Off-Season Update

OFF SEASON, TESTING, AND RESULTS

Over the past few months, it has been a very busy time with training various teams, people, and reading. Now that Spring Ball has started it is time to look back and analyze the progress from the previous off-season programs.

What Was New?
Through new experiences, reading, and research it is expected that programs, methods, and progressions will change. Here are some of the changes we made this off-season in attempt to yield better performance and decreased injury potential.

1. Team FMS
One of the tools that I was able to get implemented school wide with all sports teams was FMS screenings. By partnering with the athletic training department, one of which has been through a mentorship for SFMA, we did all our preliminary screens this winter.

What we noticed was, a majority of the female athletes performed poorly in Stability push-ups and In- Line lunge. Of them, a majority complained of hip pain. For the football team, following the season, performed poorly in the Shoulder and Rotational tests. Of them a majority had anterior shoulder pain.

→Corrective approach
Following is an example of what was required for the athletes whose programs I was in charge of (Football, Volleyball). These would be typical of what we would do prior to team warm up for a shoulder priority.








Also for active rest, certain exercises were paired with corrective stretching to increase relaxation between sets as well as serving to reinforce the postural corrections. The subjective feedback has been great. Many are gradually being alleviated of tightness and the follow up to the test will be performed as they go through athletic physicals in a couple weeks.

2. Speed/Plyo Progressions
This off season I focused a particular amount of attention to our anaerobic power sessions, which were in separate session Monday, and also Wednesday mornings we would have a session completely dedicated to developing this capacity. We then would be transitioning into anaerobic capacity. Our session would mirror what was being reinforced in the weight room such as Starting strength, acceleration mechanics that were utilized heavily and with great success during our emphasis on anaerobic power (AP). AP plays and especially important role the shorter the competitive distance, which is enhanced while developing maximal strength and reactive ability.

Example of exercises for this development of anaerobic power and reactive ability:
→Resisted running from Crouch/Split stance start.
Keys: powerful take off using active movement of swing leg. This reinforces the flexion/extension reflex (Bosch), which will greatly enhance starting power.
Distance/Time: 25-35yds depending on position. Nothing over 8-10 seconds.

→Jump Training divided into “short” consisting of 4-6 maximum force take offs. We used a progression of Non-Countermovement, Countermovement, Double Contact, Continuous, Depth Jump (depth never exceeding jump height).

→Jump Training divided into “long” consisting of moderate take offs with emphasis on advancing ahead as fast as possible. Distances usually 40-80 yards. Jumps used were six fold leg to leg and bounds.

3. Paying more attention to the specialized strength training (SST) of specific groups of athletes.
It is well known that movement pattern specificity has a great deal to do with transfer of training (Stone). This is realized by how intramuscular and intermuscular movement pattern specificity is accounted for. The functional roles of groups of muscles can change in various multi-joint movements and needs to be considered in various kinetic and kinematic roles during performance tasks. This basically meant simple emphasis on certain means for a particular position. Take into consideration a lineman who is static from start of position. Requirements would yield highly toward starting and yielding strength. This opposed to a linebacker who engages an opponent following a countermovement.

→ Special consideration should take place to emphasize Movement pattern specificity:
- Type of muscle action (eccentric, concentric, stretch shortening)
- Accentuated regions of force production (accommodating resistance)
- Complexity, Direction of Movement
- Ballistic vs. Non-ballistic

RESULTS

Developing athletes does not rely solely on the development of muscular strength. Performance outcomes are by far the most reliable way to tell whether or not a program is successful. This involves longevity, speed of execution for a given motor system, and ability to recover is factors that you should use to determine the ultimate success of your athletes improvement from a yearly cycle. For now however, seeing improvements of certain test are a reliable why to determine if certain means are achieved to set up the potential for subsequent training. I am satisfied with average from the first 5 weeks of the Winter sessions. Here are average increases from testing after 5 weeks:

→Bench- Avg. 30# increase
→Hang Clean- Avg. 20# increase
→Squat- Avg. 30# increase
Thrown out were some outliers that test increased above 50.

These are pretty constant with the average increases from the previous testing after our post season lifts before this 5-week block. Strength values are where they need to be and should result in a good transition into a greater emphasis on explosive abilities leading into the summer months.

Update!!

Hey everyone!! It has been a LONG time since I have posted. Let me fill you in on what I have been up too and what you can expect for future post.

