Training Equipment, What’s Really Necessary?

In plenty of gyms and training centers there seems to be an emphasis on getting the latest and greatest training equipment. Whether that’s spending thousands on high speed treadmills, splurging on a vertimax, or getting the latest and greatest pulley system. While every piece of equipment has its pros and cons and is be best used for certain situations, in my opinion this is putting the cart before the horse.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather put emphasis on coaching and proper technical knowledge of exercise physiology and biomechanics instead of on equipment. By gaining a deeper understanding of exercise science, every piece of equipment is just a tool to use and can be manipulated in any way to get the adaptation your looking for. Treadmills are great, but running on ground is better most of the time. Pulley systems allows you to do a lot of different things, but a set of resistance bands a harness and some creativity can accomplish a lot of the same things at a fraction of the cost.

Classical strength training equipment (barbells, dumbbells, etc...) a little bit of space and knowledge of biomechanics is a great combination to get an extremely versatile strength training experience, that can accomplish just about any goal a person has at a fraction of the cost of other more expensive items. And while this may seem like a hate article on expensive equipment, it’s rather a questioning of why would you purchase it in the first place? Are you able to safely and effectively accomplish the same goal with other means? Could that money be used elsewhere on upgrading your current equipment and getting higher quality weights that will last years if maintained properly, or even on furthering your education to gain a deeper understanding of how to use what you currently have?

While I have no problem with expensive equipment, but outside of one on one training and very small groups, it effectively creates a back log of athletes during training because getting multiple pieces often isn’t feasible, and the time spent funneled at one piece of equipment could probably be better used elsewhere.

Ultimately, the means and methods used to get a certain adaptations are up to the coach, but in my opinion, I think we should try to keep it as simple as we can, and always keep the goal the goal. 

Why You Should Invest In A Performance Coach

I get it, why would you want to pay a large amount of money to have a coach, when you can get a gym membership for less than $20 a month and maybe just hop in a few classes every now and again. Or you can take to the internet and find the latest and greatest workout from your favorite fitness celeb on Instagram and you too can get in the best shape of your life by copying exactly what they say they do (heavy sarcasm here if you can't feel it).

But, this doesn't always work. More often than not, you may not know how to properly perform the exercises. Or maybe you don't have the mobility or strength to get into those advanced positions they so gracefully display. This also doesn't account for what your personal goals are, or how much time you will need to accomplish them. 

Let's say that you're one of the lucky ones though, you're able to fully execute the exercises and can do so well enough to not hurt yourself. And let's say that you also are able to stick with the program for more than a few days, and you actually get through a couple weeks of training. And maybe you even got to see some results after this, but now what? Likely after four weeks or so you'll plateau and stop seeing progress even though you're doing everything they did. Now that's only if you're lucky, more realistically, you will probably end up getting extremely sore the first few workouts and this will deter most people. Or you may stick it out and complete a few weeks of the program but see absolutely no results from it. Either way, you're not where you want to be and it sucks. The reason is that without close monitoring and programming, you will either not have enough of a stimulus to reach your goals, or you may receive too much and it'll absolutely crush you, which could ultimately put you further away from your goal.

But with a structured program, provided by a qualified professional, that adapts to your needs and goals you will see much more success than compared to a cookie cutter program off the internet. In addition to receiving immediate feedback regarding technique, modifications that suit your needs, and a base of knowledge on how to properly structure training sessions, there is the accountability factor. Because anyone with access to the internet and fifteen spare minutes can grab a free training program online that promises them their best self in 30 days, no one sticks with it. This low barrier to exercise programs is what derails many, because there was no effort in finding that program, they're not invested in getting better. They'll tell their friends that they want to change or reach this goal, but won't put any skin in the game. This is by far the biggest upside to investing in a performance coach. Having to report to someone and putting your money where your mouth is, will work miracles in keeping you consistent and on track to reach your goals.

So stop just settling for doing one workout every other week and having to start over each time, invest in a coach now to truly see progress towards your goals!

