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“Yeah, they should be fresh for weights,” the coach said. “We’re only running five or six miles before coming to lift today.”

Welcome to the world of weight training with distance runners.

If you’re anything like me, you’re used to working with the traditional stop and go sports like football, hockey, basketball, or volleyball. Not distance and cross country runners. And then one day I found myself—a former heavyweight weightlifter and powerlifter, strongman, and college football player— surrounded by a group of runners with way too little lean muscle mass, wearing way too short shorts, and mud all over their legs.

There we all were, standing in the middle of the gym. It must have looked comical. The standard mix of rock music spiked with the occasional hip-hop song was playing over the radio, and the smell of the 120 football players who’d just finished their workout was lingering in the air, so I did what I always do. I started coaching this group like any other team in for a training session.

Talking in my normal voice and cadence, I started coaching everyone through the basic warm-up, but instead of doing what I was instructing, the runners just sort of stood there blinking at me. Although I was in the weight room I designed and built, I felt suddenly transported into the Twilight Zone. The world didn’t make sense, and I felt I didn’t belong in the gym anymore—this was going to get real interesting for everyone, real fast.

Faster at Any Distance

While that was my first experience working with a cross country team, I’m happy to say it wasn’t my last. I want to document a few of my observations so others in a similar situation won’t have to go through the same growing pains that I did.

Before my staff started working with our distance runners, we would watch them train after practice. From what I saw, these runners wanted to run faster, but their training revolved around their prescribed distance and tempo, followed by a push-up and sit-up regimen. After we were first asked to help the team, we talked to the athletes and their coaches about their priorities. Here is what they asked for:

• Get faster
• Stay healthy
• Work arms and core

As I said, they wanted to run faster, but their training didn’t reflect that. Sure, they had their distance and tempo work, but doing countless sit-ups or crunches as well as push-ups with a super-wide hand position won’t help anyone get faster. So let’s ask the tough question: How do you get people faster?

To me, it starts with three basic ideas:

• Get them to put more force in the ground
• Have them put the same force in the ground, but at a faster rate
• Have them put the same force in the ground at the same rate, but at a lighter body weight

When we strip down a training program, we’re trying to manipulate one of these three variables. Let’s dig deeper into the first two ideas.

Creating Force Through Body Control

Getting strong isn’t simply about increasing your one-rep max of a back squat or deadlift. It’s about body control. Sure, I’m watching the same videos on YouTube or Instagram that you are with people moving very impressive weight, but I’m not showing those clips to our distance runners.

I’ve come to learn that working with distance runners requires adopting a different mindset. No one is going to be taking hits of Nose Tork before cinching up their belts to hit a new PR back squat, and that’s OK. Strength with this population means something else, and it’s all about body control.

Strength for distance runners is all about body control, not hitting new PRs in the back squat, says @CarmenPata. #strength #distancerunners Share on X

When I say that most distance runners are not very strong in the traditional weight room sense, I’m not knocking them. Part of the reason is they lack training, which I hope to help remedy with this article. And part of it is the sport itself. With traditional stop and go sports, a significant amount of change of direction occurs naturally. The deceleration creates an eccentric load, which over time creates a training stimulus that can improve an athlete’s strength profile and body control.

Body control and greater strength are more than having a big squat. They equate to faster running times because the athletes are strong enough to maintain posture and running mechanics over the thousands of foot contacts they experience during practice and competitions. My favorite exercise to access and improve on body control is a take on the classic Turkish get-up.

Video 1. The athlete replaces a kettlebell with a medicine ball to perform stand-ups to train stability and body control.

Video 2. The athlete performs get-ups for stability and body control using a medicine ball instead of a kettlebell.

I understand these are not picture-perfect versions of the get-up, and I’m OK with that. These two variations teach exactly what I hope to get across—how to create force from their hips and express it out through their feet and hands while controlling their body through the entire movement. Maybe one day we’ll transition into the actual get-up with a kettlebell.

Our initial training sessions with distance runners focus on body control with non-traditional exercises, says @CarmenPata. #strength #distancerunners Share on X

In the meantime, putting a med ball on their shoulders or in their hand and telling them to stand up may not be sexy, but it does work. All of the initial training sessions with our distance and cross country runners focus on body control with non-traditional exercises. In addition to the modified get-up, we use the dreaded push-up and renegade row.

Video 3. The renegade row is another non-traditional exercise we use with distance runners to train body control.

Ah, such a simple exercise but so difficult to accomplish correctly. Even our athletes who’ve been doing this exercise for nearly three months haven’t completely mastered the movements. Just watch the hips. During the push-up, the hip is solid with no visible movement happening at that joint, but with the row, we still see some rotation starting at the hip as she begins the row. This is unbelievably better than what it looked like months ago, but not as good as it will look in a few more months.

While these are examples of great starting exercises, if you truly want to see how the athletes are doing, you have to put them off balance. Literally. The single-leg med ball slam is another deceptively simple exercise we use to help teach body control and single-leg strength.

Standing on one leg combined with the speed of the exercise are enough to add instability during the activity. I really appreciate how the medicine ball, going from the floor to overhead, dynamically changes a person’s center of mass.

Video 4. Medicine ball slams force the athlete to try to stabilize and correct their balance during the movement.

As you can see in the video, the athlete’s balance is all over the place. The amount of rotation that’s happening at his knee and hips is exactly what we’re trying to accomplish. Remember, due to the sport or general lack of training, we’re trying to teach general body control during a dynamic change of the center of mass and force the athlete to flex and extend their hips, knees, and ankles.

Developing Strength and Power

Once we start seeing improvements in general body control, it’s time to develop additional lower body strength in these runners. As mentioned, the ability to put more force into the ground is one of three ways to improve running times due to the increased ground reaction forces. When it’s time to start moving some weight, our go-to exercise is the single-leg split squat. Yeah, I know back squats look far more appealing, but it’s not where I like to start people.

Video 5. Our go-to exercise to start moving weight is the single-leg squat.

Look at her depth. Would you be happy with that depth on a back squat? Look at her hip action. Would you be happy with the way her hips are moving on a back squat? Look at the time under tension. Would you be happy with the tension on a back squat?

Let’s stop looking at the exercise and look at what the exercise does for the athlete. In this example, we’re still getting her legs stronger without the mental stress of loading a relatively heavy bar on her back and squatting. Remember, this is a population that, as a whole, doesn’t yet understand the positive benefits of being in the weight room. If these athletes choose not to show up to the gym, it doesn’t matter how good your program is, they won’t get any benefit from it. The first step to winning is showing up.

When the runners have better body control and start developing leg strength, it’s time to focus on developing some power. At the start of this post, I explained three ways to get people to run faster: put more force into the ground; put the same force in the ground, but faster; put the same force at the same rate into the ground, but do it at a lighter body weight.

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you know that I’m a huge fan of doing all sorts of jumps to develop power and rate of force production. Working with distance athletes is no different. Unlike most of the other sports, however, we spend significantly less time working vertically and focus much more on horizontal movements.

With distance runners, we focus on horizontal jumps to develop power and rate of force production, says @CarmenPata. #power #distancerunners Share on X

These athletes want to run faster, regardless of the distance they’re covering. With anyone who runs for their sport, we try to improve the amount of time their foot is in contact with the ground. Without funding to purchase the right equipment to measure ground contact time, though, it’s nearly impossible to accurately measure this other than looking at each person’s time. So while we cannot measure this, we can explain it.

