Balanced Training - Avoid Becoming a One Trick Pony

Avoid becoming a one trick pony with a balanced training approach

In the world of performance enhancement there seems to be a constant clamoring by different camps about whose method of training is the best and which one promotes the most optimal training results.  One camp argues that maximum strength is the most important factor in developing an athlete.  They may have a point, as training with heavy loads has been shown to enhance force production capabilities (McBride, Triplett-McBride, Davie and Newton, 2002).  Others argue that more emphasis should be placed on explosively moving lighter loads to develop powerful muscular contraction and speed of movement.  They too have a strong basis for their claims as research has revealed that training with less load at high speeds can in fact have a favorable effect on muscular force, power and in particular velocity generation (McBride et al., 2002).  Then there are those who insist that the only way to athletic excellence is by way of performing overhead single leg squats on a stability ball, unequally weighted, while reciting the alphabet backwards with one eye closed.  I’m not entirely sure what the justification is for this training methodology.  Maybe if you don’t hurt yourself in the gym while performing the workouts, the odds are probably good that your particular sporting endeavor likely won’t throw anything that crazy your way, and therefore injury is less probable and performance is enhanced. 

 

All jokes aside, the point I’m trying to get at is that properly developing an athlete takes multiple forms of training stimulus.  Sports require a balanced athlete who to one degree or another can display strength, power, speed and agility all while remaining relatively healthy.  Remember, the most explosive and powerful athlete does little to impact contest outcomes if relegated to the sideline due to injury (please don't skimp on any prescribed prehab work, it's programmed for a reason so get it done).  To that end, well balanced training leads to well balanced athletes.  In my opinion, we need to be careful about eliminating things like maximal strength training to focus solely on speed of movement or vice versa.  This type of practice may lead to enhanced performance in one athletic attribute while simultaneously negatively impacting another that was more strongly developed through the eliminated mode of training.   Much like everything else in life, when there are opposing views and each is achieving desirable results, finding a middle ground where pieces of every viable option can be included often generates the most fruitful outcomes.  As world renowned spine expert, Dr. Stuart McGill once stated,  "Never get married to a philosophy. As soon as you know it all, shake your head because you are probably missing something."

 Three things that I believe should be included in every athletes gym program

1. Explosive Work / High Velocity Muscular Contration -This can take many forms including plyometric work (broad jumps, squat jumps, box jumps, bounding, power skips, etc), Olympic lifts (clean, snatch, clean and jerk), Olympic lifting variants (high pull, push press, hang clean, dumbbell snatch, power clean, etc), dynamic effort work, accommodated resistance training (properly administered band and chain work).  

Please, for the love of Pete, if you are going to use or program the Olympic lifts as your primary power development tool, take the time to read and learn how to do / coach them properly.  These exercises are very technique driven and require well developed mobility and stability throughout the entire kinetic chain.  The Olympic lifts are a sport in and of themselves.  Athletes who train in the art of weightlifting (Olympic lifting), do so in the manner in which any other athlete would to perfect their craft.  They hone their skills daily.  Yes they develop exceptional power, but they do so in a safe and progressive manner by taking time to perfect technique early on in the process.  Now, this is not to say that I expect my field sport athletes to display the same outstanding technique as a seasoned Olympic lifter.  However, I do feel they should be able to at least exhibit enough competence in a given movement to strike a clear  balance between potential risk of injury and athletic performance reward.

2. Pure Strength Work - This one is relatively simple.  Athletes, regardless of their code, need to lift heavy at least some of the time.  When I say "lift heavy", I'm refering to weights which hold them between 1 and 5 repetitions on a given set (with the maintenance of proper form of course).  I had a football coach in high school who loved the saying "never sacrifice form for ego".  If I took nothing else away from our time together, it was that saying and the advice remains sound.  If the form looks like crap, then we shouldn't be impressed with the weight on the bar, period.

3. Prehab / Injury Minimization Work - I use the term injury minimization here because I feel the more popular "injury prevention" represents a non-reality.  In athletics, injuries will inevitably occur.  There are just too many variables to be accounted for to say that any training concept will completely erase all risk.  With that said, an abundance of studies have shown promise for the inclusion of injury prevention strategies, making it clear that proper training can help to minimize injury risk. Every athlete should be working on joint stability, proprioception, mobility and tissue quality to some degree during every training session.  This can include things like single leg / arm training, unilateral loading concepts, joint specific stability drills, mobility drills and self myofascial release techniques.  I'm a big fan of including these exercises during the rest periods of the programed major lifts to limit wasted time.  

