Post 21: Rep Ranges, What Do They Mean?

          Ok, so this may not be exactly groundbreaking, but I've come to a pseudo-conclusion about rep ranges and strength development. Athletes may or may not notice patterns in rep ranges throughout their training and pick up some inkling (read: slight knowledge, or suspicion) of periodization without really realizing it. However, as coaches, just as every exercise should have a purpose, so do the rep ranges that govern how much work actually gets done. My initial understanding of rep ranges was low volume for core movements, high volume for assistance movements. As I gained better knowledge about energy systems, I figured that these concrete parameters need not apply for types of exercises, but for the strength quality desired in the training effect. What I mean by this was the typical low volume for strength and power, high volume for endurance and hypertrophy model. Later in the year we started messing around with time under tension (TUT) and recording our results before failure: total reps, speed, time etc. More recently, while experimenting with some "HIT" style workouts for my summer training - I gained more understanding of what I was actually achieving using different rep ranges. Finally to tie it all together, I was referring to some notes I made in the past from some of Louie's work on the dynamic method, and I saw light!

Prilepin's Chart

          In Louie's work, there is reference to Prilepin's chart and speed of repetition execution. In as few words as possible, it says:

-At 70% 1RM, force production decreases at the 7th repetition.

-At 80% 1RM, force production decreases at the 5th repetition.

-At 90% 1RM, force production decreases at the 3rd repetition.

          Now, these are going to be somewhat ambiguous figures, depending on the athletes you're working with, and what type of training effects you have created with them in prior sessions or training blocks. BUT we're onto something.

          What I'm getting at here, is that force production, the energy system targeted, and time under tension all play an equally important role when determining rep ranges. To use the most popular and common example, it's believed that 45-60 seconds (60 being on the high-end) under tension, with anywhere 30-45 seconds rest in between (with a high intensity) is optimal for developing hypertrophy. This is due to the fact that during this event (assuming there is no break in the eccentric-concentric chain) vasoconstriction of the vessels and capillaries within the muscle causes immediate post-set influx of fresh blood and the PUMP that people so often talk about. To bring this back together, assuming a quality rep takes 3 seconds, 45-60 seconds under tension lands us in the ballpark of 15+ reps, classic hypertrophy prescription! 

          Also, notice the quality of work done, according to the above parameters from Louie and Prilepin. You'll notice that when dealing with high intensities (85% and above) as we all have, that your speed of rep execution decreased a LONG time before you got to that 15th rep (including forced reps.) That's because this duration of exercise slaughters ATP-PC stores, and gets into lactate onset. Consequently, hypertrophy and endurance are two qualities attributed to the classic 12-15 rep range.

          In regard to this, I'm not so sure we've had it right all along using concrete numbers to determine training effects and stimulus, but we're on the right track. What many people overlook or tend to disregard is the cause of these training effects, and even then, this requires coherent execution by the athletes we train. I think rather, speed of execution, and time under tension are more relevant factors when training. To illustrate this, think of strength-speed training. Typically, 1-3 reps are used at 90%+ (again: see above parameters) to maintain speed of execution. While I agree that this is certainly a safe guideline for strength-speed, there's not a doubt in my mind that certain athletes with different muscle fiber compositions could possibly achieve a 4th or 5th rep without diminishing returns.

          Having said that, training optimally on an individual basis becomes a very tedious task, but it can be done. Using "tendo unit spotters" in particular when developing strength-speed, could ensure that athletes are completing the optimal number of repetitions based on their personal characteristics and thereby enhancing the quality of training effects that are created. This is additionally productive in ensuring that we get what we can out of individual athletes on any given day. In this scenario, a specified percentage, and speed of execution become the parameters for a given set, and rest intervals could be determined by heart rate recovery.

-Alex

Post 20: Summer Training

          I heard a funny comment earlier this year in our office regarding the nature of S&C professionals. Actually, in my experience this applies to anyone that spends a worthwhile amount of time in the weight room either coaching or lifting. The guy I'm talking about said you could take five people from any other profession and put 'em in an elevator, hallway, anything; and they'd talk for hours. If you're familiar with strength coaching, or coaches you know damn well that most of them would gladly do the opposite, if you're lucky a smackdown might even ensue and you'd have great seats. Unfortunately this is the personality type that most of us are assumed to possess. I will admit there are many of us who do exhibit these types of behaviors, and there are also some who have a little more humane approach. The egalitarian side of me will tell you that it all depends on the athlete, and a little plasticity with respect to how you handle them will go a long way.

