IT’S ALL ABOUT EFFORT

E-F-F-O-R-T find out what it means to me. In the sports world, people associate this with athletes throwing up or not being able to walk for a week. This makes sense, right? Because if one were to experience one of those instances then they wouldn’t have done it with little effort. However, anyone in their right mind or has ever worked out before knows that this isn’t sustainable. Also, the individuals that strive for this type of effort all the time typically are average to sub-par when it comes to their athletic performance. Remember the reason we train is to impose a demand that our body can adapt to for us to obtain our desired goals. I’ve never met a person who said, “Coach, my goal is to work out so hard that I throw up every day and also if you can throw in some workouts where I’ll be so sore to not get off the couch that would be the great!!”. KEEP THE GOAL THE GOAL!!         

As a coach, what does effort mean to me? Simple, it is having intent in what you’re doing. 100% effort is 100% effort. This means you put everything you have into that drill or exercise. Based off how you feel will always determine how you perform but you can always put forth 100% effort. Some weeks that will be 80% of your capability and other weeks you will PR like it’s nothing. The point of this article is not to bash coaches who have zero plan in their workouts but instead just want to make their athletes throw up…that will be a separate blog. This is to highlight different methods of effort one can and should include in their training.

1. MAX EFFORT
   1. Definition: lifting a maximal load against maximal resistance, THINK high intensity lift 90-100% with low volume 1-3 reps
   2. Benefits: Skill set aside, the most important attribute in sports is producing the most amount of force in the least amount of time. This method helps your muscles producing a lot of force. The Henneman Size Principle states when a lot of force is required all motor units will be recruited especially the larger ones. It does this by intra-muscular coordination which is how the muscle fibers work together and inter-muscular coordination which is how well those muscles work together because the body learns how to adapt to the stimulus placed on it (SAID principle). We could still argue that the best lifters in the weight room are often not your best athletes on the field, but this method will improve one’s confidence which according to Joe Kenn is one of the most transferable skills we get from the weight room. This doesn’t mean we need to make every athlete Squat 700 lbs because I’m not sure how transferrable squatting over 2.5x bodyweight helps you in sport. However, the more comfortable our athletes get throwing around heavy weight (heavy is a relative term) the more confidence they gain, and they will take that on the field with them.
   3. Application: We apply this not in the literal sense but similar concept. We have a system that has our athletes train heavy MWF in the powerlifts – Deadlift, Squat, Bench. Depending on the level of athlete will depend how close they get to these intensities and volume. For instance, Level 1 is more for motor development so the volume is a lot higher than you would normally see on typical max effort days. Regardless, our objective with our athletes on those 3 lifts is strength and getting good at lifting heavy weight. The only way to get better technique with heavy weight is lifting heavy weight frequently. We like to call this grabbing the low hanging fruit that helps with every athletic quality.

2. DYNAMIC EFFORT
   1. Definition: lifting a nonmaximal load with maximal speed, THINK low intensity 40-60% with low volume 1-3 reps
   2. Benefits: How fast can you produce force? That is the objective in any sport and should be our objective in a lot of what we do in training. There are times to move slow (think eccentric focused training or heavy sled pushes) that benefit an athlete’s performance, but more times than not if you’re training slow then you are programming your body to move slow. On the other hand, the dynamic effort method increases the muscle fiber firing rate which means the faster they “twitch” the more force they produce. This helps with confidence as well. Not every sport involves contact or collision with another person so SPEED kills. If you feel you can out jump, run by, guard, cover more ground than anyone you go against than you are a more confident athlete going into competitions.
   3. Application: As mentioned, MWF is our strength days so TTh are our speed days. We educate our athletes to let them understand there are more ways to get better in the weight room than just lifting more weight. One of those ways is trying to apply the most force as possible into every exercise. Tuesday you will see this on our Olympic Lifts – mainly cleans. We don’t give the athletes percentages to ensure the weight is correct. Instead, we tell them it needs to pass the “eye” test. That means it should look violent on how they attack the drill. Violent entails it moves fast. It should also look “right”. Okay, what does that mean? Our kids are smart and if we showed them a bad demo, they’d be able to say, “Coach, that doesn’t look right!”. So that’s what we mean, if someone walked in our weight room, they’d say that looks “right”. On Thursday, you will see this on our Ballistic MedBall Throws, Weighted Jumps, and Resisted Sprint Work. We like to say to be fast you must train fast.
3. REPETITIVE EFFORT
   1. Definition: lifting a nonmaximal load for maximal reps, THINK moderate intensity 65-85% with moderate to high volume 6-12 reps
   2. Benefits: If you look strong than you’re probably strong, correct? Well one could argue this is not always the case because a larger muscle isn’t always stronger. However, research shows that an increase in cross-sectional muscle area and increase in maximal force are strongly related. So, making a muscle larger increases its potential for strength. Speaking of confidence, have you ever met a person who had big muscles who wasn’t confident…it’s rare if you do. That’s why the go to taunt in all of sports is flexing. Typically, this saying holds true, “Look good, Feel good, Play good!”
   3. Application: Sometimes I believe this is an afterthought for most programs, but we put a great amount of effort and attention to this. This is all our auxiliary lifts. Auxiliary means it is secondary to our primary (main) movements. So, one would gather that it’s not as important. That couldn’t be further from the truth. For us, this is where we can make strides in lean muscle tissue development which helps with strength and speed. I think the biggest area though is it balances our bodies to assist in injury reduction. The main lifts are great and there is a reason they are the main lifts because they check off so many boxes when it comes to developing an athlete. However, if you ONLY did those lifts you are neglecting certain muscles that aren’t activated as much or at all in those lifts. You are neglecting different planes and ranges of motion that are used in sport such as Frontal and Transverse Plane. We like to call this putting on the armor OR bulletproofing our body.

