Functional Path Training

GAIN 2013 Teaching Schedule

Many of you have asked what the GAIN program looks like. This is time schedule and the topics for 2013 GAIN. You can see it is a total immersion program and quite comprehensive in it’s approach. Not a moment is wasted, every opportunity for learning is used. In another post I will talk about the faculty.

Tuesday June 11
1:00 to 4:00	Registration & Check into Rooms – Visit with Sponsors
4:00 to 4:30	Introduction and Structure of GAIN Apprentorship
4:30 to 5:45	Introductions
5:45 to 7:00	Dinner
7:00 to 8:30	Team Building (Clay Erro)
8:30 -	Discussion - Slaying Sacred Cows, Debunking Myths, Scams & Shams
	Social Interaction – Informal at Valhalla pub on campus

Wednesday June 12
6:30 to 7:45	Morning Active Learning Theme: Coordination & Body Awareness
7:45 – 9:15	Breakfast
9:15 to 10:15	Somatic Synchronicity (Joe Przytula)
10:15 to 11:15	Essentials of Pedagogy in Sound Coaching (Vern Gambetta)
11:15 to 12:15	Elements of Speed Development (Gary Winckler)
12:15 to 1:00	Lunch
1:00 to 2:00	Siesta Time or Meetings with Instructors
2:00 to 3:00	Elements of Speed Development – Continued (Winckler)
3:00 to 4:00	Reconditioning and Return to Competition Strategies (Bill Knowles)
4:00 to 5:00	Reconditioning and Return to Competition Strategies (Knowles)
5:00 to 5:30	Panel – Injury prevention & Management (Knowles, Ballard, Ryan)
5:30 to 6:45	Dinner
6:45 to 8:15	Speed – Practical Session on Acceleration Dynamics (Winckler)
8:30 -	Panel – Olympic Preparation (Winckler, Ryan, Radcliffe, Folker)
	Social Interaction – Informal at Valhalla pub on campus

Thursday June 13
6:30 to 7:45	Morning Active Learning Theme: Strength & Plyo’s
7:45 – 9:15	Breakfast
9:15 to 10:30	The Oregon Way (Jimmy Radcliffe)
10:30 to 11:15	The Oregon Way – Continued (Radcliffe)
11:15 to 12:15	Need to Do’s in Physical Education (Greg Thompson)
12:15 to 1:00	Lunch
1:00 to 2:00	Siesta Time or Meetings with Instructors
2:00 to 3:00	Need to Do’s in Physical Education – Continued (Thompson)
3:00 to 4:00	Long Term Athlete Development (Kelvin Giles)
4:00 to 5:30	Training Design – Why’s, Why Not’s, Do’s and Don’ts (Winckler)
5:30 to 6:45	Dinner
6:45 to 8:15	Radcliffe Practical
8:30 -	Panel – Physical Education (Thompson, Giles, Erro and Joe P.)
	Social Interaction – Informal at Valhalla pub on campus

Friday June 14
6:30 to 7:45	Morning Active Learning Theme: Flexibility
7:45 – 9:15	Breakfast
9:15 to 10:30	Training the Aquatic Athlete (Nick Folker)
10:30 to 11:15	Principles of Endurance Training (Steve Magness)
11:15 to 12:15	Principles of Endurance Training – Cont (Magness)
12:15 to 1:00	Lunch
1:00 to 1:30	Siesta Time or Meetings with Instructors
1:30 to 2:30	Facilitating the Human Performance Puzzle in a Collegiate Setting (Randy Ballard)
2:30 to 3:30	Integrating and Applying Science to Coaching (Magness)
3:30 to 4:30	Physical Competency Assessment (PCA) Introduction (Giles)
4:30 to 5:30	PCA Application and Interpretation (Giles & Ballard)
5:30 to 7:00	Dinner
7:00 to 8:00	PCA Practical
8:00 to 9:00	GAIN Talks (15 minute presentations from GAIN Alumni)
	Social Interaction – Informal at Valhalla pub on campus