          Again, I've digressed from the purpose of my musings. What I intend to allude to is that there are several realms of training that each have their own dedicated and aggressive advocates. These disciples range from bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and high intensity to the martyrs of bosu balls, TRX bands, and kettlebells. Again, my democratic alter-ego would say that ALL of these things work, but at different times of the year - of course I'm referring to periodization of athlete training programs.

          Anyways, the most recent of my training experiments has lead me into the church of high intensity. I read some good stuff by Ken Mannie and saw Mickey Marotti's latest salary and that turned into the flavor of the week for me. I hadn't even taken a serious look at a machine in a gym since my junior college days, but when I looked at them in this light I was "inclined" (get it?) to throw two days of my workout at that side of the gym. I called these two days my "intensity" days, one for upper and one for lower body. I called the other two days Volume Days where I went back to dumbbells, cables, and some of my other favorites. I'm falling in love with the machines because they afford the opportunity to get some high volume work done with better loading and more time under tension. The blood coming back to these muscles gives you that good full feeling or "pump" that we all so desperately seek. In combination with good rest periods this is a great opportunity to add some more pounds to your program, and maybe bust some plateaus wide open when you don't have access to equipment for a good dynamic day.

          The above is what I've been up to since I got back, a little less than two weeks ago, and it's a refreshing change from what became somewhat of a stagnant routine from before. In the next week or so I'll be looking to make some changes involving some more "true HIT" in the intensity days, and potentially try some different pre-exhaustion strategies in my compound sets on volume days to see how I like that. That's it for now.

-Alex

Post 18: "Facebook Official"

         Trying to route people around here. Check out "Gamedaystrength Page" on Facebook, or @GameDayStrength on Twitter.

Post 17: The Functional Movement Screen

                                                 

         So as promised (finally) here is my review and opinion on the Functional Movement Screen. It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to update as frequently as I'd like, but the semester is winding down; and even at this school, that can chew up a lot of your time. Anyways, finally getting around to the topic of the FMS as promised in Post 8: Mobility as A Component of Training. Cook has used the analogy of children in many of his lectures and writing that I have come across. The idea that children need to learn the workings of the body by rolling around, moving their heads, stabilizing their cores, mastering manipulation of the extremities and learning to balance are all "training" methods to eventually learn to navigate their environments through crawling and eventually walking. In this regard, Gray talks about young children being symmetrical in muscular development and unexposed to the imbalances they will experience when they become athletes or otherwise physically active.

         Once these kids become athletes is when they begin to use compensatory movement patterns and postural changes in order to accommodate imbalances and poor mechanics. This could not be more true. I used FMS to illustrate a point in a coaching "seminar" recently, and included a practical/lab type component where my peers could have a chance to go through the movements and evaluate each other. These are not athletic people for the most part, and it seemed the greater population had minimal training history. What I saw only made sense until after I thought more about it, these people were scoring high on the unilateral tests and only had noteworthy trouble with trunk and rotary stability. Once I considered the fact that (unless you count PRI evaluation) people who are not consistently active really don't have adequate time to spend developing poor movement patterns and create consequent imbalances. 

         The functional movement screen had three parents, but Gray Cook is the one most recognized in the paternity cases. Cook is a PT and in clinical practice there is typically a lot more static testing for imbalance and compensation in the musculature. Recognizing this, the Functional Movement Screen was born. Finally, something to assess and evaluate the movement patterns of athletes/clients/patients. In Cook's book "Athletic Body in Balance," he discusses a performance pyramid with three components, functional movement (mastery of basic movement patterns,) functional performance (athletic skill/power production,) and functional skills (sport related skill.) The optimal pyramid should look like this: 

                                                       

          A million times, you will hear pyramids used as analogies for everything. In this case, functional movement is our foundation, our base from which to build on. The premise here is simply that if an athlete can not navigate through fundamental and functional movement patterns, they will be limited in the heights they can attain in the functional performance, and functional skill blocks above. The purpose of the "buffer zones" is to illustrate the fact that without a greater foundation, we are limited in the extent to which we can develop the subsequent skill-set. That being said, we will still always encounter athletes who have a greater "functional performance" block, or "functional skill" block, but the fact remains that without increasing the base, the room for improvement will be limited by the lack of a buffer zone, or a base to provide support for growth. This may even mean that sometimes, we will regress in observable performance before we can improve, a one step back, three steps forward type of approach. 

