Post 40: Triphasic Training

           

          About a month ago, I can't even remember what I was searching for, but came across a review for Triphasic Training by Cal Dietz. I hate to admit it, but I had never even heard of him before. After about 20 minutes of reading the reviews and looking into some articles published to kind of hype up the book I ended up buying it. It was a Sunday night, the book was delivered to my inbox by Monday afternoon and I finished it by Wednesday  It was like seeing a great movie, after I finished the last page of text and looked over all the sample programs and different modifications for the training splits, I just sat there.. And then felt like watching it again. Instead of doing that though, I just went back through all the charts and made my own copies of them on Excel and pinned them up beside my computer. This was going to take some experimenting. 

           Basically, the premise of this book rings back to a heading in Supertraining and that is "All athletic movement is triphasic." That's a pretty strong statement. 

          The shape of the "V" on the front of the book makes more sense after you read it and grasp the foundational concepts. As I mentioned in one of my articles about speed training there was a eccentric, amortization, and concentric phase with each stride. On a more loosely applied but still concrete basis, this is true of everything we do in sport, throwing, running, cutting, jumping etc. 

          Anyone who has read reviews or articles on this concept has seen this picture. The sharper blue "V" is a visual representation of a more powerful, explosive and neurally efficient athlete. In this case, a shot putter performing an explosive rep on the bench press. Basically, what you're seeing is someone who can take a sharp eccentric action and spin it around into a powerful QUICK concentric action. This guy beat the pants off the red line guy on the actual throws. 

          Dietz puts a powerful new spin on block periodization and divides the training schedule into blocks based on different parts of movement (Eccentric, Isometric, Concentric.) He Follows that up with a standard (what everyone else does) "reactive" block and then where appropriate tacks on a fifth block of what he calls the "Antagonistically Facilitated Speed Strength Method" which - in as few words as possible - uses timed sets, drop-offs, and other bio-feedback methods. 

          Honestly, after reading this book, I felt like I'd read 2 books, actually 3. Maybe 4, I don't know. All I know is that this stuff started making a WHOLE lot more sense to me. What in the world was I doing before?! About a week after reading this, I based my own programming on the same model and started experimenting on myself. I loved the results I was feeling. I have also applied the same principles to 4 or 5 athletes whom I work with on a regular basis to prepare them for college, and this has been a very rewarding experience for all of us. If you haven't checked out this book and are serious about getting stronger, faster, and more powerful, you're kidding yourself. Unless you already know everything, which let's be serious - If you think you know everything, you're an idiot. 

Post 39: Sprint Training

          As if anyone cares, I wrote an article back in February of last year on Speed Training. I always find it comforting when I can look back on things that I knew in the past... and realize I've learned since then. Recently I've been reading the eBook from Bret Contreras and Chris Beardsley, The Optimal Athlete: Sprinting. Although not everything I've read so far is exactly news to me, they've done a nice job of selecting studies to review that make more sense of what are sometimes abstract concepts.

          In the beginning, Bret makes a statement regarding the nature of scientific research. If you know anything about Contreras, you know he loves science. I would agree that sometimes it is frustrating to read studies that always end with "more research is needed," but as Bret mentions in the beginning of this review, it is wisest to stick to the common threads throughout the research.

          Since this blog is really more of a place for me to keep all my thoughts and stuff, I'm going to throw down a few things that I found to be of particular interest. Especially relevant to training athletes (most specifically sprinters) for speed. If that helps you great, if not, whatever.



Concept 1: Net horizontal propulsive forces are of greater importance than total ground reactive forces (including vertical.)

          A while back I recall reading an interview in which Bret talks about this French kid Christophe Lemaitre. In the interview, it was discussed that he tested with unusually high horizontally-oriented GRF's (ground reactive forces.)

          For those of you who are not familiar with the terminology, GRF's are the resulting force from the ground to the object in contact with it. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, etc. Therefore the GRF is equal to the force applied to the ground, and by virtue of the mechanics, it has a vector too.


          So in order for two things to happen: a) A human to travel forwards, b) A human to continue forward, force must be applied by the support leg both horizontally (to accomplish part a) and vertically to buy time for the trail leg to recover and enter the late swing phase before contact. What is interesting however, is that not only is it important to be able to apply a great deal of force quickly, but that the studies consistently demonstrate greater importance of the amount of force applied horizontally. Vertical GRF's are really only necessary to give the athlete time to prepare the subsequent stride and replace the next step in optimal location on the track. So with this in mind, coupled with specificity, it is recommended by the authors that sprinters use exercises which train strength and power in a more horizontal plane - Like Bret's famous Hip Thrusts.

