Every few years the periodization debate heats up. Periodization is an essential component to success in any sport, but traditional approaches need to be adapted to keep up with modern science and the changing demands of modern sport. On this episode of the GAINcast, we look at our own evolution when it comes to periodization, including both criticisms and solutions to the problem of planning.
It’s easy to think about injury from a medical point of view and focus on what is broken. But you can also view it from a performance point of view: what type of plan will take the athlete is at point A to point B. Donie Fox is both a physiotherapist and athletic development coach. He joins this week’s podcast to discuss his thoughts on rehabilitation, including assessment, variation, shapes, and more.
During last month’s GAIN Master Class Series event, Grace Golden spoke a lot about shapes. “Shapes” has become a bit of a buzzword over the last few years. The concept is great: if you body can’t make the shapes your sport needs, you don’t stand a chance. By focusing on shapes, we start shifting the focus from muscles to movements. But what is often missed in the message is that shapes are not enough. Shapes are just one piece of the performance puzzle. To reach elite performances, you have to go beyond shapes.
Traditionally the rehabilitation process chases pristine movements. Grace Golden has a different approach: explore permutations of each movement and force the athlete to respond to their environment. After presenting at last month’s GAIN Master Class, Grace Golden joins this week’s GAINcast to discuss her principles of rehabilitation, as well as how to create a team approach to returning athletes to play.
In August we launched a new section of our site dedicated to sharing training programs. The monthly theme also focused on training plans as we compiled 8 new training plans, 5 new articles, and 2 podcasts on the topic. You’ll find all the new resources below. Be sure to join HMMR Plus to get access to our complete archive.
Dave Reddin has helped assemble performance teams and structures at England Rugby, the Football Association, and British Olympic Association. Together, they achieved historic results. On this week’s GAINcast he joins us to discuss how coaches can best work together to support a team, as well as thoughts on how sports science and monitoring can best fit into the performance equation.
In the final meet of the RITCA Mini Meet series Cheyenne Figueroa (Classical, Providence, RI) and Logan Coles (Woonsocket, RI) walked away winners. Figueroa ended the series with a clean sweep of all 7 meets in the series and also continues to lead the nation. The boy’s competition was much closer, as it has been throughout the series, with four boys once again over 200 feet.
Take a look around Instagram and you’ll see hundreds of variations of your favorite exercises. Exercise variation is critical to sustained progress, but how you vary exercises matter. Randomly copying what you see online isn’t going to do the trick. The latest training program we posted in the HMMR Classroom provides a great look at how exercise variation can fit into a training plan.
A teams success during the season is often tied with how effectively they prepare in the preseason. Integrating the tactical, technical, and physical preparation can be an art. Recently James de Lacey shared an 8-week preseason rugby training plan on our site. On this week’s podcast, he dives deeper into his principles of preseason training and discusses how they can be adapted to different environments and different sports.
William Cauley (Barrington, RI) added four feet to his best at the latest edition of the RITCA Mini Meet series this week. The top three boys all were well over 200 feet and all posted personal bests, including a ten foot improvement for Phil Coppolino (Cumberland, RI) and the second time over 200 feet for John Fay (Bishop Hendricken, Warwick, RI). Cheyenne Figueroa (Classical, Providence, RI) once again easily captured the win in the girl’s competition.
