Blog

Mehh! Mehh! Mehh!

The alarm creates a cascade of cortisol, jolting me awake from a much-needed rest.

I check my phone—there’s no way it can be 4:30 already—but sure enough, it is.

To add insult to injury, it is pitch black outside. Not to mention, cold enough to turn my spit to string cheese as I hock when clearing my throat.

A warm shower would be nice. But it would soothe me, not “start” me. I pass on the hot water and instead, take a 10-minute walk in sub-zero temperatures to wake the hell up. Why? Because I’m a strength coach and gym owner. People like us do things like this, or so I’ve been brainwashed to believe.

Lucky me. It’s also the first of the month, meaning the gym gets paid today. Everyone’s credit cards and ACH get run. As I hear the crunching sound my shoes make on the snowy path, it reminds me of the sieve I’ve created for my bank account. The gym gets paid. The rent gets paid. The staff gets paid. And only then do I get paid, if you want to call it that. What’s left for me after taxes is pennies compared to the amount of work I put in.

“What the hell am I doing?” I mutter to myself. “I work so hard. Everyone is prospering except me. And I’m the damn owner!”

Sound familiar? This is the life of today’s strength coach and gym owner. Change is needed. And soon. Sooner than the day before yesterday.

While coaching athletes and seeing growth in your business is invigorating, it may come at a cost. Yes, you get fulfillment out of building relationships with each youngster who walks through your door. Yes, it is a damn good feeling to see your membership and monthly ACH increase each month. But while coaching and building a business, you are burning the candle at both ends, whether you know it or not.

If the grind this industry wears as a badge of honor is starting to wear on you, this article is for you. And if the work feels unrelenting, ruining any semblance of balance in your life, this article is for you. But if nothing changes, then nothing changes. More of the same leads to more of the same. And as a result, you may stay on the proverbial hamster wheel, or worse—want to leave the industry altogether. Call me crazy, but I believe you deserve to make not just a decent living, but a great one. This is exactly why I felt compelled to write this piece, so you can give up the grind.

Unfortunately, those who have paved the way for you now are blocking it. I may take some flak for this, but I know it is for your good and the betterment of the industry. The “old guard” preaches a do the work attitude day and night, saying things like:

• “If you’re waking up at 6:30 a.m., then you’re already too late.”
• “You need to decide if you’re going to be a business owner.” (Which means, “Your hobbies, workouts, and other things that fill you up need to be set aside.”)
• “If you’re going to try and be an expert then at least be in the game for five years first.”

If you would rather keep staring at your laptop screen until three or four in the morning because that’s what you were told to do in order to be successful, don’t let me stop you. However, if you would rather get in the driver’s seat of your life instead of daydreaming in the passenger seat, then follow and trust.

Imagine achieving financial freedom instead of living paycheck to paycheck. Imagine actually enjoying your mornings again rather than getting in the car half-asleep as you drive to the gym.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for hard work—trust me. But I’m also a huge advocate for doing nothing, and a lot of it. The irony in the latter is that when I find myself doing nothing—sprinting, reading, meditating, etc.—these are the times when some of my best ideas spawn. Then I can implement those new revelations into my deep work sessions, getting way more done in far less time.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for hard work—trust me. But I’m also a huge advocate for doing nothing, and a lot of it, says @huntercharneski. Share on X

Having owned a small private training facility for several years in West Michigan (excuse me, having a small private training facility owning me for several years), I’ve been where you’re at. But I also got out. My life is simpler now. I work way less and make more money than ever. Even when our small space served more than 100 athletes. But more importantly, I am helping others get off the hamster wheel and have some freedom, for Pete’s sake.

I live a bicoastal life now between Arizona and Michigan. I write every day. Some of that writing helps coaches and gym owners clarify their message, because most get embarrassed seeing their gym half-empty. Which results in working more hours and getting paid in frustration. And yes, I still coach. But I have built coaching around my life. Far too many do just the opposite. I can say, for the first time in my life, I am actually happy. And it didn’t take as long as you might think. Let’s break down how you give up the grind. 

The “Go-To” Coach

Becoming a “go-to” coach for something is relatively easy.

I used to think becoming a “go-to” coach—much less, being seen as one—would take more than half my life to achieve. Not to mention, the knowledge one must have would be astronomical. But here’s something you won’t find in any university, textbook, or business class: in order to be seen as the authority on a subject matter, all you need to be is one chapter ahead of those you’re educating.

Toward the end of 2017, the subject matter I wanted to plant my flag on was speed. Sprinting and all things helping athletes “get there first” was a hot topic at the time. Having owned a facility in which we prided ourselves on the one biomotor ability everyone wanted more of, I had credibility at the micro-level. But I knew my “reach,” so to speak, would have to be at the macro. 

Near the end of October, and with the new year fast approaching, I decided to host the first-ever #SPRINTORDIE Six-Week Speed Masterclass. (Some of you reading may have been part of it.) I would administer it in a private Facebook group. In the weeks leading up to the class, I posted an “Ask Me Anything!” story on Instagram. This was important for two reasons: anyone who asked a question was granted free access to the class, and the most frequently asked questions gave me insight into what people were struggling with. And thus, those questions became the modules for each of the six weeks (week one: drills; week two: footwear considerations; week three: hamstring rehabilitation; etc.)

The class exploded. Having more than 50 coaches and practitioners in the group eager to learn from me was a huge boost in confidence—something that is incredibly important if you plan to be an expert. To buy myself more time for engagement with the class’s attendees, I pre-recorded all the modules via Microsoft PowerPoint with a Camtasia add-in. This feature allowed me to present each slide and lesson without losing the human aspect, as Camtasia provides a small space for the consumer to see your face on their screen.

In order to increase engagement in the class, I assigned homework at the end of each module. These assignments included their biggest takeaway, which was important. When you ask someone what their biggest takeaway was, or what was most helpful to them, they’re going to provide positive feedback. It’s an honest admission that you provided value to them. They, and you, start to slowly see you as an expert. I also asked people to share videos of their drills, runs, and sprints. They wouldn’t be vulnerable and post a video of themselves if they didn’t trust you, right?

Gather Social Proof

Serve first, sell later.

If you’ve read Influence by Robert Cialdini, then you know how strong the human condition for reciprocity is. Remember, I did not charge any of the attendees one red cent for the class. I was simply building trust, relationships, and most importantly, competence. At the end of the six-week class, all I asked the attendees was:

• “If you think what you got out of this class is worth more than $500, will you please provide a brief video testimonial of your experience?”
• “How could I make it better?”

Since these coaches had free admission, of course they were going to provide testimonials and suggestions for future classes. And they did.

Start a Side Hustle

Repackage your free offering and sell it.

Repackage your free offering and sell it, says @huntercharneski. Share on X

With the first class ending mid-February, I decided I would host another just weeks later in early March. I re-recorded the modules based on the suggestions the attendees made in order to deliver a better experience. And then with the dozen or so video testimonials I had gathered, and not an ounce of marketing experience, I started posting them.

Cialdini also touches on the power of social proof. When your prospective clients see others having success with your product or service (add a smiling face too for extra credit), they will be more likely to buy. And that’s all I did. I posted a video testimonial on Instagram and Facebook every Monday, with a direct call-to-action, and when next Monday came around, I would post a different video testimonial.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

As people started signing up, I added them to the Facebook group one by one. Once added, in order to instill more excitement, I asked them to tell the group what they were most excited about heading into this class. My goal for the first paid master class was 10 individuals. Nine signed up. The price tag? $597 each. More than $5,300 for six weeks. Not bad. I’d say the first class (which was free, remember) was well worth it. I would go on to host several more master classes before moving to the next chapter of my life. But let’s discuss what you’ll do next.

Create a Product

You’re feeling good about the money you’re earning from this new side hustle of yours. But in order to truly give up the grind, you have to put your “income on autopilot,” a la Tim Ferriss. The process is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The good news is you’ve got all the lecture material from PowerPoint and Camtasia. In other words, you’ve got the “why” on your subject matter. The bad news is you’re missing the “how” with your product. People will buy the “why,” but they’ll form a line around the block for the “how.”

Either with your phone and a tripod, you will need to film the “how.” In other words, you need to have video evidence capturing that you not only know what to say, but how to coach your skillset as well. Don’t hold back on this part. Coaches love adding exercises to their database and will search high and low for cues they’ve never heard before. This will be the backbone of your product. Make sure it’s got plenty of meat on it.

They know the why. You’ve taught them the how. Now your buyers need a filter. Basically what this means is they want you to show them how to take what you’ve given them and apply it to their specific situation. They want to create their system, not duplicate yours. They want autonomy. Provide them with anecdotal evidence you’ve found in certain situations, examples including (but not limited to):

• How to apply this with youth athletes
• How to apply this with time constraints
• How to apply this with a small gym space
• How to apply this with bad weather
• Team setting considerations
• Private sector considerations

After you’ve created the product, the process goes quickly. Find someone who’s good with ClickFunnels or Infusionsoft to “house” your product, and then craft a lead-generating PDF to grow your email list. (I’m a fan of ConvertKit, personally.) This will allow you access to your potential customer’s inbox, so you can build that relationship and move them closer to the point of purchase when you’re ready to launch your new product.

Now, before my inbox overflows with contrarians, let’s discuss this strategy.

1. This strategy is meant to expedite, not overnight, your grind.

The problem with only being one chapter ahead of those you’re educating is you could be reading the wrong book. In other words, there are a lot of “experts” on social media who are anything but. They’ve been reading the wrong books for way too long. Hell, they’ve been in a different library altogether. Don’t be those folks.

You actually need to have some depth and experience with the subject matter. I hired Derek Hansen as my coach so I could literally immerse myself in sprinting. Yes, it gave me knowledge. Yes, I practiced what I preached. But what it did for me above all else is grant me empathy. “Knowing what it feels like…” is a secret weapon if you’re to be seen as an expert.

Remember: expedite, not overnight. I don’t know about you, but I’d take 18 months to grind if it meant my freedom got expedited by several years.

I don’t know about you, but I’d take 18 months to grind if it meant my freedom got expedited by several years, says @huntercharneski. Share on X

2. “This ain’t a diss song.”

It isn’t my intention to bash the industry’s greats who have been here long before most of us. It is only my intention to show that your path isn’t binary. The message preached about grinding for passion and pennies doesn’t sit well with me. Nor does the assumption, “If you aren’t willing to do so, then you’re in the wrong industry.” There is another way. This is another way.

Ironically, it was a member of the “old guard” who pushed me to become an expert on speed and take the leap into my new life: Jorge Carvajal. Jorge, I apologize for calling you old, my friend, but you’re a guy who’s been around for 30 years who too few know about!

3. Money isn’t everything.

At this point you might be thinking, “Dude’s a sellout,” and while you’re entitled to your opinion, I strongly disagree. If you think this article is purely about making more money, then you’ve missed the point. This is not an article about accumulation, but rather a shift in paradigm. In a word, freedom.

Was money important for me to extricate myself from Michigan and move to Arizona? Absolutely. Did it take a lot less money than you might think? You bet. Money can be a vehicle to drive you toward your dreams, no doubt. But it isn’t everything. John D. Rockefeller, who had more money than any of us ever will, once said, “A man’s wealth must be determined by relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on $10 and has everything he desires, he really is rich.” Having a “rich” life is easier to obtain than you think.

What If I Still Want to Coach?

I think it is safe to assume the majority of us got into this industry because we love coaching. If you’re like me, your affinity for kids is what lights a fire inside your coaching heart. This is why I am not advocating you give up coaching all together. I am hoping you will give up the grind of it, though. Allow me to explain.

When I still owned and operated my facility in Michigan, there was one class per day I lived for: the 5 p.m. middle school group. It was at the perfect time of day, for starters. I’m a lark, and so my cognitive functioning peak is in the morning. This allowed me to work on the business between 7 and 9 a.m. Then came self-care (something else the industry seems to frown upon, but that’s for another article), which for me was sprinting. After I ate lunch, it was about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I would take a nap, so I was charged and refreshed for the 20 or more rugrats who’d come barreling into the gym.

Anytime this didn’t happen was no one’s fault but my own. I would try to cram more work into the afternoon and/or early evening. Or worse, I would push aside the vital few tasks in favor of the trivial many. This might upset some, but those less important tasks usually were coaching all the classes. As the business owner, I was under the delusion that wearing every hat was possible, and even worse, worth it. In either case, this affected my love for both the business and coaching, which resulted in the middle schoolers not getting the best of me, but the rest of me when 5 p.m. rolled around.

So I was stuck. I loved coaching. But I also knew as the business owner (and now writer and marketing consultant) coaching every group was not a good use of my time. In fact, it cost me money. Before leaving for Arizona, I put systems in place so I could grow the business as well as coach the kiddos in the evening more often than not. Fast forward to life in Phoenix—my daily schedule looks almost identical. If I have clients in the evening, I train them. Or if it’s track season, off to Pinnacle High School I go.

My point is this: A coach’s life can be stressful., but it doesn’t have to be. You shouldn’t have to choose between coaching and owning a business. It’s just plain wrong to expect yourself to do everything if you’re in the private sector or in small team settings. You ought to have the freedom to pursue opportunities while still being a coach. You can have it all.

Getting Started

How will you be seen as a “go-to” coach as 2021 looms closer by the day? Kettlebell maestro? The plyo guy? Deadlift Debra? The possibilities are endless. My advice? It is easier to fill a need than create one.

• Ask yourself what subject matter you understand—and can teach—better than most.
• Once determined, announce your free master class, take questions, and convert FAQs into modules for your course.
• Anyone who asks a question gets admitted. Create a private Facebook group, and you’re ready to go come 2021.
• Change your FREE class into a paid one.
• Repackage your class into a product and put income on autopilot.

I look forward to watching you give up the grind and take the leap into the next chapter of your life. Or perhaps you’re more comfortable in the passenger’s seat, staring out the window as life passes you by? It’s your choice.

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

For numerous decades, the Olympic lifts (the clean and jerk and the snatch) and their various exercise derivatives have been a mainstay in many strength and conditioning (S&C) programs. Recently, there has been some controversy with regard to the validity of the benefits and the advocacy of including the “catch” during the execution of these exercises. While a formal instruction in the technical performance of the Olympic lifts is not the intended content of this commentary, provided are considerations for the inclusion of the catch during the performance of the Olympic lifts and their derivatives (i.e., power clean, power snatch).

I would like to thank Hall of Fame S&C coaches Al Vermeil, Johnny Parker, Al Miller, and Don Chu, and Coach Mike Gattone, Senior Director of Sports Performance and Coaching Education for USA Weightlifting, for their years of friendship and for all they have taught me about the technical aspects and benefits of Olympic weightlifting, as well as the overall training and coaching of athletes. I have included some of this information in this article.

The value of the Olympic lifts to enhance the physical qualities of both strength and power (rate of force development, acceleration impulse) is well supported in the scientific literature as well as numerous other educational materials. Publications by prominent researchers have compared the Olympic lifts that include the constituent of the catch to the pulling derivatives of these traditional exercises that exclude the catching of the barbell. Some of this research has found little difference between the two techniques, while others report greater performance potential utilizing the weightlifting pulling derivatives.

I am not aware of any recommendations in the research to omit the catching of the barbell during the execution of the Olympic lifts. Share on X

Regardless of these reported outcomes, I am not aware of any recommendations in the content to omit the catching of the barbell during the execution of the Olympic lifts. In fact, many researchers have recommended a combined inclusion of the Olympic lifts, comprising the catch, along with the pulling derivatives during the athlete’s training. I should also note that there are outstanding S&C professionals who have been successful utilizing the pulling derivatives without the catching of the barbell in the training of their athletes. Thus, the question arises, “Is the catching of the barbell during the performance of the Olympic lifts really advantageous?”

