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It’s no secret that acceleration capabilities and sprint speed are sought-after qualities for many field- and court-based sports. Since it seems to be so highly regarded by coaches and management (teams), we must develop a multi-pronged approach to develop speed. Many classical approaches in team sport have attempted to address speed improvements in the weight room, specifically through strength improvements. While strength can assist with relatively underdeveloped athletes and more force-end-of-the-spectrum athletes, this approach will only get you so far. Beyond initial strength improvements for the underdeveloped athlete, searching for speed improvements through strength gains may be futile.

The use of more potent methods in the weight room and during training is necessary for the continued development of acceleration and speed. To do this, it vital to understand what makes people fast, physiologically and technically.

The use of more potent methods in the weight room and during training is necessary for the continued development of acceleration and speed, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

Elite sprinters don’t sprint faster than team sport athletes by chance. Of course, things like genetics and specificity of training come into play. No one is really arguing that. It’s tough to max out one single physical quality like speed when many skills and physical qualities are at play in team sport success. Simply recognizing what makes the elite fast can have a trickle-down effect for team sport athletes.

Newton doesn’t care if you compete in soccer, basketball, football, or track. How you run fast is how you run fast.

Now, before everyone gets up in arms about this comment, there are other considerations and game situations that put constraints on the ability to execute speed with model technique. Spatial constraints can change the sprint technique the athlete has to adopt. The proximity of an athlete to an opponent or teammate, the need to change body position based on another’s movement, sprinting while simultaneously trying to put the body in a position to defend, etc.—these all can change the athlete’s sprint technique from model technique to a potentially more successful technique for that given situation. These ideas, though, are beyond the scope of this article.

Acceleration and Max Velocity Characteristics

The qualities that make an athlete a great accelerator are quite different than those that make a great top-speed sprinter. There is some carryover of acceleration qualities to maximal velocity sprinting, and vice versa, as sufficient levels of vertical force production are needed throughout an entire sprint. Additionally, longer, more efficient accelerations typically yield higher maximal velocities, but the physical and technical qualities needed to remain at maximal velocity are at separate ends of the same spectrum.

To start to put the sprinting puzzle together, take a look at the sprint characteristics of the elite sprinting population.

While sub-elite and team sport athletes don’t typically exhibit these elite characteristics, this table does give a glimpse into how the elite sprint fast.

Since we know that speed is the product of stride length and stride frequency, our initial assumption may be to dissect those two characteristics and aim to train those fairly directly.

On the surface, this equation leads us to believe that increasing stride length, stride frequency, or both simultaneously would be the surefire way to increase speed. From a purely mathematical standpoint this would be true. What we sometimes fail to recognize is that when we speak about increasing stride length or frequency, there is an underlying reason these elites have the stride parameters that allow them to sprint as fast as they do.

If we view stride length and frequency as the main drivers of speed and try to directly increase either one of them in an attempt to sprint faster, we could actually be turning an average sprinter into a bad sprinter.

Increasing stride length without a thought of its effect on the rest of technique will result in inefficient ground contact in front of the center of mass, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

Increasing stride length without a thought of its effect on the rest of technique will result in inefficient ground contact in front of the center of mass. Planting well in front of the center of mass will very likely decrease performances in speed, as well as put the athlete at a greater risk of injury (more on this later). This is also true when coaches and athletes increase stride frequency without consideration to other technical sprint characteristics. Think of the cartoon roadrunner spinning his (her?) wheels—super high frequency but going nowhere, and as a result, stride length deteriorates as a result of suboptimal force application.

There is an interplay between the two, but typically, when an athlete tries to increase one without regard to the other, the potential gain from doing so is negated by the drop-off of the opposing value. Oftentimes, the decrease in the opposing value is greater than any potential increase created. This means that when we attempt to increase one parameter, the athlete will often become slower.

So, where does this leave us?

When we look at other characteristics like ground contact times and force production, we also see elites exhibit seemingly impossible values. This leads us to the cause of speed and, in fact, successive improvements in stride length and stride frequency parameters. Rather than viewing stride length and frequency as two separate entities, we must look at how to improve one or both of these qualities without the other deteriorating significantly.

The most effective way to do this is to apply a large amount of force in the appropriate time constraints and in the appropriate directions.

With this in mind, increasing speed comes down to two main factors:

1. Increasing technical proficiency in sprinting.
2. Increasing physical qualities related to acceleration and maximal velocity sprinting.

Governing Principles and Sprinting Commonalities

There are commonalities in technique among the best at anything. It’s no coincidence that the best athletes exhibit similar technical execution in sprinting. Because technique is not the only thing to come into play, and genetics is another major factor in success, someone with suboptimal technique and superior genetics can still be faster than a technical wizard with suboptimal genetics. While you generally need a combination of genetics and great technique at the highest level, there are athletes with some major quirks who are anomalies.

It is important that we don’t look at the anomalies as an example, but rather, a range of competitors. The anomalies are always the ones who get mentioned when it comes to debating how important technique really is or what it should really look like. Many times, the technical quirk does not make them great (although it may); it is that their genetics and other physical qualities are great enough to overshadow the quirk.

Great sprinters all exhibit the same basic technique and then develop individual styles around their anatomical and physical constraints. This should be no different from team sport athletes.

Great sprinters all exhibit the same basic technique and then develop individual styles around their anatomical and physical constraints. This should be no different from team sport athletes. Share on X

While the following are general hallmarks of good sprinting, it does matter what is happening in between them. Plus, if the athlete does not have requisite physical qualities, there may be deviations within these examples.

Governing Technical Principles of Acceleration:

General Leg Action: Piston-like. On first steps, at ground contact the opposite knee will punch forward with minimal cyclical action. The free leg thigh will block perpendicular or near perpendicular to the body, and the shin should be parallel or near parallel to the body. With each subsequent step the foot should “cycle” higher relative to the previous step.

General Arm Swing: Powerful through large ranges of motion. Front arm angle decreases and hand finishes near the eyeline as rear arm angle increases to near full extension and finishes above the body.

Posture: Once the initial push is complete, you should see a near straight line from the shoulder to ankle. Minimal to no folding at the hip. Forcing or cueing the athlete to “lean” or “stay low” may directly impact other technical elements such as placement of foot on touchdown.

Projection: Projection ties into posture a bit, but they are different from one another. You should give the athlete guidance as to how projection should feel and look but chasing specific projection angles shouldn’t be the goal. Forcing the athlete to push out at a specific angle that is beyond their current strength abilities can create stumbling out of acceleration and/or inefficient ground contacts in front of COM. As specific strength increases, the ability to project horizontally should as well. As long as you see steps that gradually progress from the athlete pushing to upright, you’re in the right ballpark.

Ground Contact: Underneath/behind center of mass. This is paramount to appropriate force application. Touching down in front of the COM may elicit higher ground contact times and improper force application in relation to the rest of the body.

Full Support: Support leg continues to push away to near extension while free leg punches to the front side of the body as fast as possible. Intentionally pushing the stance leg to maximal extension may yield worse sprint results due to greater ground contact times. I will cover this potential error in more detail below.

Toe-Off: See the posture and projection sections above.

Governing Technical Principles of Maximum Velocity

Posture: Upright and tall.

General Leg Action: Leg action should move to more cyclical with minimal backside mechanics.

General Arm Swing: Rhythmic and relaxed but pumping hard. The arms should open and close with a smaller angle at the elbow exhibited in the front-side arm and a larger angle at the elbow to the back-side arm. The arms should not stay locked at 90 degrees.

Initial Ground Contact: Foot contacts ground slightly in front of COM. While it’s best to teach athletes to contact under the hip, this actually doesn’t happen in efficient sprinting, as they would fall over forward if it did. The foot, though, should not contact excessively in front of the COM as it would cause excessive braking forces. The free leg thigh will be in line with the stance leg thigh. If the knee is behind the stance leg thigh, this may be excessive backside mechanics.

Full Support: Leg is directly under the hip with as minimal amortization at the knee as possible (this aspect ties into the physical attributes of the athlete). The free leg’s knee should be slightly in front of the support leg’s thigh with the foot continuing to “step over the opposite knee.” If the athlete exhibits appropriate technique, this will look like a “number 4” from a side view.

Toe-Off: On toe-off, the athlete should exhibit near full extension during push-off. Full extension at toe-off is not necessary though. This will increase ground contact time. Achieving full extension in a contrived manner in an attempt to increase vertical or horizontal force production is a fool’s errand, as the peak force application is already completed, and any excess time spent on the ground will deteriorate speed.

Mid-Flight: Maintenance of a generally neutral pelvis is of great importance (not just in flight, but throughout the entire sprint as well). In flight, the shoulder joint to the knee joint should be in a relatively straight line with no major curvature in the spine. The most common backside mechanic problem in team sport is butt kicking.

If you were to draw a vertical line from the shoulder through the hip, the knee would be significantly behind if butt kicking were to occur. Butt kicking puts a huge stretch on the rectus femoris and may cause the pelvis to rotate anteriorly. Without high levels of flexibility in the quad and hip, this will typically put the low back into lordosis, putting the hamstring on greater stretch during the late swing phase and ground contact. This also typically reduces the likelihood of subsequent knee lift, which can limit force application upon ground contact.

Moving Toward a Technical Model

To make any concerted effort at changing sprint technique, we have to first understand what we’re looking at and what deviations we’re looking for. Following a model and developing a coaching eye allow us to do this. The general principles outlined above are the major technical commonalities in successful sprinting. I do believe we need to move team sport athletes closer to that model, but there may be a point when moving closer and closer to a technical model or searching to change finer and finer detail, especially in team sport, can become detrimental.

There may be a point when moving closer and closer to a technical model or searching to change finer and finer detail, especially in team sport, can become detrimental, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

Team sport competition offers many other ways for the athlete and team to be successful than just the physical. Technical and tactical elements will often win and lose games more often than physical elements. Individuals in the NBA may be able to jump out of the gym, but if the team’s jumper is off for the night, they may lose the game. In soccer, if the tactical element is not addressed through training and video, the team may not be prepared well enough to be successful against an opponent. But when all you have are technical skills to rely on, that gives you less chance to be successful than if you also had some physical abilities to fall back on.

Stealing time from sport technical training in the hope of changing a few degrees of arm swing or achieving another inch of knee lift in upright sprinting because “that’s what puts us closer to the model” is probably not worth it. We really need to think about how all the elements of being a successful athlete interact, not just the physical.

Once the foundational concepts are in place and learned, the athlete can and will gravitate to a more individualized style based on anthropometry and personal restrictions and limitations.

As a side note, just because an athlete has sprinted with poor technique their entire career does not mean that we can use the cop-out that this is their “individual style.” This poor technique came about because they have never been taught how to sprint efficiently. Much of their youth was probably spent developing technical sport skill with little development on the technical performance side. 

Injury Considerations

Hamstring injuries in sport are not going away, and there is some evidence to say these modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors play a role:

• Previous injury
• Knee flexor strength
• Muscular properties (fascicle length)
• Age
• Exposure to relatively high sprint speeds
• Technical execution of sprinting*

There are certainly more considerations than these, and injuries never come down to just one thing. We must balance all of these and more to mitigate hamstring or any other soft tissue injury risk. Additionally, some of these risk factors bleed into one another, meaning that increased knee flexor strength as well as exposure to sprint speeds can enhance fascicle length.

We’ll tackle the two that deal specifically with speed:

• Technical execution
• Exposure to maximal velocity

Modifying Sprint Technique

Sprint technique should be addressed as a way to reduce risk of injury. Even if research does not fully support this idea yet, I believe it will. Many strength and conditioning coaches agree that performing weight room exercises under great load with suboptimal technique has a higher injury risk when compared to that same exercise and load completed with closer to optimal technique for that individual. Sprinting is no different than this idea—it’s a high-force, high-velocity exercise that demands technical execution.