Sign up now with my remote coaching services for individualized training plans and nutritional guidance designed to get you  results.

Are You Training What You Think You're Training?

Bigger, Faster, Stronger.

These three words are yelled from strength and sport coaches all over the country when talking about what they want they're strength and conditioning program to accomplish, but when the rubber meets the road and athletes begin training, are they actually training what the coaches think they're training? One thing that I've noticed a lot lately is that many coaches will claim to be training aspect of physical performance, but either because of how they set the session up, or by failing to make sure the athlete is recovered enough, they end up not doing what they think they're doing. Because anyone can get someone tired and make them feel like throwing up, or like they had a "good workout", this does not mean that the individual got faster, stronger, or any more powerful because of that session. Very rarely in a progressive training program will an athlete feel like they've just gotten their ass kicked, and rather it will feel like they're resting way more than they think they should. This is because to truly improve performance, you have to respect the rest that these qualities demand in training, and the execution of training has to be the highest priority, with a quality over quantity mindset, instead of always just trying to do more.

Sprinting Basics

Most sports have a few things in common, one of these commonalities is that you can never be too fast. In fact being faster than your competitors correlates well with getting more scoring opportunities in games. But before going on any further let’s define what speed is, for most sports it is how fast an athlete can sprint at maximal speed. 

Sprinting, is a highly technical skill that has been determined to be an outcome of stride length and stride frequency. The basic premise is that the longer your stride length, this will allow you to cover more distance and will help you be faster, and for stride frequency, the shorter time you take between each stride, the faster you will be able to sprint. Stride length is primarily determined by limb lengths and motor control and typically is optimized once the athlete begins to learn the skill that is sprinting. So while this is a determinant of speed, there is little to be done to improve it once the pattern has been set. Stride frequency is based on two factors, flight time and ground contact time, and commonly is trained by teaching athletes to quickly “turn over” and move their legs as fast as possible. While this may make sense at first glance, a deeper dive into the subject shows that flight time, no matter if it’s measured from Olympic level athletes or your average grandma remains relatively unchanged. In fact when studies on stride frequency are done, the one commonality among elite level sprinters is that they get on and off the ground the fastest which is the main factor that can be modified to improve maximal sprinting speed. So while it may be common practices to ask your athletes to swing their feet faster to be faster, this actually doesn’t determine sprint speed and instead the focus should be on shortening the ground contact times.

With emphasis being on shortening ground contact times, there are a few ways to do it. First and foremost, proper body positioning must be maintained. The pelvis should be slightly posteriorly rotated (butt tucked down) as this sets the body up for proper positioning at touch down, as well as not allowing the swing leg hip into hyperextension. By being in proper position at touch down, with the stance leg under the hips, the ground contact time is reduced because the leg effectively acts as a spring and gets up and off the ground without any extra time needed to get into position, but when an athlete reaches out in front of them, this may seem like it will increase stride length and will improve sprinting, but in reality it increases braking forces at the foot and increases the amount of time needed to get into proper position and then off the ground. 

A second important training factor for improving sprint performance is to get strong. There are clear correlations of an athletes squat one rep max and their sprint time being faster up to about a strength level of 2x body weight. Another reason this is important is because during sprinting, forces of up to 5x body weight are experienced at every ground contact, and that’s only on one leg, so increasing the amount of force you can put into the ground in a very short period of time is essential to sprinting faster. Strength training also increases the stiffness of your tendons, the ability to withstand deformation, which is essential to being able to withstand the forces associated with sprinting.

Ultimately while sprinting is a highly technical skill, the major determinant of success and running really really fast is how quickly you can get off the ground. Making sure that you are in proper position at touch down, getting strong are some of the best ways to aid the effort of getting fast, instead of spending time trying to move your legs faster or increase your stride length which may ultimately lead to decreases in performance.