Saturday June 15
6:30 to 7:30	Morning Active Learning Theme: Postural Strength
7:30 to 9:00	Breakfast
9:00 to 10:00	Special Considerations in Training the Tall Athlete (Tracy Fober)
10:00 to 11:00	Testing - Why’s and Wherefore’s (Vern Gambetta)
11:00 to 11:30	Concussions (Joe Przytula)
11:30 to 12:15	Coaching for Excellence (Vern Gambetta)
12:15 to 1:30	Lunch & Checkout

GAIN VI Morning Active Learning Sessions

6:30 to 7:45 AM

(Rice Track Stadium)

 

Wednesday, June 12 – Coordination & Body Awareness

20 minutes at each station with a two-minute transition between stations

Mini Band  & Lunge & Reach Routine (Joe P)

Coordination I & II (Gambetta)

         Pillar Core Routines (Radcliffe)

Thursday, June 13 – Strength & PE

20 minutes at each station with a two-minute transition between stations

Gym Class – Learning to Move (Thompson)

Dumbbell Complex & Leg Circuit (Gambetta)

Plyo Progression (Radcliffe)

Friday, June 14 – Flexibility

20 minutes at each station with a two-minute transition between stations

Functional Flexibility (Joe P)

Dynamic Flexibility Progressions (Radcliffe)

Using the Hex Bar (Fober)

Saturday, June 15 – Postural Strength

Two Stations of 25 minutes each

Reactive Core (Joe P.)

Core Modules (Gambetta)

Functional Training – Method or Madness? Part One

As someone who is considered the father of functional sports training I think it is time to revisit the concept in order to better understand it - Where did it come from, how it evolved, where it is today and where it is going. Functional training is a label for a concept. As with any label it is subject to various interpretations. I originally conceived it as multi lateral training integrating various training modalities (medicine ball, stretch cord, weight training, dumbbells, body weight etc.) to produce significant adaptation in specific performance parameters. It trains all systems of the body while recognizing and respecting the wisdom of the body. The end result is a highly adaptable athlete who is able to perform without limitations in the competitive environment. Contrast this to biased one- sided training that results in adapted athletes who are inconsistent in performance and prone to injury.

For me the concepts came together and solidified in the late 1980’s. I was alarmed at the biased one-sided training regimens that I saw being imposed on athletes. We were trapped in a reductionist, mechanistic approach that segmented the body into parts and separate systems. We were creating robotic athletes that were good in a sterile training environment but had difficulty transferring training to the sport. It was also clear to that if you are doing too much of one thing then you are probably not doing much of something else, it was a zero sum relationship. The result was an athlete fully adapted to that one component of training.

 

To thrive in the performance arena demands the polar opposite, a versatile highly adaptable athlete whose training is not biased, but reflects the demands of the sport and the needs of the individual athlete. The problem was the failure to recognize that for the body to execute movement, whether it is a sustained endurance activity, explosive bursts or fine motor skill that all parts and systems need to work together in harmony. Movement is s symphony not a solo. You can’t do a “cardio” workout, just like you can’t do a “neural” workout. You better hope every workout has a cardio vascular and a neural component, because all systems of the body work at all times with the demand on a particular system determined by the intensity of the activity. To continue the symphonic metaphor a section of the orchestra is featured or highlighted while the other parts of the orchestra are still playing, albeit in the background. Let's also give credit to the conductor; the brain, the muscles and all systems of the body are slaves of the brain. It is the brain that drives, connects and controls movements to enable us to accomplish the desired task. To use Tim Noakes term the brain is the "central governor." So we can’t lose sight of the whole, the big picture in the desire to understand the parts. What evolved as functional training gives the body credit for it’s inherent wisdom and it’s ability to learn to link, sync, connect and coordinate in order to play the beautiful movement symphony we call sports performance.

 

At the time I had been coaching close to twenty years and been exposed to many ideas and methods of training, some of which worked and some of which failed. I was at a stage in my career where I thought there had to be a better way, I realized a better way was an eclectic approach that combined my interpretation of sport science research, study in methods and concepts of rehabilitation coupled with my practical experience both as a coach and as an athlete. Someone labeled it “functional training” and the name stuck; to me it is just common sense training.

Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Three)

In 1973-74 while attending graduate school at Stanford University I also had the opportunity to coach the jumpers and decathletes. This gave the opportunity to apply what I had learned with more mature male athletes. It was also the opportunity to work with Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford who was a pioneer in weight training. He had worked with a man named John Jesse who authored many books on strength training for sport. Jesse was way ahead of his time in the application of strength training to prevention and rehabilitation of injuries. Doctor Wesley Ruff, my adviser, encouraged me to do research in the area of strength and power training, which I found very helpful. This helped me to better understand the scientific reasons for the things that I was observing as a coach and experiencing as an athlete.

In 1975 –77 coaching Track & Field and Cross Country at Santa Barbara high school was my first experience working with female athletes, I did not make distinctions as to gender, they were athletes. They strength trained with the boys. In fact we learned that the girl’s derived even more spectacular benefits than the boys and that they needed to continue their strength training throughout the season or the drop off would be dramatic. The Strength training was an important part of the program regardless of the event or gender.

A watershed moment for me came when I was coaching at Cal Berkeley in the spring of 1978. We were doing some research at Shriners Hospital biomechanics lab in San Francisco on my runners. It involved biomechanical analysis, EMG and force platform analysis. One day when I was at the lab I was introduced to a women, looking back, I would guess who was in her mid fifties at the time. Knott and Voss at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Oakland had trained her when they were doing their original research on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF). We talked for over an hour about the concepts of PNF.  Just like everyone else I had mistakenly thought PNF was a stretching technique when in fact it was a strengthening technique used to rehabilitate polio victims. The concepts stuck in my head. I began to research it more and came to the conclusion that the principles needed to be adapted to my strength training system. It was my venture outside the sagittal plane and the traditional lifting movements. It was something I continued to prefect over the next few years and I continue to use today. It literally opened up a whole new vista for me in regard to strength training. It became much less about how much an athlete could lift and much more on movement patterns with appropriate resistance.

Before the late 1970’s there did not seem to be distinctions between all the styles or schools of lifting. You just put together an eclectic program, you were not labeled a free weight guy, an Olympic lifting guy or a HIT guy, and you trained athletes. Two things changed this:

1) Olympic lifting ascendancy in the late 1970s that I believe resulted from the spectacular gains made by the Bulgarian weight lifters. The Bulgarian methods were thoroughly detailed by Carl Miller in his book “Olympic Lifting Training Manual.” The Olympic lifting movements had always played a major role in weight training for improving sport performance, but things seemed to change in the late seventies. There was an attempt to blindly copy Olympic lifting training protocols without any apparent regard to its relationship to the whole training program. Just because an Olympic lifter, who does nothing but lift, is able to lift up to five times a day does not mean that a football player or a basketball player can copy what they do. Different sport, different demands, different body proportions. Olympic lifting for sport performance is a means to an end. If you are an Olympic weight lifter then it is as end in itself, because those lifts are the performance standard.

2) The rise in popularity due to marketing in the mid 1970’s of a new machine oriented system based on a cam system that was invented by Arthur Jones. The Nautilus system based on eccentric loading and one set to failure. It was not that these were the first machines, but they were the first machines that were marketed with a training system and philosophy to back them up. It appealed to the American mentality of instant gratification. It was hard work, but it was over rather quickly. In addition because of the eccentric emphasis it was possible to gain hypertrophy rather quickly, which appealed to American football.

Things began to change rapidly with the advent of the full-time professional “Strength Coach.” In the seventies there were very few strength coaches at any level and if there were most of their attention was centered on football. In professional sport there were few fulltime strength coaches, in fact you count them on the fingers of one hand across all sports. In 1976 the Dallas Cowboys hired Bob Ward, who was the track coach at Fullerton College in California. He had a full time year around program that was backed by management so that the player’s had to comply. This was the exception, not the norm. Superior talent and genetics continued to prevail even into the late 1980’s. Not all the teams in professional football had fulltime strength and conditioning coaches. The advent of the strength coach in college and professional sport was like a good news bad news joke. The good news was that now there would be someone who whose sole responsibility was to condition the athletes. The bad news was that was that with the exception of those who had a track and field background they seldom got out of the weight room and all programs were derivatives or copies of the football program regardless of sport or gender.

