, biomechanics, muscle fiber composition, etc. With experience, we get a good idea of what works and what doesn’t work, how we should approach training freshmen with no training experience, how we should approach training a fifth year senior, which in-season lifts crushed the team in the past, etc.

Just like everything else I do from a programming perspective, this too will be an experiment for my lower-minute athletes in-season:

• Will performing Polish box and low box exercises lead to an improvement in these players’ force production?
• Will utilizing these exercises in my starters’ pre-lift warm-ups lead to any performance improvements?

Everything we do in the weight room is an experiment, every athlete reacts slightly differently to the stimuli we impose on them, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

Keep experimenting, keep asking why, keep being curious and finding ways to give your program a competitive advantage. I think there is incredible value in these exercises for my basketball players. I’m scratching the surface of what I can learn, and I’m excited to see how this can all tie together to produce a comprehensive holistic strength and conditioning program for them.

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