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As strength and conditioning coaches, our job is to prepare the athletes we work with for the demands of their sport. We do this by loading their musculoskeletal systems in the weight room and by training their neuromuscular systems to be efficient in communicating from the brain to the spinal cord and out to the motor neurons controlling movement. I work with volleyball, basketball, and tennis players who need to be fast in getting from point A to point B, and then from point B to point C—but Point B continually changes, and point C continually changes as well.

Therefore, these athletes can’t make a decision about how to get to each point without having an ability to adjust on the fly and change their path. Their path will most likely change with every step they take. Not only will the direction change, but the speed at which they move will change, the angle in which they push off of their toes will change, the height of their center of mass will change, and many other aspects of their movement will change.

Choosing Open vs. Closed Agility Drills

Sometimes athletes need to train with closed agility drills to get the basic motor patterns down, and sometimes athletes need to train in open environments and self-organize to find a way to succeed—when a real competition starts, that’s all that really matters.

The context will always matter when we make decisions about training an athlete, with questions like:

• How old are they?
• What is their training age?
• What level of participation are they at for their sport or sports?
• What are their goals?
• Does their sport involve interactions with other humans? With a ball? With Both? Or other implements?

The answers to these points will affect the drills we utilize and whether we choose closed drills or open drills. The differences between the two types exist on a spectrum: closed drills involve completing a task within predictable and fixed settings, while open agility drills involve completing a task in a chaotic and dynamic environment. As coaches, we can always manipulate different variables within a drill or put constraints on drills to shift it toward one side of the spectrum or the other. We just have to make sure we do our job and choose wisely.

During competitions, athletes chase opponents, chase the ball, sift through traffic, avoid referees in the field of play, execute their own technical strategies, adjust to the opposing team’s tactics, and so on. During a standard agility drill such as the pro-agility, athletes start in the same position each rep and learn to develop the best strategy to achieve the best time possible. This is not to say that the pro-agility is wrong in any way; it just is a different stimulus, and it has its place.

So, when should a coach use a closed agility drill such as the pro-agility or t-test? The following are some contexts in which using a closed drill is appropriate:

• Learning new movement patterns.
• Emphasizing a specific quality of a movement pattern (technique, power output, application of force).
• During a de-loading week that is not meant to be high-stress.

If there is a skill or a movement pattern in which an athlete needs to become competent, it is probably a good idea to practice that movement pattern without external factors disrupting the learning process.

When and why to use an open drill:

• Fun/novelty/engaging
• More challenging
• Include “game like” stimulus

Different Stimuli to Practice Open Speed and Agility Work

Our body gives us feedback by utilizing the five basic senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Theses senses allow us to react to our environment in ways that we see fit. Most sports require athletes to respond to visual stimuli, auditory stimuli, and touch stimuli. I’m not sure that many sports involve smell or taste (possibly, but I don’t know). Since athletes are required to react to their environment and these senses, it’s important to practice this in training.

1. Auditory Stimulus

In real life, athletes have to interpret some sort of call, whether it comes from an opponent or a teammate/coach, telling them where to go on the field or court. The auditory stimulus lets the athlete know how fast to run, where to run, whether to run at all or just stay put, or if they need to turn around or dive.

Since there are so many different ways that athletes need to react to this primary input, most training programs already incorporate an auditory stimulus with their athletes. At the beginning of many drills, there is a “go” call or some variation that their athletes respond to. I think if we can take this further, it isn’t difficult to come up with more sophisticated ways to give an auditory stimulus. It’s basically a verbal command to dictate a task to the athletes.

Simple enough: The following are just some of the ways I like to do it with my athletes. We can use these verbal commands consecutively throughout the repetition of the drill, so the athlete needs to be aware of their direction/path/angle the entire time.

North/South—In Grand Forks, ND, it seems like everyone knows which direction is north. So when my athletes train outside, calling out “north” or “south” is a fun way to change up from the typical “right” or “left” call to begin a drill.

City/State—Instead of giving a direction or location for where an athlete should go, you can call out “Kansas” or another state, and based on that call, they have to understand where they need to go for their task. This is very similar to a lot of team sports that run set plays.