Building & Rebuilding The Athlete Seminar DVD's

In 1992 I started teaching a seminar called Building and Rebuilding the Athlete. I taught the seminar on a regular basis from 1992 until 2005. It was a seminar/workshop that defined functional training and rehab and challenged conventional wisdom in those areas. The emphasis was on how all the components of training fit together to build a complete athlete who would be fully adaptable to the sport or activity they were training for. During that time virtually everyone who are now leaders in the field attended the seminar. I never videoed the seminar despite continued requests to do so. Fast-forward to Leeds in the UK this past November. I was invited by Brendan Chaplin, S&C coach at Leeds Metropolitan University to present the latest updated version of the Building and Rebuilding the Athlete seminar. It was a great audience and an outstanding venue. Brendan videoed the whole seminar and is offering it for sale. So finally the seminar is now available for all. To purchase the DVD’s go to: http://www.strengthandconditioningeducationonline.com/home/vern-gambetta

Here’s a list of the videos in the Building the Complete Athlete Series….THERE ARE 16 VIDEOS IN TOTAL!!!

• Introduction: In the video Vern sets the scene about his coaching and how you can apply the lessons he’s learned over the last 40 years.
• Building your Functional Framework: In this video Vern discusses developing your philosophy of coaching, what are we actually trying to do? How to get better as coaches and what our roles really are. This will get you thinking about your views on the matter.
• Coaching Nuts and Bolts: This video is all about how to coach, the art of coaching versus the science and Vern’s thoughts on this! You’ll become a better coach simply by watching this one video alone.
• Sport Demands: This video will teach you how to assess sports requirements and what you need to be looking for.
• Skill and Technique: This video will outline the importance of skill and technique and how this intertwines with physical development. You can’t build skill on poor physical competence base.
• Work Capacity Training: In this video you’ll learn about how to build work capacity in your athletes. Vern has some unique and key elements when it comes to this highly misunderstood area of our profession.
• Work Capacity Application: This video will teach you how to apply the concepts of the work capacity video. You need that theory but more importantly you need to know how to apply the theory to actually get those results.
• Physical Literacy: Everything starts with this, you must have it, and you must know how to assess and develop it. Learn how in this video.
• Physical Competency Assessment (PCA): Learn how to begin with your athletes with this assessment process. This starts the Building the Complete Athlete process!
• Periodisation Nuts and Bolts: This is all about planning. Where to put certain training units, and what you REALLY need to think about and include in your periodised plans.
• The Importance of Core Strength and Stability (2 videos): Vern discusses ‘Core Training’ in these videos and makes some extremely valuable statements about how to actually train the core. These could be the most valuable videos in the series!
• Multi Directional Speed and Agility Training: This practical video shows how Vern develops Gamespeed and movement qualities. You’ll pick up some superb drills and exercises to get your athletes moving well on the field or court they compete on. There’s also some key questions answered about what you can train and what you can’t!!
• Functional Strength Training: This video shows Verns’ progressions when it comes to strength training. Learn how he has achieved success in this area with pretty much every major sport in the US and at the highest level!
• Plyometrics: What they constitute, how to programme them, what not to do, and most importantly how to actually COACH them!
• In-Season Training: In this video you’ll learn about planning training for athletes in season. There are some major things to avoid and some big things that you need to include too. Volume and intensity are also covered in detail leaving you with a blueprint of how to get the best from your athletes or clients.

The La Cumbre Effect

For four years starting in 1969 I taught at La Cumbre Junior High School in Santa Barbara California. My first year I taught history and geography and coached track and cross-country, the next year I started teaching physical education. I taught five classes of physical education and coached cross-country and track at La Cumbre and I also coached the throws at a high school three days a week. Needless to say time was at a premium.

During this time I was also training for the decathlon. My aspirations certainly were not to be an Olympian, I was interested in getting better and learning all the events by doing them. I had not competed in track in college; I had played football as an offensive lineman. I had never done high jump, hurdles, discus, pole vault and javelin so I had to find a way to make up for what I had not done in college. I obviously did not have big blocks of time to train so I had to devise a system that would allow me to work on the events and my specific fitness and make it work with my schedule. I was inspired by Roger Bannister the first man to run under four minutes in the mile. He was in medical school and had one hour a day to train, I figured if he could do it, I could it. I had boundless energy, enthusiasm and youth on my side.