To sum it up, there are different methods to train for effort in the weight room One could train heavy, fast, or for reps. Each area plays a different role in developing the athlete, but all are important. As a coach it is important to realize when to use each one. Athletes buy in more when you consider how they’re feeling. How would you feel if you gave it everything you had and the results were diminishing, this happens when recovery isn’t taken into account. As an athlete it is important to give everything you have. Let the coach worry about the correct way to get you to your destination. Don’t concern yourself with things outside your control because then you will never give your best effort. When both parties give their best effort, championship performance can be achieved!!

This is an extremely popular debate that it seems everyone has an opinion on. The article is not meant to condemn an individual that doesn’t follow our advice but rather provide information for our student-athletes to make an intelligent decision about their development. Full disclosure, I was a multi-sport athlete in high school (Football, Basketball, Baseball) so I am biased towards that. However, this article factors in anecdotal evidence as well as research-based information.

          Youth participating in sports has increased from approximately 18 million in 1987 to 60 million in 2008. Research has shown a notable rise over the last two decades in specialization of a single sport year-round with infrequent breaks and rest. Being a former private sector trainer and now high school strength coach, I can tell you firsthand many athletes are deciding to specialize in one sport earlier and earlier. There are many factors that go into this decision: competition, pressure from parents, pressure from coaches, society, 10,000-hour rule, etc.

• Competition: individuals believe middle school and high school sports do not provide the same type of competition of being on a club or traveling team can provide. This argument is a vital one. There will be some locations where some athletes do not see real competition in their middle school and high school schedule.
• Pressure from parents: parents always want what is best for their kids and can get influenced to spend an arm and a leg traveling to all these AAU tournaments to get their kid exposure to a scout/college.
• Pressure from coaches: all coaches (myself included) can have egos as well as pressure to win. Some believe if you take an athlete that is multi-sport and just have them year-round you can really develop a highly skilled individual who could dominate for you.
• Society: our society believes more is better for just about anything. You want to get better at X, then do more of X. While this simplistic approach is true to a certain degree, we must look deeper than that.
• 10,000-hour rule: Malcom Gladwell’s book and anyone who followed Tiger Woods growing up knows this rule…It takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills.

Okay, is all this true? Yes. Can I see valid points in each argument? Sort of. For myself, I live by a simple quote “Success leaves clues”. If I want to be great at any task, I am going to look up individuals who are elite in that task and study what they did. Since we are talking about athletics, let us talk the clues of success for athletes.

• Competition: I’d say the best argument for this debate is looking at the top athletes in the world for their sport. A lot of them played multiple sports in high school. Are you telling me they are a fluke and they would have been better doing more AAU to go against better competition? Absolutely not. Here are a few notables and their sports:
  • Lebron James – Basketball and Football
  • Michael Jordan – Basketball, Baseball, and Football
  • Tom Brady – Football, Basketball, and Baseball
  • Pat Mahomes – Football and Baseball
  • Max Scherzer – Baseball, Football, and Basketball
  • Mike Trout – Baseball and Basketball
  • Bo Jackson – Football, Baseball, and Track
  • Deion Sanders – Football, Baseball, and Basketball
• Pressure from parents: Back in 2016, Ohio State and Clemson football coaches are both on record saying they recruit and want the multi-sport athlete for their team. In USA today back in 2017, they found that 71% of DI football players, 88% of DI men and 83% of DI women lacrosse players, and 87% of DI women and 91% of DI men runners were all multi-sport athletes. There are some sports that peak a little earlier and specialization is more common and warranted such as gymnastics, tennis, golf, and hockey where the skillset of the sport is so challenging it must be practiced often. However, the above argument debunks people specializing in one sport to play at the next level.
• Pressure from coaches: If you google search sport specialization undoubtedly the cons that will pop up on this subject are early burnout and overuse injuries. When something you do because you love becomes something you do all the time it can turn into a job. Burnout is defined as “physical and emotional exhaustion from the psychological and physiological demands of the athlete’s sport”. This will cause athletes to withdraw from this sport or sports altogether. Even though, a coach might be able to develop a beast of a player by practicing and working with them all the time at that sport, they also might not have that athlete for their entire high school career because of burnout. Overuse injuries are caused by doing the same repetitive motion over and over again without any breaks. Now, as a coach, you don’t have your best athlete because they got injured.
• Society: Unfortunately a lot of things in life are determined by money. When it comes to college and professional sports there is so much money involved, the numbers you hear athletes getting paid or what organizations have is incredible. This leads to wanting to train children to become the next star athlete. What people have to understand is what separates D3 to D2 to D1 is not always the skillset but more so the athleticism. You always hear “the game is so much faster at the next level”. If one wants to be the next star athlete making millions of dollars, they would be wise to invest in something that will make them more athletic than their counterpart. Developing athletic qualities such as speed, strength, power, explosiveness, hand-eye coordination, agility, endurance. Sports can develop those usually better than any private trainer you could hire and spend a lot of money on. Want speed? Run track. Want strength? Wrestle or play football. Want power? Perform the field events in track or play baseball/softball. Want explosiveness? Play volleyball, basketball, or jumping events in track. Want better hand-eye coordination? Play tennis. Want agility? Play basketball. Want endurance? Do a running sport such as cross country or track.
• 10,000-hour rule: The argument is if an athlete starts focused training on one sport, then they’ll hit that 10,000-hour mark sooner than an athlete splitting their time between multiple endeavors. Other than the reasons already provided, multi-sport athletes gain different kind of skills they can apply from one sport to the next. A lot of skills have carryover to other skills such as running, jumping, hopping, kicking, and throwing.

I will leave you with this…multiple sports help you become a better overall athlete… multiple sports help with long-term health and longevity…multiple sports help your social life as you develop more friends being involved in more activities…multiple sports keep you having FUN longer!!

THE 3 C’s of CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCE

            Last blog we discussed the 3 E’s to Championship Performance and this blog we will diving into what I believe are the 3 C’s.  

            The 3 E’s are: Commitment, Consistency, and COACHABLE. These are areas that when I look at highly successful people in sport, business, career, and life they all had these in common.