Prior to discussing the advantages of catching the barbell, it is important to recognize that no single exercise or exercise derivative is a safe “cut and paste” application for each individual athlete. If the athlete presents or historically reports a medical contraindication and/or orthopedic pathology that prohibits their participation in the performance of the Olympic lifts, the catching of the barbell, or any derivative of these activities, or any other exercise(s), they should not be a consideration for the athlete’s program design.

When presented with a contraindication for specific exercise(s) performance, there are likely alternative corresponding exercises that may be safely appropriate for inclusion for the enhancement of the same desired physical quality. However, in the absence of any exercise contraindication, why wouldn’t those athletes who are inexperienced in performing the Olympic lifts, including the catching of the barbell, participate in these activities as long as a viable process for a safe exercise teaching progression via an experienced and reputable coach is available? As with any other unfamiliar or poorly executed exercise or drill, the Olympic lifts may be taught, improved, and perfected over (training) time.

Exercise intensity is an additional consideration in regard to the application of unaccustomed stress, a requirement for physical adaptation to take place. High-intensity programming of any exercise also has the potential for vulnerability to the athlete. “High intensity” does not necessarily assume substantially heavy loads or maximal velocities but denotes an appropriate programmed level of intensity to which the athlete is unaccustomed. The exposure of an athlete’s vulnerability relates to all exercises executed with a programmed application of unaccustomed levels of stress (intensity).

During the sports rehabilitation and training of an athlete—especially during the training of the post-rehabilitated athlete—whether teaching a complex exercise, activity, or drill, including the programming of high exercise intensities, empirically the concern for athlete vulnerability is reduced if the sports rehabilitation and S&C professionals:

• Are aware of the athlete’s medical history, psychological state (i.e., the presence of kinesiophobia), and important environmental circumstances.
• Have an organized system of exercise advancement to safely and appropriately address and coach (teach) this undertaking.

Triple Flexion During the Olympic Weightlifting Performance

The discussion for the inclusion of the Olympic lifts during the course of the athlete’s training frequently includes the concept of triple extension. Triple joint extension occurs at the hips, knees, and ankles for the appropriate application of a directed force in such athletic activities as starting from the blocks, the initiation of a jump, etc. The same triple extension transpires for an effective application of an acceleration impulse during the performance of the Olympic lifts (figure 1). This acceleration impulse is produced with the intention of creating a high-velocity vertical displacement of the weighted barbell to overcome its inertia.

During these same conversations, the advantages of triple flexion are not often considered. Deceleration is a fundamental constituent of multidirectional speed to allow athletes to effectively change their state of momentum. High-velocity eccentric muscle contractions, along with the associated eccentric rate of force development (ERFD), are required for optimal high-velocity deceleration efficiency and effectiveness during such activities as landing from a jump, change of direction (COD), arm deceleration during throwing, stride leg braking forces at the time of the penultimate foot contact, and the transition of the lower extremity from the swing phase to ground contact in sprinting, to name a few.

The reversal of high-velocity movements requires the production of great eccentric muscle tension for efficient and effective deceleration, including at times the complete halting of the body and/or extremity(ies). The highest level of eccentric muscle tension correlates to movements that occur at high velocity as exhibited in the force-velocity curve (figure 2).

Many athletic injuries happen during the deceleration component of a high-velocity task including, but not limited to, landing from a jump, COD from a high linear velocity, and rapid deceleration braking-type tasks. The catching of the barbell transpires through a coordinated effort between the lower and upper extremities during a deceleration (triple flexion) of the athlete that occurs following an initiated high-velocity task (triple extension). Upon completion of the applied acceleration impulse, the athlete attempts to appropriately position themselves under the barbell by reversing their direction via a high-velocity descent and rapid change in posture (figures 3a and 3b) in preparation for receiving the barbell.

The greater the barbell’s ascending velocity, the faster the corresponding eccentric velocity of the athlete’s descent to assume a correct body posture for a successful catch of the barbell. Barbell velocities can be significant, and those for elite weightlifters that occur during the second pull of the snatch can be found in figure 4.

The initial high-velocity descent of the athlete that occurs prior to the catch carries on as the athlete continues to decelerate the “system” of the barbell weight in addition to their body weight to eventually assume a deep knee bend position. During the descent there is also a synchronous stabilization of the torso and upper extremities to catch and suitably maintain the proper position of the weighted barbell. The athlete then ascends to conclude the exercise in the erect standing position. The ability to decelerate at high velocity with accompanying strength and stability is essential to ensure a safe and optimal athletic performance when confronted with the required deceleration that transpires during various athletic endeavors.

Enhancing the athlete’s ability to produce high-velocity concentric (acceleration impulse, RFD) and eccentric (ERFD) qualities will also help to instill confidence in the application of force, as well as the acceptance of ground reactive forces. This is especially significant for the post-rehabilitated athlete who may present with kinesiophobia during training. Participation in competitive athletics requires the athlete to accept and redirect high levels of force.

Weaker athletes tend to rely more on ligaments for joint stability in high-intensity situations when compared to stronger athletes. Stronger athletes avoid a condition known as “ligament dominance,” a term coined by researcher and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) expert Dr. Tim Hewett. Ligament dominance takes place when the knee joint (or any joint) is more dependent upon the structure of ligaments for stability than the supporting joint musculature while resisting high levels of applied stress. Placing an emphasis on the ligaments instead of strong supporting musculature for joint stability may often result in undesirable orthopedic consequences.

Deep Knee Bend Exercises’ Relationship to Strength Development

Conversations with S&C professionals include declarations that the same eccentric contraction progression (descent) of the catch, and subsequent deep knee bend, that occurs during the Olympic lifts also transpires during the execution of other exercises such as the squat. Squatting-type exercises provide similar triple flexion eccentrics that are essential for the athlete’s strength enhancement; however, these eccentric exercise movements do not require or produce the same high-velocity descent, resulting in the eccentric muscle tension and associated ERFD that is produced during the Olympic lifts.

While squatting-type exercises provide similar essential triple flexion eccentrics as Olympic lifts, they do not require or produce the same high-velocity descent. Share on X

As an analogy, athletes traveling at maximum linear velocities would have to produce a greater ERFD and associated eccentric muscle tension with a very short deceleration runway requiring an abrupt deceleration and/or stopping of the body when compared to the presence of a very long runway allowing for a gradual deceleration. The catch component of the Olympic lifts has a very “short runway” to rapidly reverse (decelerate) the athlete’s body position as compared to the extended “long runway” of the squat exercise, which is performed at a lower velocity of descent. The squat-type category of exercises, although important for an athlete’s training, does not provide the additional benefits of the anticipation of the catch or preparatory exercise movement to enhance barbell velocity prior to the athlete’s deceleration.

The Triple Extension Relationship to Triple Flexion

The execution of the Olympic lifts requires an appropriately applied and directed accelerated impulse to propel the weighted barbell in the proper vertical direction (figure 1). The triple extension that results from the applied impulse may be considered the front-side mechanics of the Olympic lifts, resulting in a suitable backside mechanics where a rapid descent and appropriate posture transpire to safely catch and secure the barbell during the clean and snatch exercises. An optimally executed triple flexion is directly correlated to the athlete’s optimally executed triple extension as is synonymous to the sprinting cycle where optimal backside mechanics is contingent upon optimal front side mechanics.

Ideal triple extension is not just about applying a concentric acceleration impulse to the ground surface area, but also ensuring a precise high-velocity reversal of the athlete’s posture for an appropriate and safe barbell catch, support of the barbell, and deep knee bend triple flexion exercise conclusion.

Exercise Preparatory Movement and Exercise Depth

The preparatory exercise movement is an important component of the Olympic lifts. Bearing in mind that the resulting eccentric muscle tension (backside mechanics) directly corresponds to the concentric barbell velocity (front-side mechanics), a preparatory movement prior to the acceleration impulse will result in a greater overall barbell velocity when compared to exercises initiated from a stationary (dead stop) position.

Dr. Loren Chiu, an outstanding researcher, former competitive weightlifter, and friend, provided me with an analogy of this preparatory movement component of the Olympic lifts years ago. In the sport of drag racing, the drag racer accelerates from a dead stop starting position, as a race starts from a velocity of zero. In comparison, NASCAR racers exhibit a preparatory movement via their established pace velocity while circling the racetrack. Prior to their attempt to pass the race car directly in front of them, NASCAR race drivers will initiate their acceleration velocity from a higher preparatory movement (pace) velocity. Thus, the race car velocity at the precise moment of acceleration is higher in the NASCAR vehicle when compared to the zero velocity of the drag racer.

During the performance of the Olympic lifts, the first pull is the preparatory movement that occurs prior to the greater acceleration of the barbell that ensues at the initiation of the second pull. The preparatory movement of the first pull allows for a greater barbell acceleration velocity at the time the ascending barbell reaches the same height as a barbell exercise initiated from a stationary position upon blocks.

In both exercise conditions the weighted barbell will eventually decelerate to a velocity of zero at the moment of peak barbell height. However, a higher-velocity barbell will achieve a higher peak height, and the anticipation of catching a higher-velocity barbell affords a higher-velocity triple flexion of the athlete to position themselves under the barbell. The preparatory movement of the first pull results in a higher-velocity barbell when compared to non-preparatory pull velocities, resulting in a higher-velocity triple flexion descent. This high-velocity triple flexion descent will only occur with the inclusion of the catch.

The exercise depth distance that transpires during the post-catch descent has a significant influence upon muscle activity. Relative muscular effort (RME) is the term for the absolute muscle effort as related to the maximum strength of a muscle.^7,8 As an example, the RME of the deltoid and rotator cuff muscle groups of the shoulder complex would be lower during the task of placing a book on a high bookshelf when compared to pressing 200 pounds overhead. The gluteal as well as the quadriceps muscle groups are significant contributors to the athlete’s ability to optimally and effectively decelerate and redirect (COD) from high-velocity eccentric forces to high-velocity concentric movements. Greater exercise depth (distance), along with the associated applied barbell weight (intensity), has been demonstrated to best influence gluteal and quadriceps muscle activity.⁸

Exercise depth also improves and maintains joint mobility, joint stability, and the soft tissue compliance (flexibility) of the body. When performing the clean and the snatch exercises, the athlete assumes a deep knee bend position while supporting a weighted barbell. In the snatch, this deep knee bend position occurs with the arms positioned (extended) directly overhead. The overhead squat is a commonly utilized test to determine an athlete’s joint mobility and soft tissue compliance. The snatch mimics an overhead squat performance, thus maintaining both mobility and soft tissue compliance qualities. The athlete’s support of the overhead weighted barbell in this deep knee bend position also requires joint stability. Joint mobility, stability, and soft tissue compliance are significant attributes of the Olympic lifts that occur only with the inclusion of the catch.

Joint mobility, stability, and soft tissue compliance are significant attributes of the Olympic lifts that occur only with the inclusion of the catch. Share on X

Most athletic endeavors require the athlete to be able to frequently decelerate and change direction during competition. The athlete will only travel at velocities that directly correspond to their “braking” abilities. This is observed frequently in the sports rehabilitation setting, where the presence of kinesiophobia is prohibitive in the application and receiving of ground reaction forces. This is especially true in the case of the postoperative anterior cruciate ligament reconstructed (ACLR) knee athlete.

The inability to tolerate ground reaction forces has negative consequences for the ACLR athlete’s ability to produce high-velocity movements and redirect. It is very unlikely that anyone would drive a car over 100 mph if the car’s brakes couldn’t effectively stop it from these velocities. The clean and the snatch provide the qualities of strength and exercise velocity both concentrically (RFD, impulse) and eccentrically (ERFD), as well as the benefits of a deep knee bend exercise depth, all within the performance of a single exercise. However, for all of these physical quality benefits to materialize during this single exercise performance, it is necessary to catch the barbell.

Arm Length Discrepancy and the Snatch Grip

It is fairly common to work with athletes who present with leg length discrepancies, especially in the rehabilitation setting. However, there are also occasions, although less common, when athletes may present with upper extremity (arm) length discrepancies. When an athlete presents with an upper extremity limb length discrepancy, the snatch grip is a consideration for exercise performance.

The modified hand placement adjustment of the wider snatch grip allows the athlete to execute any exercise performance, including overhead tasks, while maintaining a parallel position of the barbell as related to the ground surface area. This is especially important when making the catch during the execution of the snatch exercise.

The Double Peak in Muscle Activation

It is acknowledged that intended exercise muscle activation produces both force and stiffness. Pinto² and McGill^2,3 have demonstrated that muscle activation and relaxation must be coordinated and precise to regulate movement while enhancing performance that requires both strength and velocity. As the muscle force generated creates a higher-velocity joint movement, the associated muscle stiffness slows joint velocity. Therefore, to increase levels of joint (limb) velocity, and in the case of a “striking” impact force (e.g., a hand, fist, foot, or body delivering a blow), the activation of muscles occurs in pulses.

These pulses are initiated by means of muscle activation, followed by a brief period of muscle relaxation, and conclude, once again, with muscle activation. This double pulse specific sequenced pattern phenomenon is introduced as muscle activity (force) initiates limb motion; however, as corresponding muscle stiffness attempts to reduce limb velocity, an immediate rapid relaxation transpires to enhance limb velocity. A concluding additional muscle activation then reestablishes muscle stiffness, resulting in an effective mass at the moment of high-impact strike force.³

Superior athletic performance has been linked to the rate of muscle relaxation in world champion golfers and Olympic sprinters⁵ and, yes, Olympic weightlifters as well⁶. Therefore, how is it possible for this double pulse muscle activation process of initial contraction (first pull), relaxation (at the conclusion of the acceleration impulse of the second pull), and second contraction (catching of the barbell) to occur during the execution of the Olympic lifts without the inclusion of the catch of the barbell?

The anticipated “impact” of the weighted barbell prior to the catch requires a second muscle activation and resulting stiffness that some coaches describe as bracing and stabilizing. The stiffness that occurs during the second pulse of muscle activity, resulting in a more effective mass, may be beneficial to enhance the ability of those athletes who commonly deliver a strike force (e.g., an MMA fighter, a football linebacker making a tackle) or better protect the athlete at the moment of receiving a strike force (e.g., an MMA fighter, a football running back being tackled).

Optimal limb and joint velocity is not only dependent upon the athlete’s ability to initiate high-velocity force (strength, impulse), “but by the rate of muscle activation and relaxation.”⁴ Coach Vermeil reminded me of the words of Coach Charlie Francis, who stated that great athletes not only activate their muscles rapidly but have the ability to relax them rapidly as well.

A simple analogy for this concept would be the cracking of a bullwhip (figure 5). The applied “double peak” wave observed with the bullwhip transpires with an initial muscle (activation) force peak (A) applied to the bullwhip, followed by relaxation (B), and concluding with a second force activation (C) to result in the high-impact force (crack) of the whip. The double peak force applied through a bullwhip is substantial, as a cracking sound is heard as the tip of the bullwhip moves faster than the speed of sound, creating a “mini” sonic boom.

The Body Position When Receiving the Barbell (the Catch)

As the athlete anticipates the “catching” of the weighted barbell by bracing and stabilizing their body, the lower extremity joint angles assumed (especially during the power clean) are very similar to the lower extremity joint angles that occur during the following activities:

• The initiation and application of a forceful impact to an opponent (e.g., boxer throwing a punch, football blocking).
• Accepting an externally applied forceful impact from an opponent (e.g., boxer receiving a punch, football linemen striking each other).
• Jump landings, as the catch may be considered and employed as a lead-up to plyometric activities.

The Split Jerk

Conversations about the catching of the barbell are usually linked to the clean and the snatch exercises and their exercise derivatives (i.e., power clean, power snatch). Fewer discussions include the catch of the barbell during performance of the split jerk.