Concept 2: F-V qualities of muscle are of greater importance than absolute strength.

          The Force-Velocity relationship is basically an illustration demonstrating that we move heavy weights slow and light weights fast. More specifically, different qualities fall on different parts of the force velocity cuve. As their names might suggest, Absolute Strength would fall far to the right, where load is greatest and speed is negligible, and speed-strength would fall high-left where muscle shortening velocity is highest, and load lowest. However, if you note the dotted line (as always) there is an optimal range for power output.

          Think about bench pressing. If you can take 135 pounds and throw it off your chest, doing reps will be fast, but not require a high percentage of your absolute strength. If you can take 300 pounds and move it slowly, you have likely taxed your absolute strength, but have not even begun to approach appreciable velocity. So although different for everyone, there is an optimal range for power output where the force produced and the velocity at which the muscle contracts to do so are in perfect balance. This gives you the greatest value for Power (Force / Time.) If we maximize both factors, we get the greatest product.

          Having said all that, consider that foot-to-ground contact times in sprinting are easily under a second in duration. I think I recall Louie Simmons writing that maximal contractions cannot be achieved before 0.4 seconds, so the ability to produce a LOT of force FAST is of paramount importance.

Concept 3: Vertical and joint stiffness. 

          As I believe I've mentioned before, energy leaks in the kinetic chain (although abstract in notion) are a very real thing. You miss lifts when you let your air out, good morning a back squat, or generally don't "stay tight" because you've allowed an energy leak. Force is best transferred through rigid segments, this includes everything from the forearm, to the trunk, to the core, to the femur and lower leg. This is best and most memorably demonstrated through the old "ever try to push a rope?" trick. Now that we've discussed desirable muscular contractile qualities, and the direction in which we should apply force, I'm going to say how it's best transferred to the track. If your body can produce these forces, you would be remiss to not effectively transfer the greatest possible percentage of them to the external environment.

          Stiffness as defined by the ability of an object to resist deformation when encountering forces, is important for sprinters. Generation of adequate force is the responsibility of the hip extensors and knee flexors, among other things. Transfer of force from body to ground involves some stiffening of the ankle, knee, hip and even trunk.

          Nothing operates at 100% efficiency, and the body is no exception, both mechanically and metabolically. If a sprinter is already limited by the amount of time (sub 1s.) to apply force to the track, and additionally by his or her own genetic capacity to produce force quickly via muscular contraction, it seems unfair that we lose even more energy/force when it can be dissipated by hypermobile joints.

There are a few thoughts for today.

Alex

Post 38: A lesson in skepticism, and learning from your mistakes.

          "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams

          The above quote is one that I came across about a year ago, and remains one of my favourites to this day. Recently, I have had the opportunity to apply this to my life a couple of times and it saved me some serious headaches. This also applies greatly to training both as a coach AND as an athlete.

          First, a quick story. Last night, my girlfriend and I booked a trip to Memphis to go to the Beale Street Music Festival in May. Admittedly, I've been talking about going since April of last year, and if it weren't for her, I don't know that I'd have had it in me to finally just book it and go! Anyways, I've been to Memphis before for a baseball tournament and had a great time. We played great, and finished well in a national showcase tournament, but one of the things we didn't prepare for was the area. One of our vans (and a bunch of other vehicles there) were broken into during a game and we lost wallets, gloves, all kinds of things. So when we were looking at hotels last night, I said to her a few times that I'd rather pick somewhere that she and I could feel safe. I knew that if we were going to drive 15 hours to get there, we wouldn't want anything else to worry about, and especially if we were going to be carrying passports, cash etc. So we booked a place with no cancellation fees so we could at least have a backup plan, and no penalty if we changed our minds later.

         Of course, the internet is both a blessing and a curse, it just depends how you use it. When we searched the hotel, obviously the people who are trying to sell it to you will have nothing but the best things to say about it. Additionally, any affiliate websites will do the same - they will make a percentage for promoting if you choose to pay them. The trouble with this is you will find what you search for. The information you usually can benefit from is from places you don't search for. Like the 0/5 star review you might find buried in the last part of the advertising website. (I don't think people searching for travel advice to Memphis will find my story here as quickly as they'd find a Super 8 in a bad part of town.)  So, heeding the advice given at the start of this post, I decided to search for poor reviews, things WRONG with the place we're going. Luckily, I haven't found anything yet, but will continue to search until I feel that I've exhausted resources.