Numbers—This is probably a pretty common one. Odd numbers, for example, can mean going to one landmark while even numbers mean going to another. Coaches can obviously play around with this one as much as possible.

Colors—If you use colored landmarks like cones, you can call out the color of whatever cones you want your athletes to go to.

Names of athletes—If you do a drill that involves chasing/evading/racing, you can call out certain names of the athletes to “lead” the drill or become the “chaser,” which is a fun way to get your athletes engaged. This is also great for any version of the mirror drill, during which the athletes trade off who is the lead and who is the chaser.

2. Visual Stimulus

Vision is probably the dominant sense in sports, and in my opinion, the most important one to incorporate into drills. We read and react with our eyes more than with any other organ—we could play sports with a limited amount of hearing ability, but we couldn’t play in the same way with a limited visual capacity. Visual stimuli play a huge role in understanding where we are in space, where we need to go, where our teammates are going, where our opponents are going, and where the ball in play is going.

There are two major visual cues that athletes need to be able to read and make adjustments to:

1. Other humans
2. The ball/puck/other implements

Since team sports are only played with one ball in play and typically several other humans, you should include human interaction as much as possible while performing drills. Theoretically, the transfer in training will be much higher when athletes are forced to see and adjust to the environment rather than just running to a marked location that is pre-planned before the task has begun.

A typical form of visual stimulus given to athletes in drills is a coach standing in line and pointing in a direction for the athletes to go. Another is a coach standing in front of the athletes and just taking one hard step for the athletes to react to. While this isn’t by any means bad or wrong, it probably should be taken a step further. Research suggests that a real, live human interaction may have greater transfer to sports performance compared to an athlete reacting to a point or another non-sports-relevant visual stimulus such as a flashing light.¹

Sprints can incorporate a visual stimulus by using cat/mouse games. Both athletes work on acceleration qualities, and one individual is at an advantage and one is at a disadvantage, all based on the constraints of the environment.

Mirror drills also seem to be effective for athletes across a range of levels and sports. A great thing about mirror drills is that you can add so many different variations and twists to make them more challenging.

1. Basic mirror drill
2. Mirror drill with limited visual capacity
   1. Using other humans
   2. Using implements
   3. The chaser facing away from the opponents
3. 3-dimensional mirror drill
4. Mirror drill through traffic
5. Mirror drill with an end zone

Any competitive drill that has an offensive and defensive player has this visual stimulus. One example, with a higher level of difficulty, is a basic mirror drill but with more than two athletes performing it at once in the same space. This is especially good for defensive volleyball players, because to get into position to make digs, they need to read through a lot of traffic: teammates who are in front of them, fellow defensive players who are beside them and in their peripheral, and their opponents hitting the ball through the block of their teammates.

Basketball players are in a similar situation when trying to defend their man who is running through screens to receive the ball. In very little time, they need to recognize and understand whether to go over the top of the screen, to go underneath the screen, to switch the screen, etc. You can’t quantify how much information athletes are receiving in order to properly execute their responsibilities in any given situation.

3. Touch Stimulus

By now, it should be pretty easy to understand that the exact drills may vary from coach to coach, but you can still incorporate athletes having to feel out their space to understand where they need to position themselves. A drill you design that allows for a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 situation can be great for incorporating touch. The advantaged group (with more players) can feel each other to cover the area they need to achieve success while the disadvantaged group (with fewer players) can do the exact opposite.

An example of this could be two defensive players holding back an offensive player from getting up and running a sprint. The offensive player might start on the ground in a prone position, and when the drill begins they attempt to get up and sprint through a given area while the defensive players attempt to prevent them from getting up and running. This touch stimulus can be very powerful, contributing to the development of skills involving contact in sports such as football, basketball, hockey, rugby, and more.

Putting It All Together

If you can incorporate all three senses into drills, your athletes will benefit in the long run. This might only be undesirable for athletes whose reactions are too slow and so it becomes information overload, with the cognitive demand becoming too high (in which case they probably are not very good when it comes to playing their sport). And, on the other hand, if they aren’t very good at utilizing these senses to help them make decisions, they could probably benefit even more from practicing it in a deliberate way.