The split jerk is an exercise that accompanies the clean (clean and jerk), or it may be performed as its own exercise entity. The split jerk, like the clean and snatch, is primarily a lower extremity exercise that starts via an acceleration impulse initiated by the lower extremities. As occurs with both the clean and the snatch, the execution of the split jerk also includes an exercise preparatory movement.

After completing a successful catch of the barbell, the jerk is initiated from the front racked position. At this point, the athlete dips a few inches by bending the knees, keeps the body erect (figure 6a), and reverses direction by applying an acceleration impulse into the ground by rapidly extending their knees to propel the barbell upward from its racked position on the shoulders (6b). The “dip” performed by the athlete prior to the execution of the jerk is an exercise preparatory movement resulting in high levels of peak power (6923 W) as well as mean power (4321 W)^9,10 of generated forces by the lower extremities. What is just as significant as the power produced is the rate of the work done during the execution of the jerk.¹⁰ These forces are then transferred through the kinetic chain of the body to the upper extremities as the barbell travels overhead.

As transpires with the clean and snatch exercises, the athlete reverses their direction after the upward takeoff of a high-velocity barbell by rapidly dropping and decelerating the body under the barbell (figure 6c) to assume a position of an anterior stride leg, a posterior extended opposite lower extremity, and extended arms directly overhead (figure 6d). They should align the extended arms with the ears (olecranon of the elbow) as they stabilize the torso with the weighted barbell positioned overhead. The athlete then concludes the split jerk exercise to assume a bilateral erect standing position with both arms maintaining their overhead extended position (6e).

The split jerk helps the overhead athlete (i.e., pitchers, javelin throwers, volleyball players, etc.) enhance arm velocity. High-velocity deceleration (braking) transpires from the anterior extending lower extremity to conclude in a stable stationary position. Pitchers with higher baseball (arm) velocities were those who demonstrated the following:

• Greater stride leg extension.
• Higher braking ground reaction forces from the extended stride leg.
• Posterior directed landing (braking) forces of the stride leg landing foot, reflecting a balance of inertial forces of the body moving forward to create baseball velocity.
• The landing (stride) leg serving as an anchor, transforming forward and vertical momentum into rotational components.
• The ability to “drive” the body over a stabilized stride leg.
• Increased forward motion of the trunk via stride knee extension during the acceleration phase of pitching.

The split jerk provides the following benefits for the overhead athlete during exercise execution:

• Enhanced stride leg extension.
• Enhanced stride leg landing (braking) ground reaction forces.
• Enhanced stride leg landing stability as well as overall body stability.
• Enhanced eccentric rate of force development to decelerate and “brake” the stride of the lower extremity from an initial high velocity.
• Maintaining a fully extended (shoulder flexion) overhead arm range of motion since deficits in throwing arm flexion of 5 degrees or more have resulted in an almost 3x increase in elbow injuries in throwers.¹¹

The split jerk can also play a significant role in the preparation of the athlete for optimal COD capabilities. The ability to change direction effectively includes the significant role of the penultimate foot contact. The penultimate foot contact is the second to last foot contact with the ground surface area prior to moving in the new intended direction.¹² The penultimate foot contact serves two main purposes:¹²

• Facilitate the ideal body position for an effective push-off during the final COD foot contact.
• Serve as a braking step to reduce the body’s momentum prior to the final foot contact push-off for COD. This is especially important in COD angles greater than 60 degrees.

The split jerk, which is advantageous for the development of arm velocity and safe and ideal COD capabilities, can only be performed with the inclusion of the catching of the barbell. Share on X

The enhancement of the athlete’s breaking force capability during the penultimate foot contact also ensures the athlete maintains a higher entry velocity, resulting in a faster COD speed with a corresponding reduction in in the ground reaction force on the turning plant step limb¹³. A reduction in ground reaction force has significant implications, as non-contact ACL injuries often occur on the planted lower extremity turning limb during sudden deceleration prior to the athlete’s attempted COD. The stride leg extension and associated braking force components of the split jerk are advantageous for both arm velocity and the safe and ideal COD capabilities of the athlete. The split jerk can only be performed with the inclusion of the catching of the barbell.

The Many Advantages of the Catch

Sports rehabilitation and S&C professionals have successfully utilized various exercises and training program designs to enhance an athlete’s physical qualities during their rehabilitation, as well as their athletic performance training. There certainly isn’t any single exercise that is “one size fits all” in the continuum of exercises available for both sports rehabilitation and training. Athletes are individuals who differ from each other with regard to their various medical, physical, psychological, and environmental circumstances, and training experiences. If there was one absolute best exercise and training program design, all sports rehabilitation and S&C professionals would utilize it.

Often, there appears to be a perceived exercise taboo, or assumption that certain exercises are dangerous for inclusion in an athlete’s training. It should be acknowledged that all unaccustomed training exercises and all unaccustomed applied exercise intensities present vulnerability to the athlete. We have rehabilitated many athletes in our physical therapy clinics who have been injured performing many various types of training exercises including single leg exercises, double leg exercises, and even the Olympic pulling derivatives without the inclusion of the catch.

A professional’s poor judgement and inappropriate selection/programming of an exercise for a particular athlete sets the stage for vulnerability, not the exercise itself. Share on X

If an exercise was truly “safe,” as would occur in the routine application of accustomed exercises and exercise intensities, how could physical adaptation possibly take place? What is truly unwarranted is a professional’s poor judgment and inappropriate selection and programming of an exercise for a particular athlete’s sports rehabilitation and/or performance training. These are the conditions that set the stage for vulnerability, not the exercise itself.

The intent of this article was to present the benefits of the catch component of the Olympic lifts for consideration and inclusion during the training of athletes. The Olympic lifts, as well as the catching of the barbell, provide many advantages for an athlete, as shown in figure 7. In order for the athlete to take advantage of all the benefits provided by the Olympic lifts that transpire during a single executed exercise performance, they much include the catch of the barbell.

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. Sandau I and Granacher U. “Effects of the Barbell Load on the Acceleration Phase during the Snatch in Elite Olympic Weightlifting.” Sports. 2020;8(5):1-10.

2. Pinto BL and McGill SM. “Voluntary Muscle Relaxation Can Mitigate Fatigue and Improve Countermovement Jump Performance.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2020;36(4):1525-1529.

3. McGill SM, Chaimberg JD, Frost DM, and Fenwick, CMJ. “Evidence of a Double Peak in Muscle Activation to Enhance Strike Speed and Force: An Example With Elite Mixed Martial Arts Fighters.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2010;24(2):348-357.

4. Cormie P, McGuigan MR, and Newton RU. “Developing maximal neuromuscular power: Part 1—Biological basis of maximal power production.” Sports Medicine. 2011;41(1):17-38.

5. McGill SM, “What I have learned from the great athletes,” Science Direct, 2011 Symposium on Human Body Dynamics; 128-130.

6. Matveyev L. “Ways of perfecting some functional properties and complex abilities influencing movement control.” In: Fundamentals of Sports Training. Moscow, Russia: Progress Publishers, 1981. pp 152-165.

7. Chiu LZF. “Biomechanical Methods to Quantify Muscle Effort During Resistance Exercise.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2018;32(2):502-513.

8. Bryanton, MA, Kennedy MD, Carey, JP, and Chiu LZF. “Effect of Squat Depth and Load on Relative Muscular Effort in Squatting.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2012;26(10):2820-2828.

9. Campbell BM, Stodden DF, and Nixon MK. “Lower Extremity Muscle Activation During Baseball Pitching.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2010;24(4):964-971.

10. Garhammer J, “Power Production by Olympic Weightlifters.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 1980;12(1):54-60.

11. Wilk KE, Macrina LC, Fleisig GS, et al. “Deficits in glenohumeral passive range of motion increase risk of elbow injury in professional baseball pitchers: a prospective study.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2014; 42(9): 2075-2081.

12. Dos’Santos T, Thomas C, Comfort P, and Jones P. “The Role of the Penultimate Foot Contact During Change of Direction: Implications on Performance and Injury Risk.” Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2018;41(1):1.

13. Jones PA, Herrington L, and Graham-Smith P. “Braking characteristics during cutting and pivoting in female soccer players.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology. 2016;30:46-54.

The split jerk (or jerk) is not only a unilateral movement, but among competitive weightlifters, we never change which leg is the lead leg. In American football, a punter/kicker has one job: kick the ball and kick it far. They spend hours practicing that kick with the same leg because it is sport specific.

Weightlifting is no different when it comes to the lead leg of an athlete’s jerk. We look for the most optimal and stable position for the athlete as they try to control max weights overhead. When an athlete finds that optimal position, they not only perform the lift correctly, they demonstrate the ability to change direction and absorb force under load—an element of strength needed by all athletes, regardless of sport.

In the sport of weightlifting, my friend and mentor Phil Sabatini (president of East Coast Gold Weightlifting) is fond of saying, “Clean is for show, jerk is for the dough.” In competition, you don’t get bonus points for having a really strong clean if you can’t jerk the bar over your head. It’s either a make or a miss. Having a strong and technically proficient jerk is the best way to ensure that after doing all that work to stand up the clean, you don’t lose it all, draw red lights, and blow the whole lift by missing the jerk.

Technical Cues

From a coaching perspective, we look for a vertical line from the barbell, down the spine, and into the hips, supported by the athlete’s center of gravity. There is a reason the lift is called a split jerk and not a lunge jerk. In the split squat position, the legs are equidistant from the hips. The hips are vertically in line with the torso, and the athlete’s center of gravity is balanced between both legs.

An athlete cannot maintain the vertical hip position throughout the movement if their back knee is straight or “locked out.” When the athlete lunges into the catch position, their center of gravity shifts forward and back. This makes it vastly more difficult for an athlete to stabilize a barbell overhead, as we now have an added (though unnecessary) vector of force.

A major problem we see in the catch position of the jerk is that lifters often catch the bar overhead with a locked back knee. This is problematic because it will ultimately limit how much weight they can jerk, as they will be out of position and unable to drop low enough under the bar at heavier weights. Coaching the split position is one thing, but performing it dynamically can be confusing for athletes.

Video 1. For beginners especially, I like to focus on the footwork first, then slowly add in the upper body.

The quick footwork drill above reinforces the proper way to transition from a bilateral to unilateral stance. This helps the athlete find balance in the lower body and reinforces the position of the legs before adding a barbell. Athletes must be trained and confident to bend their back knee in the split jerk position because the back knee matters!

Catch Position

As athletes perform the lift, starting from the top-down, the arms should be locked out overhead, with the bar directly over the spine. The shoulder joint is in between internal and external rotation, and the lats are engaged to support the barbell overhead. The scapula is protracted and in a slight upward rotation. Moving down the body, the t-spine should be neutral, and the rib cage should be closed. The shin of the front leg is vertical, and the knee is directly over the top of the front ankle. The back knee should be unlocked and slightly bent.

Some lifters will have more of an exaggerated bent knee than others, but in any case, they should never lock the back knee, says @nicc__marie. Share on X

Some lifters will have more of an exaggerated bent knee than others, but in any case, they should never lock the back knee. For more information on the split jerk position and some other tips for improvement, you can read my article “Split Jerk Considerations.”

A locked back leg causes two big issues for the jerk. Due to the timing of the legs and the barbell overhead, it can be an orthopedic recipe for disaster. The athlete’s feet come into contact with the floor slightly ahead of the barbell being locked out overhead. If the back knee is pushed into extension, it will be more dangerous to receive the load overhead without some type of compensation or shift of the hips. This can cause unwanted hyperextension in the low back and puts more strain on the hip flexors.

From a technique perspective, having the back knee straight makes it more difficult for the athlete to drop low enough under the barbell. The jerk encompasses similar principles of physics as the clean and the snatch. The athlete is moving under the bar, not pressing it up. Without a bent back knee, it becomes a lot more difficult for the athlete to drop underneath, which means they must drive heavier weight higher up into the air. And we all know who wins in that scenario…gravity.

Understanding that the back knee should be bent in the catch position is one thing, but executing it is another. Sometimes it’s the muscular strengths and weaknesses of the athlete that can cause this technical error. When an athlete locks their the knee, it shows that they are either biasing the quad for stability or incapable of stabilizing through the glute. When the athlete locks the back knee, they are trying to find stability in the split position, thinking that a locked or “stiff” back knee will provide them with the ability to stop the barbell overhead and maintain the necessary position before they recover.

If an athlete has less than ideal mobility in their shoulders in the overhead position, they will compensate by opening up the rib cage and extending into the thoracic and lumber spines. As the rib cage opens, one of two things can happen:

1. The athlete will attempt to bend their knee, causing the bar to end up too far behind them and leading to a missed lift.
2. They will be forced to lock the back knee in extension to try and maintain the correct bar path despite their lack of mobility. When this happens, the athlete’s back knee inherently locks—if not, the barbell will end up too far back behind them, causing them to miss the lift.

In order for the athlete to feel comfortable unlocking the back knee, we must address their shoulder mobility and trunk stability issue.

Band and Stability Exercises

A commonly voiced concern from coaches and athletes when considering the Olympic movements is a lack of mobility. However, the importance of overhead stability must be emphasized. Specific to the jerk, the more confident and stable an athlete feels overhead, the more likely they are to drop under the bar and bend their back knee without hesitation. Knowing the shoulders are in a strong solid position allows them to place their focus on the lower half of the body during the catch position.

Specific to the jerk, the more confident and stable an athlete feels overhead, the more likely they are to drop under the bar and bend their back knee without hesitation, says @nicc__marie. Share on X

Crossover Symmetry bands are a great tool to help improve shoulder mobility while maintaining integrity in the trunk. If done correctly, the athlete has to utilize their core to maintain their trunk position and allow the shoulder blades to work independently of the spine. One of my favorites movements to do are snow angels: The athlete must maintain their position and not allow the band to pull the shoulders forward as the arms abduct into overhead flexion.

Video 2. Band y-raise to overhead squat.

As the athlete gets comfortable in a static position, we can move them into dynamic movement with the bands such as a band y-raise to overhead squat (above). The integrity of the trunk is still maintained, but the lower half is now more involved even though the focus is still on building overhead mobility. The athlete must maintain the overhead position as they lower down into the squat.

Bands aren’t the only tool that athletes can use to improve overhead mobility and trunk stability. One of my favorite exercises is the kettlebell halo. Similar to the snow angels, the athlete works on moving the shoulder blades independent of the ribs and torso. A way to progress this movement and make it weightlifting specific is with a KB halo from split. The athlete gets in the proper split position for the jerk and stabilizes as they circle the kettlebell around their head. In this position we are able to see if the athlete is learning to control the neutral spine required in the jerk.

Don’t Bend It Too Much

Now, there are always some exceptions to the “rule.” The caveat to this entire article is that if the back knee is too bent, then the athlete may feel a little less stable than with just a slightly bent back knee. For athletes who habitually shoot their back leg completely straight, I reinforce bending the back knee by cueing “back knee down” or “drive the back knee into the platform.” Does that mean I want the knee to get so low it almost slams into the ground? No! But they are so far into the wrong movement pattern in one direction that by overemphasizing the cue, they will find the proper position we are looking for.

Just like every other movement in weightlifting, various athletes’ jerk positions will all be slightly different based on their biomechanics, but it is important to remember that the principles to train this position are the same across the board. We need:

• Mobile shoulders and a stable torso.
• Strong hip flexors and adductors.

It is simply our job as coaches to understand whether the athlete locks that back leg because they are uncomfortable with the position or because a technique deficiency forces them to do so to get under the bar. In either case, set your athletes up with the tools to fix it and get some bend in that back knee!

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

A well-run middle school track program can be a game-changer for both the varsity track program and the school’s athletic program in general. Middle school-aged athletes are interesting cases in that they don’t primarily need to play any longer, but they also don’t need a high school training regimen. If a coach can find that sweet spot, the kids will fall in love with sprinting, jumping, and throwing and reap benefits for years to come.