• Commitment – If you want to succeed in something you must be committed to that something. No one wakes up one morning and decides they’ll try out for the Olympics that next day. Just like professional athletes or CEO’s of companies didn’t just fall into that prestigious position. What they all have in common is they worked for it because they were committed to achieving that task. You never hear anyone say “I fell to the top of the mountain.”. They climbed to the top which showed a commitment to the process that it takes to get to the top. Before you say you want to be the next Michael Jordan or Warren Buffet or Oprah Winfrey, you must ask yourself ARE YOU COMMITTED ENOUGH to put in the necessary work to achieve those dreams.
• Consistency – Lately I’ve been doing more research on successful people and what they all have in common because “success leaves clues”. One common trait is they all have routines. A routine is not something you do every once awhile. It is called a routine because it is a sequence of actions followed regularly. If you want to be successful you must develop a consistent routine that allows you to do that. Wake up early, train 3-4x a week, eat right, drink water, sleep 8 hours, move often, read often, and the list goes on and on of good things you can add to your routine depending on your goals. As I always tell our athletes, it is easy to work hard or do a Navy Seal workout once in awhile but can you show up day in and day out with great effort and energy. The more consistent you are the better results you will get. DO YOU LOVE THE PROCESS or just the RESULTS?
• COACHABLE – I put this in all caps because I believe it is one of the most important skills a person can develop. One might look at this word and think it only applies to athletes but can quite literally apply to anybody. Coachable means listening to advice, paying attention, applying information learned, accepting constructive criticism, and holding yourself accountable to the standard of the team. ARE YOU WILLING TO BE COACHED TO GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL?

THE 3 E’s of CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCE

          If you talk to any athlete or coach that I have worked with in the past they would all probably tell you that Coach Busch likes to talk…and they’d be CORRECT. Well, if you ever met my Dad you would know why but also because I’m very passionate about what I do. A few years ago, I noticed that my athletes and staff I was working with were underperforming where I thought they should be. It was at this time, I realized it wasn’t because they were bad athletes or bad coaches but there was so much information they were being asked to digest that it made it impossible for them. So, I sat down and tried to simplify expectations. These are broad and generic, but we found out they were easy to remember. These are known as the 3 E’s and the 3 C’s. We will cover the E’s for this blog and the C’s for next blog.

          The 3 E’s are: Effort, Energy, and Excellence. These are areas that when I look at highly successful people in sport, business, career, and life they all had these in common.

• Effort – I know rapper Tee Grizzley famously says he can do it with no effort but that could not be furthest from the truth. To be successful in anything it takes a tremendous amount of hard work and effort. Get good grades = study a lot ; Gain size & strength = eat and lift all the time ; Hit for a .400 batting average = live in the batting cages. It all starts with hard work and effort. To take it one step further, the individuals who are the 3% of the world that everyone remembers aka Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Serena Williams, Muhammad Ali do more than expected or the extra effort. If you do not want to succeed give minimal effort, if you want to be average give decent effort, if you want to be great give extra effort, if you want to leave a legacy give effort no one else will give. WHAT KIND OF EFFORT DO YOU GIVE?
• Energy – After I heard Gary Pinkel say this to the football team back in 2012 I have tried and live by this quote, “Attack each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” Again, success leaves clues. Look at phenomenally successful organizations/athletes and you’ll see people who are passionate and energetic about what they do. The winningest rugby team New Zealand All Blacks are a combination of the Patriots and Yankees when you add their championships. They are well-known as the team that does the “Haka Dance” before every game. If you want to see some energy and passion, google Haka Dance and watch their pregame ritual. The thing about energy, though, is it is easy to have it when everything is going right. You have your favorite song on, you got a good night’s sleep, your relationship with your significant other is going well, your coach just complimented you, you just hit a PR. But what happens when things are not going well, where does your energy go then? I can tell you from personal experience that this is something athletes struggle with BUT not the great ones. The great ones find a way to create energy or fake energy because they realize it is too important towards their goal to not have it. You must do the things necessary to bring the juice every day. The great news is this is a trainable skill. I am probably best known by my athletes as a high energy guy, but I used to not be that way. I realized I had to train myself to be so I could be the best coach and ultimately person I could be. I first had to understand what I needed in order to bring my best energy each and every day and then make sure I did those things day in and day out. ARE YOU AN ENERGY VACUUM OR AN ENERGY GIVER?
• Excellence –Aristotle famously said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, it not an act, but a habit.” Champions realize you must try to attain excellence in everything you do. Will you do this? No. It is impossible to be the BEST at everything in the world. It is also easy to use genetics as an excuse. I do not have the capabilities to be as strong as Ed Coan or as athletic as Lebron James or as smart as Albert Einstein or as big as Ronnie Coleman or as fast as Usain Bolt. While all of that may be true, do not focus on what you CAN’T do. Instead focus on what you CAN do. Focus on being the strongest, fastest, smartest, most athletic version of yourself. When you do that, you repeatedly strive to be better than you were the day before which in turn produces excellence. BE AT WAR AGAINST MEDIOCRITY!!

SAID PRINCIPLE: Your Guide to Obtaining Your Goals

With 2020 wrapping up and 2021 about to start, most people are looking to set New Year’s Resolutions or at least have a goal they want to obtain for the New Year. I would imagine by now most, when it comes to goal setting, have heard about S.M.A.R.T. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. This is a great acronym to follow when it comes to goals. Today, however, I want to discuss a new acronym to achieve your goals for the New Year and that is…. the S.A.I.D. Principle.