Summer was extremely busy with lots of hours spent at AP learning from some amazing coaches. College Football season at my school has concluded with a finish of 8-2. There were zero non-contact injuries this year which is what I really am aiming for when developing programs followed by increased performance. The volleyball team is poised to take nationals and also without injuries effecting anything. These were two teams that were plagued with ACL tears and Hamstring strains, both were non existent. One of the high school football teams I was in charge of won the district and made a great run at the state playoffs. Looking back I am extremely proud of these teams and the people in other individual sports that are looking for some great progress in the future. I can't wait to get started in the off season which start today!!

With that being said, I have some great things that I will be implementing with the teams this winter that I am excited to share with everyone. I am also going to be taking a handful of more advance guys and putting them on some different program with more advanced preparations methods more familiar to those who have read up on block periodization. I plan on following these results here showing you everything I am doing with these athletes.

You can also read up on an interview I did early in the Summer HERE!

Hope everyone is doing well and good luck to all those in and out of season.

Means of Sport Form

In today, the strength and conditioning scene is overwhelmed with such variety of tools, methods, and programs. On the outside some look very "advanced" and often involve a multitude of different training methods and tools (strongman, speed cord, and unstable training). These often look attractive to athletes but will often lead to poor development of sport form due to lack of specificity at the given time.

There is typically 3 different means of sports development. General, General-Specific, and Specific. When looking at your annual cycle or training stage, it is appropriate to correlate the specific mean of training for the certain time.

One example of a way to plan the means of your training would be in the Conjugate Sequencing with a distributed load. (Note: This is not the conjugate system familiar with West Side Barbell) This would involve General during your preparatory or accumulation phase, General Specific during the transmutation phase, and Specific during realization/competitive. During the development of a specific means of training the others are developed at low volumes. In other words, if it is the off season in football your General means (basic lifts, first plyo progressions, non competitive drill) will be of main focus while the other two will still be developed but in small volumes.
The reason it is so important to distribute the means of your sport development is because it avoids injury. This is where the general part plays such a big role. In your General development skills and lifts should involve basic movement patterns, and development of skill should look very basic and focus on improving your local muscle capacity for your sport aside from performing your sport tasks. The General part of General Specific would indicate that the skill should be just different enough to Specific drills to avoid accumulative stress on the muscles if the specific drills were used all year. Specific should mirror the sport as much as possible and within reasonable methods. These would be some appropriate Means of exercise for various sports:

Football

• General- Olympic lifts, power lifts, any other lift performed with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells , etc
• General Specific- pushing a weighted implement (e.g. sled, tire, special training apparatus, etc), game simulation wearing a weighted vest, etc for 4-10 second repetitions
• Specific- one on one contests against an opponent for 4-10 second repetitions

Powerlifting

• General- rows with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, presses/swings with dumbbells, kettlebells, GHR, pull ups, back raises, step ups, lunges, jumps onto a box.
  
• General Specific- bench presses with different grips, board presses, floor presses, box squats, front squats, SS Bar squats, GM’s, deadlift off of boxes, pins, accommodating resistance with bands and/or chains.
• Specific- competition squat, bench press, deadlift with competition gear and varied intensities

The appropriate Means of development is essential to insure that the athlete has developed a functional capacity or potential early on in training to assure that the body can fully develop and adapt to the demands placed on it in the subsequent weeks of development.

For more info see James Smith, Issurin, Bondarchuk

Prep for Competition Phase

With almost every college sport anymore there are pretty much 2 seasons. The actual season (Regular season, playoffs, tournaments), and an off season competition (Spring practice, Fall Baseball, Spring soccer season). These, although shorter than the normal season in terms of duration, the intensity and frequency of practice can seem very similar. Your athletes must physically and mentally be prepared for both of these "seasons." With the football and soccer teams in the beginning phases of the Spring season here are some considerations in your preparation that you should consider:

3 Keys to Preparation for Competition

1. As a competitive phase approaches it is the time to realize the training abilities developed in a sport specific setting physically and mentally. With the football athletes, we did this physically by progressing them from self regulated fall starts to vocal/visual cues into competitive speed and agility. These drills use the same localized muscles and potential body positions an athlete will face on the field. The competition component forces them to focus on the competition aspect and not other biomechanical things relying on previously learned movement qualities e.g. P.A.L. Mechanics. There are a variety of TAG, Chase, CHAOS drills that in some way or another can serve to fill this component.

2. You also want to avoid any acute trauma via equipment. This is obvious for football...PADS. The best piece of equipment to try and acclimate athletes to weighted equipment is a vest. By utilizing a weight vest in training/ESD/and movement prep, you can gradually get the athlete accustomed to a point that you can avoid too much soreness from that first week of pads. This can make a huge difference in fatigue related injuries. Often the second practice can be seen to have several athletes complain about soreness in the shoulders/traps due to helmet, shoulder pads which can be significantly reduced if properly prepared.