A well-run middle school track program can be a game-changer for both the varsity track program and the school’s athletic program in general, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Although I have never directly coached middle school track, I have observed enough practices through the years at Triton and other schools to see what works and what doesn’t. As I see it, the middle school coach, has three very important jobs:

1. Make them want to come back.
2. Teach foundations that allow for a transition to high school track with movement competency.
3. Expose them to an array of events and give a clear picture of both TRACK and FIELD.

That’s it for the big picture. Yes, you will have athletes who instantly love it and will be “trackletes” for life, but for the majority of middle school kids, this will be their first exposure to the sport and one they approach with trepidation. There should be some feel-good fun, but at the core there has to be age-appropriate training.

Here are five tips for a middle school coach to make their athletes’ experiences both productive and appropriate.

1. Lay the Track and Field Foundation

Both practices and attention spans are short in middle school so some deviation from traditional training and rest is okay, but there should be no need for non-stop entertainment.

Because track and field is a novel concept, in the early going we need to take some care in selling the legitimacy of the sport. Middle school kids are already searching for their identity and in some respects are trying to distance themselves from being seen as little kids. Age-appropriate training doesn’t need to be a circus, and there are plenty of ways to make things palatable for young teenagers that still are rooted in purpose. Hook them in, but don’t be afraid of giving them a dose of reality that track and field is a real sport, and one that measures raw athleticism.

Age-appropriate training with middle schoolers doesn’t need to be a circus, and there are plenty of ways to make things palatable for young teenagers that are still rooted in purpose. Share on X

In a four-day training week, the middle school coach can set aside a day of “X-factor” fun that perhaps culminates in a game that gets the kids laughing and breathing hard while applying learned concepts. Games like “capture the flag,” “spikeball,” speedball, obstacle course, and ultimate frisbee will always have a place, but they should not comprise the majority of training. Kids are your best recruiters and ambassadors, and if they feel the program is about games and entertainment, then the program’s reputation is most likely shot when the kids talk amongst themselves. Kids want to feel like they are a part of something, and while relationships are important, in my experience they also want to feel the coach is knowledgeable and provides structure.

Some tips to make the “mundane” have a bit more pop:

1. Utilize various position starts for accelerations. In a set of 10x10m accelerations you can have them start flat on their stomach, kneel, cross-legged, on back, tuck and roll, push-up position, two-point, two-point deep crouch… The coach is really only limited by their imagination, and all variations can strengthen the block start down the road. After a walk back and an explanation of the next rep style, enough time passes to hit another rep. This is a great way to keep them running fast and sprinkle in some track-specific starts as you go.
2. Accelerations relay-style in teams of four or five. Choose a distance 10-30 yards on the turf to have an easy start line. Pick a start position and get off to the races. Tag the outgoing runner’s hand and have them cheer their teammate on. If the races are even, then keep the teams the same. If not, mix them up. Review some good acceleration cues between races, and soon you are ready for another round.
3. There are plenty of opportunities to race or time things that are not purely sprint-based. Things like skip races, hop races, and gallops measured over 10 mini hurdles for time are nice ways to drive intent and competitiveness naturally while not getting ridiculous. It is also a great chance to see who is learning and improving without coach instruction. Review these items and others daily but also allow them to just do it.

“We work hard and have fun” is a nice way to phrase it. Fun might attract them, but results and growth make them stay. Sprinkle in fun, but don’t be afraid to take care of business first.

2. Don’t Worry About the Events – Coach the Athletes

The typical middle school athlete, at least in Massachusetts, is very much getting their first exposure to track and field in middle school. They are not setting the track on fire yet. Even if they were, the eighth-grade state meet is not the end of the road. This is not meant to minimize early success, as success is motivating, but the first goal should be to pass off kids with some movement competency to the high school coach.

My advice to middle school coaches would be to spend a decent amount of time each day drilling sprint drills and allowing for exploration of key movements.

I often hear coaches and trainers say that kids don’t need to be taught to land, skip, and jump, as they can do these things instinctively. From where I sit, I see a huge need for this instruction and exploration now more than ever. With puberty comes increased body mass, which seems to often bring coordination loss, and that can require a second wave of motor relearning. A 60-pound fifth grader can quickly become a 6-foot 150-pound high school freshman who is all arms and legs.

I teach fifth grade, so I see elementary school kids at recess. Recess is short, and there seems to be less play in general. My point is, don’t assume that because they are young, they are not far removed from this. For an eighth grader, it is likely 2-3 years since they have had recess, and even if they play other sports there is no guarantee that the emphasis has been placed upon development.

YouTube has a host of drill videos, but unfortunately, not a lot go in-depth on how to do them correctly. I have yet to see a great basic sprint drill resource that highlights “have-tos” and applications for a given drill. Doing drills and easy plyometrics badly strikes me as potentially harmful, or it can at least cause stagnation if the body gets mixed signals.

I would suggest finding athletes who have the look and the function down on a given drill and cue the rest of the team off of their model. Communicate with the varsity coach or another track coach that you trust and ask them where to start. Staying consistent through these awkward and developing years is a great way to get ahead of becoming fast.

3. Speed Kills, but Rhythm Is King

Rhythm is something I believe needs to be present in all track events from the 100-meter up to the 2-mile. Of course, it is hard to quantify rhythm, unlike velocity, power, and strength numbers, so I do feel that this is kind of glossed over in favor of the more measurable stuff. “Pretty” doesn’t guarantee fast, but fast should always be pretty.

These are prime speed-building years, to be sure, but I have always tended toward pushing them to “earn the fast.” A freshman who displays rhythm in most things will be just fine once they can produce more force, they get older, and their CNS adapts to the speed training.

If I was to explain rhythm, I would describe it as…

1. Legs that switch (remove and replace) at the same time.
2. Arms that move up and down and seem to contribute to movement and vertical forces.
3. An ability to run at different tempos or shift through first gear to the fifth without any coordination issues.
4. Appropriate relaxation, forward lean, and posture with a long spine so that reflexes in the lower limbs can reveal themselves.

Other coaches may have different ideas as to how to define this, but this has been a nice starting point for me. There are many ways to work this with middle school athletes that are fun and not painful.

There is a tremendous opportunity to use drills that utilize buildups in speed, distance, or height. Some of my favorites as of late are:

• Gallop buildups – Five gallops, each making a subtle and progressive increase in distance.
• Skip buildups – Blend loose skips into progressively longer alternating skips until good-looking maximal skips for distance are attained.
• Prance quick to high – Start with short choppy contacts and build subtly and evenly toward a prance with maximum pop without changing posture or foot strike location.

Watch for postural compensations and encourage athletes to take the good habits for the lower-intensity exercise into the longest, highest, or fastest variation.

You can also do this by manipulating running tempos in a kid-friendly way. One of the best workouts I have seen came from our old middle school coach, Dennis Donoghue, a few years back. He used a variant of “Cheetahs, Deer, and Elephants.” I believe he used slightly different animal names.

In this game, each animal that you call out corresponds to a different speed:

• Cheetah = sprint
• Deer = fast-paced run
• Horse = easy run
• Elephant = race walk
• Dog = jog
• Turtle = walk

This is essentially an age-appropriate fartlek with embedded tempo sprints. Coaches can tailor it to event groups as well. For example, for a sprint athlete a coach could design something that is achievable and doesn’t result in a death march. An example set:

1. Cheetah– 5 seconds (fast)
2. Turtle – 20 seconds
3. Deer – 15 seconds (tempo like)
4. Turtle – 20 seconds
5. Dog – 30 seconds
6. Turtle, and talk with friends for three minutes. Repeat as appropriate.

A distance coach could also look at these animals and design a workout geared toward a specific goal. I think exposure to different running speeds is important for developing concepts of rhythm and pacing. In my experience, SOME kids just need to get better at running before they can be good sprinters.

I am much more in favor of running for time rather than distance and watching/cueing the kids to figure out how to best distribute their effort over the whole length of time, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Obviously, this is not the only type of running workout you can do, but I would be much more in favor of running for time rather than distance and watching/cueing the kids to figure out how to best distribute their effort over the whole length of time.

A 5- to 10-second sprint may be full tilt, but a few reps of 15- to 20-second runs approaches 150m rhythm and 20-30 seconds may be closer to 200m+. Variety in these timed intervals with appropriate rest would be a terrific way to encourage fast and rhythmic running. Doing them on grass can also provide a new surface. A session of reps with a mix of times from long to short or vice versa could be terrific.

If there is enough rest between reps, ask athletes how they felt and tell them what you saw. Include them in your coaching and hold them accountable for what they do. For example:

• “How did you feel? You looked smooth. Can you do another exactly the same way?”
• “You went out too fast on that 30-second rep, but I love that you figured it out and ended beautifully.”
• “That 10-second rep looked really easy for you. The next time I want you to run with John.”

You should cue them or use analogies to get them to run with a different feel, but never be completely erratic with the speed and pace. We have all seen the clueless freshman blaze a warm-up lap on the first day of practice or end up carrying a refrigerator on their back the last 75 meters of a 300m because they went out too fast.

The above preparation and learning would help kids understand early without preaching that a workout in their future such as 5x200m has a much different feel than, say, 3x350m (special endurance), 4-6×60 (short speed endurance), and 2x150m (speed endurance). Likewise, a 100m differs greatly from a 400m in race model.

4. Teach the Fundamentals of Field Events and Hurdles

Kids will get taller, faster, and stronger naturally. I have seen kids succeed at the middle school level just because they are tall/big but then have to completely start over when they get to high school. The throwing implements are lighter and the hurdles are lower in middle school.

For example, the boys’ hurdles height at the middle school is 33 inches (6 inches lower than high school) and shot put weight is 8 pounds (4 pounds lighter than high school). It is very possible for a fast or tall kid to do very well in these events without much instruction or technique.

The same goes for the girls, where the shot put is 4 pounds compared to the high school weight of 4 kilograms. Additionally, while the turbo javelin is a great first encounter with the javelin, it hardly flies like a real javelin.

I suggest working key movements and exercises that teach and prime the athletes for the future rather than spending most of the time at the jumping pits, throwing circles, and hurdling at race distance and race height.

Here are some drills and exercises that I think are fun and key to work specific events in conjunction with the other training.

• Long Jump = gallops, gallop buildups, run-run-jumps, short approach pops
• High Jump = circle runs, curve gallops
• Shot Put/Discus = med ball throws (general throws before rotational), cariocas, hip disassociation drills (Dak Prescott “hip whip” drill?)
• Hurdles = single leg A-skips/rain dances, hurdle gallops, trail leg, lead leg skips, cycle ladder with banana hurdles progressing to red training hurdles, low hurdles with discounts, general flexibility/hurdle mobility

Again, there are many ways to address specific event needs without specificity. I think the list above gives an athlete a pretty good chance to learn the event and attain some success in the present but be ready to adjust and build at the high school level.

There are many ways to address specific event needs without specificity, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

5. Promote Middle School and High School Interactions

Our track team at the varsity level has a lot of interactions with the middle school track team. The middle school team practices from 2:30-3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and the varsity team from 3:00-5:00 p.m. That half hour overlap allows the middle school athletes to see what the varsity team is doing and vice versa.

Relationships are underrated, and a star senior track athlete looks like a grown man to a seventh grader and can be a role model for a younger athlete. Sometimes a voice other than the coach’s can change a kid’s mindset and work ethic.

The middle school team has a track meet once per week, so on those days the high school athletes finish practice earlier and help run the field events. This helps the high school athletes learn a little bit of responsibility. The middle school athletes are excited to show what they can do against the competition in front of the older kids.

Occasionally, if it is a light day for the high schoolers and there are some athletes on the middle school team thriving, the high school athletes will pull a couple of the younger kids to the side and give them some tips for their events. As long as the middle school coach is there, the varsity coaches often do the same.

All of this is good for everybody, as names are learned, and bonds are formed that keep everyone coming back. This is great for the culture of the team and rewarding for coaches who can see their former athletes blossom at the high school level. 

Keep the Big Picture in Mind

Being a middle school coach is an important job and one that is often overwhelming because you are short on time. Establish good habits early and keep it simple. Narrow the focus and remember that sometimes the jack-of-all-trades becomes the master of none.

If you do it right, the relationships and training can make the middle school team a farm team that has freshmen ready to do something productive on day one of the season, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Good athletes fill out event rosters, so focusing on athletic development along with speed and rhythm can slow-cook the process. Of course, kids are not ready for university-style training, but showing some reality in an age-appropriate training week can hook kids and make them feel proud to be on the track team.

Focusing on drills and exercises such as the cycle ladder in the hurdles and gallops in the long jump puts the emphasis on the skill needed to do the event even if the athlete hasn’t sprouted to full height or speed yet.

If you do it right, the relationships and training can make the middle school team a farm team that has freshmen ready to do something productive on day one of the season.

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

Paypal investor Peter Thiel has long argued that despite the American love affair with competition, truly great businesses are actually built upon monopolies and that “competition is for losers.” Entities engaged in perfect competition race to the bottom in price until there is no profit left to capture by either side.

Case in point: Modern airlines compete furiously for passengers and now profit less than $1 per passenger (any additional profit is a product of excess fees). Total market size for aviation: $581,000,000,000 annually. Now contrast this to Google, whose proprietary technology has made it the only true game in online search (65% market share worldwide), with greater profits than all the airlines combined at $35 billion for 2019, despite the significantly smaller market size of digital advertising relative to aviation. While these business-world examples are not perfect lessons for a strength coach who wants to improve their career, if we don’t learn our value now, we will continue to be undervalued in the future.

Coaching Capital in Modern Strength and Conditioning

So how is a monopoly built? Thiel argues that all great businesses are built on a secret—something you know to be true that others disagree with you on or have yet to realize. When the opposition knows what you know, they copy you, and most or all of the advantage is competed away.

In parallel, Oaktree Capital investor Howard Marks often describes the concept of the price being “baked into” an asset or security. Following the crowd—investing where the masses invest—bids up the price until there is no value left to capture. He argues that successful investing lies in having the courage to go against the grain, but also having sufficient judgment to know whether the masses are avoiding it because it’s actually a dumb idea!

Sport is no different. There is a constant arms race between teams to gain a competitive advantage. Organizations attempt to unearth “secrets” currently unavailable to other teams, be that an original tactical scheme, training technique, recovery tool, or method of processing and interpreting data. Early adopters enjoy a competitive advantage over the opposition, the opposition figures out what is going on, they either match or nullify the innovation, the advantage disappears, and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum.

The University of Nebraska strength & conditioning program of the 1970s is a classic example of this in action. At the time, the program was truly cutting-edge, and it coincided with a time when the Cornhuskers won two back-to-back national championships and never dropped below a nine-win season the entire decade. Look at the program now: It’s still a quality program, but the rest of the world caught up by copying them. Many high school programs are even using the same algorithms and scoring from Nebraska today, from testing companies who license the calculations. The goalposts have moved, forcing teams to innovate in other ways.

So, what does this have to do with strength and conditioning being broken? Well, all support staff (including strength and conditioning) serve the broader mission of the organization: to win. If the clearest route to success lies in innovation and uncovering hitherto unknown competitive advantages, it is incumbent upon every member of the team to uncover them where they exist within their area of expertise. We must invest time, effort, and resources into the arms race. We will not stumble our way into the next big thing.

Coaching Better Requires Better Coaches, Not More Hours

Numerous businesses in the “real world” understand the value of research and development (R&D) and invest vast resources into making it happen. The annual U.S. military budget for research and development now exceeds $150 billion. Google dedicates a full 20% of the work week to the pursuit of free projects that will push the company forward; if you’ve ever used Gmail or Google Maps, you’ve benefited from this initiative. Warren Buffet spends 5-6 hours per day just reading and gathering information.