          The beauty of the movement screen is that it is easy to conduct and requires little set-up if you know what you're doing. If you have a well-trained staff and adequate space to set up stations, you can run through a team of 10 in less than an hour. For a test of only seven movements, it still provides a good picture of functional movement for your athletes, and can help you identify weaknesses as well as use the corrective exercises to make adjustments. Identifying and correcting these holes in athletic movement will unlock greater gains in functional performance and supplement the sport-specific skills that much more. Again, it's all about widening the base of support. The wider the base, the taller the pyramid.

-Alex

Post 16: Crossfit. Jacks of all trades - Masters of none.

          Call me a hater, I don't mind. CrossFit is the fastest growing trend in the fitness world since the bosu ball. What a mess. I heard it put best by one of the guys in the office when he said "when you train for crossfit, you just train to get better at exercising." This probably excites a lot of people, but from where I stand, you're not really training to be a better athlete. Sure, you may have become more athletic as a result, but primarily, you look better in the mirror and your hobby is making yourself tired. Think about it, apart from the people who want to compete in events, CrossFit training is basically group fitness. Great, anyone who wants to live a healthier more fulfilling life via exercise is okay in my books, but this is why I don't want to call it a sport.

          CrossFit people don't train sport-specifically, they're just functional exercise maniacs. Even when competing, it's essentially a contest to see who can perform the prescribed volume in the shortest time. In the field of athletic strength & conditioning, CrossFit fits under the title: General Physical Preparation. This is what we use when athletes come back to training after holidays of drinking beer and working on finger dexterity with the Xbox. It shocks the nervous system and gets you back on track to train for the upcoming season so you don't fall apart the first time you get back under the bar. Now, the argument that takes place between people who train athletes and people who train CrossFitters goes on for days, and it's like the argument between rap enthusiasts and classic rockers. It goes on forever and never really gets anywhere, so yes, here I am spinning my wheels about why I think training athletes is a much more exacting science.

          When you're dealing with athletes, you have to address deficiencies not only in strength, power, endurance, flexibility, and core stabilization, but you have to do this in a way that will benefit them when they get on the field, court, or track. This means that we as strength coaches have to train their energy systems in proportion to what takes place during actual competition. This is a spin-off of what you get when you read your ex. phys. textbooks or the NSCA book, or whatever other shred of golden knowledge you've got on hand. Most of the time you'll see graphs that show the trade-off between substrate utilization, shift from anaerobic to aerobic metabolic systems, and that nice long steady-state that we all learned to love. The big thing that separates traditional athletes from CrossFit people is the energy demands of the sport. Think about soccer or basketball or a team sport, there are short duration high-intensity efforts interspersed between long lower intensity efforts. CrossFit is a continual bout of aerobic low intensity madness. Training athletes to increase their energy production capacity and managing their energy expenditure is where the true challenge is. As I mentioned previously in my post about block periodization, the goal is to train the deficient skills to match the others one block at a time. This gives you the product that all coaches are after, the proverbial well-rounded athlete.

          To develop this horse of an athlete is tremendously difficult if you don't know what you're doing. My bet is that a CrossFitter in sports (due to their one-track conditioned metabolic systems) would get burned on defense on the basketball court, or get absolutely LIT - UP by a linebacker trying to cut through a hole in the line. Sure, they might be available to play every second of the game, and they may never have to come off the court, but is that any good against a team who manages effort by substituting fresh players onto the field who train with specific physical preparation. Joel Jamieson gave a kick ass presentation on his website that you can check out here. He trains primarily combat athletes, but if you get anything out of the video, you can get a better idea of how this applies to all your athletes, and how you can taylor his recommendations to better prepare the people you're putting into competition.

          I digress, to tie it all together CrossFitters are essentially the Jacks of all trades, and the masters of none. These people are not training their energy systems to compete in traditional sports, they may make good 1500m runners, but they certainly are not "athletes" in the sense that we prefer to think of them. They don't bring any component of ability to the table that separates them from the pack come tryout time. What I'm saying here, is if you plan to use CrossFit in training your athletes, use it to get the beer out of their systems after the holidays. Beyond that, check out Joel Jamieson's presentation on www.8weeksout.com and  take his advice for rounding up and turning out athletic machines.

-Alex