We tell the athletes that one of our training goals is to improve everyone’s foot contact time by 0.01s per contact. As a comparison, your eye blinks at 0.03-0.04 seconds—we’re trying to make changes faster than you can blink. If the runner can sustain this improved foot contact time for ten steps, they took 0.1 seconds off their sprint. If they sustain it for 100 contacts, they improved their time by one second. If they sustain the improved contact time for 1,500 contacts (the average number of contacts per mile), the athlete has improved their time by 15 seconds. Get the idea?

As I said, we can’t accurately measure their foot contact times. Sure, we could simply use their results from training and meets to look for improvements. But there are way too many variables that contribute to their times in both of these scenarios.

This is why I come back to using jumps not only as a test but also as a training tool. While there are so many types of repeated jumps you can use, if you’re looking to have your athletes do one jump as a training tool and a test, I suggest the med ball broad jump shown in this video.

Video 6. The medicine ball broad jump used for training purposes can also serve as an assessment method.

If Video 6 showed a testing session, we would have recorded the distance the person jumped, their body weight, and the weight of the med ball. That way, as the athlete loses or gains weight, we could adjust the weight of the med ball to account for the weight change and then have an accurate comparison of their jump distance.

This, in turn, gives a relative comparison of how their ground reaction force and ground contact times are changing. If the jump distance improves, you can assume these two factors have improved. If the jump distance gets worse, you can assume the two factors have gotten worse. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best I can do while trying to measure things that happen faster than a blink of an eye.

Final Thoughts

After that first semester working with our college distance runners, plenty of learning happened for the athletes as well as our coaches. When our distance runners are in for a workout, we do many of the things from that first day. I didn’t decide to drop a bunch of weight to fit in, many of the runners still don’t appreciate my choice of music, and they still show up covered in mud. But at least now they have a change of shoes on.

With this group, I had to remember that the biggest challenge was that they were entering a world they were not only unfamiliar with but also had some very strong negative opinions about. We tried plenty of ideas with all sorts of results to help win over their hearts and minds, but that’s a story for another article (or two). Eventually, we figured out a winning combination. And while we still don’t have a distance runner whose highlight of the day is to get into the weight room (yet), it appears that no one hates being there.

The other big change? We’re beginning to move some iron during their training sessions. You’re probably not going to see many people post these workouts on Instagram, but that’s not the point. The point is that each week, these runners are getting a little stronger, they’re jumping a little farther, and they’re spending less time in the training room.

It’s the result of all of these little things that starts to make a big change, which is happening at their meets when they are seconds off their PRs. While I’m happy about these changes, I know that we can still get better.

Let’s keep the conversation going and find more ways to help distance athletes keep improving by leaving your thoughts or ideas in the comments section below.

Since you’re here…
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One thing every coach of every sport knows is that they love speed. I don’t know how many times in my sport coaching career I have heard: “You can’t teach speed!” In my humble opinion, that’s most definitely a gray area. I would suggest that you can increase speed by increasing the efficiency of your athletes. Speed is a skill, and you can certainly teach a skill to be improved and more efficient, leading to the growth of that skill.

I went into the field of sports performance from a football background. As many of my colleagues with a similar background can attest, “speed” is an abstract in many ways. We understand that “speed kills.” We love having fast players. We grasp the concept that running fast will make you faster. However, for those of us with a weightlifting background, speed often takes a back seat in the educational process.

Sets, reps, exercises…. Do we use Olympic lifts, back squats, unilateral versus bilateral? What can we do in the weight room to improve speed? These discussions often dominate the scene. Coaches spend countless hours teaching their athletes the details of every weight room movement they program.

Often, though, when it comes to the speed training side of their program, coaches find a “canned” program on the internet or get a .pdf or PowerPoint from another coach, buy a stopwatch or a timing system, and off they go. There is no doubt that running fast is an integral part of any speed program.

Are we, as coaches, getting too far down the road of “just run fast” and maybe leaving the most important training modalities out of our programs? Can we explain the “why” of each and every drill we do, or are we just copying things we have seen or done before? Is every detail of our speed program well-thought-out and reasoned, or are we just having our athletes run as fast as possible and hoping it makes them better because Twitter said it would? Am I timing my athletes just to collect data, or is it actionable and giving me information I can use to make them better?

These were the questions I began asking myself when looking at how we program for speed. When I took a hard look at it, I came to the conclusion that we were doing a lot of running fast, timing just to time, and drills just to drill. We had to figure out a better process.

“Fast” is something we all desire in our athletes. Our solution? Get smarter, train smarter, and TEACH our athletes speed. Combining “fast” with intelligence, technique, and the same attention to detail most of you already use in your weight room programming can take your team speed to a new level.

Combining “fast” with intelligence, technique, and the same attention to detail you use in your weight room programming can take your team speed to a new level, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

You would never just set a steak dinner in front of a child and say “eat up” without showing them how to use a knife and fork. That would be inefficient, indeed. Why would we think that simply lining up our athletes and timing them running as fast as they naturally can would be any more efficient?

Yes, feed those cats some speed. Just make sure you have a solid plan to TEACH them to eat in the most efficient way possible. This article will discuss our ongoing educational process at York Comprehensive High School and discuss the how and why of going above and beyond the feeding process.

Chasing Numbers vs. Recording Progress

A very popular sports performance topic on social media is “chasing numbers.” The idea is to say, “I want our players to squat X amount” or “run a 4.6 forty,” and then build a program that has a primary focus of reaching those goals. As I mentioned in a previous article, I got my start writing for SimpliFaster after a long Twitter debate I had on that very topic. I’ve written before that I believe there is a gray area that coaches need to bring into focus when they discuss “chasing numbers.” The fact is we ALL chase numbers. We want stronger, faster, more powerful athletes. The real debate needs to be about our process for selecting and pursuing those improvements.

Every coach reading this has stories about the sport coach who declared that, once a certain percentage of his team could bench 300 pounds, they would win more games. Replace bench with squat, clean, or deadlift, and put any number in place of 300, and we have all heard it over and over. As qualified sports performance professionals, we understand the flaws of that mindset. However, we all also have proven and evidence-based protocols to force the adaptations we desire within our athletes in the weight room. We ARE chasing those adaptations (that are measured in number form) on a daily basis. The difference is how we go about that chase. We understand “why” we do things and how those specific things will help our athletes improve.

Jumping from strength programming to speed programming often results in a loss of those philosophies. If you wouldn’t do a 1 rep max on the back squat with a freshman athlete until a point in their development showed a mastery of squat technique, why would you line up that same athlete once a week and laser time them in a sprint without the same attention to detail? Yet, I’m quite sure that’s what happens in many places.

You know as well as I do that there are coaches out there who buy a timing system to see how fast their athletes are and feed them with “speed,” but neglect to teach the athletes mechanical efficiency. Those coaches have numbers—probably some pretty good ones. What amount of “food” are they leaving on the dinner table by not teaching those athletes “how to eat”? Timing our athletes without teaching them the most efficient way to move is “chasing numbers” in an inefficient manner. Yes, they probably will get faster by just running faster.