Sprint technique should be addressed as a way to reduce risk of injury. Even if research does not fully support this idea yet, I believe it will, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

Most sprint coaches would agree there would be some increased risk of injury if their 11 m/s athlete started to sprint with major backside mechanics or plant significantly in front of the center of mass, as some team sport athletes do. Just as important to injury risk is performance—that 11 m/s athlete would not be an 11 m/s athlete anymore if these things were to occur. If anything, the bigger picture reason may be decreased performance and sprint speed.

If the best sprint coaches and researchers believe there is a relatively clear definition of optimal and suboptimal technique, why are some technical issues not always viewed as suboptimal in other sports?

Once we understand the governing principles, we can start to take inventory of what we potentially want to change in certain athletes. Don’t expect to change every technical flaw either. Trying to perform a complete overhaul of technique to mimic these governing principles in one fell swoop may cause issues. We’re better off fixing the big rocks first. Big errors, when fixed, can sometimes clean up the little errors.

Generally, work from big flaw to small flaw, biggest performance gainer to smallest performance gainer, and/or biggest injury risk to smallest injury risk. It is crucial to understand the “big rock” components of the model and recognize how far away technically the athlete is currently. I think there are a few key considerations when looking to change sprinting technique for a team sport athlete:

1. Does their current technique put them at a higher risk for injury? This points to the idea of how far away they are from the technical model. Assuming there is a connection between technical execution and injury risk, this becomes one of the most important considerations.
2. If you were successful at changing a specific aspect of sprint technique, are you confident this change will improve performance or reduce injury risk? If not, it may not be worth the time investment.
3. What is that athlete’s injury history? If the athlete’s injury history is clean, you may be a bit more aggressive in your approach than what you may do with an athlete who has had a rash of hamstring strains or soft tissue injuries.
4. If the athlete does have a clean injury history, where are they in your bandwidth of technical acceptability? This brings us back to consideration #1.

Spending significant time to modify a few degrees of arm swing or trying to get an athlete’s knee up another inch might not be worth it. Greater performance gains in team sport might be seen by spending that time working on technical and tactical elements of sport.

Another important consideration is the athlete’s age. Do we spend as much time on a 30+ year-old athlete as we do a 20-year-old athlete? It’s not that we can’t improve older athletes, but they’ve had significantly more time engraining their current sprint technique than a 20-year-old. This may make the 30-year-old a bigger project, and it can potentially be more time-consuming to pull them out their bad habits. This scenario also brings us back to the considerations above.

Dose and Frequency

Many coaches now tout maximal velocity sprinting as a protective mechanism for the hamstring. I am no different. I do believe that exposure to intense sprinting is quite important. If an athlete is not prepared to perform intense work or the tissue is not capable of effectively handling high levels of tension, there is an increased risk of injury. Intense preparation is imperative for intense competition.

Intense preparation is imperative for intense competition, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

There are research studies that show there is a “sweet spot” of speed exposure to reduce injuries. One, in particular, shows the U-shaped curve, and the lowest incidence of injury is between 5 and 11 maximal velocity speed reps per week. While great conceptually, this does not account for the frequency at which it is dosed within the week (and based on anecdotal evidence, I think the number of reps may be overzealous).

We must think about the frequency at which we expose athletes to this high-intensity work. Is the athlete being exposed to this volume of sprinting 2-3 days in a row, twice a week with a day or two between, once every seven days? Completing five near-maximal velocity sprints in one training session or game is not the same as completing one near-maximal sprint five days in a row. I’m not suggesting anyone is actually doing the latter, but this is an illustration to show that it is not only the count of sprints at the end of the week that matters, but the frequency of exposure as well as the quality of movement matter more.

I’ve tracked velocities >90% in training and matches for a few years now, and I’m not convinced it needs to be as frequent or in as relatively a high volume as the research would indicate. If an athlete missed a seven-day rolling window of sprinting at high velocity, I never forced them to make it up immediately. My step-in point was usually between 14 and 21 days, as I thought this would be the point that tissue preparedness would start to decrease. I have no hard evidence on that 14- to 21-day window, but I know tissue preparedness does not wane from Friday to Monday. Forcing an athlete to “make up” maximal velocity work without a thought on where it should be placed can actually cause problems in itself.

Forcing an athlete to “make up” maximal velocity work without a thought on where it should be placed can actually cause problems in itself, says @john_r_grace. Share on X

If you neglect where you place maximal velocity sprinting and just check the box to check the box, you could easily blow an athlete up. Maybe not on that particular day, but a few days down the road is possible. If this does happen, the temptation is then usually to blame it on lack of exposure and that the athlete needed more. In reality, it could have had nothing to do with lack of exposure and actually been the placement of the stimulus that did it—sprinting at an inappropriate time can be just as harmful as not sprinting.

Ability

You shouldn’t treat your speed-power studs like your donkeys. Sprinting and plyometric activities are largely self-intensifying. In other words, as the athlete jumps farther and higher, and as sprinting speeds become faster, the tension generated within the muscles and tendons is greater, in turn creating a greater stress response. A 10 m/s team sport athlete may not be able to handle the speed volume of work that an 8.5 m/s athlete can.

A common thought is that the speed-power stud needs to do more to raise the ceiling or can handle more because they have a more robust set of physical qualities, but in fact it is quite the opposite. The speed-power stud typically shouldn’t do more because of the additional stress incurred from working at higher intensities. For this reason, there is little need to progress volumes over the course of the year, as long as the exercises chosen allow the athlete to express high levels of intensity, and the athlete’s physical qualities are improving.

Anecdotally, slower, less powerful athletes have fewer muscular injuries simply because they don’t have the engine to produce the intensities needed to actually injure themselves.

Acceleration and Speed Development Is Not Just Acceleration and Speed Development

Strength and conditioning coaches often don’t view sprint training as “strength” work.

Why?

Take a couple steps back and think about what strength is. Rather than thinking of strength as how much you lift, think of strength as a neural quality that requires the muscles and tendons to produce appropriate levels of tension to complete a task. If we adopt this definition of strength, exposing an athlete to sprinting is one of the, if not the, highest tensions a muscle and tendon complex will ever be exposed to.

Rather than thinking of strength as how much you lift, think of strength as a neural quality that requires the muscles and tendons to produce appropriate levels of tension to complete a task. Share on X

Is acceleration and speed training “strength” work? Yes. Sprinting has the ability to improve tissue capacity due to the high levels of tension just like traditional strength work does. I don’t necessarily think they are an equal trade-off and wouldn’t ditch the traditional strength work in the weight room, but this does put sprinting as a means of strength/neural training in a new or different light, especially when a weight room is not available. We don’t have to revert to bodyweight lunges and squats that are largely fluff and fillers to make it look like we’re doing something. Sprinting, jumping, and throwing are a viable maintenance strategy during the competition season.

Traditional strength training largely carries over to speed because of the neural adaptations, not necessarily because the muscle was able to produce more tension or force. Maximal intensity sprinting produces the highest tension in the shortest amount of time out of any exercise that you can do. It’s not a one-sided connection in that strength improves speed. It’s reciprocal, as there is a connection between these two qualities. Strength training can enhance sprinting from a neural stimulation standpoint, whereas sprinting can enhance strength and power from a neural and tension standpoint.

Outside of actual transfer of speed to the field and court, this is the reason sprinting as a means of training to maintain and/or develop other physical qualities is useful. Maximal intensity acceleration and speed training is such a potent stimulus. The qualities developed from sprinting can carry over to sports that don’t necessarily need speed to be successful, such as volleyball or tennis.

Complementary Training Components to Acceleration and Speed

Training elements need to be complementary to the end goal. In this case we’re specifically dealing with the abilities to accelerate and sprint faster. It is important to note that these complementary training elements are also applicable to other sporting movements, as the goal is to largely enhance specific aspects such as improving motor unit recruitment, rate coding, and motor unit synchronization. Of course, these suggestions are not exhaustive and are most likely more of a representation of the philosophy I have adopted though the years.

There are certain exercises that lend themselves much better to acceleration than others. Training elements that can be complementary to acceleration development:

• Speed: Heavy and light resisted sprints, hill sprints, accelerations
• Plyometric/Jumps: Horizontal and vertical jumping with relatively longer GCT, basic bounding, static medicine ball throws, skipping variants, etc.
• Resistance Training: moderate to heavy Olympic lifts and pulling variants, squats, deadlifts, lunges

Note: Be careful with heavy sled pushes to assist here. The benefits of any joint angle-specific loading can be washed away with flat-footed contacts and a hunched-over torso. On top of this, a sled push requires the arms to hold the sled handles, which takes away from specificity as well. I’m also skeptical that heavy sled pushes have similar neuromuscular coordination characteristics as something like heavy back squats.

There are also certain exercises that lend themselves much better to maximal velocity. Training elements that can be complementary to speed development:

• Speed: Flys, sprint float sprint type, maximal sprinting
• Plyometric/Jumps: Hurdle hopping, depth jumping, vertical emphasis bounding variants, dynamic/elastic medicine ball throws, assisted jumping, etc.
• Resistance Training: Light to heavy Olympic lifts and pulling variants, quarter/half squats, shorter ROM step-ups, etc.

Note: Assisted sprinting is sometimes a popular method to employ, but this can backfire easily. Assisted sprinting leads one to believe it is working because it looks faster and because of the end result of faster sprint times when performing the exercise. These faster sprint times are largely due to covering more distance during flight. In fact, assisted sprinting may result in longer ground contact times due to the athlete needing to place the foot down farther in front of COM to stay balanced. This the exact opposite of the characteristics needed to sprint fast.

Interconnected Qualities and Techniques

Each one of these topics could certainly be an article in itself, and while I initially wanted to write a few thoughts about sprint technique, it’s hard to mention only one of these topics on its own without the others since they are all quite connected.

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The sports performance industry is currently in uncharted territory, simply from the standpoint of the uncertainty shadowing how and when we will all return to doing what we do best. On top of that uncertainty comes this crucial question: As coaches, how do we ensure it is safe for our athletes to return to physical activity? Any strength and conditioning coach will agree that the concern over soft tissue injuries is at the forefront of our minds during this process.

As we begin bringing back our athletes, many of us have realized that you can tell and show an athlete what to do independently, but their training intensity is not the same as when they are being coached. We can tell them what to do, but without a coach correcting their technique, creating motivation, or pushing them to strive for more, the training effect is not the same. Therefore, despite all the time spent on at-home training programs and trying to hold your athletes accountable, they still may not be prepared when circumstances allow a return to training or competition.

One of the major steps we are taking to ensure that our athletes will be prepared when their season begins is extending our sprint technique warm-up. Share on X

At Varsity House Gym, one of the major steps we are taking to ensure that our athletes will be prepared when their season begins is extending our sprint technique warm-up. Simply put, this is a way for us to stress the mechanics of sprinting without stressing their joints and tendons with the higher forces and velocities of actually sprinting. There are three reasons I believe extending your sprint prep warm-up is the key to helping prepare your athletes for return to their sport:

1. The low-impact nature of warm-up drills will not overtax their tendons and joints, and they will be more prepared for the higher intensities of sprinting.
2. By extending our warm-up process, we are building in some extra work capacity through the increase in tonnage (by yards) of the amount of work the athlete performs. For example, we will have them do all their sprint prep work through 20 yards down and back. After six drills, we will have already built up to 240 yards of work without taxing the athlete as much.
3. Making athletes perform more reps of their sprint technique will give them more opportunities to figure out how to solve the complex motor issues of live sprinting.

What Does an Extended Sprint Warm-Up Look Like?

When we perform our sprint prep series, there are, generally speaking, approximately 4-6 drills that we do, depending on the time of year, the time within the training block, and the experience of the athletes we work with. Along with that, we work from slow to fast and simple to complex in the drills that we choose to do for that day. This allows the athlete to build on one drill into the next, again giving us more reference points to pull from for technical cues.

As you can see, all of the drills follow the progression of slow to fast and simple to complex—simply adding a level of intent or speed to a drill is a progression in itself. Therefore, each time you add speed to a drill (i.e., A-Walk to A-March), you require the athlete to solve the same movement problem in a more intense environment. Even a small change in pace can expose imbalances or technical inconsistencies with an inexperienced athlete.

