It is easy to forget that training is not just a two hour process in the weight room. Training is not just about making a post workout shake and training is not just about making sure you hit your sets and reps. Too often we look at training and adaptation as two separate entities. We see our performance in the weight room as a result of the work we have put in the weight room and nothing else. However, training is a stimulus and adaptation is the process of our body responding to the stimulus. Who cares how great a stimulus is if we never adapt from it?
Training –> stimulus –> adaptation –> performance.
We are often great about causing a stimulus, but horrible about facilitating adaptation.
Total system SRA (stimulus-recovery-adaptation) is the idea/concept of looking at the body’s stimulus-recovery-adaptation process through the influences of its individual parts (subsystems). The adaptation process, also know as the general adaptation syndrome (GAS), is simple, yet effective model for learning about fatigue and recovery. However, it’s simplicity has led to some bigger misunderstandings. Below graph is referred to as the SRA curve (stimulus-recovery-adaptation)
Coaches are always looking for ways to improve their training programs. Whether it is new equipment or better practices, if you are not an early adapter you might be leaving some performance gains on the table. However, what if there was a way to increase the effectiveness of your program without having to change a single aspect of it? You don’t need any new periodization scheme and you don’t need any new special exercise. You can simply make your program more effective by providing athletes with both verbal and visual feedback. What do I mean?
Verbal can come from the coach while visual can be done with a velocity measuring device/jump mat/anything that gives a quantitative value. There have been studies looking at the effects of long-term (6 weeks) and immediate feedback (verbal and visual) on performance.In all three studies, feedback was shown to be an effective way to increase the training effect (1,2,3).
This week we dove into discussion of the knee joint, and why is desires STABILITY. Let’s revisit some of the points and concepts discussed, a go a little bit deeper.
It started with understanding a very important concept
EACH joint has ratios of inherent bony stability to soft tissue stability (or dynamic stability). Generally speaking, joints that have more bony stability crave mobility, and vis versa. So let’s take a look at the knee:
Getting stronger in the weight room does not mean you are getting better on the field. However, it can increase your potential for on field success. If lifting weights made you better at a sport (aside from weightlifting) every strength coach would be a professional athlete. But, as we all sadly know, this isn’t the case.
Image 1
Example:
Say we had two athletes, A and B. Both athletes are basketball players. Lets say athlete A only trained in the weight room and athlete B only trained by practicing basketball. Who do you think would be a better basketball player? Athlete B, without a doubt.
Image 2
Why Weight Train?
If weight training doesn’t make you better at your sport, then why do it? Weight training is designed to increase your potential (physiologically), not your performance. This means if used properly, strength training can aid your sports training.
In all honesty, the two (sport training and weight room) should not be differentiated. The two should be used in conjunction with on another. However, if you had to only pick one, you should probably pick sports training.
Increasing Potential
The idea of “increasing potential” is predicated on systemic changes in the body (tissue, muscular, neural, bone etc…). For example, from a reductionist point of view, sport is comprised of synchronized muscular contractions to produce an outcome. Theoretically, if we can increase these most basic qualities that make up a sport, we can improve the sport as a whole. This answer to this question is yes and no. Yes, there is little doubt that we can improve the potential of the athlete. No, there is not a guarantee that improving the individual parts of the movement will increase the system as a whole.
Image 3
The easiest way to think of this is in terms of cars. The car is representation of the physical potential. A Ferrari has the potential to go faster than a Prius. However, the driver (skill) is what uses the car. It doesn’t matter how fast a Ferrari can go, if the driver doesn’t know how to drive the car, the Prius will win every time
Conclusion
As coaches we need to understand what our role is. Getting too caught up in one aspect can hinder the athlete’s development. We need to not only build the potential of the athlete, but help the athlete learn how to use their potential. Training needs to be a complex approach designed around making the athlete better as a whole.
Technique is of obvious importance. There is no reason to dive into the big picture of why technique is important and how it can influence the safety of your athletes. However, some of the more minuet differences in technique can play a much larger role than what people may think. It is possible, that such subtle differences can actually hinder the desired stimulus of the exercise.
Exercise progression plays a vital role in all strength training programs. The concept of “progressive overload” hinges on this very concept of. As we all know, without some type of progression the athlete’s development will most likely stagnant and possibly begin to decline. This is why we increase weight in exercises. The weight adds overload in a progressive fashion. However, weight is not the only way we can manipulate our training to increase the demands of the body.
I have heard these exercises called a couple of different names (drop catch/relax catch) and to be quite honest, I think either one works. I am not quite sure who came up them, but I have seen them in being used by many successful coaches. For the sake of consistency, in this article I am going to refer to them as drop-catch exercises
What Are They?
Drop-catch exercises involve starting at the top of position of the movement, letting yourself relax and then catching your self at the bottom before exploding back up. I believe Cal Dietz and Joel Smith have written articles on how to perform these. Each person probably has their own specific method of teaching the movements, (some prefer to actively pull yourself to the bottom while some say just relax and fall) and I assume you can find their teachings at their respective websites. However, this article isn’t made to talk about the technique and form of the movement, but instead the principles behind the movement.
Below is an example of a drop catch performed by AFL
A Vector is a physics term used to describe a quantity with a magnitude (amount) and direction (angle of application). For example, force is a vector quantity. It has an amount (measured in pressure, tension, weight lifted, strain etc..) and a direction (which way the force is being applied). Continue reading “Physics (Force Vectors)”
Core training is not black and white. There is not a cutoff line saying this is traditional and this is nontraditional. Honestly, I am not even a huge fan of using the words “traditional” and “nontraditional”, because they do not illustrate the differences and the word, “tradition” is all relative depending on your past exposure. If anything, something along the line of simple versus complex, predicted versus variable, or steady versus perturb might serve as better replacements. Regardless, we are going to stick with “traditional” and “nontraditional” just for the sake of consistency.
Like all exercises, core training is on a sliding scale and at no definitive point can they be separated in to “traditional” or “nontraditional”. However, it isn’t a bad idea to get an understanding of what aspects of core training will slide it closer towards one end or another. Below is a very short and overly simplified list to give some ideas of what aspects of the movements will influence the exercises placement on the sliding scale (example videos included).
You must be logged in to post a comment.