By refocusing on efficiency and trading some of the time you spend sprinting and timing for teaching, I contend you will see greater improvements in the long run, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

The human body has an immeasurable ability to adapt to stimulus. Is making that number a little bit better enough? I contend we should find ways to maximize those abilities in our athletes. Of course I do, so do you! Are you willing to take a real and candid look at your program? Can you answer the “why” question for every part of your speed program? By refocusing on efficiency and sacrificing some of the time you spend sprinting and timing to trade it for teaching time, I contend you will see greater improvements in the long run, and your cats will eat even better!

Our Process – More Than Sprint and Hope

The process that led us to take a deeper look into the way we design our speed program had a direct relationship to our strength program. In other articles, I’ve gone into detail about how we level our athletes and use a process of teaching and “slow cooking” our athletes in the weight room. We believe in the blocking system, to the point where I often have to spend time explaining to frustrated coaches and athletes why we don’t rush the back squat or an Olympic lift. I dwell over every detail to make sure our protocol is what’s best for our athletes.

We laid out every aspect of our strength program for our athletes in detail, from middle school through graduation. Then, when we went outside to the track, we lined them up and they all did the same drills, they all ran the same sprints, they all did the same tempo running, etc. We ran flying 10’s timed with our Dashr system twice a week. I did very little with that data other than post the five best times on social media with the hashtag #FeedThe Cougars. We were leaving a lot on the table uneaten.

I began to ask why our strength program was so detailed and individualized, but our speed program was so “canned”? How could we take the ideas and philosophies we lived by in the weight room and use them in our speed program? We have signs with the wording of the messages we preach: MOVE WELL, MOVE FAST, MOVE STRONG, and the most important sign:

The order of importance for athletic development:

1. Technique/Movement
2. Volume
3. Load

We had been using that formula backward. It was time for a better way of training, so we would reap better results.

It was at that point that I remembered I was still a football coach. Maybe I have not coached the sport in a few years, but deep down inside, I will always be a football coach. I was lucky enough to have coached at quite a few places over the years where we were pretty much at an athletic disadvantage week in and week out. You may wonder about my word choice of “lucky”? And I didn’t look at it that way always, either. Upon reflection, it couldn’t have been a better reality to develop in as a coach.

It’s easy to coach great athletes. Not to take anything away from those that do so, but that’s just a fact. All I’m saying is your margin for error is exponentially linked to the level of athlete you coach. If your team is loaded with D1-caliber players, does it really matter what offensive or defensive system you run? Humans by nature will adapt to their surroundings. If the small details don’t really make a difference between wins and losses because you have three NFL players on your team, there is a good chance those details get overlooked.

On the other hand, if you are outmanned most weeks, you’d better figure out an insane attention to detail very quickly. EVERYTHING you teach matters in being competitive. You also end up with one heck of a “coach’s eye.”

When I began looking at how we could overhaul our speed program, I went back to my roots as a football coach who would watch that first step of every rep in practice on video over and over. Share on X

If the first step isn’t right, we do not move to the second step. That thought process carried over even as my path changed. When I began looking at how we would overhaul our speed program, I went back to my roots as the football coach who would watch that first step of every rep in practice on video over and over. The coach who made his assistants explain why they did every drill in practice, and how it would transfer to Friday night. The coach that prided himself as a “teacher of sport,” not just a coach.

Chasing the ‘Why’ to Solve Your Puzzle

Step 1 in my process is chasing knowledge. I heard a great quote (unattributed) not long ago: “People fail on the margins of their knowledge.” This is a process I have become very familiar with over the years. What lies past the “margins” of your knowledge and how you push into those areas is your individual puzzle. Solving that puzzle is a daily routine for me and has been for many years.

I tell people all the time that my “superpower” isn’t innovation, per se. It’s having an intense desire to learn WHY people who are highly successful at something are so successful at it. What tools or exercises, etc., do they use and WHY do they use those in a specific situation, instead of just watching a video and attempting to copy what looks good? Knowing the “why” and not just the “how” allows me to take the general aspects of the great things each of these people do and innovate them into best practices for improving the athletes I work with.

I first did this as a football coach, learning the intricate details of the “why” of each of the most successful double wing offense coaches in the country. I then developed a highly successful version of my own and tweaked it to fit the athletes we worked with. Next came the foundation of my knowledge of the weight room and jumping programs. Again, I’ve spent my life seeking out coaches to build relationships with in order to learn the “why” of the art of sports performance.

This started with Ethan Reeve, who sparked my fire for this profession and continues to do so until this very day. I’ve never once used the exact same program, and I never will. I won’t ever jump from “program to program” because I believe in evidence-based principles that will never change. However, I am in a constant search for ways to tweak and adjust what we do and how we do it to move our athletes forward.

Sprinting was always something I believed in. Until I made it a priority to blow past those margins and be able to have my own “why?”, I never realized the impact I could make on our athletes. Most of us are not world-class sprint coaches and won’t ever be. Still, you should seek out those who are and learn! Seek to gain an understanding of WHY these coaches do what they do. Once you have that level of comprehension, you can then begin to build your program.

Every program is different. You need to be able to individualize what you do for your athletes, not parrot others in a different situation. I have read and listened to every word that coaches like Chris Korfist, Boo Schexnayder, Cal Dietz, Scott Salwasser, and Matt Gifford have said, and I have reached out to many others. This has allowed me to formulate our unique way of programming.

Social media isn’t where you get the knowledge you need. It’s too shallow. Many high school coaches follow well-known “speed” coaches on social media. They watch these coaches’ posts and the drills they do, and they say, “Hey, that looks cool. Let’s do that.” Trust me, I was one of them. The problem is most times we are seeing the best version of the best athlete that coach has.

A friend of mine called this “strength and conditioning porn.” Sprinting, jumping, lifting—whatever it is. Most of the time what we see isn’t reality; as he put it, it’s “pure fantasy.”

We have to get deeper into WHY the coach is specifically doing that drill and see if that is even applicable to the athletes we train. In episode 80 of the “Just Fly Podcast,” Cal Dietz discusses how he reached out to a world-class speed coach about issues his athletes at the University of Minnesota were having. The sprint coach had to really think about how to help because he had never, ever seen most of those issues with the level of athlete he worked with. Many of the coaches we follow on social media will not have the same experience as you and your athletes.

Make yourself a great teacher of speed by first being a great student of it. Network, read, study, and get a handle on the most basic fundamentals of speed, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

My point is, don’t compare and try to make your athletes into world-class sprinters by doing world-class sprinter drills. Make yourself a great teacher of speed by first being a great student of it. Network, read, study, and get a handle on the most basic fundamentals of speed. Then expand your base from there, until you have your own philosophy. Remember what I said earlier about coaching that first step? Master it, program it, teach it, and then coach it before lining your athletes up in sprinting groups, firing up the Dashr system, and saying, “Anytime after the beep…Go!”

Drills, Drills, and More Drills

Once you have the knowledge you need to teach what your athletes need, begin building drills that have direct correlation to those techniques. Don’t fall into the trap of “speed porn” when deciding what drills you will use. Be a teacher. If you teach fourth grade math, you don’t spend time on the AP Calculus curriculum because you watched a cool video of a lesson. You add to the base of knowledge a fourth-grade student will need to advance to fifth grade.