At its worst, the collegiate system of strength and conditioning is set up to produce coaches who get better and better at delivering the same program year after year. Share on X

Now let’s contrast this to the average collegiate strength and conditioning coach. Most coaches spend around 12 hours per day at the facility, for a total of 60 hours per week. The following are estimates based on my experiences and those of my colleagues in the collegiate sector:

• 30 minutes for lunch per day, and we’re down to 57.5 hours.

• Take away eight hours per day for time spent on the floor coaching, setting up, or breaking down sessions, and we’re down to 17.5 hours.

• Estimate one hour per day for using the bathroom, transitioning between training locations, and other miscellaneous activities like correspondence and interacting with coaches, equipment maintenance, budgeting, etc., and we’re down to 12.5 hours.

• Take another hour per day for programming, planning, data gathering and processing, and meetings. Now we’re down to 7.5 hours.

• Spend three hours per week training yourself, and all that is left is 4.5 hours per week.

That’s 55.5 hours spent IN the system, and only 4.5 hours spent ON the system.

Coaches spend less than 8% of the working week on learning, developing, and innovating for the future. (It might not even be this much, as I tried to use generous estimates.)

If you’ve been coaching any appreciable amount of time, you probably know a veteran coach who has been in their post for 20+ years. They’re well-liked, and their interpersonal manner with the staff and players is effective, but the program simply doesn’t change. Rather than 20 years’ experience, it is simply one year of experience repeated 20 times. At its worst, the collegiate system of strength and conditioning is set up to produce coaches who get better and better at delivering the same program year after year.

And the time that we do have available to innovate comes piecemeal throughout the week: 30 minutes here, 15 minutes there. The more distributed this time becomes, the harder it is to use it productively. The natural reply may be that dedicated coaches should take their work home with them to make time, but the average coach is already overworked, with a strained family life and deteriorating physical and mental health. More work on top of that is not the answer, and it typically just leads to coach burnout, dissatisfaction, and staff turnover.

Beyond Football Strength and Conditioning

Those coaches on the Olympic side are doubly set up to fail by being assigned an inordinate number of sports and athletes to oversee. Double the responsibilities and you double the administrative load of scheduling, programming, testing, and meetings. We expect breadth not depth from our coaches. It is tough to get lost in the weeds and push the envelope of a program when it competes with multiple other sports where there are 100 athletes for every qualified coach. The relationship between athlete numbers and coaching quality is an inverse one, and institutions that want to develop Rolls Royces need to understand that they cannot achieve this with a production line mentality or budget.

Institutions that want to develop Rolls Royces need to understand that they cannot achieve this with a production line mentality or budget. Share on X

There are a limited number of productive working hours in the week. It follows that every hour spent IN the system (any activity unrelated to long-term innovation or development) competes for time spent ON the system (unrelated to the day-to-day operations but serving the long-term competitiveness of the organization). There is, of course, a place for both, but the balance clearly needs to shift if we are truly about what we say we are. Three primary barriers currently block the path:

1. Schools have an economic incentive to maximize the number of athletes per strength and conditioning coach within legal, moral, and logistical limits, to maximize the number of “on the floor” hours per day and move the greatest number of athletes per day through the gym. Most schools secretly believe, but would never publicly say, that a bountiful supply of labor and telling the staff to just work longer and harder is a much cheaper solution than hiring more qualified coaches or building weight rooms that can handle larger volumes of athletes.
2. Glaring inefficiencies exist at nearly every level of every athletic department, in even the most well-staffed and spacious weight rooms. Physical preparation is always an afterthought, at the mercy of class schedules. Endless repetition of the same session for small groups repeated throughout the day is the norm.
   
   A staff member relayed to me one example of a nationally ranked team in which there were two coaches and interns on the gym floor for every athlete in the group. If the expectation is that all coaches are on the floor for every session, it only exacerbates the waste of time and energy. Ask yourself: If the head coach had to deliver the same practice six times per day, how long do you think it would take before a new class schedule was worked out? I would guess not long.
3. There is a broken culture that prizes activity over productivity. In a highly competitive field like strength and conditioning, it can be easy to succumb to the pressure to be seen to be working. More hours on the floor, more hours in the facility, ABC—Always Be Coaching. The conundrum is that while research, innovation, and working on systems are less-tangible forms of work than guarding your desk, the most successful performance directors in the field make their salaries for their influence exerted and contributions made outside of the weight room.

So, what must change? First, we must force institutions to realize that the prevailing wisdom is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Saving money by flooding the floor with interns and GAs looks good for athlete ratios but is simply adult babysitting in disguise. The closer the ratio of athlete to strength and conditioning coach can be brought in line with that of sport coaches, the greater time and attention to detail the athletes will receive and the more the program benefits.

For those coaches who are salaried, the standard practice of hiring the lowest level of competence and paying the lowest wages that you can get away with is great for balancing the books, but it hijacks the ultimate goal of long-term development. As much as institutions like to tell the story that their high-performance system is theirs, the truth is that when the senior staff members leave, it leaves with them, forcing the department to start all over again from square one. If the seats on the bus are always changing, the program will never gain any momentum.

Commit to a High-Performance Model

True high performance should be about hiring sufficient coaches to give each athlete the care and attention they need to fulfill their potential in every factor of their athletic development. Clear their path of unnecessary and repetitive work. Pay them enough to make them want to stay. Is money the only factor? No, but it’s a major factor when your staff live paycheck to paycheck. Play the long game, outspend the competition, and you’ll take this issue off the table.

True high performance should be about hiring sufficient coaches to give each athlete the care and attention they need to fulfill their potential in every factor of their athletic development. Share on X

The argument that “the money simply isn’t there” falls on deaf ears when coaches see buildings being built that run into the tens of millions of dollars. If “you win with people,” why don’t we allocate a portion of donations to sponsoring staff positions, giving bonuses or raises to the staff, or funding long-term education? The truth is probably simply that donors want to see their name on a building, not a person, but institutions should be more forthright in advising donors on where they ought to spend their money.

Second, institutions must understand the long-term value of innovation. If we are not creating and respecting time, education, research, staff development, and innovation that moves the team toward its stated mission, we are not serving the athletes at the highest level. A few minutes of reading grabbed here and there and a couple of weekend seminars per year will not move the needle.

I’ve personally implemented the policy that before we add anything else to the schedule, we block out half a day per week for each coach. The expectation is that they remove themselves from the building, make themselves unavailable to the athletes and other demands on their time, and work on a project that moves the department forward. These are presented to the team on a “midterm-ly” basis, and we incorporate the best into the departmental structures on a permanent basis.

Where inefficiencies exist, you should remove them whenever possible. Anything that can be done once should not be done twice. Exert as much influence as possible on the institution to organize class schedules around training and competition, not the other way around. The school pays each athlete tens of thousands in tuition alone to excel at sport when representing the university, let’s see the scheduling reflect that.

If a technology doesn’t offer more insight for the same amount of work, or the same insight for less work, save your money. Share on X

Furthermore, systems and technology should be implemented where possible to automate repetitive tasks such as data collection and processing. If a technology doesn’t offer more insight for the same amount of work, or the same insight for less work, save your money.

Invest in Performance Gyms – Not Equipment Showrooms

When checks are being written for new facilities, let’s be honest that equipment manufacturers and recruiters often do more to drive weight room design than strength and conditioning staff. “One of every machine” typically trumps floor space and athletes flowing through the facility. The footprint of a four-way neck machine for guys to do a couple of sets of neck once per week could be occupied by as many as four athletes every session every day if it was another rack. Forgoing cardio mezzanines, country club locker rooms, and other recruiting eyewash means you can add to the square footage of the gym and bring down the unnecessary repetition of work.

The best example of weight room efficiency I have come across was a nationally ranked program from Texas that reduced their physical preparation work during the off-season and pre-season to one session per day. All hands on deck, focus and intensity for 2-3 hours, then handle all your other business for the day. If you could cut just one two-hour session from your day, you could replace that with anywhere from 60-100 pages of reading. Three sessions per week? Forty weeks of training per week? You’re now reading an extra 12,000 pages per year. For reference: War and Peace is 1,200 pages long.

That is a LOT of learning and development that gets lost to needless repetition. Do we all have the potential to run just one session per day? No, but many inefficient teams can, and we can all make more time for much-needed innovation and streamlining regardless of our resources.

Lastly, the culture within collegiate strength and conditioning is overdue for much-needed change. Humans have a habit of orienting their behavior toward what gets rewarded. If “hard work” is what catches the boss’s eye, don’t be surprised if coaches try to one up each other by spending longer and longer at the office.

Humans have a habit of orienting their behavior toward what gets rewarded. Share on X

The Results Only Work Environment, or ROWE, is not new in the business world, but it is extremely rare in the sporting world. In a ROWE, staff are free to dictate the duration and schedule of their work. They are not rewarded for hours, only for productivity on an agreed-upon set of metrics.

I would suggest that player availability, speed, strength and power outputs, reinjury rates, and swiftness of return to play relative to historical averages are good places to start. The indication is that such an approach doesn’t actually reduce hours worked. They’ll work hard regardless; the work is fun, and there’s simply a mandatory amount of work that coaches and athletes have to perform to be successful. But the “results first” mentality encourages efficiency, creativity, and momentum and reduces staff turnover.

Take the Road Less Travelled

If you’re reading this and thinking “this sounds like a lot of work” or “but nobody else does it like this,” that’s the point. Small improvements or variations on exactly what the opposition is doing secures a marginal benefit at best. Unless you are already the champions or perennial challengers, marginal change will not cut it.

Wholesale change is required, particularly in a field where contracts are short, and results need to come fast. Rapid improvement will be earned by those with the courage to do what everyone else isn’t doing, and who exercise the judgement to pick winning strategies and see them through to their logical conclusion.

Down the road, we need to collectively make a change for the profession to be valued and to mature. You don’t have to leave a job or boycott, just remember to be firm on what you believe so the next person that replaces you is in a better situation. If we all do that, in time we will all be better off.

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

Athletes’ performance on the day of competition is the apex of their preparation process, with outcomes that can influence their overall career satisfaction. For example, I have a World Championships medal in the 4x100m relay, an achievement that is arguably the pinnacle of my career. Winning that medal was a combination of many things, including plenty of preparation and training—but all that would have been for nothing if, on the day of competition, my teammates and I were unable to perform to the best of our abilities.

Conversely, I don’t have an Olympic medal. On our day of competition in the games, I performed poorly and caused our relay team to be disqualified as a result of leaving early in a changeover. The line between success and failure in sport is a fine one, and failing to adequately prepare for peak performance on the day of competition can have significant repercussions.

The line between success and failure in sport is a fine one, and failing to adequately prepare for peak performance on the day of competition can have significant repercussions, says @craig100m. Share on X

Over the last two decades, athletes and coaches have become increasingly aware of the importance of sports psychology, with many now understanding that elite performance is underpinned by a multitude of psychological factors and skills. Some research suggests that elite athletes achieve a zone of optimal functioning—or a flow state—during performance. It’s clear that on the day of competition, athletes must achieve an optimal psychological state to support performance; what is less clear, however, are the factors that contribute to this state.

Investigating the Optimal State for Peak Performance

A paper by this name published in 2014 provides interesting insights into this area and has the potential to help coaches and athletes optimize their performance in competition.

For the study, the authors Ruth Anderson, Stephanie J. Hanrahan, and Clifford J. Mallett recruited 17 elite athletes and six coaches from Australia who specialized in three Olympic sports: rowing, swimming, and diving. Between them, the athletes had 14 Olympic and 29 World Championships medals. The researchers conducted interviews with all participants, aiming to understand the psychological state that was required for peak performance and the key factors that contributed to reaching such a state.

The participants defined peak performance as “an episode of superior functioning resulting in optimal performance outcomes that exceeded prior standards of performance.” All interviewed athletes confirmed they experienced this during competition, and all of the athletes and coaches rated this psychological state as being crucial in driving elite performance. The participants identified the execution of this peak performance as automatic and unconscious; many athletes struggled to remember specific incidences from the competitions where peak psychological performance occurred, instead only remembering small snapshots.

This matches my personal experience. While I only have one or two snippets of memory from many of my best races, I can remember much more of my worst ones. Given that this peak performance is considered to be largely automatic, and not something that athletes can force themselves into, it’s important to understand some of the underlying contributing factors so that we can support its future occurrence.

Getting to Flow

In the study, athletes and coaches identified a multitude of underlying factors that contribute to peak performance. The most common of these factors were a strong physical and psychological preparation process paired with high levels of self-confidence. These factors are likely related, with self-confidence coming from having good levels of physical and psychological preparation. Other key themes included:

• The athlete’s mindset
• The ability to focus and control thoughts and emotions
• A rehearsal of the optimal psychological state in training

Athletes and coaches utilized a variety of psychological strategies to develop high levels of self-confidence and the performance mindset, including building a routine around competition, focusing on the task at hand, managing anxiety and stress, focusing on themselves as opposed to competitors, and having clear communication between the athlete and the coach.

Interestingly, the athletes identified that the peak psychological state occurred in the presence of nerves, demonstrating that elite athletes get nervous, too. They use these nerves to support performance.

Elite athletes get nervous, too. They use these nerves to support performance, says @craig100m. Share on X

In addition, just under half of the athletes and coaches stated that they were unable to recognize when they (or their athletes) were in the optimal psychological state, but that it often was recognizable after the fact. I think this is important to keep in mind; just because you might not “feel” in the optimal state doesn’t mean that you aren’t in it.

Recognizing the Obstacles

The authors also identified a number of key barriers to achieving the optimal psychological state, as identified by the athletes and coaches in this study. These barriers included poor preparation leading up to competition, with injury during this phase a contributing factor to not achieving the optimal psychological state. Other common factors included being distracted by the competition environment or being unable to adapt to it.

Within the competition itself, high levels of anxiety, overthinking, and a focus on competitors as opposed to the athlete themselves all served as barriers to optimized performance. This focusing aspect was further highlighted when it came to regaining the optimized psychological state if it was lost in competition; the ability to switch focus back to the present was rated as a crucial part of this process, as was letting go of what had happened previously in the competition.

Putting it into Practice

Overall, I think this study is really useful, giving us psychological insight into how elite athletes regulate their performance as well as an understanding of the factors that contribute to this state. There are also clear conclusions from this important paper that may be valuable for athletes and coaches when it comes to optimizing performance within competition:

1. Have an established competition routine. In my career, I had a well-established competition-day routine that included a set playlist to listen to during warm-up and a well-rehearsed competition day nutritional strategy. A routine can be positive in a number of ways: it reduces the number of decisions that have to be made, which can reduce stress, anxiety, and psychological fatigue; the routine can provide confidence, because the athlete knows it has worked before; and, by being recognizable, the routine can assist in switching the athlete into “competition mode,” which includes the psychological state of optimized functioning.
2. Recognize that everyone gets nervous. Pre-competition nerves are a good thing, because they allow for a physiological and psychological state that supports elite performance. Reframing pre-competition nerves as positive, and then harnessing them, is crucial for elite athletes.
3. Control nerves and anxiety, and focus on ourselves instead of our competitors. Athletes should attempt to develop anxiety- and distraction-control techniques in training and low-level competitions ahead of major events.
4. Live in the present. Support athletes being in-the-moment during competitions, allowing them to let go of what has gone before—positive or negative—and focus on the present. This skill becomes increasingly important if the optimal psychological state is lost for any reason during the course of the competition itself.

By supporting athletes in developing their skills and literacy in the above areas, we can better prepare them to perform to their best on the day of competition—a goal for all coaches to strive towards.

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

What is the quality every coach asks for and every team is wary of? “Speed kills.” We’ve all heard the pithy statement, but I’d never heard it put as succinctly as this before:

“Speed is an apex measurement for athleticism.”