3. With any sport, there is unavoidable trauma that comes along with it so why would you add to that with certain exercises. Take volleyball who is in their spring season right now. They are doing so many repetitive jumps, bounds, and landings that the volume of stretch-shortening in there training needs to be reduced to keep the power output at optimal levels. Also with the football guys who face an abundance of trauma to body parts like the wrist and shoulders. Exercises that require extreme wrist extension or provocative shoulder positions should be reduced or avoided. An example would be replacing hang cleans with high pulls, weighted jumps, or any other triple extension exercise for the time being.

It is amazing how such small aspects of training can help you translate your physical skills that much more while making sure you consider the trauma of sport itself can assure that the developed abilities will be maintained without compromising safety. There are many other things which you may want to consider when approaching these sort of phases in your annual cycle but these three things as seen with preparation, observation, and acclimation can help your athletes perform to the highest potential.

High School Football Results

I have spoken a few times and written an article about the physical preparation of high school football players. Also I have posted a video of one of the high school football teams following this program here. Recently that team has done a great job and as the article said progressively adding small weight to ensure consistent gains with consistent form and execution. Here are some words from the coach and some great results:

"Of the 18 guys I had comparable information from the last time we maxed out in the fall we gained 385 pounds in bench...that is an average of 21 pounds per. Seniors averaged a gain of around 12.5 per man. 9th and 10th graders exploded...... Corey went from benching 115 to 150, Justin from 130 to 165 (he weighs 115 pounds at most). Shane (soph) jumped from 200 to 230, and Chris went from 225 to 265...awesome.. Squats and cleans showed the same types of gains..."

These athletes have been very consistent with attendance and are a very dedicated team in which most of them are multi-sport athletes too. Along with this there have been ZERO non contact injuries which is of course the most important stat when determining effectiveness of a program. You can't play if your hurt.

Training Log: Preparation for Spring Football

It has been a while since I posted on my training so I figured what better time then at the end of a block. I have used the results from my previous training stage to determine the specific abilities were not where I needed them to be to make up the focus in the stage leading up to spring ball. It is important to note that our spring practices are padded and the spring "season" is pretty much identical to an in season atmosphere. We have pretty intense practices with some scrimmages and a spring game all included. This made it appropriate for me to have to a training stage that would include a accumulation, transmutation, and realization blocks as if I was preparing for one.

NEEDS
After my previous testing my results showed that I needed to improve on my overall power. My strength numbers were where they needed to be so I set my mesocycle/microcyles to use the potential of the developed strength to expand my capacity for producing force at much higher rates. This was obtained through a variety of jumps, throws, Olympic lifts, and some strength speed was still included to a point. Also a fair dose of alactic power work to improve on the speed of my technical, tactical movements in the proper muscle regimes.

RESULTS
Strength
Bench Press- 365-375
Squat-510-540
Hang Clean- 340-355

Skill Test
Vert- 32-35.5
10 yard- 1.8-1.70
Standing Broad Jump-TBD tm

Physical Test
Body weight-210 (same)
body comp- 5%/7% (hydrostatic weighing/Calipers)
RHR-57-60 (varies in this range)

Recovery modalities
Contrast Showers/Baths, Epsom Baths, Cold Plunges, Lots of Foam Rolling, Mobility and Flexibility work, and Tempo Runs with some low intensity recovery work (walks, low intensity circuits, more mobility circuits) anything to get the blood flowing.

Since utilizing the Block Periodization Concept, I have yet to not see improvement in my preparedness which was uncommon in the past. This so far has been a great learning and training experience and will now take what I have attained and use it on the field next week. From here it will be restorative and retaining until the preseason starts. Feeling good about these results and can't wait till final training stage approaches so I can really push the envelope on this.

Testing Week: Bench Press and Squat

In concluding our week of testing I must say that the athletes have put forth some amazing effort. It has been a great 6 weeks of early mornings and late nights working out and running that has really paid off.

Test 2 of 3- Bench Press
Why

1. Force Production- The bench press has an eccentric contraction followed by a concentric contraction. This is important because a concentric contraction is always more forceful when followed by an eccentric contraction. Utilizing the barbell bench press will also help you overload the movement in a controlled manner.

2. Psychological factor- This lift is pretty much universal on Mondays, the lift you compare yourself to others with, and what the random guy does when he has no plan. Also, coaches seem to mark a large majority of a programs success on this lift. Unfortunate...yes. However, if by raising up a group of these guy's bench will mentally make them feel "strong", it will surely help with confidence which goes a long ways in performance.