Additionally, don’t fall into the “go, go, go” trap. That can be a battle, especially for a sport coach or a strength coach with a sport-heavy background. One of those lessons I learned from coaching lower levels of athletes was to not get obsessed with constant full-speed tempo. Who cares how efficient and fast your practice looks if your teaching and learning process isn’t effective?

Not every rep has to be full speed during the teaching phase. The lifeblood of relative advantage is mental toughness, and mental toughness comes from confidence in your ability to perform what’s asked of you above anything else. Yes, the ultimate goal is to work to a point where athletes run faster than they did before. Is it really best practice to do something full speed using poor technique?

As a football coach, I would never jump into a full-speed “team” session without talking it, chalking it, walking it, jogging it, and drilling the techniques for each position. Why? Because we won’t get much better doing it that way. Why would you do drills for speed development any differently? Streamline the drills you do, choosing quality and transfer over quantity and aesthetics. Don’t program anything without asking and answering “why”? It will help keep you grounded in the basics, and mastering the ordinary, everyday aspects of what you do will always be a more effective route.

Back in my football days, we had a go-to play that we worked year-round to master. We ran it 70% of the time in many games. When we tried to “get cute” or go away from that play, it backfired more often than not. It was at that point I had one of our assistant coaches stand next to me, and every time I called anything other than “superpower,” I had him ask me why. If I didn’t have a good answer quickly, we ran superpower. It was our “ordinary,” and it rarely failed us because of our level of mastery of it. Design your drills with THAT type of process in mind.

A big part of us being able to use submaximal speeds to teach and build proficiency in our speed development program was the use of rate of perceived exertion, or RPE. This was a natural step that flowed very easily because of our use of RPE, as well as extensive use of APRE (autoregulated progressive resistance exercises), in our strength program.

Although it’s quite prevalent among coaches to say, “Okay, let’s run this one at 50%” or “75%,” etc., I kind of see that in the same light as a doctor writing an athlete a note to me saying “don’t lift heavy.” Unless you define “heavy,” there is a zero percent chance the athlete (or the coach, for that matter) will be able to quantify that into a real weight. The same goes for giving athletes a percentage. Most of them have no idea how 50% will feel compared to 75%. They will guess, and it most likely won’t vary a whole heck of a lot.

To remedy that, we correlate speed RPE to what we use in our strength program. Ten is hair-on-fire full speed, 1–2 is walking, and so on. So, when we give them a tempo speed, we will say “RPE of 6–7” if we want them in that 60–70% range. We practice this and let them feel each range. It’s not the perfect way of doing it, but until we can acquire some real-time heart rate monitors, it at least gets us in the ballpark. We use the same system for drills and warm-ups. You need to find a range that maximizes your athlete’s skill acquisition for each phase of your programming.

I’ve found that, for us, 4–5 building to 6–7 is a sweet spot in the general preparation phase of our early off-season. Our goal is to reach a level of proficiency where we can be in that 8–9 range most of the time, while dipping into that 10 a few times per session in our final phase. I once heard a coach say that sprinting at 90–95% will maximize the athlete’s ability to master technique. Going over that speed will actually cause them to lose efficiency.

I once heard a coach say that sprinting at 90–95% will maximize an athlete’s ability to master technique. Based on experience, I agree, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

While I can’t source that study, I can tell you from our experience that is exactly what we see. We do this with the idea of improving skill as we advance toward the part of the off-season where the athlete’s energy system must be prepared for the rigors of what can be a regular dose of 8–10 in the higher volumes that come from sport practices.

 

Dartfish and Video Keep Us Honest

The next step in the process was figuring out how to make sure the drills we focused on were effective. We need to be sure we are progressing before we begin adding speed. Once again, I leaned on my football experience. Using video of practice sessions became invaluable as a football coach, and it has now become invaluable to us in our speed program (and other areas) as well.

We try to record as much as we possibly can in our speed development program. I’ve found that the biggest advantage of using this tool is it keeps me honest. One thing I’ve always said is that action on the video is never as bad or as good as it can seem live. Watching the movement of your athletes and having a mental or physical checklist of what you are looking for in each session is a huge advantage. Video has become a tool that drives our programming.

Some battles we’ve had with our kids involve shoulder rotation, how they hold their hands (no fists), hand level, and not crossing the body. Video analysis has become a huge factor in helping our athletes improve in these areas. If we can see it over and over, we can cue them in drills individually. We can also actually show the athlete, and that is worth 100 reps.

Another area that video has helped is the start. We want an athlete to be a jet, not a helicopter. I read that a while back, and it has become a huge cue for us. Just as a sport coach uses video as a teaching tool, so do we. Most of our sports teams utilize the Hudl system. I have access to that as well and can easily upload and share any footage with athletes or coaches. I do caution sending those out to less-experienced athletes, however. I’ve found it best to watch with the athlete until they have a grasp of what we are teaching and why.

Record as much as you can, and not just when you are timing. You want to see as much video of your athletes in an “organic” setting as possible, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

Record as much as you can, and not just when you are timing. You want to see as much video of your athletes in an “organic” setting as possible. If you video once in a while, the athletes will perform for the camera. If it’s part of the daily process, chances are you will see the movement in a more natural form, allowing you to coach it.

Timing and Speed Training – Realities of Workflow

From reading this article, you might have assumed I’m not a fan of timing our athletes on a regular basis. Or maybe I’m not a fan of running fast to get faster. The fact is those assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth.

I love fast, I love timing, and I love timing our athletes when they move with technical proficiency. I’m also a fan of developing a year-round speed development plan that will maximize our athlete’s abilities on the field. I’m a fan of improving efficiency by teaching technique and mastering correct basic movement patterns. I’m a BIG fan of teaching our athletes to move in a way that will allow them to move at max speed with the lowest possible risk of injury. Doing all of these things will allow us to progress the athlete to a point where video will give us actionable information on when we should start timing our athletes at max speeds.

The combination of the timing and feedback also allows us to get the RPE number of the point at which our athlete’s efficiency breaks down. If we have an athlete who can really move well in that 6–7 range but loses it above that, we need to time them at that 6–7 range while coaching them to run their best time possible without breaking down. They will improve as they push themselves more and more. Soon enough, they will be at an 8 with better technique and moving faster than they would have at a high level with less skill development.

That’s a TOUGH sell to athletes and sport coaches. We have to emphasize that “slow cooking” process they have become familiar with in the weight room. We all know intent goes up when the timing system or stopwatch goes on. Running at full speed with bad technique is not the most direct path to maximizing speed. Besides, what’s the hurry? In the weight room, you understand that you will hopefully be the most powerful version of yourself during your competition phase, not in the first off-season phase of training. Why would speed development be any different?

I love the sprinting groups. I love the excitement and energy that is in the air when the athletes see me walking out with what we call the “Nuclear Codes Case” that holds our Dashr timing system. I love the level of competitiveness those things bring out in our athletes.

 

The technology of sports performance gets better by the day. I love that fact as well! In fact, I absolutely embrace that. You certainly don’t have to have technology in your program to be successful, but in my experience, it is a huge help, and it makes your life as a strength coach that much easier. Just the area of data tracking and record-keeping for your speed program is life-changing!

