Nutrition: More Than Dietary Changes

While working with one of the lineman on the team with making some dietary changes, I have realized how hard this can be to change those habits. Currently he has had some knee issues, respiratory problems, and low back ache. He didn't need just dietary changes, it seemed some lifestyle modification was necessary as well. There are a few steps that we are taking to get there

Step 1: Dietary Guidelines
These guidelines are pretty identical to those of Precision Nutrition. Why? Because after following it for a few years, listening to DR. JB talk, and seeing the endless great results he has gotten it only seemed smart to pass on the info.

Guidelines for meal construction.

1) Eat every 3 hours

-The following information will explain what these meals should consist of.

2) Eat a protein with every meal

-Approx. 20-40 grams worth per meal

3) Eat a fruit or veggie with every meal if possible.

Load up on these especially veggies, they will fill you up and keep you from getting hungry before next 3 hours

4) Utilize Carbohydrate timing

-Keep your starchy carbs (breads, pasta, oatmeal, cereal…etc) for after workout. A complex carbohydrate such as oatmeal or whole wheat bread can be eaten for breakfast also.

5) Try cutting out 0 calorie containing beverages throughout day

-This would include juices and pop. Replace with water, diet soda, tea, and coffee.

6) Utilize food combinations (very important for body composition)

-There are 2 categories of meal-Anytime and Post workout/breakfast. Anytime meals will be those that include protein, fruit/veggie, and healthy fat source (olive oil, cheese, dark meat, peanut butter), and will consist of low carbs (no starches/sugary foods).

7) Cheat 10% of the time

-There is no reason to not enjoy foods that you love. A “cheat” meal can be anything but a good point to remember is not to go overboard. Remember this is a cheat Meal not day. These are usually utilized on weekends, when you will most likely be eating out; usual allowance for these is 4-5 per week.

Step 2: Progressive Dietary Changes

If you bombard someone with all kinds of new changes it will quickly get overwhelming. This calls for finding the one or two things holding him back the most. First, start with changing the food available (snacks, meals, trips). Next was learning how to fill a plate. Backing off from the excessive starch, treats, and, juices. Gradually this will hopefully lead to a full dietary change.

Step 3: Follow Up

Over the last few weeks he has done a great job at keeping me posted on progress and what he is having difficulties doing. Obviously it will be a long process but we have made great strides...Down double digits already!

Getting up early to build alactic capacity

As I posted in a article on Elite FTS, the importance of alactic capacity for football are clear. The one thing that is challenging is organizing a program that allows 80+ guys to accomplish this at the same time.
Educate your coaches
In the past, our coaches were all about LACTATE, LACTATE, LACTATE! Needless to say athletes were ran into the ground for "conditioning" All it took was a simple sit down meeting with a written plan of execution, and letting them know how to follow through with that plan. Showing them how to split up groups and making sure the athletes do not go over the set intensity or volume while following proper rest times. Coaches are great at organizing drills and getting athletes to listen and follow suit so once they communicate with the athlete the desired execution of the drill it will be done that way.

Educate Your Athletes
I have often been apart of drills during practice, training, and so forth and athletes are constantly asking, "Why are we doing this?" Not in the form of complaining but because of curiosity. Especially at the collegiate level, they want to KNOW that what they are doing is making them better. So it is key to let them in on your methods in the weight room and during conditioning. This can go a long way. This is the difference between having one pair of coaches eyes compared to dozens of eyes keeping track of everyone and whether they are utilizing there time efficiently. I have had pretty much every senior approach me asking me why we are doing this and what benefits come from a certain method (mostly due to not ever being exposed to them previously) and they all listen intently and are always glad to know what is going on. This has helped during weight room coaching cause they are just as good about cueing each other. Also during conditioning they are getting guys to hustle from spot to spot to meet the time requirements.

For example Wednesday morning during our conditioning. It was great having athletes motivating each other and knowing that when the previous group was finished, they had to get to the line and go go go! We did a variety of movements lateral and linear for a set set time which gradually increases in volume throughout the mesocycle.

It is obvious that communication with training is key and it involves everyone. People being left out will miss out. Notice that there was more to mention in terms of communicating with athletes. Coaches are great and mine have done a great job at delegating the instructions but the athletes have made a tremendous difference in getting things to run smoothly because they are the ones putting forth they effort and have a desire to do it so that they improve as much as possible.

Team Warm Up-Lower Body 2 of 2: Stick Routine

As I clarified in my previous post, there are so many things that are important to address in order to establish quality movement prior to lifting and performance overall. With large groups or teams, utilizing your simple tools can reinforce proper posture and positioning while performing a wide array of movements without the need for constant cueing.