Things to keep in mind

Stabilize the scapula: "Back and Down!" This base provided by your upper back will stabilize the shoulder girdle to give you control over the bar.

Elbows Tucked: Flaring the elbows during the bench press will put your shoulders in a provocative position while applying more stress on them. Instead, tuck your elbows (approx 45 degrees) and let your triceps you work so hard on take over.

Stay tight: Often times with an athlete who is never taught proper technique, you will see butt off the bench and feet being kicked all over. This immediately takes away any advantage of force to transfer from your lower body/core as you are destabilizing your body. Feet digging into ground, glutes tight, stomach contracted...lift off!

Test 3 of 3- Back Squat
Why

1. Starting Strength- developing force at the beginning of a muscular contraction and the capacity to overcome resistance and initiate movement is something of extreme importance in sport especially in football.

2. Ground Based Compound Movement: There is simply not a better way to load the entire body while standing on two feet. The hip extension, knee/core stabilization, and glute strength needed to complete a proper back squat, can develop these muscle regimes to great capacities.

Why not

There are some athletes on the team that either have underlying injury issue, insufficient hip mobility, or other means serve to better suite there body type. For these athletes a heavy dose of RFESS and/or they are put on the single leg squat progression until they are able to complete a back squat efficiently.

The athletes have performed much better than expected. in our core lifts. Average bench increases were around 20 pounds with our biggest at 45# increase going to 350 from 305. Squat were similar with increases ~30# and some incredible leaps around 75-100 pounds with some athletes (can somebody say honeymoon stage?)

The team couldn't have gotten off to a better start leading into Spring practices. From here we plan on still making some great gains in strength and speed leading into our pre-season phase. Until then I will be sure to keep all updated with our programming, progressions, and results.

Testing Week: Hang Clean

In preparing for sports and while putting athletes through a program it is important to always be evaluating them for improvements in abilities such as strength, posture, flexibility and so forth. This week marks about six weeks since our last strength evaluation in which we use 3 exercises as our "indicators" for improvement in strength along with a few skill test to determine our progress over a certain period of time.

Test 1 of 3
Hang Clean

Why

1. Ground Based Movement: The ability for an athlete to produce force against the ground will determine the athletes ability to do jump, run, and accelerate. Also, athletes do everything with there feet on the ground, standing up, and getting from A to B as fast as possible.

2. Multi Joint: The primary goal for us while performing an explosive movement is to achieve triple extension. This would be the full extension of the ankle, hips, and knees in the most explosive manner possible. This is important because triple extension happens when running, jumping, and most anytime you try to produce great amounts of force during competition.

3. Athletic Position: It is important to train an athlete in similar positions that he will play. Due to the fact that most all the positions will assume the athletic position through the duration of a game, it would indicate the importance to develop strength/explosiveness from this position. A great article on this topic see : (Don't) Assume the Athletic Position by Coach Kenn.

So far the testing has gone great. We have had an average increase of ~25 pounds with the best being a 50 pound jump from 320 to 370 in just 6 weeks form the last testing. It is important not to just jump into the hang clean with out progressing however. I wrote a while back about our progression in the clean and it has paid off. I used a bottom up approach, teaching the basic concepts of triple extension through jumping exercises, and loaded jump shrugs. They gradually progressed into high pulls and cleans down the road. We emphasized the hip extension portion a lot by programming basic variations of some corrective stretches paired with the explosive lift to coordinate that pattern.

There are many people who may choose to do these from the floor or simply not at all. Why I chose to do them...Results. Our verticals continue to go up, 40's are all going down so I feel like the force developed from the clean has paid off.

Importance of aerobic capacity for football

In America, the most popular of all high intensity sports would easily be Football. On the outside looking in, you would assume that the majority of all the conditioning would be an accumulation of sprints and repeated bouts until your legs could take no more. Although there is a time and a place for this sort of energy systems training, many people fail to see the importance of the aerobic energy system and it’s ability to improve the performance of an athlete in a high intensity sport. Remembering that football is aerobic/alactic in nature it is necessary to address the aerobic component of this sport to best prepare the athlete.

Why would you do aerobic work for Football?

The are numerous studies indicating that the lack of blood flow to the muscles increase the recovery period between high intensity bouts of exercise. When the muscle experiences high intensity bouts lactate will accumulate along with excess amounts of H+. If these metabolites are not removed, acidosis will occur and that fatigue will limit contractile rate of the working muscles. The majority of lactate is removed through oxidation. This oxidation largely depends on the capitalization and mitochondrial density to allow for the blood flow to transport the lactate/H+.