In many contexts, regressing athletes to where they only do the types of closed drills that don’t challenge their senses can actually make them worse. I don’t think athletes need to spend 3-4 weeks (or shorter or longer) performing closed agility drills before they are prepared to perform open agility drills. Do youth athletes need to wait until they perform at a certain level before they should train in open environments? Kids play dodgeball in gym class and jump off of jungle gyms during recess. They are already prepared for chaotic environments.

I think this is especially true for higher-level athletes in college and beyond. I do not think athletes need to be at a certain level of performance before they do drills in a chaotic environment, just like I do not think kids need to wait until they are at certain strength levels to perform plyometrics. If you watch kids at an elementary school recess, you’ll see they already do these things, including one of the most intensive plyometrics—depth drops from excessive heights off of a jungle gym. That in itself is an open drill, masked as a game that is fun for kids. Chances are kids are more robust, and their musculoskeletal system can handle these movements just fine and even recover from them much faster than college athletes and adults can.

My position isn’t that you should never use closed speed and agility drills in any situation. I think they have a place, absolutely. Closed speed and agility drills can be a great way to train speed and agility qualities during a de-loading period when we don’t want the athletes to accumulate too much stress and central fatigue. During a de-loading period, athletes can still get the benefits of technique and improving shin angles coming out of a cut, and they can improve on other specific qualities such as muscular power output because they have less to think about. Ultimately, most athletes could likely benefit from both closed and open drills—context and intent matter.

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. Young, W. and Farrow, D. “The Importance of a Sport-Specific Stimulus for Training Agility,” Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2013;35(2):39–43.

2. McGarry, T., O’Donoghue, P., and Sampaio, J. Routledge Handbook of Sports Performance Analysis. 2015. Taylor & Francis Ltd.

3. Sheppard, J. M. and Young, W. B. “Agility literature review: Classifications, training and testing.” Journal of Sports Sciences. 2006;24(9):919–932. doi: 10.1080/02640410500457109

On a daily basis, we’re required to speak with others in order to pass on information. The form that this information takes can vary, including a command (such as “I need to you to do this“) or feedback (“What you did had this outcome, for this reason“).

We often pass information on as a means to exert influence. A parent speaking to a child wants to influence their behavior to keep them safe or perhaps to stop them from annoying others. As a coach, you often want to influence the athletes you’re working with. You want them to carry out a particular exercise to develop them physically, or to get them to move in a specific way to reduce their chances of injury, or as a means to enhance their performance. You also may have to exert this influence sideways to other coaches (perhaps you notice them exhibiting a coaching behavior that may be harmful) or to parents (to get them to better support their child’s development). And you may have to exert influence upward to a selection panel or National Governing Body in support of your athlete.

When it comes to exerting influence, it’s easy to think that, if the message you’re attempting to portray is correct, it will be listened to. For example, don’t do high volumes of plyometrics because it increases your chance of injury is a simple and logical message you’d think everyone could get behind. And yet, as we all doubtless know through experience, this isn’t the case at all. Despite the veracity and validity of our message, it often falls on deaf ears.

This is where the book Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t and Why, authored by Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks, comes in. The book’s key premise is simple, and yet hugely important for us to understand:

• The message is often not as important as the messenger.

The Big Short

The example Martin and Marks use to illustrate this premise is one familiar to those who have seen or read The Big Short. Michael Burry is an MD who started a hedge fund while practicing medicine at Stanford. He was hugely successful: in 2001, the S&P 500 dropped by 12 points, but Burry’s hedge fund was up by 50 points. He continually beat the market, year on year, making a huge financial profit for both he and his investors. In the middle of the 2000s, Burry started believing that the sub-prime mortgage market was due to collapse and began to bet against it (he was so early to this that he essentially had to invent the way to do it).

In 2008, as the market crashed and the world hurtled toward the recession that eventually turned into the financial crisis, Burry’s fund—buoyed by his shorting of the housing market—returned a 726 percent gain. Burry was right; he saw something others didn’t, bet on his intuition, and won big.

If anyone predicted the financial crisis, it was Michael Burry. Not many people came out of the 2008 crash financially well. Burry personally made $100 million off his prediction and yielded a profit for his investors of over $700 million. So, when the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, set up by Barrack Obama, sought to understand the causes of the crash, you’d think Burry would have been high on their list of people to give insight. Instead, they invited Michael Lewis.