SAID Principle, what is that? Does that mean what I say I do…you know SAID? Okay excuse the corniness of those jokes, I just recently became a father so I’m working on my Dad jokes. SAID principle is a S&C term but could be applied in many different contexts. It stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. Basically, meaning whatever stimulus we place on our body, we will adapt specifically to that. Let me give you some real-life training examples:

• Athlete who primarily runs long distance will become more efficient and better at running long distance. They will develop their aerobic system and slow twitch fibers BUT will not necessarily improve their speed and power due to not imposing those demands in their training.
• Athlete who only lifts heavy weights will become stronger and better at lifting heavy weights. They will develop their muscular system and fast twitch fibers BUT will not necessarily improve their sport skill due to not imposing those demands in their training.
• Athlete who plays their sport all day every day will become very good at the skill set of the sport. They will develop the motor patterns needed to be successful at their sport BUT they will be limited when it comes to strength, power, speed, endurance, and overall athleticism due to not imposing those demands in their training.

Okay okay okay, how is this going to help you? Well, if you wanted to keep it really simple think of it like this….

• Want to get FASTER…Sprint Often
• Want to get STRONGER…Lift Heavy Weights
• Want to MOVE BETTER…Move Often in Different Planes & Ranges of Motion

When it comes to training you must have a goal(s) and then develop a plan of attack. The SAID principle reminds us to, as Dan John says, “Keep the goal the goal.” In training, you can lose focus on what you are trying to accomplish and program hop. Trust me, I have been there and done that multiple times. You look on social media and see all these incredible feats of you name it, strength, fitness, speed, etc. and want to accomplish all of it. Then you see another account and want the body of that person. Then you see another, and the cycle never stops. As an athlete, you need to realize what your goal is and set a plan of attack to achieve that goal. If the goal is broad such as “I want to be a better basketball player.” then you need to break that down to determine what makes a good basketball player to figure out the best plan of attack.

Remember that as athletes that compete in team sports, you will need a little bit of every quality…strength, speed, power, endurance, agility, sport skill to be successful. So if you determine your goal is strength this doesn’t mean you try and turn into the World’s Strongest Man but that you have determined increasing your strength will also increase your sport performance. This also means you must continue to practice your sport and other qualities that might be associated with it such as speed, agility, and endurance. BUT you are going to set the main training priority as strength!

SO what demands are you going to impose this New Year to achieve the adaptations you are looking for?!?!

Develop Athletes First Players Second 4 Principles to Guide Physical Literacy in Youth Athletics

What is the common answer to this scenario….Parent “I want my child to be more active. He just sits around all day on his Ipad or watches T.V.” Let’s say it together…SPORTS. According to Stanford Children’s Health (2020), in the U.S. about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports. This shows that sports dominate the time individuals spend with their life. This is a great thing. Unfortunately, due to the increased popularity of sports especially in the youth athletics, this means there has been a decrease in physical literacy.  

Wait, how does that make sense? If more and more people are participating in athletics one would assume physical literacy would improve. Physical literacy is the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life (International Physical Literacy Association, 2014). It focuses on mastering basic human movements, fundamental movement skills, and foundational sport skills (Ellerton, 2019). There are a multitude of reasons why individuals lack physical literacy including: reduction in physical education time, lack of recess in schools, club sports, increase in popularity of media outlets. For the purpose of this article, the goal is not to discuss why physical literacy is worsening but instead talk about strategies to improve it. Those 4 principles are: LTAD Model, Progressive Overload, Move Well Move Often, Compete & Have Fun.

LTAD MODEL

            LTAD stands for Long-Term Athlete Development. Research conducted by the Canadian Sport for Life indicates this is an understanding that human development from birth to adulthood is a continuous process and to optimize training we should divide training into stages of development (Ellerton, 2019). Stages shown in Figure 1.1. 

1.1

This indicates each stage has a different point of emphasis and it is not all about winning unlike many youth club teams nowadays. One often hears stories about the dominant 6^th grade basketball team but now that team is below a .500 winning percentage in high school. The best way to implement this with athletes is to consider the 10 Pillars for Successful LTAD shown in figure 1.2.

1.2

Best implementation strategy to improve physical literacy:

1. Stay away from creating “cookie cutter” programs that everyone does or the old saying “this has worked for years so why fix it”. Create programs that are specific to that individual or group of individuals.
2. Develop buy in to being physically fit and active.
3. Primary focus should be on motor skill and muscular strength development. While it is impressive for kids to juggle a soccer ball 300 times in a row, what’s disturbing is that same kid can’t perform a proper skip or jump without almost injuring themselves.
4. Sample many sports early and often to see which ones that athlete is good at, prevent overuse injuries, and prevent burnout from athletics.
5. Health and well-being is always the #1 goal so keep it fun and engaging.
6. Provide training that helps reduce the risk of injury, not causes it. Kids are very resilient but do not use that against them and have them run absurd amount of distance or perform what Navy Seals during “HELL WEEK”.
7. Program a variety of training modalities to increase interest from the athlete and to challenge the neuromuscular system to learn new skills.
8. Just like in school, “if you are not testing you’re just guessing”. So while testing does not show you everything it is important to use relevant monitoring and assessment tools to determine the correct strategy of training for those individuals.
9. One should systematically progress and individualize training programs meaning one must know what the athlete has done before, their current goals, and where the program is going. John Wooden said it best, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
10. Organizations should hire qualified and educated coaches. Not all places have that luxury to hire world-class professionals so then those coaches must be committed to continuing education to better serve those athletes.

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD

            Imagine sitting down to eat dinner, would you prefer Option A - meal had been microwaved OR Option B - meal had been crock potted. Chances are most of the world would choose Option B. This should be the same approach with athletes for training. So many coaches want to rush the process and get them doing the “Trigonometry” of athletic performance instead of mastering the basics first. Consider the story of Milo and the Bull. In short, Milo carried a baby calf everyday up a mountain until it became a fully grown bull. Doing this increased Milo’s muscle mass and strength.

1.3

In summary, progressive overload is gradually increasing training stress. A coach can also think of the SAID principle. SAID principle stands for specific adaptations on imposed demands and states an athlete’s body will adapt to exactly what is demanded of it (Sands et al, 2012). If one wishes to get better at shooting a basketball then they must shoot a basketball more often, if they want to run faster then they must run at faster speeds more often. To improve physical literacy, coaches should consider this and placed those demands in practice/training plans.