Next, when it comes to the warm-up process, we do our volume considerations in three- or four-week waves, again giving our athletes optimal opportunities to adapt to the stimulus. Yet the way we work, it actually happens in reverse: We have a longer warm-up during the first 1-2 weeks, as it helps our athletes adapt to the training stimulus a bit better. We may perform our sprint prep drills for 20+ yards or meters for two rounds during the initial weeks.

As athletes become more efficient with the warm-up process, we can then decrease the volume and increase the intensity of the warm-ups by introducing some more complex warm-up options. When we lessen the volume, we can start by lowering the number of sets first and then lowering the distance traveled, as we want to still allow them actual time to adapt to the more complex stimuli.

Why It Works

I previously mentioned the three reasons that extending the sprint warm-up helps to prepare athletes for return to their sport. Here, I explain the thinking behind those reasons as well as how to apply it with your own athletes.

1. Has a Low Impact on Joints and Tissues

The best ability is availability. Coaches across all levels cannot express this mantra enough to their athletes. This will be our #1 job as strength coaches—ensuring our athletes are available when it is time to hit the field. Athletes will not be ready to start moving at fast velocities on day 1, week 1…maybe not even month 1. Therefore, we need to make sure we initially do things that are low impact and joint- and tissue-friendly to ensure continued availability to train and play.

As a return-to-play policy, extending the warm-ups will help increase the resilience of the athletes’ tissues, helping them become more accustomed to those forces over time. Share on X

The low-impact nature of warm-up drills like marching, skipping, and dribbling make them great places to start. Performing these drills allows us to reintroduce proper sprinting mechanics without the added velocities and forces of live sprinting. As a return-to-play policy, extending the warm-ups will help increase the resilience of the athletes’ tissues, helping them become more accustomed to those forces over time. The resilience and stiffness of their tendons will correlate highly to their readiness to jump, throw, and sprint, as it will directly affect the stretch-shortening cycle of the muscle¹.

Given the amount of time many of our athletes have been on the couch, their tendons will not have the prerequisite tissue stiffness to handle the necessary intensities. Using low-impact warm-ups to help re-establish tendon stiffness and resilience will be vital to helping them return to play. Providing more stiffness in the tendons will prevent overloading our athletes to perform activities that their bodies are not prepared to perform.

2. Increases Work Capacity

A major obstacle to returning to play will be the athletes’ level of conditioning (or lack thereof). Even when experienced athletes work out on their own, there can be a different training stimulus then training in the gym environment. For example, one of our elite-level athletes in the NBA was still training on his own throughout the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the minute he came back to training, he was highly detrained, and it took him about two weeks to get back to where he was before the quarantine started. Considering that reality, if an elite-level athlete can take two weeks to get back to regular training, what do we think high school athletes will be like?

Using the warm-up to gain work capacity is an easy layup for creating additional opportunities without the direct stress of a conditioning protocol. Even something as simple as a few 50-yard shuttles will be a challenge for athletes who have been slacking during the time off.

Using the warm-up to gain work capacity is an easy layup for creating additional opportunities without the direct stress of a conditioning protocol. Share on X

Extending the pre-sprint warm-up process creates an opportunity to increase that work capacity in a low-impact environment. Performing the drills with optimal technique over distances of 20 or 30 yards/meters will tax both the muscular and cardiovascular systems of athletes who may have been less active than their norm. You can also opt to perform drills stationary, using time instead of distance, which can give you greater control over the work-to-rest ratios and more ability to dial in the conditioning aspect. Thankfully, the general low intensity of warm-up drills can allow you to have athletes perform them for extended periods without worrying about overworking the athlete.

Using these tools to sneak in extra “conditioning”—without the high impact or intensity of real conditioning—will be paramount for an efficient return to play. We can push the time of work without the fear of detrimental soft tissue injuries, as long as we maintain low intensities over an extended distance or time. Building back a base of basic work capacity will help us lay the groundwork for increased work down the line—and now, more than ever, this needs to be at the forefront of our consideration.

3. Improves Technical Proficiency

When it comes to sprinting, getting your athletes to understand the proper postures and positioning is an important step. Yet, we aren’t always able to spend the amount of time we probably should on giving the athlete’s brain time to figure out the proper positions.

Many of us are familiar with the 10,000-hour rule, which states that it may take 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Especially when it comes to something as complex as sprinting, this rule is something that we can apply—so why not try and get more practice in? Literally reaching 10,000 hours will probably rarely happen, but mastering an essential skill for sport performance with intent and deliberate practice is something that we can work toward.

When working with younger athletes in particular, it may take them longer to grasp the complex concepts of sprinting, so we should give them more opportunities to figure out those issues. By extending the sprint warm-up process, we give them those opportunities at focused practice to keep getting closer to mastery of the skill of sprinting. As they continue to build and grow their understanding of the desired postures, patterns, and shapes they are trying to accomplish with their bodies, their understanding of technical cues will grow in concert.

By extending the sprint warm-up process, we give younger athletes opportunities at focused practice to keep getting closer to mastery of the skill of sprinting. Share on X

As coaches, we can shout whatever cue we want, but if our athletes do not understand what the cues mean, we are wasting our voice and their time. If we can grow their base of movement knowledge, we can provide more reference points as to what patterns or shapes they are trying to accomplish. A novice athlete may not understand the concept of good frontside lift and why it is important, but if we can give them a reference point of an A-Skip or A-Run, they can connect those dots more easily.

By extending the warm-ups and benefitting from the combined effects of improved work capacity and technical proficiency, our athletes can also become more accustomed to maintaining those postures for longer periods. This may be something more pertinent to track coaches, where middle distance runners may be forced to maintain technical proficiency under extreme levels of fatigue. But even team sport athletes can use this concept—a soccer athlete may have to make a big push in the final minutes of the game under fatigue. Even though the technique of the sprint mechanics may not be the same, the idea of being able to pull from those capabilities while fatigued is still important.

Warming Up with a Purpose

The simple act of extending the sprint warm-up process and using these drills as a chance to get some more light and extensive plyometrics before a training session will be a saving factor for many of our athletes returning to play. Their joints and tendons will be very lax and not ready for the intensities of all-out extended sprints, and we need to be prepared to give them the proper time to get back into shape. But, let us not forget the reason we even do sprint prep to begin with—the complex movement patterns of sprinting need to be constantly practiced and refined, even for the best athletes in the world. By using an extended warm-up of upward of 20 meters, we give our relatively novice athletes more chances to understand these complex patterns.

This time in history may be unprecedented, but it does not mean that we do not have the tools to deal with it. Share on X

Above all, we as coaches need to ensure that we do no harm to our athletes: Their health is our job to maintain and improve. This time in history may be unprecedented, but it does not mean that we do not have the tools to deal with it. By simply moving around some volume in different areas, we can give our athletes the best chance to be prepared for their respective sports as we start the slow return to normal activities. And using the sprint prep warm-up in an extensive fashion and as a low-level plyometric to prep the body for more intense activities is a major key to getting them prepared.

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

Kubo K, Kawakami Y, and Fukunaga T. “Influence of elastic properties of tendon structures on jump performance in humans.” Journal of Applied Physiology. (1985). 1999;87(6):2090‐2096. DOI:10.1152/jappl.1999.87.6.2090

Failure is a facilitator of growth. I full-heartedly believe that we learn so much more from our mistakes than from our successes. There is something about failure that stimulates our minds and makes us find a better way to accomplish the task at which we were unsuccessful.

Indeed, we have likely all made mistakes in our careers that we are extremely grateful for, as our failures typically helped shape us into the coaches we are today.

We have likely all made mistakes in our careers that we are extremely grateful for, as our failures typically helped shape us into the coaches we are today, says @bigk28. Share on X

However, although failure may be an integral part of everyone’s career, I have come across a few simple mistakes in my own career that I want to save you the burden of going through personally. In this article, I share five mistakes to avoid in order to help solidify your position as a sports performance coach and a necessity in your athletic department.

1. Giving in to the Athlete(s)

I see this way too often: coaches judging the effectiveness of their program based on the athletes liking/disliking what they are doing. At the end of the day, you are the professional, and you know what is best for the team and the individual players. If you go by what the athletes enjoy, you will spend the entire weight room session doing bench presses, tricep pushdowns, barbell curls, static stretches, and core work. Breed a culture where players value performance and want to do well with the workout you prescribe. Create value for your workouts by linking them to tests that challenge similar characteristics to the ones needed by athletes in the sport they play.

Create value for your workouts by linking them to tests that challenge similar characteristics to the ones needed by athletes in the sport they play, says @bigk28. Share on X

These are some of the tests that I connect to our activities in the weight room:

Speed —> Timed 10/20/40s, flying 10s

Jumping —> SRJT, max vert

Lift —> Barbell power output

We perform these tests weekly and rank each player so they can see where they stand amongst the team. It breeds competitiveness, and you won’t have players asking to do alternatives that aren’t effective in improving performance. Don’t get me wrong, it is vital that athletes respect the workout and its benefits. Sometimes the simple act of explaining the workout and how it carries over to their sport goes a long way in having athletes put 100% of their effort into the workout, instead of them complaining that there is other stuff they should be doing. If your program does the job of improving sports performance, athletes will buy in.

2. Giving in to the Sports Coach(es)

I say this with a caveat, because I know at some levels, sports performance coaches are linked to their sport coach, and that relationship is the most important part of them retaining their job. However, if you do have the flexibility to be autonomous, you should not follow the demands of the sport coach on what exactly you should do for speed, power, and strength development.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that players need quicker feet and to do more ladder drills (cue the eye roll). I say “exactly” because you can’t be a dictator blocking out any input the coaches share with you. The sport coach’s input is a valuable piece of developing a sports performance plan. And, at the end of the day, it is their butts on the line if they don’t have success. There are things we may not notice that are very clear to them the more time they spend with the players.

However, sport coaches are experts in one thing—the sport they coach. Just as you are the professional for developing sports performance, they are responsible for developing the tactics and skills of the players during their time in the program. Still, it is important to have a great relationship with your sports coach, as you are both on the same team when it comes to maximizing a player’s potential.

Most of the time when I ask coaches what they need the players to work on, it boils down to a few things—to be: 1) faster; 2) more explosive; 3) stronger; and 4) in better “shape.” This is where you need to do a good job educating the coaches and remove the phrase “sports specificity” from their vocabulary. The most sport-specific activity any athlete will participate in is the sport itself!

I don’t think the sport coach should dictate the sports performance plan, but it’s important to get their feedback on what their “coaching eye” tells them throughout the course of a practice/game. Share on X

Now, I particularly believe that conditioning should occur by building up max velocity, thereby improving their speed reserve, or built up through high-intensity practice. But I all too often hear coaches telling their athletes to go on long runs or do treadmill sprints to get in better “shape.” This is not ideal, and the sport coach should speak to the sports performance coach before making any type of suggestion. (NCAA catastrophic guidelines are a big step forward for athletes, as the sports performance coach should be the one making the prescription in the first place).

Although I don’t think the sport coach should dictate the sports performance plan, I think it is important to get their feedback on what their “coaching eye” tells them throughout the course of a practice or game. Use what the coach sees in games/practice as an additional piece to the puzzle in designing your sports performance plan. My program is structured on developing speed, power, strength, etc. I often ask a coach, “What sport is specific to the qualities of being fast, powerful, and strong and having the ability to repeat that over and over again?” The answer is all of them.

3. Devalue the Position

There is nothing I hate more than hearing coaches openly devalue themselves in their role and how much (or little) they contribute to the success of the team. When coaches do this, they not only diminish their value in their own athletic department, but when they do it often enough, administrators and coaches will start to agree. Then we as a profession will struggle to improve our compensation.

Do I think that sports performance plays a huge role in the success of the team? Yes! Do I think it is the most important thing? No. The most important factor in the success of any team at any level is the ability to recruit talented players who play the sport at a high level. That is the bottom line. However, if you are at a school where you can’t get top-level athletes, the sports performance coach’s role becomes even more critical in the development of the athlete.