I like the imagery that this analogy produces, as apex predators include lions, tigers, great white sharks, and birds of prey. Imagine a golden eagle swooping down upon its prey to strike. It is the apex predators of the sporting arena, with lightning speed, that get fans out of their seat in excitement. The striker in football (soccer), the winger in rugby union or league, the wide receiver in American football—these are the apex predators of the sports field.

An attacking player with lightning speed terrifies the opposing defense. Similarly, a defensive player who is fleet of foot can nullify the opposition’s attack. Even if they have the trickery to wrong foot you once, your recovery speed can allow you to get back for a second bite at the tackle. This is why so many of us are interested in developing speed in athletes.

In the opening addresses of their Need for Speed course, Stuart McMillan and the staff at ALTIS openly caution, as is the case with their earlier courses, that it is not simply about rote learning a plug-and-play system that you can insert into your program. This is a challenging and highly involved learning experience. It will require you to think deeply about what you read, watch, and learn, considering how the information and ideas translate into your specific context. ALTIS encourages you to not only review and learn from the materials they provide but contemplate how you can blend them into your existing practice.

While the ALTIS Need for Speed course is a comprehensive resource, the course in essence aims to answer three fundamental questions:

1. What is speed?
2. Why is it important?
3. How do we develop it?

This succinct series of specific questions helps guide the overall direction of this course, because—as progression through the course reveals—this is a highly complex and multifaceted topic. For example, even the first and most basic question, “what is speed?” is not so easy to answer. As ALTIS highlights early in their modules, speed means slightly different things to each of us working in different realms of sport. While the core ideas and principles remain the same, there are contextual differences.

As ALTIS highlights early in their modules for ‘Need for Speed,’ speed means slightly different things to each of us working in different realms of sport. Share on X

Speed of movement, speed of thought, speed of the object, speed of the counterattack—the transition from defense to attack. An excellent recent example of this speed of transition comes from Crystal Palace in the Premier League, an unfancied side who typically finish in the bottom half of the league—closer to relegation than fighting for the title. When they play the bigger names of English football, despite ceding the lion’s share of possession, they have shown an almost unbelievable knack for leaving their opponent’s home stadium with a victory. Soaking up pressure and hitting with devastating counterattacks, they highlight how speed of attack, in transitioning from defense to attack in the blink of an eye, can allow supposedly inferior teams to snatch victory from their more expensively assembled counterparts. September’s 1-3 win at Old Trafford versus Manchester United was their eighth away win against an established “top six” side since August 2015.

Speed is not then merely about running fast in a straight line. Nor, in fact, is it merely a physical ability. We can probably all immediately bring to mind examples of outstanding players from our team sport of choice who would not win any medals in a 40-yard dash but whose ability to quickly read and analyze the play means they are rarely exposed for a lack of pace.

Common protestations of team sports coaches and staff regarding why the integration of track-and-field-style philosophies and training methods would not translate to the team sport environment include the constraints of the ball or other implements, opposition defenders, the need to scan the field of play, and more. Yet, in Need for Speed, ALTIS demonstrates that they understand the nuance of manipulating pure sprinting to the team sport context. While they introduce the “rules” of faster straight-line speed, they also draw together an enviable cast of experts to translate these principles to the field.

ALTIS leverages not just their own impressive knowledge and experience of developing speed (experience derived from producing more than 100 Olympians and 60 medals) and team sports athletes (many decades of experience across many different sports), but they also lean upon their network of industry experts with whom they have developed mutually beneficial relationships. This includes Nick Winkelman (Irish rugby, author of Language of Coaching), Ian Jeffreys (author of Game Speed and Soccer Speed), Fergus Connolly, and more, who collectively bring an unparalleled breadth and depth of knowledge and experience of developing speed across a vast range of sports.

This course has also introduced me to some new high-level practitioners, such as Steffan Jones, a cricket fast bowling performance specialist working in the Indian Premier League with the Rajastan Royals, owner of PaceLab Ltd, and co-owner of Cricket Strength.

Need for Speed provides something for everyone, with industry-leading experts from American football, “soccer,” various rugby codes, and cricket, and eminent researchers of sprinting biomechanics. There are contributions from expert and experienced coaches, elite athletes, academics, and pracademics. The depth and breadth of knowledge brought to bear in this course (from a multitude of sports, backgrounds, experiences, lenses, and philosophies) is unparalleled. However, the course coordinators are not arrogant enough to think they have all the answers or that they have the answers to every unique situation. You have your own experiences, perspectives, and challenges that may result in different or additional answers to the problems examined.

One of the problems in discussing how to develop speed is the different perspective, background, and terminology that different people bring to the conversation. Share on X

One of the problems in discussing how to develop speed is the different perspective, background, and terminology that different people bring to the conversation. This course tries to resolve all the different training terminology already out there, with many different terms used to describe the same thing by different coaches and sports, or the same term used to describe different constructs. With the Need for Speed course and the Gamespeed model, ALTIS aim to create a common language that may facilitate more effective conversations.

“Speed,” as it relates to the realm of team sports, is not merely about the physical act of running faster in a straight line than your opponent. As ALTIS asserts, speed is “a highly complex ability with numerous influencing factors.” “Gamespeed” requires the development and complementary interaction of a number of diverse physical and cognitive qualities. Enroll in the course to study the components of this model in greater detail.

The course is structured with terminology the ALTIS coaches use to organize their athlete’s training and the progression of their career. Each book, much like each training session, is bookended by a session brief and session debrief to facilitate enhanced learning.

Intense blocks of learning within the course are termed training camps. The first of these is a real in-depth examination of the principles and biomechanics underpinning elite sprinting. Ken Clark delivers a series of 11 mini-lectures on acceleration and max velocity sprinting. For those familiar with contemporary research on these topics, it is a real strength of the course to have Ken deliver this material personally. A second training camp is hosted by Shawn Myszka. If Ken is the guy who helps you understand the rules of sprinting, Shawn is perhaps the guy who helps you understand how to adapt them to the chaotic world of team sports.

Coaches considering enrolling in this course should understand the commitment they are making. This is not an easy box-ticking class that you sign up for, read a few articles or watch a few presentations, and collect the CEUs to maintain a coaching accreditation. (ALTIS does advertise that it encompasses “45 hours of guided learning.”) This course requires real thought and input from the student, and you shouldn’t undertake it lightly. There are active elements to the course—you are not merely attending to receive information and wisdom imparted by speed gurus.

This course challenges you to build out your own ideas and understanding of speed for your team, athletes, and environment—it’s not as simple as adopting someone else’s philosophy. Share on X

The course challenges you throughout to build out your own ideas and understanding of speed for your team, your athletes, and your environment—it is not as simple as adopting someone else’s philosophy and ideas. Most modules finish with a practical or mental task of some kind: answering questions, creating PowerPoints on your own personal philosophies on speed, questioning how the information contained in the latest module changed or meshed with your existing philosophies, and sometimes providing practical coaching tasks to experiment with in your next session. Each of the three books is quite substantial. There is a lot of information to absorb, and the review sections at the end of each chapter, along with the quizzes, help to reinforce what you have learned.

Because of the comprehensive, all-encompassing nature of the course—tackling the biomechanics of elite sprinters and team sports players, motor-learning theory, cognitive-perceptual aspects of speed, physiology, and more—there is a ton of reading involved. However, the course delivers a nice blend of graphics, charts, and images, listening to and watching videos, and practical and theoretical tasks to break up the writing and help keep you engaged. Before embarking on each new module, an estimate of the anticipated time investment required is provided, allowing you to study at your own pace and fit the work into your schedule.

ALTIS has explained the course is a living document; they will update it as new ideas and information emerge. Examples of this have been demonstrated even in the first month it has been live, with Stu McMillan adding new and updated content already. Furthermore, their programs director, Nick Ward, provides ongoing support throughout your studying via their Facebook pages. So, the value of the course continues to grow beyond the initial investment.

A Comprehensive Educational Resource

The ALTIS Need for Speed course is a comprehensive and intensive learning resource on all things speed in team sport. ALTIS introduces what speed means to them, what the rules are for devastating straight-line running speed, and how you adapt these concepts to the field or court for the team sport athlete.

Any prospective student needs to enter into this course with their eyes open, as it will be a major commitment. But the workload is broken down into manageable bite-size chunks of between 20 and 40 minutes, in most cases, so you can tackle the course at your own pace and based on how it fits into your schedule.

There is something for everyone, whether you prefer to learn by reading, listening, watching, or writing. The information is presented across a wide range of mediums from an extraordinarily diverse range of practitioners from different cultures, environments, and perspectives.

It would be difficult to summarize the entirety of such a comprehensive educational resource in just one blog post—I have rambled on too much already. If you are keen to read and learn more, enroll in the Need for Speed course.

I have spent a significant amount of time via a variety of mediums addressing the importance of sprinting in training. One driving force behind this has been to sway coaches away from coaching as they were coached. In many of those cases, the driving force behind training was volume, with intensity being neglected.

While trying to persuade coaches away from 8 x 200-meters or gassers multiple times a week is a needed conversation, I think it is important to ensure that the conversation for those who incorporate sprinting in their training programs moves forward. Whether you are a track coach or a field/court sport coach who programs sprints, I hope you consider embarking on this journey with me. Before we approach top end speed together, however, we must identify the elephant in the room—some coaches who believe in the power of sprinting are cannibalizing all who believe in it by unintentionally devaluing sprinting.

Some coaches who believe in the power of sprinting are cannibalizing all who believe in it by unintentionally devaluing sprinting, says @HFJumps. Share on X

One benefit of social media is it increases the amount of interaction among coaches. Novice coaches can gain insight not only from others like themselves at the base of the pyramid, but also from those at the apex. Accessibility has never been greater: a true gift in most cases, but a curse in others. It seems to be a weekly occurrence that I come across social media conversations on the best way to train sprinters—amongst people who believe sprinting is a quality training stimulus. The disconnect between those in the conversation and those witnessing it is often the context of who is being trained. The danger is that the conversation among coaches of elite athletes and their beliefs within their population can be read and applied by coaches of novice athletes. This can be a big problem.

Although progress has been made with there being more true sprinting sessions in youth through high school sports, it is still in the minority. Much of the training that occurs is still predicated on a conditioning model, not a performance model. When coaches of the elite comment that the athletes they coach do not need to sprint at 100% intensity in a training session to get faster, I am sure they have their reasons and data to back them up. The potential danger I see is coaches of novice athletes (particularly those who follow a conditioning model) seeing this and believing their young male athlete who runs a 40-yard dash in 5.82 does not need any sprinting at 100% intensity to realize maximum gains. This feeds confirmation bias, and often ends up with athletes experiencing “tempo hemlock.”

While I may appear to throw stones here, that truly is not my intent. By nature, I hate conflict, and the remainder of this article will focus on how I feel the worlds of maximal and submaximal sprinting can coexist. I’ve gone into detail as to what I feel is maximal sprinting in previous work, but a short synopsis for my context is anything that reduces speed from an athlete being spiked up on a track is submaximal. This leaves towing, running with the wind, and competition as the only possibilities for supramaximal training. For a field/court coach, being spiked up on a track could be considered to be supramaximal because athletes have a great chance of hitting higher velocities than they would on the field/court.

Before moving forward, I will offer the disclaimer that I am far from a one-size-fits-all coach. Within my context I do the best I can to address individual needs, and I have coached athletes who do not fall cleanly into a bucket. Do not view this as gospel, but rather options to consider as you continue to carve your own path.

Targeted Training

My own weekly programming for high school track and field athletes has included an acceleration-themed day and maximum-velocity-themed day for longer than I can remember. I think having a focused day for each is a logical approach. Simply put, acceleration sets the table for an athlete attaining their true maximum velocity. Too much focus on maximum velocity can create what Jake Cohen refers to as “frequency monsters”—sprinters who hit a false top speed too early because they shortchange acceleration. Having a day dedicated to its rehearsal with sprints 30 meters or less and performing various drills daily to get athletes comfortable with positions attained in the early part of a race goes a long way in laying the foundation for a complete sprinter.

In the past I have said training at maximum velocity is the best two-for-one deal in training because in order to attain maximum velocity, athletes must work through acceleration. While I still feel this is true, there are limitations. First and foremost, reps where the target is maximum velocity tend to be longer, and therefore pose more fatigue to the nervous system, thereby limiting volume. Second, if an athlete begins the repetition from a three- or four-point start, the angles found in accelerating from these positions pose a greater demand on the musculoskeletal system, which can also limit volume.

Stimulate, don’t annihilate, says @HFJumps. Share on X

With these limitations in mind, we must dig deeper and discuss how maximum velocity is being attained. One way is to blast 100% from the get-go (max velocity blast), as if it were a competition. A strength of training in this manner is the athlete working through a race-like acceleration prior to reaching top speed. The other method would be an acceleration bleed, where the athlete accelerates submaximally over a longer distance prior to attaining top speed (max velocity bleed). While the athlete is not experiencing a race-like acceleration in this situation, what I have noticed is that many athletes end up with faster fly times. Due to the benefits found in both methods, my current philosophy is to include both within a training week.

Video 1. Here the athlete accelerates maximally (as if the rep was a race), and a 10-meter fly time is captured. Although not done in this example, you could capture a full rep and a fly time with this method.

Video 2. This shows the athlete accelerating submaximally, with the target being as fast as possible between the timing gates. The full rep time is irrelevant—the athlete focuses solely on monitoring his speed to be as fast as possible between the gates.

When in doubt, a coach should think about what the target is for the day’s training. If the sole purpose is to attain the highest velocity possible, the beauty is that you can use either method (blast or bleed), depending on with which method each athlete tends to hit a higher velocity. Coaches can also work in competitive reps periodically to keep things fresh or help athletes bust through plateaus.

Training Arrangement

Having discussed three different options for training sessions (acceleration, max velocity blast, max velocity bleed), the next logical item that I must address is how to arrange them within a training week. The table below shows possibilities for a five-day training structure for high school track and field. Field/court sport coaches obviously have different demands and may only be able to fit in one of the aforementioned sessions within a week.

In each of the sequences above, the focus was on how to make it feasible to place three high-intensity training sessions in a five-day structure. Here are some key points that would be necessary for this to work:

• Most coaches put an acceleration and maximum velocity (blast or bleed) day back-to-back. The thought behind this is for the acceleration session to “wake up” the athlete’s nervous system coming off of a weekend and lead them to hit top end speed the following day. Many would say you need 48 hours between neuro days, but if the volume is low enough on the first day to where it stimulates but doesn’t crush the nervous system, back-to-back placement is doable (especially with young athletes). Tony Holler’s mantra, “Don’t let today ruin tomorrow,” is sound advice here, and would also apply in the weight room. If you would like to lift on the first day of the back-to-back, I would advise upper body only, lower body with no eccentric component, or light Olympics. However, my general advice would be to save the weight room for the second day because of the recovery that follows.

I personally prefer placing the max velocity bleed after the acceleration day because I feel their differences make them a sound pairing, says @HFJumps. Share on X

• I personally prefer placing the max velocity bleed after the acceleration day because I feel their differences make them a sound pairing. On the acceleration day, the athlete will be pushing from deeper angles at ground contact, while the max velocity bleed style can be shallow angles throughout. With that being said, I have placed a maximum velocity blast after an acceleration day and have not had any issues.

• If you would like to dive into deeper volume with acceleration and have a heavier lifting session, which may include lower body lifts with the eccentric portion, you could follow a traditional high-low model as in option 6.

• In regard to a weight room session later in the week, I would recommend the following:

• Lift on day 5 as long as it is not a competition or speed endurance day. I’ve had athletes lift on speed endurance days, and I’ve realized I was an idiot for two reasons. First, it is just a cruel thing to do. If you ask an athlete to sell out during long sprints, do not put anything on the back end that will take away from the effort on the sprints. Second, a major purpose of the long sprints is to teach athletes how to tolerate being acidic. Henk Kraaijenhof points out that activity after the sprints assists the body in clearing acid, and that we should not provide the assistance. Make the body learn how to clear it more efficiently on its own!