         So, what's all this got to do with training? Well, those who know me are aware that I'm not the biggest advocate of "strictly cardio," CrossFit, and a host of other modalities, but for the sake of brevity, I'll stop at those two. Whether a trainer/coach or an athlete is searching for something to commit to or try for the first time, your search will probably produce a myriad of results that claim Training System _______ is the best of the best. No question about it. But an experienced coach or athlete knows all too well that for an industry that seems so black and white, there is an awful lot of gray area. Here's a great article that got me going on this subject. If you search CrossFit or Cardio Training or something like that, you'll likely get 50 results that praise it for every 1 that bashes it. Instead, like my lesson from travelling, why not search for what's wrong with it, and THEN make a decision?

          I also bought a new cellphone recently. I'm not the type to make investments like this without researching, so I scoured forums that compared the phone I liked to other ones that came out around the same time. As I mentioned above, you'll almost always find what you want to hear, and read things the way you want them to sound (if you read at all.) Ironically, even after all that, I ended up having to get the charging port replaced about a week later - once I searched for ways to fix it on my own, it seemed like everyone and their mother with the same phone were having similar issues. 20/20 hindsight is a bitch.

          So again, how does this apply to training? If you seek out answers based on certain criteria, you will likely hear things the way you want them to sound. People come in to our facility sometimes and ask if we do "CrossFit" type training. I could easily say yea we do, sign up today! But I don't, A) because it's not true, and B) because I hate that stuff. If people want to do that, I would rather not have them in my gym anyways. Instead, if I have the time, I ask them a couple questions about their athletic/training/injury history and give them a bit of a caveat that if you're just trying to lose a few pounds, that might not be the safest choice. In two cases that I can recall explicitly (due to moral victory,) people have actually said, wow thanks for the advice, I think I'd like to start with you guys instead.

         
          Granted, I've sold two memberships on that premise vs. mass marketing that we do crossfit everybody come in... NOW! But if you're serious about what you do, this feels a hell of a lot better than the alternative. It sure makes my job more comfortable as well, I'd rather do what I know will work with certain populations, than try to teach a 30 year old pregnant woman how to do powercleans to failure. I think it's in one of the related videos here. Additionally, I like having people know exactly what they can expect working with me, than have them go and badmouth my work to other people and say I tricked them.

          So whether this helps you make a decision about your training or some other aspect of your life, I hope you found it useful. At least give everything a healthy dose of skepticism and see what it boils down to afterwards.

-Alex
         

Post 37: A Few Thoughts On Explosive Sport Training

A Few Thoughts on Explosive Sports Training

Alex Carnall

In my opinion, one of the most challenging parts of sport performance coaching is being able to induce timely training effects. The first thing you have to do is know your athlete. This will dictate your exercise selection, how aggressive you can be with progressions, how fast they recover and regenerate between competition and training sessions, and a myriad of other things that govern your ability to be effective.

Once you’ve got all of this more or less figured out you can set a framework of reasonable time in which you can expect to see appreciable gains or adaptations as a result of your athlete’s efforts. This will be referred to as periodization in your textbook. In this particular instance, I want to shed light on a few things related to explosive sports training.

In Block Periodization (which I discuss here: http://gamedaystrength.blogspot.ca/2012/02/post-15-block-periodization-why-its.html,) the conversion or realization phase is the one which precedes Major competitions. Although I could say that this is the time for all of your explosive work to take place, I’d be wrong. While there is definitely a time and place for everything, it doesn’t all disappear or reappear at once. All year, there is room for your bodybuilding methods, powerlifting methods, and Olympic lifting methods. The difference is that the proportions and assignments of exercises to each methodology will be consistently in flux depending on where you are in relationship to the competitive calendar. Hopefully that makes sense.

In this particular instance, with explosive sports training, we’re talking about a shift from intensification to realization (2^nd to 3^rd block in your cycles.) I would deem anything with an exceptionally fast concentric action as explosive, whether or not it is preceded by a stretch or “loading” component will depend on the exercise in question. For example a depth jump has an inherently greater pre-stretch than a clean pull from the floor. This is not to say that one is more effective than the other, because they both serve different purposes and elicit different adaptations.

Now that we’ve started getting into certain types of explosive training like Olympic lifts, depth jumps, box jumps, pulls, etc. We notice a pattern in the nature of these exercises. They all occur (and consequently develop power) in the saggital plane. Eric Cressey comes to mind immediately when I recall from a few of his blog posts that power development is plane specific. Saggital plane power is great for sprinters, mid distance runners, jumpers, etc. but not so much for rotational athletes. That’s a whole other can of worms, and he touches on this over and again on his blog at http://www.ericcressey.com/blog. Following that, I’m feeling vain enough to include another one of my own earlier blog posts about speed training where I talk a little bit about plyometrics and the three phases of the stretch cycle here: http://gamedaystrength.blogspot.ca/2012/02/post-12-speed-training.html.