Now, this was an odd choice. Lewis is a journalist and author, not a hedge fund manager, and certainly not someone who predicted the 2008 crash, put his skin in the game, and profited. Instead, Lewis had recently authored his book about the crash (The Big Short), in which he documented Burry’s predictions and told the story of his success. In short—and you can see where I’m going here—the Commission chose to speak to Lewis about Burry, rather than Burry himself. Why? Because Lewis was, or at least was perceived to be, a more credible messenger.

Why? By this point, Lewis was a well-known and highly respected journalist, having already authored Moneyball, The Blindside, and The Big Short. Lewis is also charismatic—or at least more charismatic than Burry. As anyone who has seen The Big Short can attest to, Burry—played by Christian Bale in the film—is, well, a bit weird. He’s an awkward communicator. He has a glass eye, which makes eye contact difficult. He prefers shorts and a tee shirt to a suit and a tie.

By choosing to listen to Lewis over Burry, the Commission made a mistake that all of us are liable to make (and indeed no doubt make multiple times per day)—they confused the quality of the message with the quality of the messenger. Lewis represented someone well-known with decent economic knowledge. People knew who he was and viewed him as credible, so they were more prepared to hear what he had to say. In contrast, Burry was not well-known and was not a smooth communicator. As an ineffective messenger, his more valuable message was lost.

As a coach, parent, athlete, or support staff member, the reality we face is that:

1. No matter how good our message is, if people see us as an ineffective messenger, we will struggle to be heard.
2. We are highly susceptible to receiving messages from strong messengers when the message itself is weak.

Messengers, in short, is how we become better at the first while avoiding the second.

Martin and Marks identify two types of messengers: hard and soft. Hard messengers are more likely to have their messages received because they are perceived to have higher status. Soft messengers win acceptance of their message through building connections with their audience. When we find ourselves being influenced­­—for example, when presented with information which should inform our decisions—we need to be wary of whether the message is right, or whether a subconscious bias toward the messenger is swaying us. Similarly, when we attempt to influence others, we need to ensure that we can use soft messenger skills to get our point across.

Hard Messengers

Hard messengers, Martin and Marks write, can tap into four key areas to build credibility and drive their message.

1. Socio-economic position. Signals of status—such as celebrity or a large number of Twitter followers—often make us more susceptible to the message being pedaled. Salespeople know this, which is why they often try to portray the trappings of wealth. Experiments using eye-tracking technology determined that we’re drawn toward images of people wearing suits—a status signal—above those wearing casual clothes.

In a famous study from the late 1960s, researchers showed that people were far more likely to sound their horns at a low-status car compared to a high-status car. This finding was replicated across different scenarios; a 2014 study, for example, found people were substantially less likely to overtake a prestigious vehicle compared to a low-status one. In short, we tend to provide more weight to messengers who have a higher status than us.

• Be wary—When reviewing information, notice if you’re influenced by the person’s status or the validity of their message? We see this all the time. Someone with more Twitter followers is perceived to have more valuable information. And well-established scientists with domain expertise in one area will have their messages about another area more readily accepted.
• Be smart—You can, of course, use this to your advantage. As a coach, you have a higher position on the hierarchy than most of the athletes you work with, at least in track and field (the rules can be different in professional team sport). This means you have a great ability to communicate with influence, so ensure your message is valid and valuable. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that, just because you’re higher on the hierarchy, your message is more important. Don’t ask people to do things “because you said so,” and be prepared to provide the reasoning behind your information.

2. Competence. Or, to be more precise, perceived competence. We see this all the time with doctors, who we recognize as competent. When they step outside their area of expertise, we attach the same or similar value to their message as we do when they’re speaking within their area of expertise. This also happens when the doctors are operating within their area of expertise. The best example I can think of is the Elaine Bromiley case. Elaine underwent a routine, elective nasal surgery, which required general anesthetic. When anesthetized, doctors insert a tube down the patient’s airway to hook them up to a ventilator, which breathes for them. In Elaine’s case, the doctors struggled to get the tube in place, and Elaine’s oxygen levels began to drop as a result.