We sport performance coaches need to stop humbly devaluing our role and our contribution to the success of the team, says @bigk28. Share on X

Guess what the next most important part of the equation is? Keeping those players on the court/field/ice, etc. This is where the sports performance coach has huge value for protecting the players so that they are able to compete at a high level all year long. I think that good sports performance coaches will continue to improve (or at least maintain) their athlete’s athletic qualities all year long, while also keeping them healthy enough to compete at that high level. We are not injury preventers and should never make the claim. But we do play a huge role in reducing the risk of injury and helping players compete throughout the entire year.

If you are at a school where you are the only person on your sports medicine staff, your value becomes even greater. Some would say that at the high school level, ATCs are a necessity, but sometimes, unfortunately, there isn’t enough money in the budget to hire both positions (at least from what I’ve seen locally). There is no need to worry here; as long as you have your CPR/AED certification, you can provide frontline standard care in the case of an emergency until EMS arrives on the scene. A well-structured sports performance plan acts as an ATC in itself, reducing the incidence of injury and keeping your athletes competing at a high level.

I love the quote “the best ability is availability,” and we as sports performance coaches play a huge role in that. I love when I read articles where the head coach openly praises their sports performance coach and say how they are the most important coach on their staff. We need to live up to the expectations and make our coaches feel that way instead of humbly devaluing our position.

4. Not Using Technology as a Resource

I write about this with a grin because I have made this mistake my entire career. If you want to be able to run an effective sports performance program and save yourself the man hours of inputting and evaluating, find a technology you can trust. Luckily, there are so many good systems out there nowadays, you can have your choice of the system that fits in with exactly what you are looking for.

I personally do a ton of testing with regard to speed, power, and strength and need a system that saves me the hassle of sitting at a computer and manually inputting numbers into Excel. For example, with regard to speed, we time some type of sprint 2-3 times a week with each of my 21 teams. With roughly 400 athletes, that comes out to 800-1200 sprint times a week.

Do yourself a favor—get yourself a tracking system, as it will act as another assistant coach on your staff, says @bigk28. Share on X

Even if I did have the time and energy to input all those test scores, I would definitely not be able to take the time to go through each individual athlete and notice any trends. If I can’t effectively judge whether or not my program is working, what is the sense in getting all these testing measures? Having a system where all of the technology is linked and recorded for me is a huge timesaver and one all coaches must explore. I personally would go with CoachMePlus, as it pairs with a plethora of technology already on the market. Do yourself a favor—get yourself a tracking system, as it will act as another assistant coach on your staff.

5. Saying “It Isn’t About the Money.”

I am lucky to be part of a profession with the most committed and dedicated professionals I have ever come across in any field. If you are in the sports performance field for a prolonged period of time, it is safe to say that you absolutely love what you do, otherwise you would never last. I am 10 years in the profession, and I am always giddy when I get to train my athletes and see progression and growth throughout their careers.

However, I don’t know if there a profession more guilty of saying the phrase “it isn’t about the money” than the sports performance one. I get it—we are so in love with what we do as a career that we almost make it seem that we would do it for any salary they offer us. And therein lies the problem. When we say things that show that we don’t care about monetary compensation, we lower our value as professionals. If you do a job that isn’t about the money, why shouldn’t your bosses pay you the least amount they can? I mean, do you ever hear doctors use this phrase?

Maybe in a humanitarian vision we all work for free, but in the real world that is not sustainable if you wish to support yourself and your family. We should advocate for everyone in the profession to be paid more because of the value we bring and stop acting like what we do is a charity. It is okay to push for higher pay and higher compensation; as a profession we deserve it.

When we say things that show that we don’t care about monetary compensation, we lower our value as professionals, says @bigk28. Share on X

As we grow older in life and have to take care of families and mortgages, saying our job isn’t about the money will put us in very difficult situations. That phrase also gives schools the freedom to make starting salaries extremely low and attract someone who is just dying to get in the field and willing to accept any dollar amount to do it. That is unacceptable, and we need to eliminate this language from our vernacular. We are high-functioning professionals who bring a ton of value and deserve to be compensated as such.

Avoid the Easy Mistakes

Mistakes are a part of the sports performance profession, but there are some easy mistakes we can avoid. We are leaders in our departments and one of the biggest assets for our teams, and we need to act as such. Communication with players and coaches is so vital for the buy-in to your program and for facilitating a program that is best-suited for each one of your teams. Without communication you will never be able to build trust and develop your athletes the way you want to.

All of the assessments, from both the sport coach and the performance coach, are all pieces of the bigger puzzle and must be taken into consideration when designing a sports performance plan. As you look to expand and grow your department, rely on technology as another “assistant” and help with everyday tasks that would be tedious for you otherwise. Remember, we are high-level professionals and deserve to be compensated as such. Don’t sell the profession short—we are one of the most passionate professional groups out there.

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

This article is part of a series in which I outline the athlete level classification program, also known as “blocking,” that we use at York Comprehensive High School (YCHS). It’s imperative for sports performance coaches to have a well-planned, evidence-based program to progress young athletes through as they grow. Just as a teacher in an academic class would build on concepts and practices, so must we.

In this article, I expand on how we prepare our rising freshmen as they move through our “Block 1 New” classification and eventually graduate to “Block 2 Novice.” I outline the programming and technique protocols we use with our Block 2s in depth. Finally, I discuss how our athletes prepare for graduation from Block 2 and into our “Block 3 Advanced” category.

I hope this article will be of help to you and your athletes. We work in a field where taking other coaches’ ideas and adjusting them to your own program needs is a very powerful skill to possess. If this or anything else I have will be helpful to you, I urge you to copy, adjust, and make use of it in any way possible.

Review of Transitioning Block 1 Freshmen to Block 2 Sophomores

In my previous article on introducing new athletes to our program, I discussed the “slow cooking” process of transitioning our incoming freshmen from our Block 0 program to our freshman Block 1 level and touched on the Block 1 “graduation” standards. In general, the process stays consistent as we progress up the ladder of our program’s layered programming model. We use a combination of movement mastery, body frame, body weight, and strength ratios in our three strength movements to recommend promotion. Our Block 1s must achieve a combined 80% of the following “goals” to be eligible for promotion to Block 2.

Figure 2 shows an example of this using the chart of a large-framed athlete with a body weight of 200.

This athlete is well above the 80% threshold. If he also masters his movement, he will be promoted to Block 2. These numbers will be projected 1 rep max totals. In general (there have been individual exceptions), we do not 1 rep max test our athletes until the end of Block 2 (sophomore) in preparation for transition to Block 3. We project these off a “plus” set that we do at approximately 86% of their previously predicted 1RM, which we do for each of the three strength movements once in each four-week cycle (to be discussed later in the article).

Once our athletes reach these standards, we graduate them to Block 2 Novice and adjust the programming to reflect the progression. At this point, we also introduce our athletes to our devices. Part of earning promotion to Novice is being given the privilege of going from a paper sheet with a workout on it to the use of CoachMePlus on a tablet. This is a step toward the gradual move from coach control to a student-athlete controlled learning model.

Review of Block 1 Programming

In the previous article, I discussed how we use a modified version of progression for our three main strength movements that is very similar to Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1, or a traditional BFS program with some slight modifications for our Block 1 athletes. As with all parts of our program, athletes must earn this in a progressive manner. Initially (starting in the summer of freshman year), we spend time reviewing and reteaching all movements from Block 0. We slowly progress throughout the summer, adding variation until we feel the group is ready for the next step.

Step 2 of our progressive program introduces our athletes to the general outline of how they will do things on a daily basis during their time with us. We put the workout in the form of our modified tier system, using the movements that they will learn and use throughout their time in Block 2. We print these as sheets from our CoachMePlus calendar.

During this period, the load is set and does not change until they have sufficient mastery of each movement and we are ready to add weight to the movements. Not all of our athletes will graduate at the same time. We do our best to promote only when each athlete is physically prepared to do so. The set load is kept very light. This can sometimes frustrate athletes who may be capable of lifting more weight than programmed. You must explain to the group why you program the way you do and the advantage they will have when you finally do add to the load.

During Block 2, our goal is mastery of movement, and the weight used doesn’t really matter to us at this point except as a teaching tool, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

This is also an excellent opportunity for our athletes to master technique and practice bar speed. We always have a few athletes who, even with the very light load, struggle with it being too much. We instruct those athletes to stop at whatever weight they can do without a struggle and use the same weight for the rest of the programmed sets. Our goal is mastery of movement, and the weight used doesn’t really matter to us at this point except as a teaching tool.

Here is an example of a printout given to the Block 1 athletes during the last few weeks of summer.

The final step of Block 1 is to progress to using percentage of projected max, as well as volume periodization, which they will use through the end of Block 2. This programming starts out initially with a very modest projected max for our bench press, hex bar deadlift, and front squat movements. It also features progressing variations of vertical and horizontal push and pull movements, Olympic variations, and posterior chain variations, as well as squat variations other than the front squat. The vast majority of those reps will be done initially in the 50-59% relative intensity range to focus on movement mastery and bar speed.

We progress from that point with both main movement projected max and relative intensity of all other movements and variations. By the end of Block 1, our athletes will have progressed to the point where we have a pretty good idea of a predicted 1RM for our three main movements based on the plus sets they do once in each cycle. Those plus sets in Block 1 set the projected 1RM, along with technique proficiency, and we use them to determine when an athlete is eligible for promotion to Block 2. By the late winter and early spring, we usually have a handful of freshmen ready for Block 2.

Programming for Block 2 Athletes: Basic Design Layout

Our program for all layers is a three-day-a-week split. We use a modified tier system with the traditional total, upper, and lower daily split that rotates once per week through speed/dynamic Tier 1, total strength Tier 2, and volume acclimation Tier 3. Tier 1 includes Olympic movements and variations along with other lower-intensity/higher-velocity movements. Tier 2 features one of our three base strength movements or a variation (trap bar deadlift, squat, and bench press), an antagonist auxiliary movement, and a prehab/mobility movement.

Tier 3 is where one area of our “modified” version really comes into play. Traditionally, this is a volume/hypertrophy tier. We use this much of the time for that same programming. However, this is also a place where we work in some additional Olympic squat and/or pull variations as dictated by our volume progression plan, which I will discuss later.

Our yearly plan is split into four-week cycles. We use a concurrent periodization plan and train equally for power, strength, and hypertrophy together. What may be different from some programs is that our method of progression uses volume as our priority method of overload. Intensity is a secondary factor and is not necessarily tied into volume—both can be manipulated independently as needed.

Therefore, when I say “heavy” or “light” day or week when describing a microcycle or day within a microcycle, that does not refer to the intensity range of our lifts. In fact, it refers to the total volume count for reps 50% or over in one of our six “counting” movement families (squat, press, pull, clean, snatch, posterior chain). Our heavy days may indeed use lower-intensity ranges and our light days often include heavier intensity.

Why we do this is an article in itself (or a book called “The System,” which is one of the most influential books I’ve ever read). Basically, we do this because we place great value on movement proficiency and bar speed over absolute strength. We must always remember the actual sport we are preparing for is the priority, not the number we can hang on a goal board.

Moving a bar loaded so much that they move it very slowly (and do it often) will make an athlete stronger. However, the strength they gain from that will likely not translate to sport as well as a little more moderate load moving at max velocity. Bar speed is the king of transfer to sport from the weight room. We believe using volume as our primary form of forcing adaptation via overload is the most effective way to produce our desired outcome for our athletes.

We believe using volume as our primary form of forcing adaptation via overload is the most effective way to produce our desired outcome for athletes, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

As in all aspects of our layered block program, we transition from a more consistent set-rep scheme to our volume wave periodization in steps. In Block 2, our athletes use the wave volume program in all movements except our Tier 2 base movement. We continue to use the version of “5/3/1” we began using at the end of Block 1. Block 2 athletes use a wave within the days of the week, but the total reps stay consistent except for the volume deload during the fourth week.

In blocks 3 and 4, we further “wave” the volume within each week of a cycle. This is another way we use volume to ensure the athlete continues to progress and avoids training plateaus as they age in our program. We also do not use “snatch” variations until closer to the end of the block, so those are not reflected in the volume count at this point.