As I look back on those years I realize I was onto something. Necessity forced me to devise a system where I optimized the time that I had. I made my training sessions short, sharp and concentrated with very specific objectives that allowed me to make significant technical and specific fitness improvements. I improved my total score from 5100 points to 5884, really nothing to write home about except for the fact that I started decathlon at age 22. I also cannot minimize the positive residual effect of being on my feet teaching physical education all day. In the first three months of teaching physical education I dropped off some of my football weight and got down to a reasonable weight for the decathlon, I went from 194 pounds to 181 pounds.

Looking back on what I did through the prism of time I realize I probably should have cycled the work to include a bit more recovery, but hindsight is always twenty/twenty.

Here is my typical routine:

Monday & Thursday before school I would go to the gym and do two rope climbs, two rounds of pegboard, a routine on parallel bars and a routine on the pommel horse. I would teach my first period gym class and then run 600 meters at a brisk tempo and then do 6 x 100 meter hill sprints during my period off from teaching. If I had time I would sneak in a ten minute nap after that.

The other mornings before school I would do a ten to fifteen minutes static flexibility routine or in the fall two mornings I would do a 20 to 30 run at 6:15 AM.

Each day between classes there was a 15 minutes period where I worked on something related to an event. Between one period I would do a shot put drill, next period a discus drill, next period throw weight balls for javelin and next period something on pull-up bars working on pole vault.

In the afternoon when I was done coaching I would go to UCSB, usually around 4:30 PM and work on one event and then do a running workout. Two or three times a week depending on the time of the year I would then do a weight workout.

Over the years since then in my coaching I have utilized the La Cumbre training concept quite effectively. My schedule was a bit extreme since I was trying to make up for lost time having not competed in Track in college, but in extended competition season sports the La Cumbre effect has proven to be very beneficial not only to maintain key athletic qualities but also to build them in season. The moral of the story - short, sharp concentrated modules of training can be very effective if timed properly because training accumulates.

Thoughts on Plyometric Training – Part One

Plyometric training is based on the naturally occurring physiological phenomenon of the stretch shortening cycle of muscle action. It is training the stretch shortening cycle of muscle action to enhance the subsequent concentric action. The utilization of the stretch shortening is essential for efficient human movement. It is a quality of the muscle action that is highly trainable and adaptable. Over the years much confusion has arisen about this method of training. Much of the confusion has come from the name itself. It first appeared in coaching literature in the late 1960’s, but that is not when it was first used in training. Jumping, hopping, and bounding activities have been used throughout the ages, although it was not until the mid twentieth century that the use of these activities was systematically applied to athletic performance enhancement. It is scientifically accurate and more descriptive to call this method elastic/ reactive training but that is cumbersome, hence the term plyometrics is more commonly used. Elastic/ reactive training is certainly more descriptive of the goals of the training method and the physiological demands, because essentially we are training the elastic properties of the muscle to be more reactive to the ground.

The goals of Plyometric training are threefold: 1) First and foremost to raise explosive power. 2) To learn to better attenuate ground forces regardless of the event or sport. 3) To learn to be able to tolerate and use greater stretch loads, in essence to increase muscle stiffness.

The last point demands a bit more explanation. Musculotendinous stiffness is the key to elastic/reactive training. It is highly related to the body’s ability to store and reuse elastic energy from running and jumping. The concept of stiffness is sometimes confusing because we tend to equate stiffness with a lack of flexibility, for explosive movements this is not the case. Essentially a stiff muscle will develop a high degree of tension as it is stretched. This is very desirable to raise explosiveness. Conversely a non-stiff muscle will collapse and absorb elastic energy; it does not react as actively to the ground, therefore it will produce significantly less explosiveness. A simple analogy to help to understand stiffness is to compare a soft rubber playground ball and a golf ball. If both balls were dropped onto a hard concrete surface the golf ball would react rapidly and the playground ball would react slowly to the ground. In plyometic training in order to optimize ground reaction forces we want the golf ball type reaction. A stiff muscle is able to produce optimum amounts of reactive force in a short period of time.