• If day 5 is speed endurance or a competition, you can prescribe a lifting session on day 4 that will not render the athlete useless the following day. The stipulations made earlier for lifting on the acceleration day would be wise to follow here as well. Stimulate, don’t annihilate.

• Many track programs operate on a six-day calendar. Here are a few possibilities:

What About Sub-Max Intensity?

The initial premise of this article was to showcase how the worlds of maximal and submaximal sprinting could coexist, and I’ve spent nearly 2,500 words describing how to structure maximal sessions. This is by design, as I think it has the largest impact on improving performance, and everything else can fall into place once the high-intensity days are set. Most of the weekly options presented above include a regeneration day and a potentiation day, and in 8 of the 13, they are back to back.

I think maximal sprinting has the largest impact on improving performance, and everything else can fall into place once the high-intensity days are set, says @HFJumps. Share on X

With the throttle being revved up early in the week, there needs to be a period where it is brought back down. The regeneration day is the primary spot where this would happen. The activities that can occur on these days are endless. Some options are: low-intensity bodyweight/medball circuits, auxiliary weight room exercises, pool workouts, submaximal sprinting, or instructing an athlete to find a nice place in nature to take a 30- to 60-minute walk.

When a potentiation day follows a regeneration day, its typical purpose is to bring the throttle back up so the athlete can perform their best following the potentiation day. The prescription for the potentiation day is truly an n=1 situation. The exploration of options that fit each individual athlete is where the art and science of coaching meet. I’ve had athletes whose most effective potentiation days were a day off, ones who favored a low-volume/high-intensity day of sprinting/plyometrics/lifting, and others who liked something in between.

While the high-intensity sessions are the most important for athlete progress, mismanagement of the regeneration and potentiation days very well could be the most common cause for athletes failing to improve. Activities that are too difficult to be restorative or not intense enough to potentiate probably occur more often than we care to admit. Target the mean initially, but don’t be afraid to experiment in the middle of the season to get an idea of what will work best when all the chips are on the table.

Tempo

There is certainly an overlap between restorative and potentiation days. One activity that could occur within either is tempo running (extensive or intensive). If you use tempo running on a restorative day, you must remember that you are using it to aid recovery. I personally have found this to be a challenge to manage, so I have decreased my use of tempo quite a bit. If I use it, it is usually in conjunction with a circuit of exercises to help avoid repetitive stress on the body. Here are some guidelines that I find helpful:

• Even though the intensity may be submaximal, reps should still look like sprinting. If it doesn’t look like sprinting, athletes are just rehearsing bad habits. I was guilty of putting athletes through reps that ended in a death march on regeneration days in the past. Regeneration’s purpose is to assist recovery, not result in requiring additional recovery.

• I used to prescribe percentages and target times, but I have found that to be almost comical at the novice level. Does a high school athlete really know the difference between 70% and 80%? Furthermore, perceived percentages vary day to day, so today’s 70% may produce a 28-second 200-meter, but next week may require 80% to hit the same time.

• I have stolen one of the sprint words from ALTIS and instruct athletes to “be at peace” during repetitions. I find this usually does the trick in getting the shapes to look like sprinting, while also allowing the athlete to focus on the execution of a technical item during a rep.

• Besides the recovery component, the increased ability to control movement at a lower velocity is another reason why tempo sessions can be effective. I expect there to be an argument as to whether submaximal sprinting technique translates to enhanced maximal sprinting technique, but I offer the following to ponder: In the long and triple jumps, the only full approach jumping we do is in competition. Athletes jump in practice with short approaches (usually a max of 75% of the competition approach). Even though athletes only do the highest-intensity version of the event in competition, their technique improves. Joel Smith often cites the Rewzon long jump study, and for good reason. In my experience, athletes are better developed with a spectrum of intensity.

• When using tempo for recovery, I have found that we don’t usually need timed recoveries. Just telling the athlete to begin the next rep when they are ready tends to work. If possible, a better solution is to monitor heart rate by ensuring it is hanging in the aerobic zone (120-150 beats per minute) and not getting into anaerobic threshold (170+ beats per minute). If an athlete cannot speak in complete sentences, they are working the reps too hard and/or not resting enough.

• Two of my go-to tempo recovery workouts are diagonals and segment runs. Diagonals have the athlete run the diagonal of a football or soccer field and walk either the length or width of the field for recovery based on rep intensity. They then run the other diagonal and repeat. Segment runs find the athlete running “at peace” for a prescribed time. For example, the athlete will run the first rep at 20 seconds. A mark can be placed for reference. Then the athlete will rest and repeat. The coach and athlete can make note of where the athlete finishes each rep to adjust rep intensity and recovery time.

• In general, I am a bigger fan of monitoring time as opposed to distance because it is a better way to monitor workload with large groups. I can walk away knowing they all ran for the same amount of time, which is not the case if distance is the tool to measure rep length.

• With track and field athletes, I prefer tempo sessions to be done on turf or grass. It is easier on the body and exposes the athlete to a different stimulus. Another option is to toggle back and forth between grass/turf and the track for a potentiating effect.

• Tempo on a regeneration day is not the best option for many athletes, so other options should be used. A portion of this group, however, does respond well to tempo work for potentiation the following day. Follow the guidelines listed above.

• Yes, you can also use tempo to get the athlete into anaerobic threshold. I am not a huge fan of voluming athletes at 80-85% to get there, but I have had athletes who feel the need to do that type of work. This would occur on a speed endurance day in the tables above, and I would have the athletes go through a circuit of varied activities prior to completing the tempo workout. Lactate levels would rise during the circuit, which would allow running volume to be lower, while still hitting the desired acidity. You can also use multidirectional work to get lactate levels to rise in both the field/court sport and track settings.

Wickets

Vince Anderson and Ron Grigg have put out invaluable information regarding the use of wickets. They are prescribed as a maximum-velocity drill, and what I have found nice is I can use them on any training day. This includes acceleration sessions. I do not see any issue with closing an acceleration-themed workout with a couple wicket runs to springboard an athlete into a maximum-velocity session the following day.

I mentioned earlier that anything that causes speed to be reduced is considered submaximal, and for the vast majority of the high school athletes I coach, wickets cause speed to be reduced. In my experience, it takes a long history with wicket runs to be comfortable enough to roll through them at true maximum velocity. For many athletes, the forebrain is involved due to the threat of hitting a hurdle and stumbling.

You can use wood slats or tape/chalk for those who are tentative because of this. Another option that minimizes the risk associated with using actual hurdles is the use of the Power Systems Versa Hurdle. Although they are more expensive than a traditional banana hurdle, they stack/store nicely and do not get tangled up in an athlete’s gait if they nick or step on a hurdle. I haven’t lost an athlete to injury using banana hurdles, but it makes sense to try to eliminate the possibility.

Chris Korfist has had the biggest influence on my use of wickets. My main takeaways are manipulating surface, spacing, arm position, and external resistance to achieve desired results for an individual. The beauty is you can match various combinations of these variables to fit the training. Utilizing Chris’s methods has paid huge dividends in improving our athletes’ sprint techniques for years, and I strongly recommend investing in his many resources on the topic.

To the Runway

I spent the first 12 years of my coaching career focused on the sprints and hurdles. Shifting over to working primarily with jumpers over the past six years has helped me develop a better understanding of speed. When I first started coaching the jumps, my lone goal was to get jumpers to buy into the reality that if they became better sprinters, better jumps would follow. Jumpers always want to spend time at the pit (and I do not blame them), but my go-to phrase with them continues to be “crap on the runway does not turn into diamonds in the air.” Although there were some growing pains, our jumpers improved rapidly, and buy-in was sealed.

Since our goal was to make them better sprinters, one of the items we chased was infinite speed, and our athletes would undergo timed sprints in training once or twice per week. The thought was “faster times, better jumps.” Again, while I think that is true in many cases, it was not a cure-all. One, if an athlete moved faster, but with the same errors in sprinting technique, better jumps did not always occur. Once an athlete leaves the ground, the errors they have in sprinting are compounded, and a faster take-off velocity may not be able to mask those errors. The athletes who found the most improvement were those with simultaneous sprint technique and velocity improvement.

I have found that jumpers tend to have a better ‘feel’ of speed than pure sprinters. I think this is because of the time they spend on the runway, says @HFJumps. Share on X

I have found over the past few years that jumpers tend to have a better “feel” of speed than pure sprinters. I think this is because of the time they spend on the runway. When completing full approaches, most are operating between 80% and 90% of their maximum velocity at takeoff. I think the rehearsal at this speed gives them a better feel for toggling throttle, which is beneficial in any race more than 60 meters. It also allows them to execute the quintessential throttle control workout of sprint-float-sprints with a higher degree of proficiency than their peers.

Sprint-Float-Sprints

Sprint-float-sprints (or ins and outs) involve a period of acceleration followed by toggling segments of maximal and slightly submaximal sprinting. In my approach, the acceleration portion can be a bleed or blast, and can range from 20-50 meters depending on the method used. I like to capture the times of each of the sprint-float-sprint (SFS) segments when possible to use as a teaching tool for athletes.

What I have found with 10-meter segments of SFSs is the float segment ends up being the fastest for around half of the athletes when they are new to the workout. This is a marriage of the subjective and objective. Coaches can often see athletes having excessive tension in their races/sprints and instruct athletes to “relax.” The SFS shows them that when they “try less,” their mechanical timing improves, and they run faster.

My favorite SFS segment lengths are 10-20-10. The 20-meter float gives the athlete a nice period of grace before attacking the next sprint. Experienced athletes can progress into longer sprint segments or another set of float-sprint.

For jumpers, I like to cue “accelerate-sprint-runway speed-sprint” to describe the rep. For sprinters who have run the 400, “backstretch speed” can be substituted for “runway speed.” Both provide a nice union of practice and competition. For those having difficulty transitioning between the sprint and float, cueing arm action can be helpful. As they enter the float zone, instruct them to limit their arm action, and then when they enter the sprint zone, instruct them to expand arm action.

Placement of SFS sessions would be in max-velocity sessions or possibly speed-endurance sessions. They are neurologically demanding and may require additional recovery time. Novice athletes should have a foundation of fly work and competition experience before using SFS. You can also tier sessions: Young athletes in the program can just complete an acceleration and sprint, while seasoned athletes can complete the full SFS.

The Home Stretch

“Be curious, not judgmental” is a Walt Whitman quote that I was reminded of while watching the television show Ted Lasso. It is one of my favorites, and one I need to revisit often. I think I excel in the first part of the quote, but I am a work in progress with the second. (My opening to this article could have been viewed as casting stones.)

There is room for debate among those of us who believe in sprinting as a quality stimulus. We must not let judgment get in the way of our curiosity, says @HFJumps. Share on X

There is room for debate among those of us who believe in sprinting as a quality stimulus. We must not let judgment get in the way of our curiosity, so we can serve the athletes in front of us in the best manner possible.

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

While many people may see golf as a sport for former athletes and retirees, golf at the professional and amateur ranks requires high levels of skill and very high levels of speed. The latest comprehensive data shows that the average swing speed on the PGA Tour with a driver is 113 mph, and 94 mph for the LPGA. The speeds in golf are trending seriously upward, with many of the top young competitors on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours reaching 120-mph club head speed and the women of the LPGA and Symetra Tours creeping closer to 110 mph. Our in-house data at Par4Success, which spans five years and has more than 1,100 data points, shows that the average competitive male golfer in their 50s is not terribly far off, swinging close to 100 mph.

To reach these speeds, golfers need a combination of technical abilities and physical qualities, which is precisely where we come in. Data by biomechanics researchers looking at kinematics show that elite golfers use their hips more consistently and at higher speeds than recreational golfers in what is called the “kinematic sequence.”^1,2 A proper kinematic sequence involves not only driving the downswing motion with the large, powerful muscles of the hips, but also stabilizing into impact by decelerating the hips first before slowing down adjacent segments and whipping the club through the ball.

As we can expect with a high-velocity, multi-planar sport, golfers are not immune to numerous injuries. It is estimated that about 34% of golfers will experience low back pain during their golf career, and as physical therapy research comes more into the modern age, physios as well as strength coaches are understanding the need for better hip hinging technique and strength³. At Par4Success, where we almost exclusively work with golfers, our data collection over the past five years has started to show interesting links between hip hinging strength, club speed, and injury risk.

We have found that the hip hinge is one of the most important weight room exercises when it comes to strength training in golfers, says @bprengle. Share on X

Through our work, we have found that the hip hinge is one of the most important weight room exercises when it comes to strength training in golfers. Later in this article I will discuss the early relationship that we are seeing between hinging strength, injury, and swing speed very specifically.

The goal of this article will be to look at different options for assessing the hip hinge, explain the important impact it has on performance and injury, and provide early data findings relative to body weight and speed, as well as assessments to help you determine which type of hinge is most beneficial for the golfer in front of you. While almost all of my own experience is in the field of golf rehab and performance, any athlete who rotates and extends in their sport will benefit from these assessments.

What Is a Hinge?

Let’s begin with defining the hinge. Ask 10 strength coaches and physios what a hinge is, and you will probably get at least five different answers. Personally, I like Dan John’s approach the most, as it encompasses the biggest differences between a squat and a hinge with few words. A squat involves both maximal knee and hip movement, while a hinge involves maximal hip movement and minimal knee movement. Notice there’s no mention of bar placement (are we even using a bar?), foot position, torso position, or where the weight starts. Trying to define a hinge or a squat using any of these modifiable variables is what gets people into arguments over which lift is what.

My philosophy, especially when it comes to explaining this to my athletes, is to keep it simple. Again, a hinge is maximal hip movement and minimal knee movement, and a squat is maximal knee and maximal hip movement. Thus, the hinge puts more strain on the posterior leg musculature, such as the glutes and hamstrings, while the squat puts more emphasis on the anterior leg musculature, specifically the quadriceps.

Goals of the Hinge

We are not training powerlifters at Par4Success; we are training athletes to be elite-level golfers. Our goals are to first, create a stronger and more powerful athlete, and second, help with the amount of sport-specific practice that is necessary to play golf at a high level. Therefore, we want to have maximal strain on the targeted muscles in order to build strength, and then power, and take extraneous load off of areas that the particular golfer already heavily utilizes in their golf swing, particularly in-season.

There are also two major concepts that drive programming when it comes to blending the worlds of physical therapy and performance: movement variance and movement threshold.

Movement Variance

In his Human Matrix Foundations course, physio Zac Cupples explains movement variance as “the ability to put the body actively and passively into all physiologically possible options.” This concept is in contrast to movement variability, which he defines as “differences in body strategy among similar actions, or repetition without repetition.”

In a sport such as golf, movement variability is an awful thing. No one wants to stand on the tee box and have even three possible outcomes for where their ball will end up, let alone an infinite amount. Thus, precision and structured repeatability are absolutely critical on the course. For competitive purposes, removing movement variability is very important.

However, for general life and physical training, such rigidity is not only impractical, it is harmful, which is why we need movement variance. Imagine that you are changing apartments and have to get 40 or so boxes of various shapes, sizes, and weights from your old apartment into your new apartment. You would want to have at least a few different ways of picking up those boxes available to you so that you don’t get too tired in any particular area.

Similarly, you would not want to approach the box filled with 10 rolls of toilet paper the same way you would approach the box of 10 50-pound kettlebells you keep in your apartment to stay in shape at all times. Approaching the box of toilet paper with maximal intensity and heavy bracing would waste a significant amount of energy and might cause the box to go flying out of your hands, while approaching the 500-pound box of kettlebells with a rounded back and loose grip would most likely not even make the box budge.

In short, we need to balance eliminating excessive movement (minimize movement variability) while enhancing the ability to use the full capabilities our bodies possess (maximize movement variance).