Our four-week mesocycle is divided into three-day weekly microcycles. The total volume for each cycle is based on the goal number (850-875 counting reps per month) we want our elite athletes to reach by the last few cycles before their preseason. We then work back, subtracting +/-10% per cycle (with a regression cycle at the start of each new block) until we reach a number our Block 2 athletes will actually start with (520 in Cycle 1). Within the week, each day is also subdivided as shown in figure 4.

During this time, we keep the intensity ranges low, spending most of our time in the 50-69% range with all base strength movements. We increase the intensity slowly and cap our relative intensity for each individual movement at 2% per four-week cycle.

Figure 5 below shows a week. Remember, we only count reps over 50%, so even if it says “8 reps” we may do 12, but four of them would be below 50% intensity.

Strength movement programming is the final component for our Block 2 athletes. Our Novice athletes use a less complex version of programming for our “Big 3” Tier 2 base movements (TBDL, front squat, and bench press for this layer). As stated above, this is a version of Wendler’s “5/3/1” program that I adapted from a good friend, Jeremy Evans. We really embrace the idea of simple to complex in our slow-cooking process.

I feel that jumping “full go” into our volume periodization program with sophomores may cause some confusion. Therefore, we allow them to use the following program (figure 6) for their main lifts while we acclimate them to the increasing volume. Our athletes should have technique proficiency with these three movements by this point, and we feel comfortable adding intensity to them.

Our goal is to eventually have the vast majority of our Block 3 and 4 athletes’ reps coming in at the “sweet spot” of 70-85% for bar speed/strength, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

While we keep the majority of our reps in the 50-69% range and build from there, this program provides an opportunity for our athletes to experience a higher load with less volume. As in the “5/3/1” program, we set a training max of 90% of predicted 1RM. Therefore, when you see a set at 95%, it is actually a set at around 85%. Our goal is to eventually have the vast majority of our Block 3 and 4 athletes’ reps coming in at the “sweet spot” of 70-85% for bar speed/strength. This is their first step toward that goal.

Our program has four separate volume intensity ranges. Our athletes do one each of the three training days in a week. On Day 1 of the next week, we do the fourth and then start over. This ensures we get one “dose” of each range with each of our base movements. Using the AMRAP set, we can get an approximate adjusted max each cycle for each movement as well.

It’s very important to keep in mind that just because an athlete graduates to Block 2, doesn’t mean any of these programming items are set in stone. The “coach’s eye” is still the best tool to give our athletes what they need. Too many times, coaches get caught up in rushing athletes to heavier loads and more complexity of movements.

There is no need to do that. Just about anything we do for them at this age will result in growth. I see no need to push any of our athletes to missed reps or failure, especially our Block 2s. Make sure you have a progression and regression program and use it. The vast majority of our Block 2s do not rack cleans or do back squats. When they are ready, they will do them.

Just about anything we do for them at this age will result in growth. I see no need to push any of our athletes to missed reps or failure, explains @YorkStrength17. Share on X

From a safety and a sports performance standpoint, a loaded jump or a quick and soundly executed clean pull are superior to a “reverse curl”-looking hang clean. Remember SPORT first, numbers second. A clean doesn’t translate to the field of play if it’s done with poor technique. Neither does a slow, overloaded or “half” range back squat.

Our job isn’t to make athletes the strongest people on the field or court; it’s to help them reach maximum performance. Mastery of movements and being able to do those movements at max velocity BEFORE heavy loads are added will help athletes stay healthier and be more explosive during their sport. Adding load and more movement complexity slowly as they master bar speed can make that explosion very powerful as well.

Here is a typical workout from CoachMePlus for our Block 2 group.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Block 2 Final Notes

The program design above is what our athletes use as we move through Block 2. Generally, we see a small handful of athletes begin to transition to Block 3 during the mid-spring of their sophomore year. Most, especially my football athletes (who have classes year-round), graduate after our May testing.

As I said above, this is also the time when a few athletes also begin the transition from pulls and loaded jumps to hang cleans, and from front squats to back squats. I do not allow an athlete to do hang cleans if they “short pull.” That is the No. 1 mistake my athletes make. The second is foot displacement being way too wide during the catch. Both of these errors take away from the power development of the movement. I’d rather they do a loaded jump for four years than a poorly executed clean.

With squats, we look for a solid position and mobility to gain proper depth. If they can’t do a proficient back squat, why not just keep them doing a great front squat? Again, I have to say SPORT first, lifting second. Use movements and variations that develop the athlete and transfer to sport, not just some that sound good to say you have them doing but can’t be done efficiently.

Use movements and variations that develop the athlete and transfer to sport, not just some that sound good to say you have them doing but can’t be done efficiently. Share on X

In my next article on this topic, I will write about the transition from Block 2 Novice to Block 3 Advanced and Block 4 Elite. I will begin that article discussing the body weight goals and technical expectations that must be reached to qualify for graduation to those levels. I will also get further into our volume periodization programming and how we take our athletes fully into that program during blocks 3 and 4. I hope you can take what we have had success with and integrate it into your program.

If you have not read the book, “The System,” I urge you to do so. One of the authors, the great NFL strength coaching legend Johnny Parker, told me that once I used this type of programming, I would never go back. He was 100% correct. We are two years into it, and it gets better every cycle.

We have used that model as the top end of our programming. It’s what we use for our advanced and elite groups. We then reverse engineered it to peel off layers of complexity and depth, and come up with solid layered progressions that allow us to “slow cook” our athletes and fully prepare them as individuals for the rigors of high school athletics.

My hope is that if you do not already do this with your program, this will inspire you to do so. Even if you don’t do it the same way we do at YCHS, the framework is consistent and allows you to research and develop your own plan for layering your sports performance program. As always, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or comments.

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

Whether it’s a running back hurdling a defender and breaking into the open field, a ballet dancer gracefully navigating the stage, or a gentleman strolling down his driveway to get the mail, one thing is abundantly clear: There is no more beautiful combination of art and function than the human movement system. And such beauty and importance naturally drive curiosity.

As humans, we have sought and continue to seek to know more about ourselves and how we operate. The ancient Greeks began dissecting cadavers as their primary means of learning anatomy, and cadaver studies have had a stronghold on our scholastic endeavors ever since.¹ However, different cohorts in the movement world have recently called into question the presence and relevance of “dead guy anatomy” and the information that has been ascertained from it.

Debating ‘Dead Guy Anatomy’

“Dead guy anatomy” (I really don’t like that phrase, but that’s what people are calling it) refers to the understanding of movement that developed from studying cadavers. It encompasses the origin, insertion, and subsequent action of a muscle, muscle innervation, fascial lines, tendon stiffness properties, etc. Simply put, it’s everything you learned in your traditional anatomy courses.

The objections to cadaver anatomy certainly have merit and are worthy of discussion. These objections may come packaged in different forms, but they stem from the same premise: We cannot understand how things function by studying them in a nonfunctional state. A fluid-less dead person lying motionless on a steel bed without a functioning nervous system cannot be representative of dynamic human movement. So, while you may yank on rectus femoris and produce knee extension or hip flexion, that’s not what it actually does during the gait cycle. During gait, rectus femoris will act eccentrically to keep the leg from collapsing on itself.

Another take stemming from the aforementioned basic premise is that we are 60% water, and, therefore, our fluid-filled nature has to play a critical role in our movement processes. Our evolutionary origin demonstrates that movement was accomplished by fluid-shifting in an amoeboid fashion to propel us through space, and our current system is just a scaled-up version of that.

Too often, though, critics dismiss cadaver anatomy as a system of levers and pulleys that do not explain how humans actually move and then leave it at that. Some go on to try to explain their more esoteric philosophy, but many just declare “dead guy anatomy sucks” and move on.

An important note here is that some of these more abstract philosophies may, in fact, be fundamentally closer to the truth of human movement or they could be completely bonkers, but regardless, their abstraction makes them less practical and less actionable. That. Is. Dangerous. It leaves coaches and clinicians with no practical framework to operate under. These confused practitioners then go searching for something actionable and stumble upon some guru or absolutist school of thought (probably with some three-letter acronym) and find their haven. Next thing you know, they’re shouting on social media at everyone who doesn’t grind every athlete’s hip into 75 degrees of internal rotation or whatever absurd panacea they’re preaching.

The most disheartening part of this whole process is that cadaver anatomy isn’t wrong; it’s just not always right. Those levers and pulleys do work to produce movement. Tendon stiffness does allow efficient transmission of elastic energy. The origins and insertions of muscles do dictate the possible movements they can produce. The patella does increase mechanical advantage of the quadriceps by increasing the lever arm.

Cadaver anatomy isn’t wrong; it’s just not always right… It helps us solve a whole host of problems that our athletes deal with, says @zguiser. Share on X

This stuff matters. It helps us solve a whole host of problems that our athletes deal with. No, it doesn’t solve everything, but models created by humans are not perfect. Furthermore, some of the models that are supposed to replace cadaver anatomy actually just build on top of it. How would we have any idea that rectus femoris acts eccentrically during gait if we did not first understand its origin and insertion through cadaver models?

The Contrarian Problem

I’ll loosely define contrarianism as being different for the sake of being different (or, more likely, for the sake of standing out). Contrarianism is dangerous. It detracts from the essence of well-intentioned, informative, and useful educational materials and undermines said usefulness.

Contrarianism runs rampant through the movement (S&C, PT, fitness, etc.) social media world these days. The vast majority of professionals, whether we admit it or not, absorb a large chunk of our information from social media. Transitively, contrarianism runs rampant through the movement world.

We operate in an unfathomably complex universe, and as human movement experts, our subjects are unfathomably complex human beings with seemingly infinite uniquities; of course, there are situations where an ideology doesn’t work. There are (nearly) no absolutes. I’m not sure if there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the scientific method or if it’s just our innate desire to seek simplicity, but we all need to realize and accept that we don’t know what we think we know. Science gives us the most plausible explanation for phenomena based on the evidence available. But both the observed phenomena and the evidence available are continually evolving in many situations, which makes our scientific explanations fluid.

Contrarianism vaults “gurus” who tout one-size-fits-all methodologies to the forefront of our industry because they at least provide actionable frameworks and rationales. This is dangerous. Share on X

With such complexity and fluidity, it is inevitable that there will always be a “but” with every model we put out there to explain almost anything. The problem is that we still need real, applicable, and practical frameworks in order to produce fruitful outcomes in our objectives. Contrarianism is actionless. Everything is wrong, so nothing can be done. Contrarianism vaults “gurus” who tout one-size-fits-all methodologies to the forefront of our industry because they at least provide actionable frameworks and rationales. I repeat: This. Is. Dangerous.

Should We Ban Isaac Newton?

Let’s consider some of the most fundamental models that underpin our existence. For the most part, we’re all pretty familiar with Sir Isaac Newton’s work. His three Laws of Motion and his Law of Gravity are probably the most well-known physics concepts ever taught—and for good reason. The concepts behind his work allow us to build bridges, fly planes, and even send people to the moon. Maybe more relevant for us, though, is that he’s allowed us to build better athletes by teaching, well, everything we know about force.

Newton’s laws lay the foundation for our understanding of the universe. Here’s the kicker, though: They’re not always right! Newton’s theory of gravity was wrong about predicting a planet (which would have been named Vulcan) that was supposed to be in the area of Mercury. Without the presence of planet Vulcan, Newtonian physics couldn’t explain Mercury’s wobbly precession. This was the beginning of the unraveling of a previously infallible model.

Physicists then learned that, at high speeds, Newton’s Laws of Motion are increasingly inaccurate. The same goes for Newton’s Laws of Motion with small particles and in strong gravitational fields. The model that we thought governed our universe turned out to be incomplete.

Einstein swept in with the concept of the curvature of space-time (general relativity) and seemingly saved the day. But, that’s not the case. His theory of relativity explains all the really big and really fast stuff, but becomes nonsense when things are taken to the atomic level. Through the work of Niels Bohr, Max Planck, and Einstein, quantum mechanics accurately explained some observations where previous models failed. Quantum mechanics predicts atomic and subatomic concepts beautifully but becomes pure absurdity when applied on a large scale.