I used to be an Excel guy. I’d print a sheet and hand it to the kids. I carried a clipboard and wrote down number after number. Then I sat down in front of my computer and painstakingly typed in that data. From a sprinting standpoint alone, think about the old hand-timed and clipboard way of doing it. Could you hand-time multiple times a week and enter that data? I couldn’t, that’s for sure.

The future is here, and if you can possibly do so, embrace it. I’m so excited by what the future holds for us as sports performance professionals. As just one example, Dashr has produced a radio frequency identification (RFID) module that uses wristbands worn by the athlete to full automate the timing process. With the Dashr wristband, each athlete has an individual barcode that they scan into the system, get set, and go. When they break the laser at the finish, the data uploads to a single spot. When you need it, you print it.

Need historical data? There’s no need to flip through sheets on a clipboard or search an Excel document. You’ll go from pencil, paper, a hard time with a +/- 0.5 of a second “thumb” error, and multiple coaches needed, to a fully automated system that tracks, uploads, and stores all the data. The future is bright, and it’s welcoming in any and all growth-minded coaches.

Our Athletes Are the Bottom Line

As you can see, I love the pursuit of knowledge and the journey toward mastery of the art of sports performance (that will never end). You can also see that I love technology and all the possibilities that are out there for coaches today. What I love most is doing what will help our athletes become the best version of themselves on the field. To do that, we need to use the exact same principles we use in the weight room, the classroom, and/or on the field/court in our speed development program.

To help athletes become the best version of themselves on the field, use the exact same principles you use in the weight room, classroom, and/or the court, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

Yes, let’s run fast to get fast. Let’s do that through a process of teaching the concept of speed and speed technique. Knowledge, teaching ability, and principled speed concepts combined with intelligence and technology will allow you to turn your “cats” into precise and focused hunters who will be able to maximize their natural abilities to be the fastest animal they can possibly be.

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 December 2019, I had the opportunity to complete the Apprentice Coach Program (ACP) at ALTIS in Phoenix, Arizona. Everyone involved in team sports is interested in speed development in some way. Personally, I work in Rugby Union, in which there are game-defining moments that will require an effective burst of maximal acceleration from a player, or for that athlete to remain composed at max or near-max speed—both abilities that are common to high-level sprinters.

Since I had been following the work ALTIS does for quite a while, I felt that completing the ACP would be a valuable learning experience. Being immersed in an environment that is so open and transparent can only reap positive rewards, and Coach Kevin Tyler reiterated this in his welcome presentation as he expressed gratitude to all attendees for investing their “hard-earned dollars” at ALTIS. In the end, however, I was even more grateful to ALTIS for opening their doors and allowing for this interaction.

In this article, I discuss four key learning points from the four days I spent at ALTIS. There were, of course, many more noteworthy insights and hands-on sessions, but these four central points were particularly applicable for me in my environment. In addition to providing a balance of the art and the science of enhancing performance, the ACP served as a reminder to critically evaluate everything in the context of my own program.

Acceleration – Error Detection and Correction

“S&C coaches often have a PhD understanding of lifting weights, but an elementary school understanding of sprinting.” –Dan Pfaff, ALTIS

Coach Stuart McMillan’s first presentation on acceleration error detection was incredibly thought-provoking, and it was not until the day was over and I reflected on what he said that I took so much from it. When analyzing movements, Coach McMillan looks at:

• Shapes
• Patterns
• Rhythm

For example, in acceleration:

• Shapes: touch-down and toe-off
• Patterns: one gait cycle
• Rhythm: multiple gait cycles

There are more key shapes in top-end sprinting (Coach McMillan identified 3–5 key shapes), but for this section, we will focus on the acceleration phase. According to Bondarchuk’s exercise classification system, sprinting (a specific development exercise) arguably transfers better to team sports than does lifting (general preparatory and specific preparatory). I must also note that it is next to impossible to measure transfer— especially in team sports.

Coach McMillan’s presentation sparked considerable debate and discussion around acceleration mechanics and creating an acceleration model. As McMillan tweeted after his presentation: “all models are wrong … some are useful – George Box.” In this context, all acceleration models are wrong, but some are useful because, as Coach Dan Pfaff declared, “You’ve got to coach to something.” If a coach does not know what they want, they cannot reverse engineer the training process. An acceleration model will give coaches a framework to decide how best to intervene with an athlete in front of them.

If a coach does not know what they want, they cannot reverse engineer the training process, says @Jordy_Cass. Share on X

Reflecting on this presentation and the ensuing discussion stimulated a lot of thought: Performance is a conscious effort, and it is important to equip players with tools to execute most effectively in the environment in which they find themselves. In a chaotic and variable environment (like team sports are played in), players must have a variety of tools to choose from. A couple of my other impressions resulting from the afternoon’s talk are:

• • The question becomes, do we want players accelerating to maximal speed or optimal speed (where they can still execute the sport-specific skills of the game—e.g., passing—to a high standard). Of course, like almost everything in sports performance, it depends!

 

• The acceleration rhythm in team sports is descending, like track and field (meaning, if you close your eyes and listen to the athletes’ steps, you will hear the time between steps increase—stride rate decreases). However, the external influences are random. Does this make a track and field acceleration model inapplicable for team sport athletes? I don’t know, truthfully, but I am excited to look more deeply into it.

 

Somebody asked a question in the poolside chat: Are team sport acceleration mechanics the same as track acceleration mechanics? Coach Pfaff was of the opinion that they were, the difference being in how coaches train it in different sports—team sports must microdose acceleration/speed work into their program, as training time for physical development must be balanced with time devoted to technical and tactical development. (These aspects are arguably the most important.)
The second part of the presentation, on Day 2, added an unbelievable amount of clarity to questions and confusion I had from the previous day.

In order to correct an error, you must identify the genesis of that error: Is it a mechanical error or a technical error? A simple method that McMillan uses to evaluate if an error is mechanical is to check for asymmetry. A technical cue cannot fix an error like this.

The information I gathered around acceleration really started to make sense when Coach McMillan explained functional anchor points (FAPs). He defined a FAP as a “fundamental shape that may act as a metaphor to which we refer while performing a more complex variation of the skill; i.e., in context.” For acceleration, Coach McMillan listed four FAPs that are “common to all movers on the planet”:

• The stance leg has forcefully extended.
• The swing-leg thigh has flexed forward and upward.
• The swing leg ankle has flexed in anticipation of initial ground contact.
• The arms have flexed and extended to counterbalance the legs.

These four points are applicable to maximal velocity sprinting, along with one more—neutral head and torso.

Video 1. Athlete demonstrates wicket drill emphasizing upright sprint mechanics.

Coach McMillan conceded that neutral head and torso and arm position are not necessarily applicable to team sport athletes depending on the situation they are in (may need to scan playing area for a pass, may be in possession of the ball, etc.). With team sport athletes, every movement is different; this means athletes can have an infinite number of movement solutions. There are two options for a coach:

• Train an infinite number of movements.
• Train several movements or FAPs to act as metaphors for team sport athletes.