Explosive strength training is a slippery slope in its own right. This is what I was talking about earlier when I made a big deal about timing. We could burn out and overtrain on a bodybuilding (accumulation) style program just as easily as we could a powerlifting (intensification) style program, but it would take much longer due to the relatively more dissipated CNS fatigue – depending on volume and whether or not you’re doing 20-30 sets per day 5 days a week. However, the realization or Olympic style program is the granddaddy for reaching the end of your rope the soonest. You have to find the sweet spot for each athlete and tailor their pre-competition blocks just right. Maybe they will hit their peak preparedness 2 weeks into their conversion/realization phase, or maybe they need all 3 or 4 depending on what you’ve budgeted for time-wise and the density of your training program during this phase. This is why you can use less important competitions to experiment with your timing and find out how the athlete responds to training when game day comes along.

In addition to creating saggital plane power for track & field, and other sports, it also applies greatly to strength athletes. Powerlifters and Olympic Lifters use explosive training to help them move bigger weights at faster speeds ultimately resulting in achieving greater totals and better competitions. Westside Barbell and EliteFTS are probably the main places you’re going to find evidence of and more thorough articles on how this is done for those athletes. Remember, if you ARE working with athletes on tracks etc. that rely specifically (or “general-specifically” - inside block periodization joke) on saggital plane power, your ultimate goal as the strength coach is to boost these lifts as well so they can get out into practice and competition with newly “realized” (another block periodization pun) strength to utilize in their actual sport training.

Hopefully this is of some use to you, just in terms of food for thought so you can see how your own ideas stack up against mine. The purpose of this article wasn’t to give you a copy-paste program for training explosive athletes, but to provide a couple notions that might help you improve or validate the things that you’re already doing. I’ll leave the exercise science and physiology to the experts.

Alex Carnall – B.Sc., CSCS.

Alex is a graduate of the University of Texas – Pan American (NCAA, D1 – Texas) and Cisco College (NJCAA, D1 – Texas).   A two-time All-American selection for baseball and Dean’s List Kinesiology student; Alex demonstrates strong commitment to both sport performance and academia.  He has formerly interned with the Strength & Conditioning Coordinator at his alma mater working with Division 1 athletes and currently works as a strength coach at a sports performance facility in Oakville, ON.  More recently, he is training to powerlift competitively and aspires to obtain his Masters degree.  More articles by Alex can be found on his blog www.gamedaystrength.blogspot.com, website www.gamedaystrength.com, or followed on twitter @Gamedaystrength.

Post 36: Latest strong-athlete.com article: Prevention of Lower Back Pain

|By: Alex Carnall|

Probably more common than any injury in my experience has been clients presenting with low-back pain. There are tons of “rules of thumb” expressed as common knowledge or coaching cues that hold no more than face validity and are actually hurting people instead of protecting them. Since this article is going to be published to people who may not be looking purposely for information on the topic, I will try my best to keep it brief and pertinent to strength training. More specifically, with a high focus on injury prevention as opposed to diagnosis and correction – which admittedly are things that I’ve yet to learn lots about.

What I will do is present two general concepts. As always I have AN answer and not necessarily THE answer. So before anyone jumps down my throat on comments or anything, I want to say that these are two of many things to consider.

Concept #1 – Patterned muscle length pathologies.

If you’re familiar with either the late Dr. Vladimir Janda, or the Postural Restoration Institute, you already have a leg up on this idea. Basically these are the most influential thinkers of their time (PRI being the more recent) in terms of this first concept. Janda broke the ice by taking a more holistic look at the human body and the way it moves by conceptualizing the notion that our body operates as a system, and not just a series of segments.

Too commonly do I see people – even AT’s and PT’s – trying to address injuries and problems segmentally (structurally) without stepping back to see what other contributing factors may cause it.In actuality, localized pain is typically a symptom of dysfunction that is really occurring globally. In other words, there is some kind of structural imbalance or problem occurring away from – but is manifesting as pain in – the low-back. Therefore the problem may be acutely mitigated, but not resolved by addressing the area where the pain is experienced.

Janda proposed the idea of upper and lower crossed syndromes, UCS and LCS respectively. The general concept is outlined by the image below: For the sake of this article, we need merely give our attention to the bold text. There are common areas where people are uninhibited or overactive (dominant) and areas where people are consequently weakened or inhibited. Without getting into too much detail about specific muscle groups etc. in the diagram, we can begin to understand why it can be problematic.