Speaking of cues, it can make you job much easier by teaching the desired position you want them in with the tool that you are using. For example, with the stick warm up, on the first day they performed it we established what we expected them to do during the movements. Basically arms straight, chest out, belly button in, and knee(s) out. So now every time we do this routine and they are told to get in position, they know exactly what that means and it takes care of having to constantly throw out cues. Here is a example of the routine.

Foam Roll
Stretch
Kneeling Psoas stretch 1x30 ea
Wall Adductor/Hamstring-Lie down, V Legs against wall, actively abduct legs
Hurdle Mobility Forward (Paired with Dynamic Stretch)
"Fish Hook"
Lead w/ R/L
Over/Under
"Grab Stick" aka Homemade cut up PVC and Dowels
OH squat w/ long pause in hole 2x15 sec
Kneeling t-spine Rotation x10 each
OH Squat w/ 1 sec pause x10 "Count out loud"
Single leg good mornings x10 ea
OH Lunge w/ twist x10ea
Monster Walk F/B x 5ea
Glute Bridge- x10 w/ 3 sec hold

From here we will again lead into or movement drills and then it is off to the iron game! You may have gotten the indication from the routine that I love counting reps out loud and them doing it in sync. This just avoids guys trying to slack off on a few reps because if they are not in sync with everyone they will stick out pretty easily. Also that these sticks were all homemade. We cut spare dowels, found old broomsticks and PVC that met the dimensions too. This way we were able to obtain more than enough sticks for large groups for nothing more than putting in extra time to make them and searching.

The thing I like most about this routine is that you can identify progress in mobility and keep weekly note of how there movement patterns are improving. Hope this serves as some help And I will have some video up with the two routines early next week which can help give a better picture at the constancy of the warm up and how easy it is to implement.

Team Warm Up-Lower Body 1 of 2: Band Routine

By now, it has been firmly implanted in to many coaches minds that preparation or warm up for weight training is very important. By participating in sports in just the last 10 years, I can personally remember the concept of a warm up transitioning from "take a lap and stretch on your own" to "after foam rolling and corrective stretching were are going into activation and mobility drill."

With all the great research and recent developments that can help athletes correct movement patterns, activate muscles, enhance stability, regain mobility, improve tissue quality...wow, what a list! And you have to put a team of 80 guys through this in less then an hour?...what...15 min?!?!

This is where systems come into play. A system based off primary areas of need in your particular sport. With a system athletes can memorize. Once this occurs so does efficiency. We utilize 4 routines which we can cover all those things listed above in a continuous and sometimes simultaneously which allows us to accomplish more with the time given.

Band Routine-Lower body 1 of 2
Foam Roll-As I have mentioned in previous post, our team takes personal accountability to show up 5-10 min before the scheduled time to foam roll in order for us to get right into our corrective work.
Stretch- Kneeling Lunge, 3-D External Rotators
Hurdle Mobility Lateral- "Fish Hook", R/L, Over/Under all paired with a dynamic stretch.
Mini Bandx5 each
Straight Leg Lateral Walk
Straight Leg Forward
Monster Walk F/B
External rotations (band on knees)
Wide March/Tight March (around foot)

From here we proceed into Med Ball routine and movement drills. This entire routine including med ball and movement drills take 15 minutes. The first day did take a little longer but once it is learned it becomes very efficient. The key to making this work is keeping the pace up. Guys are always building up a great sweat and getting a lot done in the process. Besides the pace of the warm up, I really like the fact that it addresses a wide array of needs important to football players with extra emphasis placed on hip mobility.

Hope this can give some aid to those trying to find ways to quickly and efficiently move athletes through an effective warm up. Be sure to stop by again when I will post the 2nd Lower Body routine: The stick warm up.

Psychology vs Physiology: Accountability

But really, by recognizing one simple strategy you can watch your athletes bust through barriers. The saying psychology trumps physiology has more pull than you can imagine. For example, currently I am using the 531 method for max effort days and if your familiar with this program the last set is as many reps as possible at the given percentage. This makes for interesting chemistry in the weight room especially when you are being held accountable by your entire team.

Psychology is pretty much the mind set of your team. But the concept of team mind set goes way further than the psychological factors of trying to do more reps.
Accountability

Accountability is the root of trust. Often we have meetings EARLY in the morning. We get up 3 times per week to lift or run at 5:30. When an athlete shows up late, not at all, or falls way short of his capabilities, everyone knows. The significant role of accountability in the off season probably is the most important psychological factor a team must build. For example, on the field everyone serves a specific role and you must trust the man next to you to do his job to be successful. If you can't trust a teammate to be at a simple meeting on time, you will have trouble expecting him to serve his role on the field.