It can absolutely be said that movement is contextual; movement can be very different depending on the demands of the particular sport. However, while McMillan accepts that field sport movement differs across sports, his philosophy is that athletes should learn acceleration sprint “rules” before the context of their sport breaks those rules.

Understand Your Athletes’ Limits Before Loading

Another theme mentioned several times, in different contexts, was identifying bandwidths. Ultimately, as Coach McMillan said, this is one of the most challenging aspects of coaching—how much is too much? What is the minimum effective dose for each athlete? Establishing individual thresholds is paramount for optimal adaptation. (Paul Glazier’s recent tweet sums up this point.)

“Mailboxing” athletes is something that Coach Pfaff mentions a lot, and it can be especially useful when working with large groups. Mailboxing athletes is essentially grouping athletes with similar problems together. For example, if you have five athletes completing an A-skip for 20 meters, but each has a different issue, it will be difficult to cue each athlete to improve their technique. However, if you have five athletes with the same problems, by cueing one athlete you are essentially cueing all athletes, making your coaching more efficient.

Mailboxing athletes is grouping athletes with similar problems together so that by cueing one athlete you can essentially cue all athletes, explains @Jordy_Cass. Share on X

Another useful benefit of knowing your athlete is being aware of their normal behavior, and therefore being able to identify deviations from the norm:

“A loud athlete goes quiet—the session is over.”

“A quiet athlete starts talking—the session is over.”

Coach Pfaff went on to say that people don’t like to use this kind of feedback to evaluate training status because you cannot put it into a spreadsheet (offered somewhat tongue-in-cheek). But the utilization of talking to the athlete as a monitoring tool was shown throughout the day. Coach McMillan asked numerous questions of his athletes throughout the session: “Are you good for one or two more reps,” “How did that feel,” etc.

In his presentation, Coach Keenan Robinson identified the limitations of swimmers. Coach Robinson discussed the importance of being aware that, because swimmers may not have developed the ability to jump and catch, programming reactive medicine ball throws or depth jumps could pose a high injury risk, just from executing the exercise. This is further support for being aware of who you are working with and understanding their abilities before prescribing them a program to improve those abilities.

Understanding Context and Complexity When Coaching

Coach Kevin Tyler spoke about the importance of balancing art and science in any endeavor in life. His presentation on Day 3 was captivating and showed an incredible depth to the points he made throughout. The first point of the presentation was to identify that information requires context for an appropriate understanding. Without this understanding, we cannot subsequently act appropriately:

Information + Context = Understanding

Information received + Understanding of that Information = Appropriate action

Context is key

Coach Tyler’s presentation discussed the need for a combination of science and experience for optimal performance. Specifically, in coaching: A highly technical coach who knows what to train but has difficulty communicating their ideas will struggle to make an impact. On the flip side, a highly experienced coach who understands the process but has no appreciation for the more scientific side of sport will also struggle. Coaches should develop the “how” (process) and the “what” (technical) to deliver their message.

Critical thinking is vital throughout a coach’s career to ensure they can state a justification for any action. Coach Tyler discussed the story of a man who “saved a fish from drowning” by taking the fish out of the water. As a result, the fish died, and the man went on to eat the fish. There are two messages that we can derive from this anecdote:

• Understand who you are working with and see things from their point of view—humans would drown in water, fish do not.
• Confirmation bias: It is possible to find evidence to support your claims or reasoning—the man developed a “reason” to take the fish out of the water (to save the fish from drowning), but failed to think critically about his actions (the fish would not have drowned).

Coach Tyler then compared complex systems and complicated systems:

• Working with an athlete is a complex system.
• Launching a rocket, although difficult to understand (it is literally rocket science), is a complicated system.

For me, it comes down to the power of the conscious brain. While launching a rocket is undoubtedly a difficult task, you can break it down into a series of simpler steps and, ultimately, if programmed correctly, the rocket will launch. The launch performance will not be negatively affected by illness or injury, lack of sleep, an argument with a partner, and so on. Therefore, it is a complicated process. However, these things can negatively impact athlete performance and affect different athletes in different ways, making it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to predict how certain circumstances cause a change in athlete performance.

For me, complicated vs. complex comes down to the power of the conscious brain. Programming is a complicated process, but the human aspect of coaching is what makes it incredibly complex. Share on X

The human aspect of coaching is what makes it incredibly complex, and careful consideration must be taken when adding support staff members to a support team. This process is simply adding to the complexity of an already complex task. In team sports, there could be a backroom team of 10 people; meaning the possibility of more than 40,000 conversations or interactions. However, the ALTIS model is simply the coach, athlete, and therapist—this means that there are only six possible conversations. While this is still a complex task, having fewer options reduces the complexity of the task.

How Science Can Support the Practitioner

Coach Robin Thorpe discussed how science can be used to support the practitioner, showing that a great deal of awareness about ensuring the role of science was neither overstated nor understated, but simply a piece of the puzzle.

What does sports science help coaches achieve? It helps them ask better questions rather than finding answers. Thorpe detailed three specific aims of sports science:

• Reduce uncertainty to help make better decisions.
• Support opinions: It is important to remain data-informed rather than data-driven.
• (mis)Interpretation: Help coaches understand what is happening both acutely and chronically.

With these factors in mind, Coach Thorpe discussed his Ph.D. work at Manchester United, and how it all stemmed from the manager asking the question: “Are my players ready?” Thorpe invested time into investigating the effects of different types of fatigue on player performance and injury risk, recovery strategies to enhance recovery from specific types of fatigue, and monitoring strategies to better understand when and what type of recovery strategy to implement with each athlete.

What does sports science help coaches achieve? It helps them ask better questions rather than finding answers, says @Jordy_Cass. Share on X

In a world where data is becoming more and more prevalent, and with more and more wearable technology coming out each year, it can be difficult to decide what measures to invest time in assessing. Thorpe discussed four areas to look at when deciding:

• Reliability: Does the test give the same results if we run it twice?
• Validity: Does the test measure what we think it measures?
• Sensitivity: Is the test responsive to load?
• Usability: Is the test practical in your environment?

The last point—usability—is the factor that should come first when assessing what measures to use. Ultimately, sports science needs to be as smooth as possible to ensure there isn’t a situation of the tail (sports science) wagging the dog (coaching processes).

In order to get a complete picture when monitoring an athlete through a training program, it is important to balance both external and internal loads. Ultimately, knowing the external training load alone (high-speed running, sprints, accelerations, etc.) tells us very little as training load is contextual—depending on athlete training age, time of year, injury status. What is important is the internal training load; to better understand an athlete’s response to training load.

This presentation highlighted the importance of mindset in any sports organization at any level. When people are curious, there are no limits to the amount of learning opportunities that can occur. Being open-minded to investigating the best way to do things helps improve the support provided to both athletes/players and coaches.

Progress Relies on Different Points of View

The variety of methods and perspectives of everyone at ALTIS is a huge positive. Different perspectives stimulate different thoughts; if everyone had the same point of view, things could get very stale very quickly, and progress could stall. What enhances this is every single person at ALTIS is willing to express their point of view and be challenged. Challenging a person’s view or opinion can only be positive—the person will change their opinion for the better and their thought process will become more robust, or the person will strengthen their argument why they feel the way they do and be in a stronger position next time they come under scrutiny.