This is a well-known situation, termed can’t intubate, can’t oxygenate, and there is a solution: make an incision at the front of the neck to insert a breathing tube. The nurses attending the operation knew this; one collected the required kit for this procedure and suggested it to the attending doctors. However, the doctors were fixated on inserting the tube in the typical fashion and became blind to other messages. As a result, Elaine was deprived of adequate oxygen for an extended time period, never regained consciousness, and, unfortunately, later passed away.

In this case, the nurses weren’t confident in challenging the doctors, partially due to the perceived competence of the attending doctors.

• Be wary—Confidence strongly signals competence. When receiving a message from someone, ask: “Is this person competent or confident”? Is their manner persuading you as opposed to their message? If you’re in a position of perceived competence, make sure your subordinates are comfortable in challenging you.
• Be smart—Appearing competent enhances your ability to get your message across. The easiest way to achieve this is actually to be competent; that should be your first goal. Second, confidently communicating your message enhances the perception that you’re competent. Working on delivery and style is, therefore, an important skill for communicators.

3. Dominance. I’m sure you remember the televised 2016 Presidential debate in which Donald Trump stalked Hilary Clinton around the stage. (I’m not from the US, and I’ve never lived there, but even I’ve seen the images). In doing this, Trump sought to assert his dominance over Clinton to add weight to his messages. In a related phenomenon, men who adopt dominating poses on dating apps such as Tinder get more matches.

This becomes a problem when working in a team setting. Individuals who have (or are perceived to have) increased status tend to dominate the decision-making. For example, in a sporting club interdisciplinary team meeting, the team manager (e.g., high-performance manager) likely holds huge sway over the decisions made, with other team members potentially nervous about speaking out. Because this damages the decision-making process and harms the team in the long run, we should guard against it.

• Be wary—Is a person’s argument compelling because it’s based on fact, or are you drawn in by their signs of dominance? When communicating with others, are you seeking to leverage your dominance to get your way, or is your central point valid and well-researched?
• Be smart—As a leader, the key is not to allow your dominance (acquired through status) to be what makes your messages carry influence. Instead, allow your team members to question and challenge your thoughts and decisions in a respectful and controlled manner, so that, ultimately, you can make the best decision.

4. Attractiveness. It’s a sad truth that the more attractive the messenger, the more credence given to the message. This attractiveness can be hard, meaning physical attractiveness, or soft, meaning the messenger is likable, warm, and friendly. This is a very real phenomenon, with one study reporting that a male who’s ranked as below-average attractiveness stands to earn around $250,000 less throughout their career than their more attractive colleagues.

• Be wary—When receiving a message, consider the messenger’s attractiveness (hard or soft) to you, and whether this is coloring your perception of the message’s validity.
• Be smart—Leveraging softer attractiveness when attempting to influence those around you—your athletes or staff, for example—should help you get your message across.

Soft Messengers

Having identified the traits of hard messengers, Martin and Marks move on to soft messengers who also have four key areas they can tap into to get their message across.

1. Warmth. Warmth is an important trait because it signals care and kindness, with warm messengers attempting to avoid appearing hostile or unkind. We see this in courtrooms all the time. During their arguments, attorneys who avoid appearing to be unpleasant and who don’t act superior might sway a juror’s decision based on their manner alone. Also, being quick to offer an apology—even for something that isn’t necessarily your fault—demonstrates compassion. Compassion is a close relative of warmth and builds capital with the person you’re attempting to influence.

• Be wary—Are you immediately discounting someone’s message because they’re unkind or cold? Remember, someone can be unpleasant and right, so it’s important to try to filter out personality traits when analyzing a message.
• Be smart—Be approachable to your athletes, provide praise where it’s deserved (in an authentic way), be polite, and maintain positivity. All of these actions demonstrate warmth and compassion, helping you get your message across.

2. Vulnerability. Social connectivity is an important motivator and performance driver. In sports teams and training groups, one of the main reasons athletes turn up is for the social aspects. Also, since they’re part of a team, they don’t want to let the team down with their performance. Connectedness drives performance, and one of the main drivers of connectedness is vulnerability from leaders; they’re not afraid to demonstrate—where appropriate—their doubts, fears, and flaws.