MOVE WELL MOVE OFTEN

            As human beings we move in 3 planes of motion: sagittal plane, frontal plane, and transverse plane. Our body is also a very complex machine that is responsible for many different movements. Too often, one just does their sporting motion over and over OR in training this could be their favorite exercise. Example: 12 year old baseball player throws a baseball 365 days a year with hardly any other movements ; 16 year old who just fell in love with the weight room performs Back Squat and Bench Press every single time in the weight room without any supplemental lifts. Both examples are problematic. Injury risk is problem #1. Overuse injuries are caused by repetitive trauma (Valovich et al, 2011). Physical illiteracy is problem #2. The more developed the neuromuscular system, the easier it is to learn the basic skills of running, jumping, throwing, hitting, kicking, etc. (Yessis, 2006). To improve physical literacy, coaches should incorporate total body movements and expose many types of movement patterns in different P.O.M., R.O.M., and skills. Remember, the more movements an athlete can perform well the quicker they can learn a new skill.

1.4

COMPETE & HAVE FUN

            Physical literacy is just as much psychological as it is physical. The development of physical fitness and psychosocial wellbeing is complex and there are many factors that impact a child’s development as well as their enjoyment and engagement in physical fitness such as: dietary behaviors, educational stress, sleep patterns, pressure to fit in and be a kid, pressure from parents and coaches. Athletes are more inclined to participate with 100% effort if it is fun. Fun is when one has true satisfaction and enjoyment towards something. According to Dr. Michael Yessis (2008), when we play the emphasis is to have fun, in order to have fun one must be able to execute the skill, the better one execute the skill the greater the fun.

            Strategies for a coach to improve physical literacy would include: bring energy and enthusiasm to every practice/training session, extrinsic motivation rewards, play games, program fun!! Remember physical literacy is engagement in activities for life so a coach can make one hate being physically active or love it based on their energy and enthusiasm they have towards the activity and athlete. Extrinsic motivation rewards can be a great strategy to get athletes to compete and ultimately the goal is for them to want to do it on their own without motivation tactics. Games is one of the best tools in a coach’s toolbox. It accomplishes the physical portion of literacy by getting them to move around and be active. It also accomplishes the psychosocial portion because almost every person loves to play games. Not so commonly thought of in training/practice plans is to program FUN. What do you do with the athletes to keep it fun? Where do you include it in your plan? How will you implement it?

CONCLUSION

            Currently, there is decrease in physical literacy for youth athletes. There needs to be an increased focus in schools and athletic programs on proper strategies to help our kids become physically literate. Just like reading, writing, and arithmetic will guide them in their futures as adults so will physical activity such as proper speed, strength, agility, power, mobility, and endurance training. Coaches and educators can use the principles mentioned in this article to provide a better plan of attack. This plan is most likely not perfect but remember the famous quote from George S. Patton, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

REFERENCES

Default - Stanford Children's Health. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05, 2020, from https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=sports-injury-statistics-90-P02787

Ellerton, H. (2019, December 4). What is the LTAD model and should you be using it? Retrieved December 05, 2020, from https://humankinetics.me/2019/04/12/ltad-model/

Physical Literacy Definition. (2014, May). Retrieved December 05, 2020, from https://physicalliteracy.ca/physical-literacy/

Sands, W. A., Dr, Wurth, J. J., & Hewit, J. K., Dr. (2012). The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) Basics of Strength and Conditioning Manual. Retrieved December 5, 2020, from https://www.nsca.com/contentassets/116c55d64e1343d2b264e05aaf158a91/basics_of_strength_and_conditioning_manual.pdf

Valovich McLeod, TC, Decoster, LC, Loud, KJ, Micheli, LJ, Parker, T, Sandrey, MA, and White, C. (2011). National Athletic Trainers’ Association position statement: Prevention of pediatric overuse injuries. Journal of Athletic Training 46(2): 206-220, 2011.

Yessis, M., Dr. (2006). Build a Better Athlete. Terre Haute, IN: Equilibrium Books.

Yessis, M., Dr. (2008). Secrets of Russian Sports Fitness and Training. MI: Ultimate Athlete Concepts.

PR PARADIGM

Before I dive into this topic, I first want to give credit where credit is due. Everyone knows in the S&C field everything is begged, borrowed, and stole. For me and the systems I have established along my career, I can say that statement is spot on. This topic I learned from the MIZZOU S&C Staff back in 2012-13. If you want further information on this topic and great resource for training, go purchase the book Complete Conditioning for Football by Pat Ivey and Josh Stoner.

Okay, let’s first talk about what a PR is? PR stands for personal record and this can be for anything but in the training environment this could mean you just beat your previous record on a Squat, Bench, Vertical, 40, and the list goes on and on. As a coach, it is important to use both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation tactics to achieve championship performance. The PR paradigm falls under both. This is how it works:

1. Improve individual performance
   1. Try and break your PR on everything you do
2. Increase competition within the team
   1. When someone else is breaking records, the competitive side comes out and others want to as well.
3. Improve overall team ability
   1. If everyone improves their personal records then obviously they have improved. So, if the entire team does that, you have improved the team’s performance
4. REPEAT!!
   1. This leads to championship performance

At MIZZOU this was carried out tremendously during my time there. Every athlete had their own individual profile and many strength coaches to carry out that they were setting PR’s frequently. Every PR was announced on the floor so the entire team knew. Those announcements brought up the energy within the room. I have tried to establish this at other places I have coached and the carry out was decent but not great. After a year in the high school setting, I became comfortable with the idea of establishing this amazing concept.

Now that you have a grasp on the PR paradigm and how I have watched it implemented at other organizations, let me explain how we incorporate it at JC. My first year here was a struggle to do. The kids were used to another style of training and not necessarily tracking their own lifts daily. I decided to spend all my time gaining the kids respect, getting them energize and bought in to performance training, and ensuring we did the simple things savagely well. After a year I believe we accomplished those goals together. So, this year I wanted to introduce the PR paradigm to take us to another level. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it as I had seen it as MIZZOU or other places because I am the only strength coach and our class average size is around 40 students.

