Summer is in full swing and we’ve got a lot of different ideas on our mind: why social media turns us into absolutists, how every tool has a place, what we are doing to continue adapting training to COVID-19, and how to make the best brisket. We cover them all on this week’s episode, with a few rants mixed in as well. Read more
Last week I wrote about programming in the time of coronavirus, with a focus on athletes that had access to at least limited equipment. This week on Instagram I have been posting videos of the general strength circuits I have given athletes that have no training equipment. The objective of each circuit is to cover the lower body, upper body, core, as well as all three planes of movement (sagittal, frontal, and transverse). I learned these from my college coach Glenn McAtee and find them just as useful nearly two decades later. Read more
What is one simple, cheap and versatile fitness tool every athlete should have? Lets start with Mini-Bands. Mini-Bands for those who don’t know can be found typically in yellow, green, blue and black colors. The colors are related to their resistance. Yellow is the lightest resistance and black is the heaviest resistance. I believe every athlete you should have a set of green and blue bands as those seem to be the colors that seem most versatile for exercises. A yellow band might be good for learning some of the more challenging exercises. Read more
Whether you are building or rebuilding an athlete, you have to start from the ground up. Begin with what they can do and build upon it until you get them doing the things fundamental for their sport. Matt Siniscalchi has worked at all levels of the sport, from youth football academy players, to his current role helping world champions back from injury. The challenges are always changing, but the philosophy remains the same. On this week’s podcast Siniscalchi joins us to discuss this philosophy, and dive in detail into progressions and strength training for athletes recovering from injury. Read more
Every year I become more and more convinced of the effectiveness of the Gambetta Leg Circuits. A simple combination of four exercises ticks so many boxes for me in training: it is efficient, improves coordination, and develops strength all at the same time. For those familiar or unfamiliar with leg circuits, I hope this article explain a bit about how they work and some new variations that can make them an even better tool for training. Read more
No matter the sport, no matter the athlete, everyone needs to begin with a foundation. Read more
Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. We start off by looking at research how accurate subjective feeling can be in quantifying training stress. Then we look at a variety of other topics concerning weight training such as pre-competition priming, isometric mid-thigh pull, foot strength, eccentric quasi-isometric resistance, and more. Read more
As young people go through their growth spurts their bones become longer. In the short term this can be detrimental to skill and strength as they become accustomed to their longer levers. They have become long, but not strong. Imagine rolling modeling clay out on a table. You start off with a solid ball and watch as it gradually gets longer and thinner. You pick it up and it flops around, useful for shaping, but more likely to fall apart. Read more
One of the key principles of training is overload. The overload principle states that body system adaptation fails to occur without an overloading stimulus. In other words, we have to give the body a challenge beyond what we are accustomed to in order to adapt to a higher level of performance. Somewhere along the way coaches started to think that we can only find overload in the weight room. In reality, for some qualities that is the last place we want to look. Maximum speed sprinting, for example, can provide overload in many areas that no other exercises can match. Read more
The modern barbell is over a century old, but we are still exploring its use in training. Throughout June we took at the barbell, with topics ranging from lessons from top Olympic lifting coaches, to whether we even need the barbell at all. In total we produced 2 new podcast episodes and 7 new articles from 7 contributors and guests. Read more