When people are curious, there are no limits to the amount of learning opportunities that can occur, says @Jordy_Cass. Share on X

The biggest take-homes were to always be kind and remain curious. In his book, Mastery, Robert Greene wrote about how important it is to maintain an inferiority complex in order to learn. A child learns quickly because they are dependent, and they need others to survive. However, as we grow older, we become more independent and less reliant on others and even develop a mindset where we feel we can’t learn anything from someone else (experienced coach vs. novice coach; head coach in one sport vs. head coach in another). Retaining this child-like curiosity is essential for lifelong learning and continued development in whatever walk of life we invest in.

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

Eccentric training has been getting more attention across the world of sports performance, and it may allow us to take an athlete to the next level in terms of their strength and peak force capabilities. Once only found in bodybuilding and powerlifting circles, elite college programs and pro sport teams are starting to implement eccentric methods a little more. There is more and more evidence starting to show that eccentric-focused training provides greater adaptations to strength training than “traditional” training. But what is eccentric training? Why should you add it to your training, and how should you perform it?

There is more and more evidence starting to show that eccentric-focused training provides greater adaptations to strength training than “traditional” training, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Here are the key points you need to understand before undertaking eccentric training:

• There are many ways to do eccentric training, and some have a little more evidence supporting them than others.
• Eccentric training is very good for improving strength and quite good for improving muscular hypertrophy. It even helps to make improvements in speed and power as well.
• When manually overloaded, a lift can be intensified throughout the entire range of motion, leading to more positive adaptations.
• When having your athletes perform eccentric training for the first time, you need to consider the athlete’s training history, where they are in their competition schedule, and your coaching manpower to guide the session.

What Is an Eccentric, and How Can You Apply It?

An eccentric contraction is the motion of an active muscle while it lengthens under load. Eccentrics are also known as “negatives” in old-school bodybuilding circles, and pretty much every lift you do in the gym will have some element of an eccentric within it.

For example, while just doing a basic squat, the muscles work eccentrically on the descent into the hole. However, eccentric-focused training (otherwise known as AEL—accentuated eccentric loading) usually uses a variety of means to overload the eccentric portion of the lift. This accentuated eccentric loading can take different forms, with some having more scientific rationale than others.

Tactic # 1: The ‘Gym Bro’ Way

This is the most common way to overload a lift eccentrically, and it uses the same load that you would normally lift, only with a slower tempo. This helps to increase the TUT (time under tension) but doesn’t really achieve any of the major benefits of AEL, as the load is essentially the same as (or oftentimes actually lighter than) the load you normally lift with. You often see a stereotypical “gym bro” at your local gym arguing the case for doing it this way for dem mad #GAINZ. Unfortunately for him, though, there are better and more scientific ways to achieve adaptation than this.

There are better and more scientific ways to achieve adaptation than simply lifting the same load with a slower tempo, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Tactic #2: The ‘Meathead’ Way

With this tactic, you actually use supramaximal loads and can in fact go about making significant changes to your force production capabilities. More weight than you normally lift is put on the bar—usually somewhere between 100% and 130% of your 1RM. You only lift the bar for the eccentric portion of the lift, with spotters then either helping lift the weight back up to the top for you or helping strip the weight at the bottom. Your bearded, smelling-salts-sniffing meathead is often fond of this method.

You need spotters for this due to the ungodly amount of load. Obviously, because of the supramaximal nature of the lift and the need for effective spotters, this can be a more dangerous lifting strategy. More positively, you will make large improvements in force production due to the load being much greater than your 1RM.

However, as you go through the lift, the bar velocity tends to increase throughout the range of motion because you will struggle to control the bar speed once you are past your peak torque angle. This means you simply don’t have the force generation capacity to control the bar past a certain point, which can lead to the bar pancaking you at the bottom. Unfortunately for the spotter, what goes down must also come back up again! So, for multiple reps, the spotter has a lot of responsibility either lifting a whole lot of weight or doing a lot of fiddly stripping of plates.

Tactic #3: The ‘Manually Overloaded’ Way

This tactic tries to get the best of both worlds: control throughout the entire range of motion, but a supramaximal load that should help develop peak force. You still need spotters here, but the actual load on the bar is a little more manageable. The load can be quite variable—you want enough resistance so that the spotter isn’t working like crazy, but then not too much that you can’t provide a steady amount of resistance throughout the whole range of the lift.

Video 1. The spotter helps on the way up and adds extra graded resistance on the way down. The bar in front helps stabilize the lifter.

The spotter’s job is to provide variable resistance throughout the range of motion. They control the velocity by giving more resistance when you’re at your strongest and backing off at points in the lift where you are weak. For example, at the top of the bench press they would push down harder, but then only push a small amount at the bottom portion of the lift.

Video 2. In the eccentric bench press, the spotters lift the weight to the top, and then the lifter builds tension into the bar. The spotters will have to work harder at the top portion of the range for most people and back off a bit at the bottom.

Why Should You Use These Lifts?

There are a few reasons to do these types of lifts, including for increased force production, hypertrophy, and speed-power.

Force Production

The main reason we decide to do eccentric-focused training is to improve force production. Considering that, compared to concentric contractions, skeletal muscle is capable of as much as 20–50% more force production during maximal eccentric contractions⁴, it makes sense that we would be capable of having more load on the bar while doing accentuated eccentric training. In practical terms, the easiest way to think about this is that the height we can box jump is far less than the height of a box we can jump down off of. The reason for this is that the force we are capable of producing to propel ourselves up concentrically in a box jump is far less than the force we can absorb from landing eccentrically.

Keeping that in mind, you can get greater intensity in your program with supramaximal eccentric training. This has a number of positive effects: First and foremost, intensity drives adaptation. With a more potent stimulus you will get a more optimal adaptation. Eccentrics seemingly do this through an increased amount of neural drive.⁵ Although some academics dispute it, you may also be able to get preferential recruitment of HTMUs (high-threshold motor units), which has been shown to increase force production.⁶

You can get greater intensity in your program with supramaximal eccentric training, and the more potent stimulus will drive more optimal adaptation, says @peteburridge. Share on X

Video 3. A lifter can perform all eccentrics better when they can build up their tension, so rather than jumping to the top of the lift, get the lifter to climb up using the pins in the rack before pulling them down.

By doing eccentrics with manual resistance, you develop strength throughout the full range of motion as well. This enables you to generate force at long, medium, and short muscle lengths, which has a positive impact on injury prevention.⁷ This is especially important in team sports like rugby, where athletes are exposed to many different joint configurations and joint angles and have to effectively generate force to prevent against injury. 

Hypertrophy

The next reason you might implement eccentric-focused lifting into your training is for hypertrophy. In sports like sprinting this may not be desirable, but in sprint momentum-based sports like rugby and American football, getting an athlete bigger can be a big training focus. One potential way that eccentrics help is improving satellite cell proliferation and activation in type II muscle fibers¹.

Satellite cells are cells that donate their myonuclei to another cell (in this case muscle fibers), allowing for greater control of a group of muscle fibers. The easiest way to think about this complicated idea is to think of an airport: the satellite cells are like the control towers, and the runways are the muscle fibers. If you only have one control tower, you can only have a small number of runways before the control tower can’t handle the airplane traffic. If you want the airport to grow, you need more control towers—and with more control towers, you have the potential to lay down more runways (muscle fibers). If, through your lifting, you can lay down more satellite cells, then you have the potential to lay down a lot more runways (muscle fibers).