First things first, I had to educate the kids on what autonomy is and get them to buy in even further on taking control of their own training. I have always told them that I am like the GPS for your training. I am going to prescribe the best route available for you and your current status, but it is YOUR JOB to drive the car. Speaking truthfully, I was extremely impressed on how our kids have handled taking control of their training. Secondly, was to educate them on how TEAMBUILDR worked. TEAMBUILDR is the S&C software we use to track our student-athlete’s progress. It allows our kids to have their own individual workouts but more importantly for this article it allows them to look at their history and monitor their PR’s. Finally, we implemented a little excitement and competition towards setting a new PR. Anyone who breaks a PR, rings the PR bell and puts a tally up by their block on the whiteboard. This does not have to be a PR on the main lifts. This can be on anything so that individual improves their individual performance.

This has established the following concepts in our training:

• More enthusiasm – kids are excited to come train to try and better themselves from the day or week prior
• More energy – when an athlete rings the bell it energizes the room to try and set a PR of their own so they can ring the bell
• More competition – everyone wants to have the most PR’s as a block so they will motivate and inspire their teammates more to achieve that
• More intent – there is a focus to how they perform every lift

BEST STYLE OF TRAINING for ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE

I am still considered young in the S&C profession going on 10 years in the industry working in various environments with a number of different athletes of all ages and abilities. This has also granted me the opportunity to work with many coaches whether that be sport coaches or S&C coaches. Everybody always has an opinion for what is the best way to train their team or athletes in general. This is NOT another article to create animosity between professionals but instead educate on how each style of training can have a purpose.

Before we dive headfirst into it, I want to be clear that this won’t be every style of training but rather the more popular ones that get brought up in conversation with coaches, athletes, parents, admin, etc. Here we go….

1. POWERLIFTING is a strength sport that consists of 3 attempts at maximal weight on 3 lifts: Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift. Strength is vital to performance and honestly is probably one of the biggest pieces of the pie. Powerlifting, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to develop overall max strength. Again, this checks a lot of boxes by performing these lifts but we must ask ourselves the following question “how strong is strong enough for that sport/athlete?”. We have all seen the individual who walks in the weight room and can barely lift their bodyweight on the bar in a squat or deadlift and get pinned with 95 lbs on bench but yet seem to succeed in their sport. On the other hand, we have also seen the individual who seems to outlift everyone in the entire school by a couple hundred pounds yet barely start varsity at the high school level. There will be outliers on each end of the spectrum. The important point to realize is improving an athlete’s overall strength is one of the best things you can do for them. If that is all you aim for though you will greatly inhibit their ability to maximize athletic performance and even worse lead them to injury. Every sport is different but I’ve talked to many S&C coaches on the matter and across the board everyone agrees that 2-2.5x bodyweight in a squat is about as strong as you need to get before you shift training focus. We have to remember that Powerlifting is a sport in itself and I would gladly take a powerlifter over a ball sport athlete in the sport of powerlifting but you best believe I am not taking a powerlifter over a ball sport athlete in any of the ball sports (Football, Baseball, Basketball, etc.).
2. WEIGHTLIFTING is a sport that consists of taking a maximum weight from the ground and lifting it overhead either in the Snatch or Clean & Jerk. When it comes to explosive power many would argue these are the best lifts for that. The great thing about the weightlifting movements is they are extremely hard to perform SLOW. For this reason alone, they are great to incorporate in one’s regimen. They also provide triple extension in the ankle, knee, and hip as well as triple flexion in the ankle, knee, and hip which is similar to many sporting actions. Again, weightlifting checks off a lot of boxes when it comes to explosive power but in sports it is all about who can produce the most power in the least amount of time. Does weightlifting accomplish this? It can if performed right and that is the big issue right there. The snatch or clean & jerk are some of the most complicated movements to teach and perform. It takes a long time to be proficient in the movements and most of the beginning stages are performed with PVC pipes or light barbells. Time is not always a luxury for many coaches so there are other substitutes or derivatives that can be just as affective. It will come down to what is optimal for your situation and environment. I have been a PRO weightlifting guy and then went through a stage where I never used them. Being at the high school level I believe I would be ran out of town if I didn’t perform the Hang/Power Clean because many coaches believe it is the Holy Grail. I do believe if we are going to perform these lifts we must do them savagely well and focus more on bar speed than weight on the bar. Each exercise can have its place if performed the right way for the right purpose.
3. BODYBUILDING is a sport involving strenuous physical exercise to strengthen and enlarge the muscles of the body. The leaner muscle tissue an athlete has typically means the stronger they are which also means the more explosive they are. One can simply say bodybuilding for sport is “look good, feel good, play good”. Bodybuilding can get a bad rap in sport performance because they can be non-functional/machine movements. However, it can ensure better ligament and tendon health due to the greater time under tension. While bodybuilding is great for many things including aesthetic purposes, there are plenty of examples of athletes with not so great of physical statures that have had great success in sports…Tom Brady comes to mind. Again, if you look at bodybuilding athletes you appreciate the physique and know developing total body musculature is important in every sport, but you also realize you wouldn’t want an athlete who couldn’t reach overhead or have to move sideways just to fit through a door frame because of lack of mobility. Another negative side effect depending on the sport would be weight gain. For some parts this is a great thing but others not so much.
4. FUNCTIONAL TRAINING is training the body for activities performed in daily life and/or sports. Many people have taken this to the extreme and often times leads to videos of individuals on Bosu Balls doing some very unsafe activities. To me, this means performing all of the following movements well: squat, hinge, lunge, press, pull, weighted carry. This doesn’t mean you perform the most weight in all of these movements, but you have adequate strength to perform whatever your daily activities are without injury. The cons to this are going to be you will not develop max power or strength like the aforementioned training ideas. The pros are you are going to be able to minimize the risk of injury due to the fact you are moving in different planes, activating muscles at different angles, and stimulating the nervous system by adding variety in movement patterns.
5. MOVEMENT PREP is preparing the body for the explosive, violent movements involved in sporting action such as sprinting, cutting, jumping, etc. I believe this might be one of the most overlooked or misunderstood areas in athletic performance training. Since most individuals do not know exactly what to do outside of weight room training, it turns into a bunch of obstacle course conditioning drills. Often people just do not do it because they don’t understand the importance. The great thing about preparing the body for sport movement is it simulates the speed at which sport will be performed at. One of the fastest movements in the weight room is a Hang Snatch which is usually performed close to 2 m/s. If an athlete ran that slow, they would be performing a 40 yd dash at around 20 seconds. Again, we know there is importance of the Olympic Lifts but trying to get the point across that to mimic game speed we get outside of the weight room. One might say “well can’t they just do that at practice”. Yes, they do those movements at practice BUT if they don’t know how to do them correct this can lead to non-contact injuries. Also, if you are just waiting for in-season practice to train your athletes in this you missed a big window of off-season training. If we think of our genetic make-up and how some individuals have more slow-twitch dominant and others have more fast-twitch fibers, which one would you rather have? Yes, some sports require more endurance but majority of team sports SPEED wins. To put it simply, “train fast be fast OR train slow be slow”. Movements in the weight room are slow so if that is all you perform you are slowing your athletes down.