Plyometric training is not a stand alone training method; it is highly compatible and significantly enhanced by strength training. It is also closely related to speed development. Most importantly it is NOT a conditioning tool! Because of the explosive nature of the work it is of high neural demand, therefore it should not be used for conditioning. It should almost never be trained in a climate of fatigue, with a few notable exceptions. Those exceptions are sports that demand power endurance like soccer, rugby, basketball, 400 meters or 400 meter hurdles. In those sports the fatigue element is only introduced after the technical component of the exercise is mastered. This will minimize risk of injury. The stimulus for adaptation is not volume it is intensity. Nothing should ever compromise the intensity of the movements. Too much emphasis has been placed on volume in terms of the number of contacts. Over the years as with a better understanding of the application of the method, the number of contacts in a training session and a microcycle has been significantly reduced. In the past it was not uncommon to see 300 – 400 contacts in a session, today a high volume session is in the range of 90 – 120 contacts with a range of 250 - 400 contacts for a microcycle. More is definitely not better. If used properly it is a highly effective tool to stimulate the nervous system, but if used improperly it can have the opposite and dull, if not deaden the nervous system.

Plyometric training consists of three very basic movements. Jumping characterized by two foot landings is the most fundamental. Hopping is characterized by one foot landing. Due to the fact that body weight is supported on one leg on landing makes hopping more stressful. Bounding is characterized by alternate leg takeoff. This is also quite demanding because all the bodyweight is supported on one in the landings. The complexity in Plyometric training comes from combining these movements and their derivatives.

Running Performance and Hamstring Injury Prevention: A Field Sport Model

Running Performance and Hamstring Injury Prevention:A Field Sport Model

  By Dean Benton, Athletic Performance Director, Brumbies

This is a very insightful and thought provoking article by Dean Benton, a colleague, GAIN Faculty member and Athletic Performance Director of Brumbies in Super Fifteen Rugby. Hopefully this brief overview will provide some food for thought and perhaps stimulate another look at the whole hamstring prevention, injury rehabilitation spectrum.

Athletic Development:

In recent years the speed at which AFL and both the Rugby codes is played at has increased considerably. As such, sprinting and repeat sprint demands have also increased across all football codes. Corresponding with these changes has been an increase in hamstring related injuries.

Aside from attempting to train athletic qualities to meet the demands of the game it is also a consideration to condition players for intense sprinting from an injury prevention standpoint. Not exposing players to rapid acceleration and high speed during a pre-season can actually be doing them a disservice.

Research has shown that the hamstring activity is not significant until speeds above 90% of maximum speed are attained (Kyröläinen, Komi, & Belli, 1999). Improvements in speed and adaptation to sprinting can take several months. A long-term, systematic and collaborative approach needs to be taken in preparing players for optimal running performance and injury prevention.

It is impractical to discuss running performance without considering strength training and vis-versa.  Both of these areas of athletic development should complement each other.

Technical Development:

Running technique training for all running sports should be fairly obvious, but the necessary attention to detail and the time required to carry this out puts coaches off.  In reality most field sport athletes can learn and get by with a rudimentary running technique. As mediocrity is habitually accepted, quite often a disproportional amount of training is directed to solely developing the energy systems in order to make performance gains. Ironically, a lack of attention to the mechanical aspects of running can result in athletes ‘leaking’ enormous amounts energy with every foot strike and overstriding - the latter of which puts the hamstrings in a vulnerable position at ground contact. Poor technique when running curves and angles will put more stress on the hamstrings because of the work they have to do in the transverse plane.

The primary difference between track athletes and field sports with regard to good or poor running technique is in lower limb mechanics. Efficient upper body technique (i.e. arm drive) can be resolved and taught quickly. The three main errors that occur from the waist down can be improved effectively within a team sport setting with running technique drills that involve no arms or placed overhead. An ancillary benefit of these running technique drills is that they improve general coordination and dynamic balance by default, which often transfers to more fluid running mechanics.

Functional Development:

Gait is the cornerstone of function. If an athlete has the ability to operate their musculoskeletal system efficiently they will tolerate greater stress, strain and load.

Hip mobility or a lack thereof is the genesis of many hamstring problems. Without proper hip mobility the leg will not be able to work through the full range of motion. This limitation will eventually lead to flawed mechanics - especially in a fatigued state.