Sports Specific Training

Sports specific training has been around for a while now and promises to get an athlete better at their sport by training the positions and actions that they will use in games. While this sounds like a great idea at first, the extent to which it has been taken has reasons to cause concern, as many gyms and fancy equipment merely mimic the sport action, but just add some form of weight or resistance to it. This is all based on the SAID (specific adaptations to imposed demands) principle, or more commonly called the principle of specificity, which shows that we only adapt to the things that we are exposed to. 

However, many of the people pushing sports specific training are there to develop physical capacities, not sports skills and tactical training. Because of this, what is taught during these training sessions may contradict what the athletes sport coach may want. Also, if too much resistance is added, then this can alter the biomechanics of the movement and can ultimately interfere with the learning process and prove to set the athlete back instead of making them better.

To add to this, many of the methods used in sports specific training are primarily focused on moving fast and developing power. While power development should be part of every athlete's strength program, without a sufficient base of strength the athlete will not adapt as well to the power training and will be leaving some chips on the table. In fact, general strength training can raise an athlete's power to a greater extent than just power training, until the athlete has reached sufficient maximal strength levels.

This shows that general preparation is the foundation for specific adaptations. Without this foundation of sound movement skills and strength, the athlete may be at an increased risk of injury. And on the flip side of that, by only training "sports specifically", you put the athlete at risk of overuse injuries by only working through the same motor patterns that they use all the time in competition.

Ultimately, a trainer or performance coach is there to develop the physical capacities so the athlete can be more successful in their sport, not just add weights while blindly thinking that it will transfer better to competition. At the present, the best form of sports specific training is a holistic program that gets an athlete stronger, faster, and more powerful, while minimizing the risk of injuries that could possibly occur from overuse. Outside of this, skill development should be left to the sport coaches to build on top of the general prep that has been done in the gym.

Frontal Plane Knee Motion and ACL Tears

This post originally appeared on the Athletic Lab blog.

Over the last decade or so, Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears have skyrocketed even with increased training programs. A reason for this is that a disproportional amount of ACL tears occur in female athletes, who have increased participation in sport since the passing of Title IX. But why do so many ACL tears occur to female athletes? There has been research for many variables including looking at Q angles, hormonal differences, whether the athlete is menstruating, and also muscular imbalances. In this article, I’m going to explore the role of frontal plane motion at the knee in preventing ACL injuries.

When it comes to ACL tears there, has been a significant correlation between excessive dynamic valgus forces and tears in elite female athletes (Hewett, 2005). This excessive abduction of the knee is considered to be a neuromuscular inefficiency as when they compared trained female and male athletes they found that there were different landing patterns between the genders. Joseph et al. found was that during a drop jump followed by an immediate vertical jump, the timing and organization of ankle eversion, knee valgus, and hip adduction varied significantly between the two groups. In the women’s group, they found that they went through first knee valgus, then ankle eversion, and finally hip adduction whereas the men went through ankle eversion, knee valgus, and then hip adduction. This pattern, shown by the male group, is more optimal since we touch the ground with our feet first and the ground reaction forces are then transferred up the kinetic chain to the knees and hips. It should also be noted that in the women’s group, peak knee valgus and hip adduction occurred before peak knee flexion, or during the eccentric landing portion, and in the men’s group, knee valve and hip adduction occurred after peak knee flexion, or during the concentric power generating phase (Joseph et al, 2008).

While traditionally we may initially approach this problem by trying to coach the athlete to land with their knees out, or attempt to strengthen their lateral hip muscles to keep them from caving in; a different approach was taken in experimentation as it has been shown how dynamic valgus at the knee is accompanied with tibial internal rotation, and that “foot and knee motions are linked during weight bearing function.” Through this kinetic chain approach, Joseph et al. observed what happened when a medial post, an orthotic that is taller on the medial side and slants down towards the lateral side, was inserted into the athletes shoes during a drop jump and compared it to jumps without a post. They found significant decreases in knee valgus angles at both the peak and initial contact, as well as a reduction in the amount of ankle eversion and pronation which is also associated with ACL risk (2008). This is because the subtalar joint uses the frontal plane motion of the calcaneus to drive the tibia into internal rotation, which is accompanied by knee abduction. Through this limitation of eversion, the researchers were able to limit the amount of knee valgus seen during these tests.