Okay so which style is the best? As always, the answer is….IT DEPENDS. What does it depend on? The time you are allotted, equipment, space, number of athletes, athlete’s training age, environment, and the list goes on and on. Here is my advice…training is like making a cake. Every ingredient is needed to make a delicious cake, but you need more of certain ingredients than others. If you put the incorrect amount of a certain ingredient it can throw off the result. There are many ingredients when it comes to training so you must determine what is your most important and how much time/commitment will you dedicate to each one. For me, I believe strength is the low hanging fruit and most important for high school athletes. During a 5-day training week, here would be our breakdown by minutes on what we focus our training on:

• Powerlifting = 45 minutes
• Weightlifting = 20 minutes
• Bodybuilding = 35 minutes
• Functional Training = 50 minutes
• Movement Prep = 50 minutes

Final thoughts…train who is in front of you. If this is a powerlifter they will need more of that training, weightlifter will need more of that, and the list goes on and on. If you are training athletes, you must determine what are your goals with them and which tools will best help you accomplish those goals. Remembering all the while that they are training to improve their performance for their sport, not to boost your ego as a coach by proving you can increase their max.

TIPS FOR IN-SEASON TRAINING

You worked extremely hard in the off-season preparing yourself for competition and now that the season is here what do you do? Well this is the question on many people’s minds and there are a lot of different strategies but my goal is to provide you with some insight on what athletes should be doing in-season and what we do at JC. The cliché answer will always be “it depends” on your situation on what is the perfect plan to follow BUT here are some things to consider when training in-season.  

1. GOALS OF IN-SEASON TRAINING.

Let’s first by addressing why someone should take training serious during the competitive season. First off the priorities when it comes to in-season and off-season training flip. In the off-season, training is the priority and sport/practice is secondary. However, in in-season training the sport/practice is priority and training plays a backseat. This means during in-season one decreases the amount of energy expended in training so they can put more into practice and competition. This doesn’t mean you go through the motions and don’t push yourself in the weight room, it just means your volume and total time spent should be substantially decreased. Remember train hard but train smart!

2. SHOULD I LIFT HEAVY OR LIGHT?

This is commonly debated amongst the strength and conditioning community but my opinion is your intent should always be max velocity. This means no matter what weight you are using for resistance, the concentric portion of it is moved as fast as you can. This allows the individual to keep their power and rate of force development high which is what you want since you want to be the fastest and most explosive during competition.

After all, what causes soreness and fatigue in the weight room is volume not intensity. This is why often have our athletes perform heavy 3, 2, or 1 reps during in-season to ensure strength and power improvements but allowing them to perform at a high level. We also do not prescribe percentage so it gives the athlete autonomy based on how they feel or for you S&C nerds (like me) we autoregulate. Practices and games are going to be demanding for some and each sport is different with how the body responds to competition. For this reason we want to let the athlete be responsible for their program and the amount of weight they lift in-season.  

3. DOES MY EXERCISE SELECTION CHANGE IN-SEASON COMPARED TO THE OFF-SEASON?

This is a valid question and has been getting a lot of press lately in the strength and conditioning field. Without diving real deep into the data and spending 10 pages on this, I will provide the bullet points. The short answer is “yes” they should differ. Off-season should contain more general exercises while in-season should contain more sport specific exercises. Before you think that means you should perform on field movements weighted I will provide you with an example:

• Off-Season = Full Squat
• In-Season = ½ or ¼ Squat

Remember this will not be for every single exercise. It is still vital to train in full range of motion to ensure the body stays healthy and overuse injuries don’t flare up in-season.

Another question people usually ask is do I keep my power exercises the same? Meaning what do you do for your explosive lifts. My advice is in the off-season you stick to jumps, plyo’s, and Olympic lifts. When you get to in-season your joints and ligaments are taking a pounding from practices and games so I recommend performing exercises that are less stressful on them. In-Season should be more ballistic medball throws and Olympic lifts derivatives that do not involve catching or impact. It is all about risk and reward. The risk of catching a heavy clean or jerk and injuring an athlete in-season isn’t worth the reward of that particular lift. Since explosive power is our main objective in Olympic Lifts we can still receive those benefits from the derivatives (i.e. Shrugs, Pulls, KB Swings, MedBalls, etc.).  