• Be wary—Being vulnerable can also signal weakness and cause you to lose respect. The key here is the balance of vulnerability. Be sufficiently open and honest about your shortcomings without drawing pity.
• Be smart—In a team or governing body, it often helps to attempt to “humanize” the key decision-makers to increase the chance of the message landing. It’s easy to hold hostility against a faceless senior leader; it’s much harder to maintain that hostility when you’ve had positive interactions with them.

3. Trustworthiness. When I was an athlete, I was told by a coach—to my face—that they were going to support me in an upcoming selection meeting. When I wasn’t selected, I appealed the decision, and through the course of the appeal, I received the minutes of the selection meeting.

Needless to say, the coach hadn’t done what he told me he would—after which, I no longer had any respect for him. Similarly, I’ve had coaches with core principles very different from mine. Once these principles became apparent through their behavior, it was very difficult to continue to work closely with them; they were no longer trustworthy in my eyes.

• Be wary—Don’t say something you know you can’t deliver on. Doing so erodes trust and makes it less likely that you’ll be able to communicate effectively in the future.
• Be smart—The All Blacks have two famous sayings: “Better people make better All Blacks” and “No dickheads.” Having strong personal values, and, well…not being a dickhead, increase the likelihood that you’ll communicate effectively. There’s a lot to be said for being a good person.

4. Charisma. I’m not a naturally charismatic person. I’m generally quite shy and introverted and like to deal with cold hard facts and figures as opposed to feelings. A while ago, I realized this limited my ability to get my message across in lectures and presentations. As a result, I studied what the best presenters do and realized that they often use stories and anecdotes as a way of building audience connection—a technique that I now use. Storytelling is a very useful way to engage your audience and increases the effectiveness of your messaging, and so represents a valuable tool in your toolbox.

• Be wary—It’s easy to be drawn in by engaging storytellers. When receiving their message, take a step back and ask: Is their message a strong one, or am I being drawn in by their charisma? 
• Be smart—It’s easy to slip into “back in my day” stories. When telling a story to deliver a message, it has to be relevant to your audience—and then consistently link the story back to your key message.

In Closing

Messengers is a highly enjoyable read, where the key premise—that the messenger often trumps the message—is an important consideration for us all, both when receiving information from others and when we try to pass on information.

The Last Dance documentary has been one of the most popular programs on television this year. During the ten-part series, flashes of training have been shared—sometimes out of context and without explanation. During both of the Chicago Bulls’ championship runs, Al Vermeil was at the helm on the performance side, organizing training and ensuring wisdom was part of the equation.

Instead of summarizing that training process in a typical blog format, we decided to interview Coach Vermeil and ask the right questions to hear directly from the source. Al Vermeil is one of the most respected strength and conditioning processionals for his work with MLB, NBA, and NFL champion athletes, and in this interview Coach Vermeil covers more than just sets and reps—he reveals the heart of the profession and offers us all a roadmap to becoming a better coach.

1. From High School Sport Coaching to the San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bulls

Jumping into the conversation mid-stream, Coach Vermeil elaborates on the art of coaching, answering questions from Derek Hansen and Rob Panariello on how leadership works in strength and conditioning, as well as knowing how to load athletes beyond the barbell. In this entertaining segment, Coach Vermeil shares numerous anecdotes and bits of advice on the key skills of working in a team setting.

2. Testing and Assessment: “Can They Play”

Fielding more of our questions, Coach Vermeil discusses the role of testing and assessment in the player selection process, and shares his parting advice on coaching from a career that has spanned decades.

3. The Bulls and How They Trained

Chronologically, this is the opening of the conversation and dives in with how different players on the Bulls approached strength training. The first twenty minutes of this segment can be a little choppy on the video side, but the audio is clear and filled with stories about training many of the great Bulls players featured in The Last Dance.

Al Vermeil’s career in strength and conditioning spanned for decades, but even if you are not a strength coach (or not a coach at all), it’s a worthwhile interview about how to work with people. Many coaches who get into the field of strength and conditioning want to coach the best athletes they can, but starting out at the high school level and slowly working your way up to the top is an effective path to improvement, as opposed to chasing the next big-time logo.

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

Interval training has been twisted and manipulated into so many different iterations that people have lost sight of what exactly it is. It’s been a major point of training discussions for decades—for good reason. Interval training is an extremely powerful stimulus that can elicit adaptations to endurance, strength, and power.