The hamstrings do not work alone, they need help. In particular, the hip abductors play a major role in stabilization. If they are weak or not coordinated with the hamstrings more strain will be placed on the hamstring group. Excessive sway or lateral deviations that forces the synergistic stabilizing muscles to work too hard subsequently shifts more stress to the hamstrings (Gambetta & Benton, 2006).

The Mach series drills should rightly be placed in the functional development category. Particularly when they coached as resisted technique drills (as opposed to resisted running). They serve as tremendous developers of anterior hip ROM and specific posterior hip strength (stance leg), as well as facilitators of calf complex stiffness.  They do not necessarily improve running technique directly, but indirectly provide the means to express better technique.

Functional hamstring strength training should be seen as coordination training with resistance. Furthermore, choice of exercises needs to be based on how the hamstrings behave not based on anatomy (Bosch & Klomp, 2005).

References

Bosch, F and Klomp, R 2005. Running: biomechanics and exercise physiology in practice, Elsevier, London.

Gambetta, V., & Benton, D. (2006). A Systematic Approach to Hamstring Prevention & Rehabilitation. Sports Coach

Training Advice from the Culinary Arts

You never know where or when you will get training advice and information. Yesterday I was listening to one of my favorite programs on NPR, The Splendid Table (splendidtable.publicradio.org/) with Lynne Rosetto Kasper. The discussion was salt. They said that if the recipe called for salt and the proper amount was blended in then you did not notice the salt. However if too much slat was included or if it was excluded you noticed it immediately. What a great metaphor for the blend of the ingredients in training. If a training component is there and blended properly, included at the correct time in the process you never notice, everything is in sync. However if a component is out of proportion, i.e. to much speed, not enough strength then you notice immediately. If a component is left out then the whole training program is affected and you will know it. So don’t forget the salt, but remember to include just the right amount, not too much or too little and know when to add it in the cooking process.

20/10 x 5

When looking at the training of endurance sports of biking, distance swimming and distance running strength training is often an afterthought. A sound strength program has tremendous potential to improve performance and to prevent injury. If you think about the demands of endurance sports the goals of strength training are clear:

Swimming - To improve an athlete’s ability to streamline and to hold water

Cycling  - Maintain an aerodynamic position on the bike and producing maximum power per pedal stroke

Running - Improve ability to use the ground and be able to tolerate the amount of running necessary by avoiding impact injuries such as tendonitis.

These demands create a different approach to strength training. The strength goal is work on movements that improve posture and alignment. In swimming the goal should be to strengthen the core and legs and properly strengthen the upper body so that the athletes can improve their distance per stroke and achieve a better alignment in the water. In cycling, a large part of efficiency is to ability to hold an aerodynamic position, which demands a large amount of core strength, stability in the shoulders and obviously functional leg strength. In running, efficiency is a matter of optimizing stride length with stride frequency, and all require strength endurance.

There is a mistaken notion that one has to go to the gym to do strength training. No excuses, you don’t need a weight room, instead think of a “weight room without walls.” Equip the no wall weight room with a set of dumbbells of 10 to 25 percent of body weight; a sturdy box or bench 12 to 14 inches high; a 3 kg medicine ball and a stretch cord. With these items one can do anything you need to do to build functional strength for swimming, biking and running.

Since the great majority of endurance athletes do their sport on a part-time basis, time is of the essence. Therefore I suggest a simple program that consists of 20 minutes of strength training three times a week and two other days for ten minutes followed by extensive static stretching. The method requires a consistent application of a few exercises done with intensity. Break the strength-training menu into three different categories:

(1) Total body, which includes pulling/pushing movements and their variations done with dumbbells (i.e., dumbbell high pull, rotational snatch with one arm, etc.)

(2) Lower extremities, which is all derived from squatting movements, step-ups and lunges all done single leg or alternating legs;

(3) Upper body, which includes more body weight movements such as pull-ups, push-ups and their variations, and core strength work.

The 20-Minute Day - The selection of exercises includes two total body movements (done as an emphasis for the workout), one or two leg exercises with one or two upper body movements.