4. HOW MANY DAYS A WEEK SHOULD I TRAIN?

Assuming you were training in the off-season, recommendation is to train 3 days a week during pre-season and early in-season and then transition to 2 days a week around mid-season and continue with that until season is over. This is for athletes who do not take a year-round S&C class. If have S&C as part of your class schedule and are on a schedule like ours then you will train 5 days per week. So, what do we do with those athletes? For us we follow a system (will cover in another blog). This means everyone is following the same protocol. The great thing about our system is we use the Teambuildr app which makes individualizing programs a lot easier. Every athlete has a program specific to them at the point they are at in their athletic career that they follow on an Ipad at their rack. In-Season and Off-Season look a lot different mainly from the volume standpoint we mentioned earlier. There are also more Specific Physical Preparation (SPP) exercises in the In-Season programs than the Off-Season programs.

5. HOW IMPORTANT IS RECOVERY?

One of the most important concepts overlooked is the recovery aspect needed in training. Our nervous system is in a sympathetic state (fight or flight) when we train, play sports, etc. and if we never get it into its parasympathetic state (rest and digest) we are doing our body a big disservice. The parasympathetic state is what allows us to recover.

Some tips to aid in the recovery process include:

• Normatec (not always available in most settings though)
• Foam Rolling
• Stretch Routines
• Deep Breathing
• Sleeping, Eating, Hydrating!!

For us at JC, we try to give our athletes time to work on certain issues they have from a grueling season. This is typically at the end of the workout titled DO MORE GET BETTER. About 5 minutes at the end each athlete gets full autonomy to work on something they believe will prepare them better for their sport. Off-Season typically do more arms or abdominal training while In-Season will focus on specific stretches or myofascial release techniques. That being said, we have one day dedicated to Speed, Agility, and Conditioning for Off-Season but Recovery for In-Season and that is on Thursday.

In conclusion, it’s in-season so your goal now is your sport. However you can’t be performing at your best without maintaining your strength, power, and fitness levels. You can only do this by continuing to train. The training just needs to be different than off-season. My advice is to look at your schedule and devise the best plan that will allow you to recover as well as maximize your performance. Good luck and enjoy the ride because you worked hard for it!

MINIMALIST APPROACH IS THE BEST WAY TO OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE

For many strength and conditioning professionals, we got into this field because we love to work out and push our bodies to limits we never thought we could. I know when I first discovered weights, it was and still is an addiction. I couldn’t get enough of it and thought if I was resting, sleeping, or basically anything that wasn’t working out that my opponent was getting better than me. Now why this mindset taught me discipline and work ethic, it isn’t the ideal way to look at training. In fact this can hinder performance more than it get can help.

We have all heard of the word “over-training”. Some people will call this a soft approach to babying today’s athletes. Kind of like the “back in my day” sayings you always hear. Many people will say back in my day I did this, this, and this and still saw progress. The thing is, especially with younger athletes, you could do incorrect things in training and still see progress. Unfortunately people use this excuse to mask their insecurities that they could be wrong with what they are prescribing. I am speaking from experience when I say this as well. I can admit I have made these mistakes too. So what specifically is a minimalist approach? Before we go into more detail about that, let’s first define overtraining. Overtraining is the concept of applying many stressors to the body (i.e. training intensity and volume, relationship issues, academics, work, etc.) and not allowing enough rest and recovery. This is why periodization in programming is so important.

Now I don’t want it to seem like we are looking down on other professionals or parents that don’t follow this with their kids. Like I mentioned earlier, I have made these same mistakes and the purpose of the blogs is to help someone not go down the same incorrect path. The great thing about performance training is it’s constantly evolving with better approaches to optimize performance for individuals looking to get better. This idea of a minimalist approach was first taught to me by Dr. Michael Yessis who made the 1 X 20 method of training so popular. Others such as Jay Demayo, Jeff Moyer, and Matt Thome have used these methods and have seen great results. I have been fortunate to be able to talk to all of these individuals about this idea and how we could use it for our athletes.

The concept is simple…”what’s the least amount I can do to get the maximum result?” That question, before talking to these giants in our field, would have never crossed my mind but it makes total sense. If I can elicit the same adaptations in one set, why would I do two? Before this the approach the question was always “what’s the most I can throw at this athlete that is safe and effective”. Being in this field for a while now I can tell you that about 95% of the people I see are not ready for very complex methods of training. Most are still discovering what training is and how to do it correctly and others are not that consistent with training. All those factors make us go back and think, why should I do this advanced method when they are not ready for it. Again the idea we hold our reputation on is optimizing performance. It’s really easy to throw complex methods at people because it’s exciting BUT at the end of the day how can we keep getting them better. Remember our goal is to increase sport performance and I have yet to see a game won on the competitive field/court because of the following reasons:

• Athlete trained so hard that they threw up
• Best ladder drill athlete on the team
• Hold all the records for the powerlifts (bench, squat, deadlift)
• Hold all the records for the Olympic lifts (clean and jerk, snatch)

And there are many more. Now there is no doubt in my mind that these definitely contribute. However, athletes need to train hard but also learn to train smart. Our advice is:

• Get adequate rest (8-10 hours of sleep)
• Be savages at the simple things (basic weight room movements such as squats, hinges, presses, pulls, and weighted carries ; move well but working on proper mechanics of movements such as jumping, cutting, and sprinting)
• Apply proper periodization strategies (define goals, know what season they are in, know their training age, know what they have done before, etc.)

Let’s use an analogy that hopefully makes sense because I feel people cloud their basic logic when it comes to sports and training. If someone wants their child to be a math prodigy then they are not going to start showing them calculus at the age of 6. They will start by teaching them basic addition and subtraction to ensure an adequate understanding. This will allow them to develop more of a well-rounded knowledge base.

In conclusion, we believe training should be fun and challenging. However if you are doing it just to kick someone’s behind, make yourself look good as a coach, build your ego as a parent or athlete, and think you’re above fundamentals then you are thinking WRONG. There’s a reason that the boring, fundamentals stand the test of time and are still used today. It’s because they work!! At the end of the day do what is best for the INDIVIDUAL. I always remember this quote from one of my mentors “just because you CAN do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD”.