When writing the programs, accountability served as a main guide for the design. We require foam roller, but, they must show up 5-10 min early before scheduled warm up to do it. We have them go to failure on the last set of Max effort exercises. If your not busting balls, sweating, and breathing heavy after that last set, your trust is suspect as to whether you put forth you full effort. D gets up to lift at 5:30 on Mon and O on Thursday and if someone is missing, you better believe that they are the first one there the next week.

If accountability is in place and trust is in place, the first things to be at all time highs are morale and atmosphere. When a great atmosphere is developed you can definitely expect guys to come in with the sole purpose of making the most of their time working out.

Random Reading, Info, and Workouts

Random Reading

I spend some time with the head ATC here at school, whom also serves as strength coach for a couple other sports, and we often share thoughts and reading. But, being in there often enough has made me realize that a lot of times the treatment modality of choice is ultrasound. Remembering that someone told me this was ultra"scam" I decided to see what some of the research was.

A Review of Therapeutic Ultrasound: Effectiveness Studies

http://ptjournalonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/7/1339

A Review of Therapeutic Ultrasound: Biophysical Effects

http://www.physicaltherapyonline.net/cgi/reprint/81/7/1351

These are some of the many studies that pretty much state therapeutic ultrasound's results had an unnoticeable difference compared to natural healing.

Random Info

Is Caffeine Good For Athletes

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/caffeine-athletes

In this video DR. JB of Precision Nutrition talks about how to utilize the right forms of caffeine to add in athletic performance.

From Surgery to the field

Taking an example of a TE on our team who is coming back from a Bankart Lesion. This involves the labrum and usually leads to anterior GH instability. Making great progress in ROM currently his strengthening protocol for his shoulder involves progressive scapular strengthening with a variety of closed chain exercises, scaption work, and latissimus strengthening through some rowing techniques.

Progressive techniques are key with this athlete and also pain free arcs of motion. He has communicated with his PT and is currently ahead of schedule in terms of full recovery. His next Phase of shoulder recovery will involve more aggressive muscular strengthening of muscles aiding in GH stabilization until athlete is pain free in internal/external rotation at elevated positions.

Since he will not be participating in Spring Ball, we will continue to follow up with restoring muscular endurance and shoulder conditioning towards the end of his recovery while avoiding any exercises that would put his shoulder in provocative positions.
Random Workout Info

If there is one thing that is true with all people it is that they find ways to compensate for faulty movement patterns. With athletes who often have some history of injury are bound to doing this with out doubt. Being wary of movement flaws is not only important during lifting, but also when you are doing any sort of mobility, flexibility, or skill work. Example: We do some sort of mobility work with hurdles every day after we foam roll and one cue we use is "fish hook position."


This position takes care of multiple cues. This position, maintained the whole duration of going over hurdles, avoids compensating flexion and tilting while turning the glutes on and keeping the hips extended. All it takes is teaching them the position the first time they come to warm up and every time they here "fish hook" they get right into position which avoids having to cue multiple areas individually.

Moving better, Playing better.

Since implementing our warm up with the team, noticeable movement patterns have definitely exposed for need of some cleaning up. There are several key exercises that we implement in pre work and warm up to help shore up these patterns which will hopefully rid of us of dysfunctional movement.

In line-Lunge














This is great for identifying functional mobility of forward leg (hip flexion, ankle dorsiflexion). The dynamic stability can be identified in observing control of movement, knee stability, and there is a good balance component which will require adequate frontal plane stability.

Overhead Squat with Pause in hole














This is part of out "stick" warm up which we perform once per week. Basically, we do a series of movements with dowels after our rolling, hurdle mobility, and some other stretches/movement drills. The OHS gives me a great indicator on progress throughout the off season on several factors. From the bottom up your able to identify dorsiflexion, Foot position, hip ROM, Low back arch compared to thoracic, shoulder ROM, and whether the bear the load on one leg or the other. WOW, what a long list! But, you can expect that as this improves, it will indicate that a lot of mobility issues have panned out.

Standing Psoas March


















Cleaning up hip flexion will have a strong influence on avoiding many major compensation patterns. You may see TFL taking over via cramp, forward spinal flexion from overall weakness, and, using momentum generated from quad to achieve desired ROM. This can lead to low back pain and even quad strain/pull. A key point is making sure they are in perfect posture and cue the right muscles (stomach, psoas) in order to get the activation necessary.