Newtonian mechanics, relativity, and quantum mechanics all fall short of explaining the whole picture. But that doesn’t mean physicists have just thrown them away. There’s still work to be done, so physicists understand the strengths and weaknesses of each model and employ them accordingly. If you want to understand black holes, go ahead and pull out the general relativity model. But that doesn’t mean you should go around declaring the death of Newtonian mechanics. Newtonian physics are simple, extremely practical, and accurate for 99.99% of the situations we deal with, just like cadaver anatomy.

When you understand where a muscle attaches, you can deduce its action in a variety of kinematic positions, says @zguiser. Share on X

Understanding cadaver anatomy is a foundational component of providing a framework to filter information through when trying to solve a problem. The objections to cadaver anatomy are real, but that should not detract from its usefulness. When you understand where a muscle attaches, you can deduce its action in a variety of kinematic positions.

Consider the piriformis. A tight piriformis is commonly accused of being the culprit responsible for low back, SI joint, and posterior thigh pain. As such, stretching of the piriformis is often prescribed to alleviate these issues. (Whether or not a tight piriformis is actually a common/noteworthy issue and if stretching it will produce meaningful outcomes are both debates for another day. Let’s just assume for this example that stretching the piriformis would be beneficial.) I imagine that if you’re reading this article, you have a specific piriformis stretch that comes to mind—hold onto that thought!

The piriformis originates on the sacrum and sacrotuberous ligament and then inserts into the superior aspect of the greater trochanter. When the thigh is neutral/extended, the piriformis passes posterior to the hip’s axis of rotation in the transverse plane. This makes it a hip external rotator. In order to stretch a muscle, you want to take it directly opposite to the direction of its action. So, in order to stretch the piriformis, we should take it into internal rotation, right? I’m willing to bet that doesn’t match the description of the piriformis stretch you had in mind.

When the hip is flexed to 90 degrees, the piriformis passes anterior to the axis of rotation in the transverse plane and becomes an internal rotator of the hip. The position of the thigh relative to the pelvis completely flips the action of the piriformis. So, as you raise your leg up to put it on top of a box or as you lean your trunk forward, the hip would need to go into external rotation in order to place a stretch on the piriformis.

Understanding the attachment points of the piriformis allows us to not only realize that the piriformis action completely flips based on kinematic positioning, but also allows us to understand how and why that happens. Without a firm understanding of cadaveric anatomy, we wouldn’t have this information. Cadaver anatomy serves as our foundation and allows further deductive reasoning processes to extrapolate to functional situations that take place off of the steel bed.

Question Everything

I’m not saying you shouldn’t question things and seek to have a deeper understanding. In fact, I don’t think you’ll find anyone who promotes an inquisitive nature more than I do. Curiosity is the fuel for progression. You should seek to understand the “why” behind everything that you do. Continual inquisition allows for the development of the most accurate, efficient, and optimal systems possible.

I hope that those who explore other movement strategies continue down their paths and find applications for their methodologies in the same manner that physicists have found applications for general relativity and quantum mechanics. I regard many of those individuals as much smarter than myself, and I have no doubt that their models will bear fruit in time, if they have not already. But that does not diminish the value that is afforded by cadaver anatomy.

Present the shortcomings of established models, provide alternatives, but then acknowledge the strengths and utility of the existing models, says @zguiser. Share on X

I simply encourage the manner of questioning and educating to be done in a way that does not entirely undermine the value of proven systems. Present the shortcomings of established models, provide alternatives, but then acknowledge the strengths and utility of the existing models. It’s not hard. It probably won’t get you a lot of followers, but it also won’t feed the flame of confusion and guruism that rages through the movement world.

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. Ghosh, SK. “Human cadaveric dissection: A historical account from ancient Greece to the modern era.” Anatomy & Cell Biology. 2015;48(3):153-169. doi:10.5115/acb.2015.48.3.153

Just three months into 2020, the whole world had gone through a lot. As a nation, we were nearly on the verge of war with Iran, rumors of another recession were rising quickly, the coronavirus had spread like wildfire, Kobe Bryant passed away in a tragic helicopter crash, and, as icing on the cake, we were entering an election year. It wasn’t a great start to the year, and the year hasn’t gotten much better since.

During times of hardship, society has always been brought together by sports, and now it seems like even that has been jeopardized, with high school sports being cancelled, the Olympics being postponed, and many professional sports having very different seasonal schedules, if occurring at all.

As coaches, we have all been affected as well, from our programming and personal schedules to the facilities we can use and more. As the unexpected comes and goes in my life, with the resulting personal and professional issues that arise, I wanted to write this article to help strength and conditioning coaches in their efforts to deal with the unforeseeable future.

Did the New Orleans Saints crumble after Hurricane Katrina affected the entire city? No, they kept fighting and realized that they had more impact than people originally gave them credit for. Did Michael Jordan quit in the famous “flu game”? Did Kobe Bryant not attempt his free throws after his Achilles tear versus Golden State? No, they adapted and persevered through this hard time.

Issues arise every day for strength and conditioning coaches, and we must adapt, says @KTelegadas. Share on X

Issues arise every day for strength and conditioning coaches, and we must adapt. As this article goes on, I will present examples of my own changes I have made over the past five years of my career. I will detail circumstances where I found solutions to these problematic situations, using creativity, logic, emotion, thinking outside the box, networking, and reading.

1. Creativity

In my current role, something we do right now is make videos for our clients. We use online resources within our company to deliver the programs. Some of these include online databases, social media, and email blasts.

We highlight members’ workouts, include members of the week, and send out daily motivation video/emails to encourage our clients to keep the right mindset. Remember, as coaches, what we do goes beyond the weight room. Take time to text/check in with your clients and athletes. Now is a great opportunity to show that you care, not only as a coach, but as a person.

Perform bodyweight workouts, band workouts, and other exercises to utilize everyday equipment at home. Here are some examples:

1. Circuit 1 – 4-5x through
   • RFE split squat from couch x 12/side
   • RDLs with handheld objects
   • Plank hold x 45 seconds

2. Circuit 2 – 4-5x through
   • Push-ups x 20
   • Eccentric pull-ups on a tree branch x 10
   • Wheelbarrow farmer’s carries x 50 yards

3. Conditioning – x5 rounds for time
   • Glute bridges x 25
   • Bent-over T’s x 25
   • One lap around the apartment or house

2. Logic

Using logic is a phenomenal way to solve issues. In coaching, logic can save you a ton of time. I encourage coaches to get away from hand-writing programs or using Excel. These take up so much time and may not be the easiest to adjust. I recommend moving over to apps such as TeamBuildr, Train Heroic, Bridge Athletics, etc. to logistically cut down on time spent programming.

With these, you can easily administer programs via athletes’ phones, emails, etc. They also come with video examples and cues to assist you, since you may not be in the athletes’ vicinity physically amid coronavirus restrictions. I would like to note that I am not a fan of remote or online coaching, but, as a coach, there is always a way to get it done. In tough times we must use logic to assist us in cultivating, educating, and inspiring our athletes to move forward so our progress is not lost during the off-season.

In tough times we must use logic to assist us in cultivating, educating, and inspiring our athletes to move forward so our progress is not lost during the off-season, says @KTelegadas. Share on X

Other logical ways to give feedback include videoconferencing via FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangouts, or Zoom. Examine, breakdown, and correct form. Now is a great time with bodyweight exercises to go back and work on technique for the future. Add in tempos to restore motor control and stability. Utilize this time to increase and restore mobility as well, especially if people are coming off of combat or contact sports.

3. Emotion

Emotion is like a double-edged sword. It matters how you wield it. Dan Yeong writes about a Cherokee Indian tribe parable detailing how each man has two wolves inside battling for dominance over the man every single day. It goes like this: 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I show this story to all athletes I work with now. We must remind ourselves, our athletes, and our industry as a whole that this battle between both wolves can be used to help us…or hurt us. Stay strong as a rock for your clients and athletes. Show them you’ve survived worse.

As a graduate assistant in Miami, I did not get paid for my work. I had to rely on income from odd jobs around town, my parents, and working all night while others slept peacefully. Share stories of rough times with your athletes and detail out what you learned from them. You’d be surprised how many people have had it easy up until now. Part of our job as coaches is to create better people, not just better athletes.

Part of our job as coaches is to create better people, not just better athletes. Send motivational videos, tips, and tricks to them…and educate through social media, says @KTelegadas. Share on X

Send motivational videos, tips, and tricks to them. One trick I use is to educate through social media, send videos to clients/former athletes, and lead by example (every exercise I have given athletes is one that I can perform well). Use these methods to cultivate your audience and establish your brand as a coach.

4. Networking

If you don’t know and/or don’t have experience…reach out.

Coming up, I had the ability to work with tactical and other athletic populations that I had no experience with. Having never played these respected sports or been on the tactical side of the field, the first thing I did was email, call, and text coaches who I knew had that experience.

Make sure to be prepared for what you want to chat about. Some considerations that I take into account before the calls or meetings are:

1. Know specifically what you want to get out of the conversation. This could come in the way of questions, programming considerations, population considerations, etc.
2. Bring examples of what you have planned already and be ready to put your ego down for the sake of bettering your clients and athletes. Remember, you are reaching out to learn, and some aspects of the conversation may challenge your current beliefs as a strength and conditioning coach.
3. Know your source. I know there are a lot of great coaches out there, but there are also some not-so-great ones. Ask around about them or do some online research before you network:

   • Where did they work?
   • Who did they work with?
   • What was the injury rate of the teams during their stay at said institution?
   • How do they form relationships with their athletes?
   • What do their co-workers say about them?
   • Should I take what they say with a grain of salt?
   • Are they constantly bringing out the best in people?
   • Are they open to sharing ideas?

5. Think Outside the Box

As coaches, some of us have become very spoiled with big, fancy weight rooms, Tendo units, PLAE flooring, and Sorinex racks, to the point where I see coaches lose creativity and the ability to think outside the box. Sometimes all you need are the basics to maintain general physical preparation. I encourage coaches to use this time to get away from the barbell and see what you can develop.

Sometimes all you need are the basics to maintain general physical preparation. I encourage coaches to use this time to get away from the barbell and see what you can develop, says @KTelegadas. Share on X

Here are some examples of exercises I have come up with:

1. Push a loaded car.
   • The car could be loaded with people, furniture, etc. Put it in neutral and push away.

2. Pick a wheelbarrow full of stones, bricks, etc.
   • If you ever did yard work for your family or on a farm as a kid, you will understand this one. Grip strength has always been a great predictor of max strength. Work on keeping the core erect and gripping tight for yardage.

3. Utilities, all forms of carries
   • Kettlebells, suitcases, sandbags, etc.

4. Build your own equipment
   • YouTube and other sites have huge numbers of tutorials for making your own equipment. I recommend watching videos, taking notes, and rewatching them as you proceed. Home Depot might become your best friend.

5. Bands, chains, medicine balls, and tempo
   • Band exercises

• Curls
• Good mornings
• Band pull-apart
• Paloff presses
• Banded overhead presses

• Chains exercises

• Chain-resisted push-ups
• Chain curls (1 chain in each hand)
• Chain 3-way shoulders (anterior, lateral, and posterior)
• Chain-loaded lunges (Zercher or back loading patterns)

6. Bodyweight plyometrics
   • Bounds
   • Hops
   • Jumps
   • Puddle jumpers
   • Sprinting

7. Logs
   • Log Zercher squats
   • Chops
   • Lifts
   • Overhead presses
   • Overhead carries

8. Partner work
   • Partner wheelbarrow carries (hold legs of your partner)
   • Partner carries
   • Partner-assisted pull-ups
   • Use your kids to load your squats and push-ups
   • Partner Nordic curls

9. Towels
   • Races
   • Curls
   • Tricep extensions with a partner under tempo

10. Rusty old plates/DB
    • DB snatches
    • DB cleans
    • DB, plate power jerks/split jerks
    • Plate curl to press
    • Plate loaded push-ups (plate placed on upper back)

6. Read, Read, Read

Take this one with a grain of salt. The human brain can only digest so much information and truly learn it. I see a ton of coaches read but never implement what they read. Figure out what you want to learn and apply more of, then find a book on that subject matter and read it.