Typically an experience of pain may be onset by muscles that are either too short or too long. Or weak, as people say in the biz.

For example, many folks lack the ability to fire their glutes, and as a result become short and tight in the hamstrings which can pull on the lower back. In other instances, people may have overactive rectus abdominus musculature which can shorten the anterior part of the trunk and cause long hamstrings which in turn allow the erectors and spine to shorten. Both scenarios express as pain.

All of our muscles work in anatomical trains. Remember what I said before about looking at the body as a system as opposed to a series of segments. Patterned imbalances can be the result of poor posture, programming, or just laziness.

Posture – Dr. Stuart McGill says “The best posture is the one that is constantly changing.” Staying in the same position for long periods of time prepares us to be patterned in that manner, and our breathing cements these bad patterns.

Programming – If you are consistently using workout routines that do not challenge you to move in all three (saggital, frontal, transverse) planes of motion, or balance your pushing and pulling, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Laziness – If you improperly hip-hinge to pick up heavy things, or use otherwise poor technique and form (strategies as Dr. Janda would call them) when training, you are putting yourself at risk. You have to fire locally (from the core) before you operate globally or distally (with the extremities.)

My major piece of remedial advice on this first concept is two-fold. Along with this food for thought, I encourage you to consider the following.

1) Clean up your act when you’re training: Don’t get lazy when it comes to form. A lot of people who are into crossfit and other types of high volume training (excess for the sake of excess) typically will try to “get it done” vs. get it done properly. Mike Boyle would encourage you that if you must train to failure, train to Technical Failure. This is the point where your form STARTS to deteriorate. Rack the bar, swallow your pride, and reduce the load. Also – consider the ratios of pushing and pulling in your programs, both upper and lower body.

2) Perform a little maintenance work with self-assessment and foam rolling: Take note of how your body feels when you move. Think about the above diagram and consider whether you’re firing in all the right places or not. If you honestly answer no; try some activation drills on inhibited muscles to get a better, more efficient, stronger lift. Also if you’re feeling some tightness, forget about your 10^th and 12^th Friday sets of cable flies and do some stretching/foam rolling. Make note of trigger points (or knots) and work on areas above and below those as well.

Concept #2: Training within a neutral spine zone.

One of the things that absolutely make me cringe when I’m watching people train is when they let their back sag during prone exercises – if I’m responsible for them, I don’t let it happen. Planks, pushups, back extensions, and eccentric-based core exercises are the worst for this. Flexion based core exercises are also a huge problem as they relate to this concept – and in my opinion should be banned.

The purpose of your core (trunk/superior hip) musculature is to protect the spine as it is meant to be in its natural position. A strong core allows us to maintain better local stabilization to allow for strong controlled distal movement, while keeping the spine in a natural position.If we lie on the floor and repeatedly flex and extend our spine, we are doing much more harm than good in the long term. There are only so many cycles of flexion and extension we can endure before something inevitably slips. Think of your intervertebral discs as a sandwich where the vertebrae are the bread. Bite the front of the sandwich and all the goodies discs go squeezing out the back. The same applies to hyperextension. Either way that’s a lame sandwich. Now I understand that flexion and extension are inherent in competition and we will be exposed to them either way, but we canat least avoid/limit them in training.

Keeping in mind that the spine has 3 segments, we can understand what proper alignment looks like. Cervical, Thoracic, and Lumbar spinal vertebrae are all subject to either rounding (kyphosis) or extending (lordosis.) In addition, we should understand that too much flexion or extension can also occur in each of the three spinal segments. However, in this case we are concerned with the low-back/lumbar spine.

Lumbar lordosis is facilitated by anterior pelvic tilt; and posterior pelvic tilt will promote a kyphotic lumbar spine.  Given this information, we can use either the position of the spine or the hips to determine whether the athlete needs correction. I have found good cues to be “tuck your tailbone underneath you” and/or “ribs down.” This helps to correct pelvic tilt and excessive lumbar extension pretty well, even if only until you can do any corrective exercises, or defer your client to another professional. You will actually feel some spinal traction when you correctly lengthen your spine. This means alleviation of compressive forces on the discs and a feeling of more “space” in your back.

With that in mind, once we are able to establish neutral spinal alignment, we can worry about what types of core exercises do fit the new model. I’m generally ok with any types of eccentric-dominant or isometric core exercises. Ab wheels, swiss ball rollouts/”stir the pot”, plank variations, chops/lifts, etc.  Anti-extension and Anti-rotation exercises like TRX Fallouts, Body Saws, or Pallof Presses make great choices too.

-Alex