• Endurance training is defined as an improvement in aerobic energy production and fatigue resistance
• Strength training is defined as muscle hypertrophy and improvements in force production
• Power is defined as the ability to express maximal force as rapidly as possible

(Before I get angry comments saying, “Hey dummy, interval training isn’t effective at improving strength and power compared to traditional strength training”…yeah, I think we’re all aware of that.)

There are two types of interval training:

1. Supramaximal or Sprint Interval Training (SIT)
   • SIT results in supramaximal at or near 100% of a person’s power output and >150% levels VO₂ max intensity

2. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIT)
   • HIT results in submaximal <100% power outputs and elicits ³ 80% of heart rate max

That’s it. Everything else is window dressing. Tabatas, Fartlek, and 15 on 15 off are just changes to the work-to-rest ratio. Well programmed work-to-rest ratios are essential for implementing these training types, and I’ll talk more about that later in this post. However, having exact, to the second work-to-rest ratios or using heart rate monitors to ensure an athlete is “recovered” when developing capacity is unnecessary.

Which brings me to one of my most hotly contested opinions: The use of heart rate monitors to ensure work-to-rest ratios are correct is overrated in capacity training, but extremely underrated in power training.

Capacity vs. Power

If developing capacity is the goal, programming work-to-rest ratios down to the second is a tad excessive. (Capacity is the ability to maintain a specified power output over a set time period. Rest and recovery are not the main focus.) Developing the capacity of a specific energy system requires challenging that system. And just like any other type of training, key variables to consider are volume, intensity, duration, and rest.

• Intensity is critical to understand what energy system you’re trying to develop and how that intensity relates to the system and adaptation. Maximal power output is 100% while maximal fat oxidation is ~50% of maximal power output.

Variations will affect the athletes’ adaptations. As an extremely general rule of thumb, the higher the intensity of work, the shorter the duration the work will be, and the higher the work-to-rest ratio is.

“Sorry coach I can’t check back in yet, my heart rate is still above the blue zone.”

Work-to-rest ratios, however, are extremely underrated if we’re considering improving an athlete’s power (power is defined as performing ³100% power output for a specific activity). Having athletes perform maximal intensity sprints with little rest is a quick way to change your training stimulus from power development to capacity development.[1] If you continue not allowing full rest sets during “maximal” intensity training, you will not improve max power and may cause injuries. This is where heart rate monitoring can be handy. When an athlete has returned to a set resting heart rate, it’s safe to assume their previous max and average power output will be as close to 100% as possible. If you want to train to improve your max power output, you need to reach maximal power during the repetition.

• Sprinters don’t improve their max power output from submaximal intensities.

Interval Training and Corresponding Adaptations

Looking through peer-reviewed literature, you can find a plethora of general population studies touting how SIT and HIT can result in massive improvements in both aerobic and anaerobic performance markers.

Aerobic

• Mitochondrial density (the number of mitochondria in tissues that utilize or produce energy)
• VO₂ max (VO₂ = a-vO₂ difference, O₂ levels in arteries vs. O₂ levels in veins x Cardiac Output- Heart rate x Stroke volume)
• Lactate clearing/utilization (lactate is the most preferred energy substrate in the body); it’s now considered the upstream signal that stimulates nearly every energy system adaptation (Brooks, 2020)¹

Anaerobic

• Strength
• Power output

Almost all of these studies have a control group that performs moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT). In nearly every study, SIT or HIT groups are better than or as effective at improving aerobic adaptation markers (mitochondrial density and VO₂ max), and SIT and HIT clearly outperform MICT in improving anaerobic markers (lactate clearing/utilization, max power output, and strength). All while SIT or HIT groups typically perform less volume and spend far less time training compared to MICT groups. Similar aerobic adaptations, better anaerobic adaptations, increase power output, and less volume?

Side note: Recent research in muscle hypertrophy training intensity is eerily similar to this aerobic and anaerobic intensity topic. You can increase muscle hypertrophy from lifting low intensity and high volume (LI-HV). However, if you lift at a higher intensity and lower volumes (HI-LV), you get much stronger and will have similar hypertrophic increases compared to LI-HV.