Mark Frens - An adjunct professor with Grand Valley State University while I attended (and a strength coach for the Minnesota Twins minor league programs) was and is a huge advocate for single leg training and the enhanced athletic stability provided by such work.  Mark's concepts and ideas helped me learn to think outside the proverbial box.

Upper Left - Wall ankle mobilization, Upper Right - Third world squat for hip mobility, Bottom Center - Single leg multi-point reach for integrated hip, knee and ankle stability / proprioception.  If some of these exercise / techniques look similar to something one might see in a physical therapy rehabilitation setting, it is because this is where the ideas were likely derived. Hence the term prehabilitation.

References:

McBride, J. M., Triplett-McBride, T., Davie, A. and Newton R. U. (2002).  The effect of heavy-vs. light-load jump squats on the development of strength, power, and speed.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 16(1), 75-82.

Psyching-Up: Temperament and Personality

One of my favorite things to do in the local big box style gyms is to people watch.  Sometimes my watching serves a purpose.  For example, I might watch someone perform a movement or exercise and use it as something of an informal case study, completing mental repetitions in screening and cuing techniques.  In other cases, I might just be interested in whether or not someone is going to successfully achieve a lift.  However, the vast majority of the people watching I do in the gym is simply to observe all of the crazy, self-invented exercises (if they actually qualify as such) people are performing at any given moment.

People make me smile.  Moving on, something that I’ve always found interesting during my people watching safaris is how different people interact in the gym.  Some are the social butterfly type. These people usually show up with at least one other person, stop to talk to everyone and their brother, including nearby strangers and prefer to make a social event out of their visit.  On the other hand you have the loner type.  This individual often trains alone (sometimes with a partner), always has headphones in and avoids outside contact at all cost.  One seems to feed off the interaction the gym provides, while the other seeks to enjoy a more solitary experience.

Myself, I fall into the latter category.  I’m really a bit of a hermit when it comes to training.  I would much rather train alone in my garage than head to the local gym.  Something about working out and spending some good quality time in my own head, with minimal outside distractions, always trumped a workout in a more social atmosphere for me.  I never really understood why that was, nor had I ever put much thought into it, until a couple of weeks ago.

My recent Christmas haul included a few books, who am I kidding, it was almost all books.  I’m a bit of a nerd at heart. I can embrace that.  Most of these books revolve around training methodology, anatomy or physiology but there were a few that dealt with other matters.  One such book, titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, did well to shine some light on my exercise preferences. 

Anatomy joke for the nerd in all of us

Throughout Cain’s book, she examines a number of studies dealing with the science and psychology surrounding personality and temperament; specifically introversion and extroversion.  Of particular interest was a chapter in the book revolving around the work of developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan.  Kagan’s work, a longitudinal study which began in 1989 and is still ongoing today, has been tracking inborn reactivity traits determined during infancy in 500 individuals.  What has been found through this particular study explains a lot.

Kagen’s hypothesis was that he would be able to successfully determine which infants would grow up to become introverted individuals and which infants would become extroverted individuals, simply based on their reaction to new stimuli at 4 months of age.  Infants who reacted calmly to new stimuli (popping balloons, bright colors, strong smells, new people and things) were categorized as low-reactive and believed to be likely to grow into extroverted personality types. Those infants who reacted strongly to new stimuli (cried, flailed about, etc) were labeled as high-reactive and likely to become introverted personality types.  I know, it seems a bit backwards at first, but when you think about it a little more deeply it begins to make a lot of sense.

What was being observed was essentially the underlying early underpinnings of the ability of one to cope with something like walking onto a stage to give a speech to a large group of unknown people.  Those who fall further toward the low-reactivity end of the spectrum will likely feel little stress from this situation and may very well feed off the stimulus provided and emerge feeling full of energy (extroverted personality type).  On the other hand, those who find themselves closer to the high-reactivity end of the spectrum may still be able to perform the task of delivering the speech with a high degree of success; however, because of having to deal with their body’s relative inability to shrug off the extra stimulation, they are likely to come away feeling wiped out and in need of some down time to re-charge (introverted personality type).