I see coaches who read but never implement what they read. Figure out what you want to learn and apply more of, then find a book on that subject matter and read it, says @KTelegadas. Share on X

Now that you’ve read it, what the heck are you going to do with that information? Are you going to use it in coaching? What about programming? What about data collection to drive your programming in the way you want it to go? These are questions you need to ask yourself as a coach.

At one of my sites, we used Tendo units a lot to assess bar speed relative to the stimuli that we, as a staff, were trying to invoke as a phase progressed in season. We used this to help with autoregulation of the programming. If our position players came in and had to squat, they might be exhausted, or they might be fully recovered. We would add two extra sets in the warm-up and have them use those sets as “feeler sets.”

If the weight felt good, they would hit the speed-strength work for the day at their assigned weight. If the speed in m/s was more than what we needed, then we let them go up in weight. However, if the speed dropped, then we made the athletes drop the weight. As a staff, we used this time and the reading we did to not only achieve better results, but also educate the athletes and monitor progress week to week in season.

Change Is an Opportunity to Grow

The one thing you can count on is that things will always change—for better or for worse. I hope you have found this article helpful and can use any of the expertise/experiences I have had in my career to better your own. As coaches we can prepare for a lot, but sometimes we must adapt to the unexpected. Embrace the change, learn from it, grow from it, and pay it forward to young interns, graduate assistants, and coaches alike.

Who knows? These younger coaches might give you a job one day. Treat them with respect and learn from each other along the way. I have learned so much from people who have been above me and below me. Never think you “know it all” in this field. Everything is subject to change.

#BrickByBrick

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

In the sport performance world, motivation is an essential part of achievement. Sport psychology and motivation strategies seem to be continuously growing in popularity. Consider, for example, the fact that Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has hired a personal “mental coach”—this coach helps him with a wide variety of performance issues, whether it be how to realign focus after a bad quarter or steering him away from music that may negatively affect his mental state.

There are numerous books, articles, podcasts, and YouTube videos on how to integrate principles of sport psychology into sport performance practices. The focus of these resources is primarily on coaching principles, such as Conscious Coaching by Brett Bartholomew¹, to name just one. Oftentimes, these sources discuss how to effectively communicate with our athletes (both verbally and nonverbally). They have proven to be valuable contributions to the field and have changed the way many professionals interact with their athletes. With that being said, strength and conditioning coaches, physiotherapists, athletic trainers, and dietitians may benefit from using principles of sport psychology not only in their communication, but in their strategy design as well.

By using the Self-Determination Theory in my program design, the athletes I work with progress through movement patterns faster and report finding more enjoyment in the training process. Share on X

By using the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in my program design, the athletes I work with have progressed through movement patterns faster and reported finding more enjoyment in the training process. Additionally, there are higher levels of training adherence during times when personal interaction is scarce. This article will discuss the SDT and how sport performance coaches may incorporate its fundamental principles into their prescribed training periodization plan in order to maximize athlete motivation.

Self-Determination Theory

The Self-Determination Theory is a theory of motivation. It breaks motivation down into three separate categories:

 

1. 1. Autonomous Motivation. Comprises both intrinsic motivation and the types of extrinsic motivation in which people have identified with an activity’s value and ideally will have integrated it into their sense of self.²

 

1. 1. Controlled Motivation. Consists of both external regulation, in which one’s behavior is a function of external contingencies of reward or punishment, and introjected regulation, in which the regulation of action has been partially internalized and is energized by factors such as an approval motive, avoidance of shame, contingent self-esteem, and ego involvements.²

 

1. 1. Amotivation. Otherwise known as unwillingness². If you look up some definitions via Google, you will find some interesting ones out there, but the authors who are credited with bringing the theory to popularity keep it simple.

 

We know that autonomous motivation and controlled motivation lead to very different outcomes, with autonomous motivation yielding greater psychological health, more effective performance, and greater long-term persistence². This information is seemingly of no surprise—in our profession, the ideas of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation have been commonly known for some time now.

The focus of this article will be on the autonomous motivation section of the SDT. Research suggests that if an individual is to experience high levels of autonomous motivation, they must have three basic psychological needs met: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.² While the most recent research has broken down these needs even further—adding complexities and analyzing specific situations of social context, mindfulness, energy, and vitality—I will adopt a “bird’s-eye” view to ensure brevity and practicality.

Competence

Competence is known as the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. Therefore, it is task specific. It is important to note that feelings of competence may differ many times within a training or practice session.

Let us consider a collegiate men’s lacrosse defender. In men’s lacrosse, a defender uses an implement with a longer shaft than his teammates (midfielders, attackmen, faceoff, and goalies) and typically stays on one half of the field the entire game. A defender may feel confident with passing, cradling, and checks on their half of the field, but as soon as they cross to the attacking side of the field that athlete may immediately lose a sense of competence, because they rarely find themselves there. According to the SDT, if that athlete continually feels that lack of competence, they are much less likely to ever go on the attacking half of the field. This lack of competence has the power to have major negative effects on the athlete’s performance, such as hesitation during play, unforced turnovers, etc.

As sport performance coaches, we press our athletes to improve at certain tasks on a daily basis. In order to maximize our athletes’ motivation, we must maximize their feeling of competence; but in order to improve at a task, an individual must be challenged and experience a sense of struggle³. This situation illustrates the importance of incorporating a proper progression model when developing a training plan. Maximizing motivation is just as important as maximizing physiological responses to training, because we know that consistency is the most important variable in physical development⁴.

Progression models will likely look different between sport performance coaches. We all have different opinions and experiences that drive our training philosophy; that is one of the beauties of our profession. With that being said, coaches who apply SDT consider the psychological outcomes they hope to produce in a session and plan their progressions accordingly. Athletes should leave the sessions feeling challenged, but also feeling the reward of successfully overcoming a challenge.

Athletes should leave training sessions feeling challenged, but also feeling the reward of successfully overcoming a challenge. This can maximize motivation. Share on X

Starting with fundamental movement patterns the athlete can successfully complete—while adding strain through tempo and/or volume—is a great way to maximize the feeling of competence. If the athlete continually performs complex tasks with little to no success throughout the entire session, that athlete is not likely to stay motivated very long.

Coaches may consider these things when designing programs in order to maximize the feeling of competence:

 

• • Incorporating a segment within a training session that is simple, so that the athlete may give full effort (i.e., “Finishers”).

 

• • Using single-joint exercises within a session.

 

• • Starting with the most complex movements and finishing with the simplest within a training session.

 

• • Individualizing programs based off the athlete’s abilities.

 

• • Use the sandwich approach:

 

• • Movement 1: Something relatively non-fatiguing that the athlete is highly capable with (i.e., dribbling).
  • Movement 2: Something the athlete struggles with (i.e., a specific weakness).
  • Movement 3: Something fatiguing and simple (i.e., bike sprints).

Incorporating any of these strategies may enhance your athlete’s feeling of competence. Assuming the other two basic needs of motivation are met (which we are about to discuss), these strategies will likely enhance your athlete’s motivation and maximize the sustainability of it as well.

Autonomy

Autonomy is known as the right or condition of self-government. Oftentimes, academic authors from an array of disciplines tend to have slightly varied interpretations of the term in accordance with their professional discipline. In general, almost all of the interpretations refer back to the ability of choice. In order for autonomy to exist, one must have the ability to choose.

This idea of choice is a significant consideration for sport performance coaches. The athletes we work with have most of their day scheduled for them: They are told when they have film study, practice, meals, rehabilitation, aerobic conditioning, strength training, etc. Many organizations go so far as to tell the athletes when they need to be in bed. All of these things have a positive impact on the athlete’s performance, and they are all important. The complication arises, however, when the athlete doesn’t have a choice in the matter. According to the SDT, when someone is not given the freedom of choice, motivation is diminished.⁵

As sport performance coaches, there is not much we can do about the density of our athletes’ schedules. Oftentimes, we cannot even manipulate the schedule of our athletes’ strength and conditioning training—but we can consider the lack of autonomy in their scheduling process when we are developing our training sessions.

In order for autonomy to exist, one must have the ability to choose. In our training designs, we may consider developing segments within a session in which the athlete has a choice. Share on X

In our training designs, we may consider developing segments within a session in which the athlete has a choice. These choices may be a different movement, loading structure, exercise order, physiological emphasis, etc. It is imperative that the coach have the choices available from the start of the session or training block. If an athlete has to go up to the coach and request an alternate, it no longer feels like a choice for that athlete but more like a modification. When athletes request a modification, it is often because of something negative (i.e., pain, fatigue, etc.). Consequently, when performing the alternative, it may not have as positive an impact as if the modification were already given as an option.

Coaches may consider these things when designing programs in order to maximize the feeling of autonomy:

 

• • Allow athletes to design their own workouts on occasion.

 

• • Consistently have alternate exercises available (and not based on injury).

 

• • Use RPEs as a volume and intensity structure.

 

• • Allow athletes to create and lead warm-ups on occasion.

 

• • Have optional and alternate training days available consistently.

 

• • Have alternate implements available consistently.

 

• • Have optional loading schemes available consistently (8×3 instead of 3×8).

 

Having optional training days and using athlete-led warm-ups are my two go-tos in regard to autonomy. What I like about both strategies is that they require a sense of accountability. For the warm-ups, the athlete must prepare and spend time thinking about the process; meanwhile, having alternate training days requires athletes to consider their schedules and make time commitments accordingly. Both situations have positive implications outside of sport as well.

Assuming a coach has already accounted for the sense of competence in their programming, addressing these considerations will bring us one step closer to a thoroughly motivated athlete, and hopefully a more responsible one as well!

Relatedness

Relatedness is known as the state or fact of being related or connected. This is the emphasis that most of our current sport psychology resources (those relevant to sport performance coaching) have focused on. There is a plethora of information online that illustrates how a coach may learn to better relate to their athletes. As mentioned previously, the feeling of relatedness tends to develop within one’s interactions with their athletes: showing you care about them as a person, asking about their lives outside of sport, learning what type of feedback they best respond to, giving them a bit of insight into who you are as a person outside of work, etc.

While there is no replacing the effects or importance of how a coach interacts with their athletes, relatedness can be addressed within the program design process as well. Programming movements that you can skillfully demonstrate is an undervalued part of the program design process. For instance, I separated my shoulder back in the day while playing rugby, which limits my ability to demonstrate any overhead pressing movement.

Programming movements that you (the coach) can skillfully demonstrate is an undervalued part of the program design process, and it can lead to positive feelings of relatedness. Share on X

As a young coach, I did not consider this when I was programming; then, when it came time to teach the movement, I blew it! My technique was awful, and I could feel it. I tried to verbally communicate proper technique after my poor demonstration, but it didn’t work too well. Throughout the whole day I had multiple athletes use poor technique, and some even cracked some jokes about how my demonstration looked. The jokes were well-intentioned and lighthearted, but I’d be a fool to think there weren’t some underlying negative effects due to my poor demonstration.

Now let’s consider a different situation; one in which I felt like a much more competent coach. I have always been capable when it comes to any pulling exercise. During an evening training session my athletes were performing deadlifts as the primary movement, and we had a group of them making the same mistake during their initial setup position. I decided to pause the lift and give the entire team a couple of coaching cues, and while doing so, I happened to be demonstrating on the platform of our strongest group of guys. After giving the cues, the guys started probing me to see if I could move the weight that was on the bar, so I decided to do so…10 times! Everyone started yelling and smiling and cheering, which made for a fun and energetic training session.

While this scenario sounds cheesy (and it is), it also demonstrates the positive implications of relatedness. The athletes’ opinions and efforts completely changed based solely on my ability to personally do what I asked of them. An athlete connects to their sport performance coach through the avenue of fitness—when a coach is unable to exude some basic attributes of the underlying avenue of connection, it hurts the connection. When designing a training block, a coach should consider their ability to demonstrate a skill or movement effectively throughout a session.