What this signifies is that in these highly trained female athletes, changing the environment in the form of a medial post reduced the amount that the knee abducted while landing, which inherently reduced the risk of an ACL tear. While there may be muscular imbalances and deficits that also play a part to this risk, reeducating the neuromuscular system in female athletes to limit the amount of dynamic knee valgus can be extremely beneficial in creating more durable athletes, since controlling this deceleration is essential to almost all sports.

A simple way of adding this into a training plan is also quite simple, as all that is needed is two pieces of plywood and a 5kg plate set up in a way that the plate is on the floor with each piece of plywood laid partly on it so that it looks like a very wide and short pyramid (see above).

y performing bodyweight squats as part of the warm-up while standing on this structure, neuromuscular benefits in the form of less knee valgus will be seen, not only during the warm-up but also during working sets as this neuromuscular pathway has been primed to move in this pattern.

References

Hewett, T. E. (2005). Biomechanical Measures of Neuromuscular Control and Valgus Loading of the Knee Predict Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Risk in Female Athletes: A Prospective Study. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 33(4), 492-501. doi:10.1177/0363546504269591

Joseph, M., Tiberio, D., Baird, J. L., Trojian, T. H., Anderson, J. M., Kraemer, W. J., & Maresh, C. M. (2008). Knee Valgus during Drop Jumps in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Female Athletes. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(2), 285-289. doi:10.1177/0363546507308362

Joseph, M. F., Rahl, M., Sheehan, J., Macdougall, B., Horn, E., Denegar, C. R., . . . Kraemer, W. J. (2011). Timing of Lower Extremity Frontal Plane Motion Differs Between Female and Male Athletes During a Landing Task. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(7), 1517-1521. doi:10.1177/0363546510397175

Why You Need To Build An Aerobic Base

This post originally appeared on EliteTrack.com

When it comes to conditioning for athletes, it seems that all the emphasis over the last several years has shifted toward using high intensity interval training (HIIT) to develop an athletes conditioning as a shortcut compared to long slow distance (LSD) training. There are many reasons for this including the old paradigm that if you train slow you’ll be slow, games are played at high intensity so training should be at high intensity, or that training at these high intensities will build mental toughness in athletes, but is this the best approach to take when planning for long term improvements and sustained aerobic gains for athletes?

While we may immediately think of most sports outside of marathons and other long distance events, as almost purely anaerobic, therefore prioritizing high intensity training, the majority of sports include a large aerobic portion in terms of energy pathway utilization. This happens in a number of ways, either there are short bursts of high speed and power interspersed with rest periods, or there’s some form of to moderate to high level of activity that only lasts a minute or two at a time. While on the surface this looks like an activity fueled primarily through the ATP-PC and anaerobic glycolytic systems, Gaitanos et al found that over the course of 10 six second sprints, anaerobic ATP production dropped by 64% while total power output only dropped 27% (Gastin, 2001, p. 731). This would suggest that aerobic energy contribution increased over the course of those ten sprints so that the athlete could meet the energy demands for the later sprints. McGawley et al also found that over the course of 5 six second sprints, aerobic contribution increased from ~10% to ~40%. So even though the work periods are fairly short, the more we do, the greater their aerobic contribution.

