Looking Back at 2016: Best Training Content

The past year was a busy one at HMMR Media with 97 new podcast episodes, 426 new posts, plus even more premium content for HMMR Plus members. Most important for us, we also added five new world-class coaches to our roster of writers: Nick Lumley, Jonathan Marcus, Danny Mackey, Sergej Litvinov and Bryan Mann. Combined they bring a variety of new viewpoints to the site from their backgrounds in endurance sports, rugby, and more.

As we do every year, we try to highlight some of our favorite posts from the past year over a variety of categories like athletic development, sports science, planning and periodization, throwing, podcasts and more. We have highlighted just a fraction of those below, but you can browse the rest in the archive section of each blog. A HMMR Media membership is required to read many of the articles in our archive, so if you haven’t joined yet it would be a perfect way to start the new year.

→ Related Content: Check out our top training posts from 2013, 2014 and 2015 for a curated look at even more great training articles.

Podcasts

Below are our five favorite 2016 episodes from each of our two podcasts.

Sports Science

• For the most in-depth look at sports science, become a HMMR Plus Member to access Sports Science Monthly.
• Bryan Mann explained the science behind bands and lifting and how to use them the best.
• Despite the attempt to make sport a hard science, Jonathan Marcus explains that it will never be one.
• Craig Pickering looked at several major scientific concepts in play in sports like confirmation bias, the placebo effect, the survivorship bias.
• Craig also broke down some key take aways from his favorite books of 2016 such as why we shouldn’t fear mistakes and the pressure principle.

Coaching

• Distance coach Danny Mackey built up a professional running team from scratch and walks us through his process for building a winning team dynamic.
• This is a topic close to the heart of Vern Gambetta and he put together many good posts on the topic in 2017. He shared some advice from an old coach and tips on professional development for coaches. He also looked at what we can learn from other successful coaches.

Planning and Periodization

• Scottish rugby coach Nick Lumley explains his alternative to periodization.
• John Kiely was a huge influence on me over the past year. I wrote about him several times including 3 things I learned from Kiely at the seminar we co-hosted, his new model for stress and adaptation, and how periodization can blind us.
• Valuable comments from Bondarchuk on individualization and long-term development.
• Planning at the college level is difficult and distance coach Jonathan Marcus discusses his remedies for collegiate burnout. He also wrote about the Babe Ruth Effect and it’s impact on prioritizing training.
• Nick Garcia explains the art of holding a peak.
• I also looked at how the four laws of ecology can also be applied to training and planning.

Athletic Development

• Craig Pickering explained overtraining and his own experience with it.
• Vern Gambetta discusses the concept of foundation.
• Nick Garcia looks at the value of an overlooked area of training: work outside the weight room.
• I wrote about how moving beyond the nature vs. nurture debate can help athletic development.

Sport-Specific Training

• Strength training should be closely linked with skill acquisition since, as Frans Bosch describes it, strength training is coordination training plus resistance. Last year I wrote about four points I learned from Bosch in this area.
• An in-depth interview with Pat Connolly, coach of sprint Olympic champion and record holder Evelyn Ashford.
• My own introduction to sport-specific training and why a strength reserve is not the solution to sports-specific training.
• Motor learning is a key element in sports-specific training. Jason Young explains what we can learn about it by looking at how we learn to ride a bike.

Throwing

• Nick Garcia makes the case for drills.
• Sergej Litvinov explains a simple gain to play in training to improve technique and also make training interesting at the same time.
• Kibwe Johnson looks at the positives and negatives of training alone.