The 10-Minute Day - This is devoted to core strength development working on rotational movements. It is a misconception that since the movements of running and cycling is linear in nature that there is not a great deal of need for rotational movements. Quite the contrary, the control of rotational movements that is necessary in order to be more efficient. As the season progresses and the competition schedule increases in number and importance, this 20/10 x 6 can be reduced to two of 20 and three of 10.

It’s possible to do the strength training work pre-swim and not have it affect the quality of the swim workout. With cycling, if the workout calls for steady medium intensity, then some core and upper body work before hand can be beneficial. However, in running, because of the high eccentric component, you could do core work beforehand but total body, upper and lower body work would be not be advisable. The overriding principle is to never compromise the quality of the bike, swim or run as a result of a strength-training workout. Some of these considerations are also dependent upon an athlete’s training age and background. Another option is doing a strength workout early in the day and the swim, bike or running workout in the afternoon as a way to address the problem of getting the workout done.

20/10 x 5 - Twenty minutes three times a week and ten minutes two times a week, a simple formula to better injury free performance.

Thoughts on Flexibility

Seldom does a flexibility deficiency appear in isolation; it is usually related to a deficiency in strength and sometimes posture. The qualities of flexibility and strength are closely related. Many times the so-called “tight” individuals can significantly improve flexibility by undertaking a good sound balanced strength-training program. 

In terms of training, flexibility is considered a separate training unit. It should be addressed daily. Like any other training component, variation must be programmed into the flexibility routines. Flexibility is not warm-up! It is part of warm-up, nor is it is not the major focus in the warm-up. As a separate training unit to address specific deficiencies flexibility is best placed after warm-up.  The rule of thumb to remember is warm-up to stretch, do not stretch to warm-up. My experience has shown static stretching is best placed at the end of the workout as part of a cool down. Placed there it serves to restore the muscles to their resting length which will reduce soreness and enhance recovery for the next workout. 

For optimum results flexibility exercises in the warm-up should be active to facilitate the excitation of the nervous system to create a readiness for movement. The tempo of the stretches used in warm-up is stretch – hold one count – relax and repeat three times and then move onto another body part. The purpose of stretching in warm-up is neural activation. Passive or static stretching has a relaxing, calming effect. That is appropriate for the cool down or in a recovery

Deficiencies in range of motion can be remedied quite quickly, but sufficient work must be done to maintain those gains and to make sure those gains transfer to the activity. There are many tools to improve flexibility. The most available and adaptable tool is gravity. It is always available, easy to use, convenient and effective. A balance point in the form of a rail, hurdle, or a bench can help to enhance gravity. Towels or ropes can be used to gain a lever advantage as an aid to stretching.

I have found it most effective to work on flexibility several times a day in shorter sessions these sessions should be designed to meet the individual athlete’s needs. Vary the duration of the stretch. For developmental stretching hold the end position in a range of time from ten to thirty seconds. Repeat the stretch three to five times.

Although not substantiated by research, my experience has shown that stretching for 15-20 minutes approximately two hours after the last workout of the day to be very effective in terms of reducing soreness and enhancing recovery as well as making noticeable range of motion gains. 

According to Thomas Kurz: “Flexibility Training is speed-specific because there are two kinds of stretch receptors, one detecting the magnitude and the speed of stretching, the other detecting magnitude only.  Static stretches improve static flexibility and dynamic stretches improve dynamic flexibility, which is why it does not make sense to use static stretches as a warm-up for dynamic action.”

The amount of work (time devoted) to maintain flexibility is significantly less than the amount of time needed to develop it.

In dynamic flexibility work there are no sudden movements; the movements are controlled and flowing. Dynamic flexibility work will improve elasticity of muscles and ligaments. It consists of arm swings, leg swings, trunk rotations, reaches and bending to stimulate blood flow and wake up the nervous system.

Static stretches should follow dynamic stretches. Static stretching can be counter productive if placed before a workout requiring explosiveness, speed or agility. Immediately following static stretching the muscles are less responsive to stimulation and coordination is thrown off. Static stretches interfere with the activity of tendon reflexes. This underscores the importance of carefully choosing the type of flexibility to be used relative to the type of workout. This is all part of a good plan.