These are 3 examples of exercises we use in some of our warm ups in order to not just prepare them for lifting or running, but to get them moving better in all aspects of function. It is holistic way of looking at improvement. If your athletes are feeling better throughout the day, the subjective readiness will be that much higher before even starting warm ups.

Off-season football Training

When you are playing college level sports there are a few things you need to consider when training the athlete. One of these things is training age/level. We have a wide variety of athletes coming form programs that have never really lifted in high school to guys that have competed in the sport of weight lifting itself. For these guys, sticking them on a developmental plan just isn't going to get them training effect to reach the highest potentials of there preparedness. Here is a sample day of a Semi-skill Red workout. Red would indicate the higher level of training in that particular skill group.

This group of athletes has the necessary cross-section area, strength, and training age, that they have stopped being able to make progress on a more developmental workout. Our less advanced will do very well on basic progressive overload, very concurrent, and will respond to any form of load given.

It isn't as if I am against everyone following the same workout or progression, but I have the time, equipment, and motivated enough athletes to do this sort of work.

Down the road they will be introduced to some more specialized conditioning and speed work that will hopefully serve to be the tool that can take off that extra tenth to get them putting up some sick times and leaving defenders far behind.

Often times it is very self-motivating to work, train, and play alongside many of these more advanced athletes that have been working at the iron game since they were extremely young like I did. These guys are always ready to start and are running full throttle the whole time they are in the weight room.

Finishing Strong!

It has already been two weeks since New Year’s Day and many people have already started to steadily stray form those ever so popular resolutions. In essence, a resolution is a goal or commitment one makes to themselves to reform a current habit. Sadly enough, most people by the two-week point have already parted ways with the commitments/goals they have set out for. They have either chosen to be satisfied by settling for less (just finishing) or quit all together. They are not finishing strong! Why?

First of all, the most important thing about goals is having one! But what does it mean to have a goal and what is it that makes people stay on track? There are two things that are REQUIRED if you are looking to maintain your commitment: effort and attitude. In a recent study psychologist stated that 78% of the people who failed in there resolutions focused on the downside of not achieving there goals or the things in which they would be “deprived” of if they wanted to reach it. Basically, the attitude was not sufficient enough to allow them to put forth the required effort. These people are looking at the immediate discomforts and do not realize that they should be irrelevant and outweighed by the long-term benefits.

Again, this all comes down to how you choose to look at what it will take to finish strong. The last of human freedoms, to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance, is to choose one’s own way (Frankl). Your attitude is what is stopping you from even finishing, and to finish strong you must first finish. By embracing this attitude of finishing strong you set a level of personal accountability. Don’t be part of the group who HAVE to go on a diet or start a workout, be the one who CHOOSES to make the commitment.

Overhaulin: weight room edition

Recently, I have put in an order for some very valuable equipment to be used for the team. Being able to choose between an ever expanding market for variations of bars, bands, and however many other gadgets that get put out anymore you would think it would be a daunting task. It was actually quite simple. Here are a few of the things I received and why I chose them.

Trap Bar

Why: When you perform this exercise it serves as one of the most basic forms of hip extension you can perform. This is important because teaching hip extension, under load, cannot be simpler then sitting your hips back and lifting something heavy. Ok...it's not that simple but you get the point. This exercise allows you to easily adjust height, via rising with plates, that you can attain neutral spine alignment from the start of the movement. And of course, this dead lift variation when dealing with a multitude of athletes saves time devoted for teaching a conventional so you can begin loading it much sooner.

Elite FTS Pro Short Mini Bands

Why: These are a spin on something that has been around for a while. Although they are short bands they can still serve good use for many different dynamic effort works, and they will be a pivotal part of our warm up protocol. The added benefit of size is that there is not more doubling up when applying straps to bar and this makes band tension easier to evenly distribute. This is also one of the most versatile tools as you can use them for a variety of activation, pull apart, stretching, and strengthening. I think we will easily get plenty of use out of these.

Blast Straps

Why: Again, these are a very versatile piece of equipment. The amount of rowing, core, and many other strengthening exercises that are options made this an easy buy. Also one of the biggest benefits is the ability to rotate the handle which allows your shoulders to move freely as opposed to a bar forcing them in a specific position. You can also form many progressions with these straps alone especially for the core (Holds, Rollouts, flutters, etc…) So again, another tool that can get a lot of use.