There is a strong case for exposing young athletes to this kind of training to lay down satellite calls early and give them a greater potential for growth at a later age, says @peteburridge. Share on X

This is the science behind the principle of reversibility. Even if the airplane traffic stops, the control towers remain, so there is still potential for growth if the airplane traffic comes back. This is why when someone stops training for an extended period of time, they are able to put on size much quicker than someone who hadn’t done the training previously. Because of this, there is a strong case for exposing young athletes to this kind of training to lay down satellite cells early and give them a greater potential for growth at a later age. This is also the reason people have called for lifetime bans for steroid users, because those satellite cells they lay down when juiced-up don’t go away, and so their potential for muscle growth will always be higher whether they have stopped using steroids or not.

Video 4. The eccentric leg press takes some manpower to spot, but it can be a great way to safely achieve high mechanical tension. The key is to not “lock out” the spotters and keep pushing in the deep ranges.

It is suggested you can get preferential recruitment of type II fibers with eccentric training—these fibers have bigger growth potential than type I fibers² and are arguably more important fibers for the high-intensity activities you regularly get exposed to in a sport like American football. There is also a growing body of literature that shows eccentric training has more of an effect on muscular hypertrophy when compared to concentric lifting, as this meta-analysis of studies shows³:

From my own experience, we have practice-based evidence that shows very positive results when eccentric-focused lifting has been added to players’ programs, with players putting on mass at accelerated rates in comparison to normal lifting.

Speed-Power

Eccentrics help to increase the number of sarcomeres in series, which allows for greater fascicle shortening speeds⁸. If our muscles can shorten at greater velocity, we should be able to move much, much faster. The use of eccentrics, especially when manually overloaded, allows for greater force production at long muscle lengths⁹. This then shifts the length-tension curve to the right, which can have positive adaptations in speed and power.

Not only that, but eccentric training tends to favor hypertrophy in distal portions of the muscle, which are, again, favorable to contraction velocity¹⁰. Despite there not being too much direct evidence for eccentric-focused lifting improving speed and power, there are a lot of adaptations that should help develop the muscle to be able to shorten quicker and faster. This should then lead to developments in speed and power qualities.

Video 5. Manually resisted hamstrings are a good way to get people strong at long muscle lengths and are comparable to Nordics, except you can control the resistance so the athlete works at the end range and not just at the early range. 

Why (or When) to Not Use Eccentrics

Despite there being a lot of evidence for implementing eccentrics into your program(s), you still need to consider a few things. If doing manually resisted eccentrics, you obviously need a decent amount of manpower, as it probably isn’t feasible for a coach to spot a whole team through a session of eccentrics and then get through the session without some sort of overuse injury!

So, either select athletes who need to be targeted on an individual basis or get them to work in teams to spot each other. With that, of course, you need to spend a large amount of time educating the athletes on how to spot safely and effectively. This is a key point, because ineffective or reckless spotting either reduces the adaptations you’re after or, worse, can be dangerous to the athlete if performed incorrectly.

Video 6. Eccentrics are a great way to target and isolate some of the rotator cuff muscles that are important in preventing shoulder injuries. A smooth rep is a good rep.

The next consideration is when to add manually overloaded eccentrics to your players’ programs. There is a large amount of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and muscle damage associated with training this way. They will get your athletes very sore, so they need to be well transitioned into a program. You can’t just chuck them in; you need to start with very low volumes and build up the athletes’ tolerance to eccentric-focused training—otherwise, it may limit their capability to perform on-field training or other gym work. Sometimes, as low as 2 x 3 is all that you need to do with someone to make them significantly sore, so it is key you build these strategies around physical development blocks or windows outside of competition.

You can’t just chuck manually overloaded eccentrics into a program—you need to start with very low volumes and build up athletes’ tolerance to eccentric-focused training, says @peteburridge. Share on X

The final consideration is the lift has to be maximal, otherwise athletes might as well just stick to their traditional lifts. We would all love to work with 100% honest athletes, but, unfortunately, we don’t. Especially at the pro level, there are some people who will simply pretend to push as hard as they can, when in reality they are capable of much more. So, for those athletes who don’t train with honest intent and are prone to pulling a face and just “faking it,” it may be best if they stick to traditional lifting.

An Example Program

Following is an example real-life program of a rugby back who is in season but looking to put on a bit more size and get stronger while still maintaining his speed.

Take Home Messages

Hopefully, I’ve made a strong enough case that eccentrics are a valuable tool to have in your training toolbox. If you do decide to look further into using eccentrics in your program(s), here are the key things to remember:

• There are different ways to do eccentrics, but some may get more of the physiological adaptations that you’re after than others.
• There is much evidence for improvements in strength utilizing eccentrics and some evidence of a small but meaningful improvement in hypertrophy compared to traditional training (10% vs. 6%).³
• There is both some theoretical and growing real-world evidence of improvements in speed and power following eccentric-focused training.
• Be aware of how much you prescribe and more importantly when you prescribe if implementing these strategies into your program(s).
• Some personality types are better suited than others to train this way.
• In sports, with large playing and on-field training demands, you will have to schedule athlete training intelligently around games and training.

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References

1. Friedmann-Bette B., Bauer T., Kinscherf R., Vorwald S., Klute K., Bischoff D., et al. “Effects of strength training with eccentric overload on muscle adaptation in male athletes.” European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2010;108(4):821–836.

2. Anderson J. and Aagard P. “Effects of strength training on muscle fiber types and size; consequences for athletes training for high-intensity sport.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. 2010; 20(Suppl. 2):32–38.

3. Roig M., O’Brien K., Kirk G., et al. “The effects of eccentric versus concentric resistance training on muscle strength and mass in healthy adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis.” British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2009;43:556–568.< 4. Jorgensen K. “Force-velocity relationship in human elbow flexors and extensors.” Int Ser. on Biomechanics. 1976;1:145–151.

5. Aagaard P. “Training-induced changes in neural function.” Exercise and Sport Science Reviews. 2003;31(2):61–67.

6. Nardone A. and Schieppati M. “Selective recruitment of high threshold human motor units during voluntary isotonic lengthening of active muscles.” Journal of Physiology. 1989;409:451–471.

7. Timmins R.G., Bourne M.N., Shield A.J., et al. “Short biceps femoris fascicles and eccentric knee flexor weakness increase the risk of hamstring injury in elite football (soccer): a prospective cohort study.” British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2015 Dec 16.

8. Blazevich A.J., Cannavan D., Coleman D.R., et al. “Influence of concentric and eccentric resistance training on architectural adaptation in human quadriceps muscles.” Journal of Applied Physiology. (1985). 2007;103(5):1565–1575.

9. Douglas, J., Pearson, S., Ross, A., and McGuigan, M. “Chronic adaptations to eccentric training: a systematic review.” Sport Medicine. 2016;47(5):1–25.

10. Abe T., Kumagai K., Brechue W.F. “Fascicle length of leg muscles is greater in sprinters than distance runners.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2000;32(6):1125–1129.