The adaptations that occur during aerobic training:

1. Increased blood flow because of an increased cardiac output/hypertrophy(eccentrically).

2. Increases the density of capillaries and mitochondria especially in the localized muscles that are used during training. This is important to keep in mind when constructing what tool you use for energy systems development. You want to work similar muscle regimes, as you would use during sport to enhance the density to the muscles that need it the most.

3. Increases the vasodilatation abilities of vessels, which of course allows for blood flow and oxygen to reach 02 myoglobin and working muscles faster.

Aerobic training does have its drawbacks. It has been shown to reduce the effectiveness of power development, which is a primal component of most high intensity sports. There is also evidence showing that there is a ceiling for how much of an influence an enhanced aerobic capacity has on your recovery from repeated bouts. Keeping this in mind, it would only be necessary to develop your aerobic capacity to a point that would make it optimal for recovery and limit its volume extensively during blocks of power development. As I mentioned earlier, be aware of the specific muscles in use for your sport. For example, due to football being an upright sport heavily reliable on the backside dominant musculature (Hamstrings, glutes) it wouldn't make a ton of sense to condition sitting down such as a bike (front side dominant).

Training Residuals: Don't use it you lose it!

When preparing an advanced athlete for sport it is necessary for the development of specific abilities. In one block model that would include a accumulation block, transmutation, and realization. Using this block model you are able to focus your efforts to advance the capacity for the certain abilities that are necessary for sport form to a much greater extent than that of a traditional approach.

The key to maintain the ability throughout the entire stage and what will likely determine the length of each block would be the residual effect of the abilities trained in the previous blocks. The residual training effect would refer to how long the adaptations developed in your block will last. For example, in my current training, the accumulation block was focused on development of strength-aerobic capacities. This lasting approximately 30 days, I then moved into the transmutation block which is more anaerobic in nature. Knowing that the residual for the strength-aerobic capacities is ~30 days, it is necessary to plan its prolonging in the subsequent blocks.

The answer to this problem would be a mini-block. A mini-block is usually placed at the latter half of a microcycle at a time just before the residual effect from the previously trained ability would diminish. A transmutation block will suppress the aerobic abilities and the heavy strength exercise will make recovery much more difficult. The addition of a mini block will not only prolong the residual, but it will also allow for the needed recovery from the CNS intensity of the transmutation block.

An example of this in my current training is during the 3rd week of my transmutation block I will use a mini cycle at the end of the week consisting of the exercises utilized in previous accumulation blocks. For me this is Tempo squats/push ups, and plenty of tempo runs and low intensity energy systems work. A way to track my maintenance of this ability is by monitoring my heart rate and comparing it to the previous weeks. As of now, since the end of my first accumulation block in September, I still am able to keep my heart rate around 142 during tempo squats of 3x 60/60 for 3-4sets.

Note: Tempo Squat/Push up=2 second eccentric/2 second concentric w/ no pause.

By attaining to this principle you will not lose out on the hard work that you put forth in previous training stages. This is also a great advantage of the block model of focusing on specific abilities in which you can train based off physiological principle.

Blast Strap Row Progression

It is amazing how fast the off season is going and just how close we are to Spring Football Practice! The football team has been doing nothing short but outstanding and are now challenging themselves more and more as we progress them in various movements and lifts.

One movement pattern that I really value is horizontal pulling. Especially in football, where a lot of what you do on the field is push. Think about a lineman. Virtually every play they are pressing the opponent away from their body. That is why in the off season I feel that it is very important to combat that movement by making sure the ratio of pulls outweighs that of pushing.

In the football program we cover each movement pattern at least once with certain pairings of exercises and at the end we will do supplemental work which usually consist of a tri-set. One of which is a blast strap horizontal pull progression, shoulder prehab, and a core exercise. This tri-set will be utilized on a day we do vertical pulls so that we can get a horizontal pull in multiple days a week.

I really am a huge fan of the blast straps due to the freedom it gives your shoulders to move through a natural rotation and the added stability component. Using a bar is not a bad thing, it is just the fact that as you pull yourself closer to the bar, your shoulders are forced to internally rotate to achieve the full ROM which can end up eliminating this as an option for athletes who have a history of shoulder problems. Here is what we use as our Blast Strap progression for horizontal pulling.

Also note that we often use weighted vest for most players during most all these exercises.

Bilateral row w/ Slow eccentric


Feet Elevated Bilateral Row with 1/0/1 Tempo



Side to Side Row



1-arm Rotational Row



Some key coaching keys that apply to all of these are as follows:
"Stomach/Glutes tight" (this keeps hips extended but not allowing lumbar hyper extension)
"Squeeze shoulder blades" (by initiating the movement by retracting the scapula will prevent anterior migration of the humeral head)

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.

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.