Supplementary training sessions in which a coach can engage in competition with their athletes create an immediate sense of relatedness. Athletes and coaches get to communicate in a less formal and more peer-like manner. In my experience, flag football, basketball, and medicine ball volleyball are all great options. When competing alongside your athletes, be sure to keep it professional.

Coaches may consider these things when designing programs in order to maximize the feeling of relatedness:

 

• • Maintain personal fitness levels and/or goals.

 

• • Schedule sessions in which the sport performance coach may compete with their athletes.

 

• • Talk about topics of interest outside of sport.

 

• • Make time to engage in one-on-one interaction.

 

Incorporating SDT in Your Own Way

We now know that in order for someone to have high levels of autonomous motivation, three psychological needs must be met: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We have also discussed some strategies that coaches may use to incorporate SDT into their own practice. When considering how to apply SDT, it is important to make sure it is unique to your coaching style and philosophy. The more individualized and unique the approach, the more success you will have.

When considering how to apply Self-Determination Theory, make sure it is unique to your coaching style and philosophy. The more individualized the approach, the more success you will have. Share on X

I use proper progression models to address competence, because it is clear to both me and the athlete what they need to do in order to make it to the next step—there is nothing subjective about it. I use optional training days and athlete-led warm-ups to address autonomy, because they require personal commitment and effort on the athlete’s end. I maintain my own fitness levels and compete alongside my athletes whenever I can to address relatedness. These strategies align with who I am and what I believe in. I have also tried and failed at implementing other strategies plenty of times before settling on these ones.

According to my athletes, the strategies above have had an impact. Whenever I traveled with the team, an athlete and I always seemed to be reminiscing about a memory we had during a workout or competition. The athletes reported truly enjoying the training process, and consistently demonstrated commitment by showing up in the fall ready to train.

I’m sure you can come up with some objective ways to measure the effects of incorporating SDT, but my recommendation is just to ask your athletes. Engage with them, be creative, try new things, be open-minded, ask for feedback from coaches and administration, and have fun doing it!

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

References

1. Bartholomew, B. Conscious Coaching: The Art and Science of Building Buy-In. 2017. Omaha, NE: Bartholomew Strength.

2. Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. “Self-Determination Theory: A Macrotheory of Human Motivation, Development, and Health.” Canadian Psychology. 2008; 49(3): 182-185.

3. Dreyfus, S. E. “The Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 2004; 24(3): 177-181.

4. Chiu, L. Z. and Bradford, J. L. “The Fitness-Fatigue Model Revisited: Implications for Planning Short- and Long-Term Training.” Strength & Conditioning Journal. 2003; 25(6): 42-51.

5. Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. “Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.” American Psychologist. 2000; 55(1): 68-78.

Given the current circumstances, the “if” and “when” of return to many sports is uncertain at best. Coaches will soon be inundated with the tasks of getting athletes ready in a hurry, keeping them ready, and possibly presenting novel training options if training happens to be all they can do. For the coaches in the “when” stage, we know it is impossible to make up for the lost time. So how can we buttress our athletes for the rigors of sport in that short period?

Coaches must get their kids from 0 to 100 without breaking them while also answering the question: “How do we keep them ready for when the time comes?” For the coaches in the “if” stage, providing a smooth transition to the field, court, pitch, or pool is the order of the day. This may even turn into a longer period of time than we think, so having a training option we can cycle out of, vary, or temporarily return to will help break the monotony of the grind with general coverage and low cost to the system.

Enter a variation on an old classic—the med ball tempo and alternative versions.

Video 1. Repetitions of wall throws followed by high skips and backpedals.

Sound developmental practice traditionally calls for implementing extensive, low-intensity work to precede high-intensity phases. I’m certainly not advocating running miles at a slow pace here; rather, I’m suggesting that applying sprint and power exercises in an extensive manner will provide a segue to repeat sprint/explosive ability without trading risk for reward.

I’m suggesting that applying sprint and power exercises in an extensive manner will provide a segue to repeat sprint/explosive ability without trading risk for reward. Share on X

Two tools that can give you this “bang for your buck” are tempo running and extensive medicine ball throws—the marriage of which was seen in the work of a legendary coach who was conspicuously ignored in The Last Dance documentary (please excuse my public rant but someone must do it). Coach Al Vermeil used the med ball tempo (MBT) to develop work capacity, one of six components of his Hierarchy of Athletic Development pyramid and one that lies at its foundation.¹

In its purest form, MBT combines tempo running with extensive med ball throwing.

A Variation on a Classic Theme

I’ll digress here a bit as I reminisce about my early years of training. I distinctly recall a harrowing experience doing MBT for the first time back in 2000 or so, when I undertook a one-month athletic training course. I registered for the course to learn how to formally perform and teach the weight lifts, but it also introduced me to other facets of training I had never done before.

One day, the coach in the course had me perform various throws against a wall followed by running the length of the training hall (maybe 20 yards down and back). After about four of these repetitions, I damn near collapsed! It was then that the coach, Lance Vermeil, said to me, “Dude, you’ve got to get into shape!” Years later I can now answer the question of where he got this from—Al’s damn med ball tempo!

Little did I know then that a version of this would become a staple in my programs for both competitive athletes and general fitness enthusiasts alike.

Sometimes space availability, orthopedic health, and athletic needs can become constraints for some athletes to optimally execute the running portion of the classic med ball tempo. Share on X

The classic med ball tempo combines submaximal throws with straight-ahead running to encompass the systemic development that should be part of every sound GPP modality. This combination allows for the systemic development of the cardiopulmonary system, multiplanar force absorption, and soft/connective tissue development of the lower limbs. Simple and effective enough, but sometimes space availability, orthopedic health, and athletic needs can become constraints for some athletes to optimally execute the running portion.

Video 2. Medicine ball twist throws paired with a carioca run.

My variation on this theme comes in the form of substituting inefficient running patterns in place of straight-ahead running—which may be more effective in developmental phases for two reasons:

1. These patterns allow for a low-impact, high-intensity option that trains the oft-neglected muscles of the lateral chain. The stabilizer muscles of the groin are trained with these atypical patterns such as shuffling, carioca, and crossover styles of running.² For my athletes, the submaximal nature of these runs allows a safer introduction to faster, more intense cutting and change-of-direction drills. For our fitness enthusiasts, this option places less overall impact on the connective tissues while in turn training them for resiliency using undertrained patterns.
2. These patterns are less efficient compared to regular running. For students of Dan John, inefficient exercise is “doing something that takes a lot of movement and heavy breathing but doesn’t get you far.” John also adds that this can be a weapon in improving body composition (along with dietary changes), as inefficient exercise will spike the heart rate given it is working harder to get from point A to point B.

Injury reduction combined with a proxy to better body composition seems like a winning combo for all types in my book!

What It Looks Like

I have affectionately dubbed this workout “Funky Throws”—and if you apply it with swimmers, like I do, you may see some funky things going on with the running too (but hey, they do business in the water). We rotate through six throws preceding three different running patterns.

Here is what the base template looks like on paper:

1. Chest pass-high skip/back pedal (see video 1)
2. OH throw-lateral shuffle
3. Twist throw-carioca (see video 2)
4. Scoop throw-high skip back pedal (see video 3)
5. Front slam-lateral shuffle
6. Hurricane slam-carioca

The throws are performed in extensive fashion against the wall, then the athletes take a trip 20 meters down and back. The high skip and back pedal combine opposing patterns, with the former going 20 meters down before returning with the back pedal. Make sure the shuffle and carioca are done facing the same direction to train both sides. We instruct athletes to complete each throw and run in successive fashion, continuously without any rest other than the transition time from ball to track and back. A “round” is the completion of six of the throw and corresponding run combos.

Programming and Variables

Progressions for this modality can have a short- or long-term scope. If you have some time to get in a solid aerobic block, a nine-week plot broken up into three-week phases will have you performing 10 throws for the first three weeks, 15 throws from weeks four to six, and 20 throws in the final three weeks. The shorter version will ramp up the throws from 10 reps on week one to 15 on week two and 20 on week three.

This is not to say you should scrap the program after three weeks, but rather manipulate other variables to increase the intensity. Initially, time the entirety of a round without letting your athlete know that you are timing them—let them dictate the pace and have them rest for approximately 1/2 to 3/4 of the work time. This work-to-rest ratio happens to fit within the parameter of aerobic dominance; more specifically, with work intervals of 3-5 minutes, leaving rest periods ranging from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes.³ This just so happens to fit the ranges I’ve timed my athletes for in their bout with “Funky Throws.”

If you decide to use the shorter plan, here are some variables you can manipulate to apply stress differently.

• Subtract 15-30 seconds from the rest time. On a 1:1/2 ratio, a five-minute set would normally rest for 2 1/2 minutes; just rest 2-2 1/4.
• Manipulate the load. A lighter ball will increase the power output by forcing the athlete to throw it faster, and a heavier ball will increase the force absorption coming back at them, probably a good option for contact athletes.
• Combine the metabolic runs with straight-ahead running. Follow each of the first three throws with the high skip/back pedal, shuffle, and carioca combo. Then follow the last three throws with straight-ahead tempo running—for longer, if possible. This will increase the overall distance within the same amount of work time: i.e., 240-360 meters per round.

1. Chest pass-high skip/back pedal (20 meters down/20 meters back)
2. OH throw-lateral shuffle (20 meters down/20 meters back)
3. Twist throw-carioca (20 meters down/20 meters back)
4. Scoop throw-run (40 meters down/40 meters back)
5. Front slam-lateral shuffle (40 meters down/40 meters back)
6. Hurricane slam-carioca (40 meters down/40 meters back)

Another option is to replace the runs altogether with a 100- to 200-meter distance on a row machine, if you are fortunate enough to have one. This has quickly become a favorite with my swimmers, as they sometimes don’t want to do road work.

Video 3. Medicine ball scoop throws paired with high skips and backpedals.

If the weather isn’t cooperative, you can still maintain the integrity of the modality via an interval clock. Simply space out the throws and “runs” for a 30- to 45-second work period, resting the remainder of the minute. You can execute the inefficient runs with as little as a 5-yard space or instead employ a treadmill or a row machine. This will inevitably extend the total working time, but the difference in the intra-exercise work-to-rest ratio (between 30 on and 30 off and 45 on and 15 off) will maintain the aerobic energy system dominance.

The emphasis on work capacity—especially in the early stages of a career and a season—fits sound practice and is prevalent in Vermeil’s approach. The establishment and redevelopment of a work capacity reserve develops intra-session/contest and inter-session/contest recovery, effectively making the aerobic system omnipresent where the “work capacity reserve” becomes an essential weapon over the course of long seasons, overtime play, and maniacal sport coaching practices.⁵ The latter situation may be something fall sport athletes will have to contend with given sport coaches will be pressured to get their teams game ready.

These variations of the classic med ball tempo have served my athletes well and have allowed us to adapt to any logistical situation that comes our way. Share on X

The double whammy of resilience and fat loss makes the marriage of these concepts an ideal means to meet our athletes where they are and get them going to where they need to be. These variations of the classic med ball tempo have served my athletes well and have allowed us to adapt to any logistical situation that comes our way. The versatility of the med ball tempo and the “Funky Throws” has helped my clientele get in shape quickly, keep them in shape during competitive seasons, and provide unloading during more intense periods of training.

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

References

1. Twitter posted by @rugbystrengthcoach.

2. Van Dyke, Matt and Dietz, Cal. “Triphasic Training Metabolic Injury Prevention Running.”

3. John, Dan. “Fat Loss: The Hardest Thing to Do…And That’s All People Want to Do.” p. 40.

4. Fox, Edward L. and Mathews, Donald K. Interval Training: Conditioning for Sports and General Fitness. Saunders Co. 1974. Chart on p. 40.

5. Panariello, Robert. “Designing a Program Using Vermeil’s Hierarchy of Athletic Development.”