Another study found that repeat sprint ability (RSA) was correlated with an athletes minimum velocity to reach their VO2max (vVO2max) as well as their velocity at the onset of blood lactate accumulation (vOBLA). So to improve performance in repeat sprints or typical game situations, it’s beneficial to increase an athlete’s aerobic speed, which is the speed that they can maintain while still in a predominantly aerobic energy zone. By improving the efficiency and output of the aerobic energy system, you will be able to reach higher speeds before reaching your anaerobic threshold which is where the OBLA occurs (Kindermann, 1979).
Researchers have found that when exercising maximally or near maximal levels, the aerobic system responds rapidly and at around 60-75 seconds becomes the predominant energy supplier. In non-maximal exercise, it is estimated that shift to aerobic dominance occurs around 20-30 seconds (Gastin, 2001, p. 736). This is in contrast to the notion that the aerobic energy system is “slow” and only responds to low intensity activity. With this information, it becomes clear that any athlete that competes in anything that has repeated all out efforts, or near maximal intensities that last longer than 20 seconds should develop their aerobic base in training.

When it comes to building an aerobic base, there have been various studies to show that you can improve your aerobic fitness through HIIT at a faster rate compared to LSD training, however many of these studies do not state that the majority of aerobic gains were mostly made in the first few weeks and then plateaued through the remainder of the study. Maffetone found (2016) that after an extended period of HIIT, aerobic capacity began to deteriorate the longer this training method was used. In addition, many HIIT studies mainly only measure VO2max which is not significantly correlated with the ability to repeat sprints (Da Silva, 2010, p. 2120). Even though you’ve increased your ability to use more oxygen for energy, you do not become more efficient at using that oxygen for energy production.The best way to increase aerobic efficiency is by training in an aerobic zone either through steady state training or an interval method where you don’t allow your heart rate to get above (180-your age), which is a formula that estimates the intensity that will correspond to your maximum aerobic function as calculated by Maffetone. There are some modifications to this based on health and training status which must be taken into account, for those recovering from a major illness (surgery, hospital stay, etc..) or are on any medication you should subtract 10 from your calculation, for people who are just getting back into training, have become injured, regressed in training, are inconsistent, or get more than two colds per year you should subtract 5 from your calculation, if you are consistent with your training (4x per week) without any problems then use your calculated number, if you have been training for two plus years without any problems and have progressed in competition then you should add 5 to your calculation. While these modifications will work for the majority of the population, for some high level athletes you may need to add 10 to your calculation if you find adding 5 not enough after self-assessment. For the many people who do not have heart rate monitors, this intensity typically corresponds to about 65% of your maximal speed (Bertuzzi, 2013, p. 456).

While building an aerobic base hasn’t always been seen as the sexy and fun parts of training, it may prove to be one of the most beneficial in terms of maintaining performance throughout games and competition. Because of this, it’s imperative that we train our athletes in these aerobic zones to increase their efficiency at using oxygen for energy production, which will increase their vOBLA and vVO2max.

References:

Bertuzzi, R., Nascimeto, E.M.F., Uro, R., Damasceno, M., Lima-Silva, A., (2013) Energy System Contributions During Incremental Exercise Test. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 12, 454-460.

Da Silva, J.F., Guglielmo, L.G.A., & Bishop, D., (2010). Relationship Between Different Measures of Aerobic Fitness and Repeated-Sprint Ability in Elite Soccer Players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24 (8), 2115-2121.

Gastin, P. (2001) Energy System Interaction and Relative Contribution During Maximal Exercise. Sports Medicine, 31, 725-741.

Kindermann, W., Simon, G., & Keul, J. (1979). The Significance of Aerobic-Anaerobic Transition for the Determinants of Work Load Intensities During Endurance Training. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 42, 25-34.

Maffetone, P., (2016, June 22) MAF Exercise Heart Rate – How it can help improve health and sports performance. Retrieved from https://philmaffetone.com/white-paper-maf-exercise-heart-rate-can-help-improve-health-sports-performance/

Maffetone, P., (2016, June 22) An Introduction to MAF – Maximum Aerobic Function. Retrieved from https://philmaffetone.com/white-paper-introduction-maf-maximum-aerobic-function/

McGawley, K., Bishop, D., (2015). Oxygen Uptake During Repeated-Sprint Exercise. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 18, 214-218.