Threshold Strategies

Just as we want to have various physiological positions available to us when we move, we also want different bracing and energy taxing systems so that we can conquer a variety of tasks in our day-to-day lives. Continuing with the analogy of moving boxes, we want to only use high-threshold strategies (think heavy bracing, strong grip, maximal effort) when the situation requires it, while we want to conserve as much energy as possible and use a low-threshold strategy (very relaxed breathing, calm neck and core musculature, loose grip) when appropriate as well.

Golf requires simultaneously high- and low-threshold strategies. Instructors preach the benefits of a relaxed grip (low threshold) while also exploding and driving into the ball (high threshold). Share on X

Golf is an interesting sport in that it requires simultaneously high- and low-threshold strategies. A golfer must exert high levels of muscular effort while remaining fluid in their movements and allowing for proximal to distal energy transfer. Golf instructors preach the benefits of a relaxed grip (low threshold) while also exploding and driving into the golf ball (high threshold!). Thus, with our training programs we need to make sure golfers not only have the capacity to access multiple energy systems and thresholds, but for their general health they should maintain at least some semblance of movement variance so as not to overload one area of the body to the point of breakage.

Video 1. High vs low threshold strategy. Performed correctly, this movement should be very simple and easy.

Basic Assessment Protocols

Most golfers spend hours and years of practice perfecting technique, while only a few are introduced to regular strength training from an early age. As part of our basic assessment, we evaluate each golfer’s club head speed, general flexibility, sport-specific mobility, and total body power and strength. In an effort to focus on the hip hinge in this article, I’ll look specifically at those assessments that relate to the hip hinge.

First, we perform an assessment of general spine movement using two main tests: a toe touch and a back bend. Golf is a very extension- and rotation-based sport, as the follow-through of aggressive swings can put an athlete in end-range extension and rotation in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spines, as well as the hips. For the purposes of this article, we want to understand how these movements affect a hip hinge pattern.

Most high-level golfers are what many physios would call “extension biased,” in that they prefer lumbar extension as an optimal bracing strategy for movement. This is advantageous for their sport because of the extension demands the swing places on the body. However, the goals of our physical performance program are to 1) increase performance and 2) not get in the way of sport-specific practice.

What we have seen countless times is an overuse of lumbar extension during sport-specific practice that becomes problematic if it follows the athlete into the gym. For general population trainees and other team sport athletes, the concern with a loaded hinge is that the athlete will fault into excessive lumbar and thoracic flexion. Thus, the deadlift is frequently classified as an “anti-flexion” movement—we try to get the athlete stronger at resisting the flexion moment created by the bar. In my experience with golfers, however, they much more frequently utilize excessive lumbar extension to lift the weight.

Golfers playing at a high level have hit thousands of golf balls yet may have performed no more than a few dozen hinges. Thus, their bracing and motor patterns are much more accustomed to lumbar extension than maintaining a neutral spine, which for them will often feel like flexion. If we allow golfers to use their preferred sport-specific bracing strategy in the weight room, we excessively load these tissues even more, and we fail to work the posterior chain in a way that increases performance and allows them to practice as needed. In the following tests, we most commonly see an inability to get away from lumbar extension and hip flexion, and into lumbar flexion and hip extension.

To loop back to our previous discussion on threshold strategies, it is important to note the tension—or complete lack thereof—the athlete feels while they perform these movement assessments. Many of our young athletes are very flexible and come to us with lower swing speeds and absolutely no strength training background. Many of these athletes struggle to tap into their high threshold reserves, or these qualities are so undertrained that they have none to tap into in the first place!

Similarly, many of our professional and older players are very tense and exert maximum amounts of energy in an attempt to touch their toes. I usually jokingly ask if they are attempting to pick up 500 pounds or tie their shoes! In both cases, proper loading of a hip hinge pattern becomes even more necessary to restore more appropriate energy uses both in their sport and in their daily activities.

The toe touch can expose an athlete’s tendency to rest in an anterior pelvic tilt. Almost all of these athletes complain of hamstring tightness and years of failed attempts to stretch the hamstrings. Share on X

The toe touch can expose the issue of an athlete having a tendency to rest in an anterior pelvic tilt, as golfers of all ages either cannot come close to touching their toes or report a significant pull in their lumbar erectors when attempting a toe touch pattern. Almost all of these athletes complain of hamstring tightness and years of failed attempts stretching the hamstrings. Ultimately, we find that their limitation simply comes from an inability to control their lumbopelvic flexion and posterior tilting.

Often this is due to “weakness,” as the muscles of the posterior chain have never been trained; hence the importance of a strong hinge movement. We can all argue about how strong is “strong enough,” but I think we can all agree that an athlete who cannot pick up a 25-pound kettlebell using predominantly their hips is a problem! Again, these athletes have hit countless golf balls over the course of their careers by the time they reach our facility, and the first hip hinge we assess is more often than not the first hip hinge they have ever thoughtfully performed.

There are many specific isolation tests you can perform following the toe touch to create a better idea of where this athlete’s limitations are. The most common are the supine straight leg raise, the supine knees to chest, and even a glute bridge test to check active hip extension capabilities. At Par4Success, our staff of physical therapists performs these tests in order to determine local structural or tissue limitations that we need to address via soft tissue work or specific mobility and stability drills. This also medically clears our athletes for performance training.

The back bend can expose sensitivity to extension in the lumbar and thoracic spines—these athletes often lack hip extension, which is crucial for their golf swing, says @bprengle. Share on X

The back bend can expose sensitivity to extension in the lumbar and thoracic spines. Often, we see limitations in these movements because our extension-biased athletes have no more range of motion to achieve! This is not an issue with the back bend itself, but another sign that this athlete does not have proper lumbopelvic control. Similarly, for these athletes it is often an assessment of their ability to extend their hips rather than their lumbar spines—pay close attention to the angle between the greater trochanter, the ASIS, and the navel. More often than not, these athletes lack hip extension, which is absolutely crucial for their golf swing.

Video 2. Back bend assessment. Assessing the athlete from a side view, we can take note of their resting postural position.

Conventional Deadlifting for Golf and Implement Modifications

Circling back to our definition of a hinge, the “conventional” stance deadlift with a straight barbell is the most commonly taught technique when it comes to increasing hinge strength. Specific to the golf population, grip width and foot width should be assessed. Many golfers are used to expressing maximum power in the stance they take with a driver; thus, that is often a good starting point for these athletes to learn from. This is not to say our training needs to look like the golf swing, but rather a good starting place for many of our young athletes to further develop stability is where they are used to expressing power.

Video 3. The conventional stance, straight bar deadlift is probably the most commonly taught straight hinge exercise.

The use of dumbbells or a kettlebell is an easy modification for the conventional stance deadlift, but employ the same stance and “bar path” to be consistent across implements. Don’t allow the athlete to move the dumbbells laterally outside the thighs, as this will change the lever arm between the athlete’s center of mass and the weight. Also, don’t allow them to assume a sumo stance with a kettlebell, which may be difficult with heavier kettlebells unless you are trying to simulate a sumo stance deadlift or a hex bar variation.

If the athlete can maintain a neutral low back but struggles to get proper hip flexion all the way to the ground with a straight bar, another easy modification is simply putting plates or blocks under the weights to eliminate range of motion. However, if elevating the lift still causes compensation in the lumbar or thoracic spines or the hips, that’s a good indicator that the straight bar conventional stance deadlift is not optimal for that athlete.

Again, we are attempting to create elite level golfers, not powerlifters. There is no need to pull from the floor for all athletes. Countless athletes have successfully learned and implemented the straight bar conventional stance deadlift, but it is important to know when to “cut bait” and move on to another style, implement, or pattern that still works as a hinge.

Style Modifications

A few questions arise when an athlete consistently has issues with the conventional deadlift. First, can they pass the general mobility tests? If they cannot pass on a consistent basis, then we need to look for other styles of hinging that are more appropriate.

Are they consistently reporting strain in the low back? This can be a sign, especially in golfers, that they use too much lumbar extension during the lift and, combined with their sport-specific practice, that puts too much strain on the lumbar extension.

While many powerlifters may consider the sumo stance ‘cheating,’ there are instance when this is the preferred stance in golfers, says @bprengle. Share on X

While many powerlifters may consider the sumo stance “cheating,” there are instances when this is the preferred stance in golfers. Again, our goal with the deadlift is to strengthen the hip hinge pattern (maximize hip movement and minimize knee movement) in order to strain the posterior chain, but in this case with an athlete who has low back concerns, we want to reduce shear and torsional forces on the low back. With the sumo stance we can keep a much more upright chest and sink lower than a conventional stance in many cases, reducing the lever arm between the center of mass of the athlete and the bar. This has been very successful for us in a number of cases.

Video 4. Another great modification to move the center of mass of the object closer to the center of mass of the athlete is by using a sumo stance deadlift (or a wide stance deadlift).

Another option is to utilize a hex or trap bar, as this again shifts the center of mass of the implement closer to the center of mass of the athlete and reduces shear and potentially torsional forces on the low back.

Video 5. The hex bar deadlift (or trap bar deadlift) is a useful alternative if your athlete struggles to maintain good lumbar position with a straight bar.

Explosive Exercises

This is not simply a deadlift article—this is an article on the hinge. Thus, it is important to work on explosive hinge strength, since golf is a speed-dominant sport. Power and strength are only useful so far as they increase speed and reduce injury concern in our athletes.

We frequently utilize complex training methods for our golfers not just to make training more efficient, but because a recent meta-analysis showed this type of training potentially leads to greater power outputs than separating power and strength work in a contrast training style.⁴ Complex training utilizes a heavy strength exercise followed closely by a light-load power exercise targeting similar muscle groups. I will expand upon a few examples here without going into too much detail, with a focus on how it helps our golfers hinge and become more explosive.

The kettlebell swing is probably the exercise that first comes to mind. However, this movement so closely mirrors a deadlift that it is important to monitor load in those athletes who are sensitive to high deadlift volumes and prone to lumbar hyperextension already. We like using a band to reduce arm swing and provide an eccentric control component to the exercise. These are a good option for athletes who are on the road for tournament play, since most hotel gyms will have a dumbbell that they can substitute, and bands, even with high tension levels, are very easy to travel with.

Video 6. An explosive exercise we frequently use to train the hip hinge pattern is a banded kettlebell swing.

Caveman throws are a great low-impact option for our adult golfers who we don’t necessarily want box jumping due to age or significant previous surgeries. For example, we work with a number of golfers who have had knee replacements and who we don’t want jumping onto boxes, regardless of the box height. We can emphasize translating a hip hinge into driving vertical power versus a more upright vertical throw to be even more specific.

For those athletes with natural, operation-free knees, there are almost endless options when it comes to jumps, such as depth jumps, regular jumps, adding assistance, or adding resistance. These are outside the scope of this article, but we regularly use them as well. What is in this scope is determining whether you want to emphasize a more knee- or hip-driven jump.

Working on multi-planar lower body explosiveness is of major concern, since all golf swings use all three ground reaction forces to varying but high degrees, says @bprengle. Share on X

P3 in Santa Barbara, California, and other facilities have looked at explosive athletes to determine if some are more knee-dominant or hip-dominant jumpers. While we can endlessly debate this research and other studies looking at whether hinge strength or squat strength translates more to jumping, we take a simplistic approach—why not work on both? Our athletes don’t jump during their contests (unlike the NBA and MLB players working at P3); thus, specifically working on the skill of jumping is of minimal importance once they achieve a certain level of competence. However, working on multi-planar lower body explosiveness is of major concern, since all golf swings use all three ground reaction forces (vertical, horizontal, and torsional) to varying but high degrees.

Strength and Speed Matching Up in Elite Female Golfers

At this time, our team at Par4Success has collected data on more than 1,100 athletes, with more added to our database each day. Two of our most important metrics to drive training decisions for our athletes are club head speed (or swing speed) and, if appropriate, estimated 1RMs, which are generally tested each three months. In our database, we have seven female athletes who swing over 100 mph, which is 6 mph faster than the latest averages presented by the LPGA.

These athletes range in age from 17-27 years old and compete at the highest level possible for their age group. All except one of these athletes can deadlift more than 200 pounds for reps and have, on average, a relative estimated hinge strength of 1.5x body weight. None of these ladies came to us with “elite” speed—over the average of 3.5 years that we have worked with this group, they have gained (again, on average) 8.5 mph of club speed, which equates to at least 30 extra yards of distance on drives for good ball-strikers (which these athletes very much are). Interestingly, we only have one woman who can deadlift 200 pounds for reps and has yet to overtake the 100-mph swing speed barrier.

Three interesting points of note arise from this group of athletes. Four of the seven have a relative deadlift strength above 1.5x body weight, while three are below this level (hence the average). The three below this level have all dealt with lower back issues over the course of their careers. Taking things a step farther, the athlete with the lowest relative deadlift strength in this group of females had the most significant injury, and she had to take multiple months off of competitive golf before beginning a comprehensive soft tissue and hinge-focused strength program. Not only has this program gotten her back on the competitive circuit, but her strength also has increased to 1.25x body weight on the deadlift.

Having had a moderate amount of statistical education in my graduate work, I know that these cases and correlations do not equal causation. The golf swing is a multiplanar explosive movement, and one sagittal plane strength exercise will never explain the entirety of an athlete’s swing. However, these numbers should cause us to pause and think, and we will certainly continue to track them as many of our younger athletes begin to mature and approach these thresholds.

An Ongoing Investigation for Better Performance

Hinging strength and power are almost universally recognized as important pieces of the performance and injury-reduction puzzle in golf. At Par4Success, we are seeing the connection to actual performance metrics and injury prevention starting to take a very tangible form. Special considerations should be taken for explosive, rotational sport athletes such as golfers to make the exercise more specific and less detrimental to an athlete’s practice and performance schedule.

Returning to our cases for a moment, we very much look forward to tracking the development of these athletes and our younger athletes as they continue to grow and develop longitudinally. Two of the five “100-mph swing – 200-pound deadlift club” (commemorative T-shirts are currently being ordered) started with us during their early high school years and now compete at high D1 level programs. As speed and distance become an even greater focus in the competitive golf landscape, we are obviously interested to see just how fast hinging strength can help our junior athletes swing faster safely.

As strength training becomes more accepted in the world of golf, it is important to maximize results and remove risky exercises that have little to no performance benefit, says @bprengle. Share on X

There is a group of about six young female golfers who are all approaching the 100-mph barrier with hinge strength around the 1.3x body weight mark, and since we test our athletes every three months on average, it will be even more interesting to see how their speeds, and low back health, correspond to changes in their hinge strength.

As strength training becomes more accepted in the world of golf, it is important to maximize results and remove risky exercises that have little to no performance benefit. At Par4Success, we are waging war against time-consuming and results-empty “golf-ish” exercises. Over the next 12 months, we will keep sharing new findings as we continue to investigate the early relationships between physical performance metrics and the golf swing, all in an effort to help golfers swing faster than they ever thought possible, play better than ever before, and hurt less while doing it all.

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. Cheetham, P., Rose, G.R., and Hinrichs, R.N. “Comparison of kinematic sequence parameters between amateur and professional golfers. Science and Golf V,” in Crews D, Lutz R (eds): Proceedings of the world scientific congress of golf. Energy in Motion, Mesa, AZ (2008).

2. Lynn, S.K., et al. “Rotational kinematics of the pelvis during the golf swing: skill level differences and relationship to club and ball impact conditions.” International Journal of Golf Science. 2013; 2(2):116-125.

3. McHardy, A., Pollard, H., and Luo, K. “Golf injuries.” Sports Medicine. 2006;36(2):171-187.

4. Cormier, P., et al. “Complex and Contrast Training: Does Strength and Power Training Sequence Affect Performance-Based Adaptations in Team Sports? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2020;34(5):1461.