We also had various other tools such as dowels, foam rollers, and LAX/Tennis balls. The best part was that they were free. We made them! Simple things like dowels can be found anywhere. Maintenance always has various woods, PVC and a variety of rope that they are sometimes glad to get rid of. I’m not saying it would be wise to go make your own bench press or blasts straps but just to utilize your resources. Make sure if you make a big purchase that it is equipment that is needed, and hopefully not a uni-tasker.

Integrating corective exercise into team training

In the previous post I mentioned how important it is to address stiffness/shortness as well as combating the faulty postures that accompany sitting in class all day long. One of the things I have to take into account is that we have around 100 athletes on the team and most have similar issues including stiff hip flexors, poor internal hip rotation, and stiff pec minors.

Ideally, every athlete would wake up, go through their stretching and activation routine, and repeat after workout. Well, that just doesn't happen. Although many do take the time to address there tissue quality and work on flexibility issues, a majority just don't. The simple solution to this is forcing them to do it as part of the workout.

Day 1 UB
Explosive
Snatch- Dumbbell 1 Arm

w/

Sumo Squat to Stand

Horizontal Push
Bench Press
Horizontal Pull- tri set
Heavy 1 Arm Row
w/
Cable Lift (also serves as active hip flexor stretch)
w/
90/90 stretch

Post Work circuit x2
Includes corrective and specific strengthening exercises for players
Regeneration
will address more specific stretches specific to player/position

Really it is as easy as filling there "rest" periods with quality time to address flexibility/mobility issues. Is it going to have a direct influence on gaining outstanding flexibility...no. But it isn't just about gaining flexibility/mobility, but it will help prevent them from loosing it. Some players have gone through a full evaluation already and are addressing length issue head on with more long duration and EQI stretches and have made a great difference. Even if the total time of the stretches is only 1.5 minutes or so per area it will go a long way as opposed to them not dedicating any time at all. We also address mobility and soft tissue in the warm up which I have posted previously allowing us to cover all areas. This was they are hitting these areas at least 4X per week. This is a great way to not have guys just floating around between sets and many times guys are not disciplined enough to just sit around and stretch at the end of workouts. This takes care of it!

Alleviate Your Ailing Shoulder

In almost any sport, the shoulder complex will not only play a major importance in success, but also in the longevity of one’s career. With many of the athletes on my team there has been a common theme in both posture and specific stiffness accompanied by antagonistic weakness. This has been brought on by posture, previous training modalities, and lack of soft tissue/flexibility work.

The solution is often easy, but getting them to do it on a regular basis and on their own time is a challenge for some athletes. This requires there program to often include flexibility and specific strengthening work paired with various movements throughout the workout in order to aid in correcting many issues.

The following is one of the more common things I see with athletes having shoulder issues. Pictured here is a defensive end who has had shoulder issues trailing back from spring football.

By the picture it is clear that there is anterior stiffness/shortness. His pectoralis minor tested short during evaluation. When speaking of this issue on scapular kinematics and overall shoulder health this can be very detrimental not only to performance but ability to remain on the field to demonstrate that performance. With this sort of stiffness alterations in upward rotation and posterior tilting of the scapula will be present. This can result in unwarranted humeral translation and impingement issues.

The approach I took with this athlete starts with correcting this issue in the warm up.

Specifically addressing the soft tissue we utilize the lacrosse ball to pin point smaller muscles. This is followed by a basic broomstick stretch to loosen the anterior stiffness thus setting up for great ability to activate the antagonistic muscles with exercises like wall slides for the lower trap.

Another flexibility exercises that can easily be utilized paired during a workout is a basic doorway or rack pec stretch. This can easily fill the gaps during rest periods on lower body days or is easy to do on their own time in a doorway.

Equally important as loosening up the anterior stiffness is strengthening the antagonistic muscles that will allow for the needed movement efficiency of the scapular region.

This is a time where isolation exercises really pay off. By isolating the specific muscle (lower trapezius) and strengthening it, you will be better able to integrate it in more subsequent compound movements. Here is an example if an isolation for lower trap, the prone I, and an integrated one, PNF D2 Flexion. You can also consider many other horizontal and vertical pulls as integration exercises as well. All these will help reinforce scapular stability as well as strengthen the muscles in which the pec minor is opposing.

Finally, addressing the issue at the end of a workout or regeneration portion is where I implement EQI exercises depending if the muscles group needs it. EQIs will add sarcomeres in series which will give you length in a muscle to loosen up that anterior stiffness or shortness.

Of course there are several other things that contribute to shoulder problems especially thoracic rotation/extension. This is of high importance and is of course included in all programs. But, as you can see, the solution is rather simple; it is more about finding a way to smoothly integrate the needed exercises throughout the program that will yield the desired result.