Jerome Kagen - Psychologist and former Harvard professor.  Kagen's work earned him the honor of being listed as the 22nd most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

 So what does any of this have to do with physical performance, health, fitness or anything of the like?  Simple, for those who fall toward the introverted end of the spectrum (high reactive), you will likely be prone to enhanced mental health, energy and well being through spending time in a more solitary environment (or at least in one where unwanted stimulus can be easily blocked out or toned down) and zapped of energy / stressed by one of too much social stimulation.  Those in the other camp (extroverted personality / low-reactive), you will gain energy from and thrive in more social atmospheres while consequently being drained, board by and / or stressed by more solitary endeavors.  Determining where you stand from a personality perspective may allow you to manipulate your training environment to allow for a more pleasurable experience.

Now I’m not advocating that the introverted personality type cancel their gym membership and invest in a home gym, or that the extroverted individual who has something good going on at home immediately head to their local fitness center.  Instead, I’m suggesting that if you are currently finding your gym experience less than invigorating on a regular basis, or are struggling to sustain consistency, you might try tapping into your innate temperament to evoke improvement in the situation. 

Introvert

For the introverted types, experiment with things that allow you to avoid outside intrusion into your hang-out-session with your psyche.  Try wearing headphones if you don’t already, figure out the quiet times at the local gym and work to schedule your training sessions accordingly, or find a facility in the area with lower traffic volumes. 

Extrovert

For the extroverted individual, try joining a gym, visit a group based training environment (running, biking, lifting club, etc) in your area, or find a couple of like minded training partners and schedule to meet at a predetermined location and train together. 

 

If you find yourself wondering which end of the personality spectrum you naturally lean towards, I would suggest checking out Cain’s book for yourself.  It’s an interesting and relatively easy read.  Included within the text are a number of simple self evaluations that will help you determine the answer.  For those of you that are interested, I’ve included a link to Quiet below.  Happy Training.

Run Fast to Run Fast....Wait, What?

Ask any number of field or court-sport athletes (think football, soccer, rugby, basketball, baseball, etc) if being faster would be valuable to their success in their chosen sport code, and I’m confident that not a single one would answer you with a “no”. However, the baby who continually turns down 50% more cash from Capital One, that may be an entirely different story (her parents must be so proud).  Now ask that same group of athletes to provide you with the best method for attaining that sought after speed, and the answers are likely to be much less homogenous.

The one commonality between the answers you received would almost assuredly be the inclusion of some sort of speed training gadget or tool.  From parachutes, to weighted vests,to giant bungee cords, to elaborate banding systems, tools designed to make humans run faster have become one of the hottest training commodities out there; and athletes have been more than happy to indulge in their use.  This borderline fanaticism over these products appears to be justified, as multiple research studies have found the use of these often pricey training aids to be capable of enhancing running speed. 

(My personal favorite option for improving an athlete's speed)

So what about those athletes who are not fortunate enough to have the means to purchase one of these tools on their own, finance a membership at a speed training facility, or attend a school or university who sees value in strength and conditioning and provides funding to a well rounded sport conditioning program?  Are they simply doomed to a life of mediocre speed development? In short, no way Jose.

(Jose.....Yeah, he wasn't what I expected either)

While it may be true that the use of many of these training aids has shown to be effective in improving speed, another very interesting finding was recently reported last year as a part of a literature review published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning.  What was this finding you ask?  Well, it appears as though one incredibly cheap alternative consistently matches or exceeds the results attained through the speed training aids.  This alternative, it’s commonly called a piece of flat ground.

 

No need to reread the previous sentence; it was not a figment of your imagination. Simply going out and sprinting has been found (on multiple occasions) to be equally capable of improving sprint performance when compared to the use of training aids such as parachutes, resistance bands and the like.  To be fair, one study examined within the review, which included works spanning from 1970 – 2010, did find some evidence that resisted sled pushes improved initial acceleration beyond that of a sprint only group.  So if you do have some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket and you also harbor aspirations of becoming a faster human, a weighted sled would be the supplemental aid that I would invest in.  Beyond that, it appears as though there is no vastly superior substitute to finding some open space and running fast.