• Strongmen competitors don’t improve their max strength by lifting light weights.

The Million-Dollar Question

“Why are we not implementing SIT or HIT every conditioning session?”

There are a lot of answers, but here are three that come to mind:

1. SIT and HIT freaking suck. If you haven’t done repeated Wingate tests, stop reading this and give them a shot.
2. There’s also a point of diminishing returns that’s illustrated in the literature. More SIT or HIT doesn’t = more gains in aerobic or anaerobic qualities.
3. We need more research with field and court sport athletes on how SIT and HIT affect recovery, especially in-season when high sport performance levels are the goal.

With these answers in mind, the next logical question would be: What are effective ways program HIT and SIT?

1. What time in the annual plan are you? Are you in the offseason/regeneration period? Or are you at the end of the competitive phase?

• Remember that HIT is a powerful stimulus. If in-game performance is the priority, program low volume with maximal amounts of rest. If you’re at the beginning of the offseason phase, don’t program excessive volumes and vary rest intervals to start. Progressive overload/ periodization is key.

2. What are the characteristics of your sport?

• Baseball players, for example, very rarely tap into any energy system other than ATP-PCr (during the game). However, having the recoverability to play a game nearly every day for 5 months is crucial. This means developing aerobic adaptations and power outputs are critical for success.

• Baseball players (position players, and relief pitchers specifically) usually train ~6 hours before their games (lift @ 12pm, practice @ 3pm, pregame @ 5:15pm, game @ 7pm). Using high volumes of HIT and SIT can harm pre-practice performance. So getting the minimum effective dose here is crucial.

• During the season, we’re able to use a high-low training model because starting pitchers in baseball know exactly when they are playing (see Image 2). The highest volume of training and the lowest level of intensity typically is the day after a game. This allows the athletes the most time to recover from training volumes, along with continuing recovery from the game the day before. The lowest volume and highest intensity (developing power, not capacity) are used the day before they start to assist in priming the CNS.

• Have standards you want your individual athletes to attain. If athletes are reaching the standard at the beginning of the season, hopefully they’re able to exceed (if not maintain) these standards throughout the year. If your athletes are not meeting standards, it may be a good time to de-load (if you don’t have planned de-loads in your program).

Key Takeaways

Properly periodizing interval training can help improve max power output, sustainability of max power, and recovery. This could be implemented in an in-season high-low training split with a high day taking advantage of the high intensity and low volume of SIT and implementing a low intensity and low volume training on low days. Mixing in HIT and SIT can be powerful stimulus for improved energy system development.

1. Have a plan
2. Know what adaptation(s) you are chasing
3. Have a measure of intensity
4. Ensure intensity, volume, duration, and rest match
5. Be ready to answer, “Why?”

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…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. Brooks, G. A. (2020). “Lactate as a fulcrum of metabolism.” Redox Biology, 101454.

2. Esfandiari, S., Sasson, Z., & Goodman, J. M. (2014). “Short-term high-intensity interval and continuous moderate-intensity training improve maximal aerobic power and diastolic filling during exercise.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, 114(2), 331-343.

3. Gibala, M. J., & Hawley, J. A. (2017). “Sprinting toward fitness.” Cell Metabolism, 25(5), 988-990.

4. Gillen, J. B., Martin, B. J., MacInnis, M. J., Skelly, L. E., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Gibala, M. J. (2016). “Twelve weeks of sprint interval training improves indices of cardiometabolic health similar to traditional endurance training despite a five-fold lower exercise volume and time commitment.” PloS ONE, 11(4).

5. MacInnis, M. J., et al. (2017). “Superior mitochondrial adaptations in human skeletal muscle after interval compared to continuous single‐leg cycling matched for total work.” The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2955-2968.

6. San-Millán, I., & Brooks, G. A. (2018). “Assessment of metabolic flexibility by means of measuring blood lactate, fat, and carbohydrate oxidation responses to exercise in professional endurance athletes and less-fit individuals.” Sports Medicine, 48(2), 467-479.

7. Weston, K. S., Wisløff, U., & Coombes, J. S. (2014). High-intensity interval training in patients with lifestyle-induced cardiometabolic disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, 48(16), 1227-1234.