Also, on the throws. Try to stick with throws for height or throws forwards. Most of the time when people do overhead backwards throws, they use their lower back way too much. At best, it leads to suboptimal development of the glutes/hamstrings and at worst it leads to hyperextended backs. Make sure they are very well coached if you do them or just stick with throws for height–a lot easier to teach.
Well, you need to do speed work, so this is just going to keep the numbers even lower. I wouldn’t just to 10-20 yards. I would go out to at least 30 yards and probably some 40-50 yard sprints as well. Everyone talks about how they only sprint to 10-20 yards at a time, but that isn’t going to build up any sort of speed reserve nor will it develop much speed for upright running (while they may only have 10-20 yard bursts, these are done upright, while acceleration to 10-20yards in training will be with a significant lean).
OK cool. I just found out she has practice twice a week on Tues/Thurs and the occasional game on Saturdays. Her practices usually run 1.5-2 hours, and they do some “light fitness” stuff i.e. shuttles, etc. How frequent would you include speed work into this type of training week? Volumes?
8lbs is about as heavy as I would go with a female like you describe. If you have something that is 4lbs, that would work great as well. I often use balls in the 8-12lb range and I am going to take a stab in the dark and say I am much larger and stronger than she is ;), so don’t be afraid to mix in light throws as well.
Haha yeah I agree. I have a 6 lb ball that I will probably start her with. And will mix in the 8 lb ball depending on how she does with the lighter one first.
A 7 day taper in a sprinting sense generally means an acutely larger and/or more intense training load followed by a drop in volume/intensity/and or frequency to try to achieve a rebound in performance (along with a longer term drop in overall training volumes).
Gotcha. I was always aware generally of what a taper entails, but never really put it into place with a non-track athlete. Thanks for the clarification.
With a team sport athlete, this wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Now, I would drop volumes a little bit as you get very close and make sure she is sharp on everything. I would definitely drop and serious strength or conditioning sort of work right before as it isn’t going to do her much good. Low volume speed work and MB/plyo work combined with very mild “conditioning” work (just enough to get the blood flowing and keep the athlete from getting some kind of acute relieving) should be plenty the last 7-10 days before. Make sure she does things that make her feel confident and ready to go. Since she should be easily in PR shape, hitting PRs on short sprints, throws, jumps, and even moderate strength work can all be good. Just make sure she is confident because if you could just get her to play more confident with nothing else she’ll probably do much better.
Cool, thanks again for your help. I definitely feel this training will help her confidence on the field.
I’ve noticed that too. I had some athletes this summer that could not grasp the OHB throw without using low back too much, yet all other throws they could do. Good tip!
Use a 4-6lb ball, most girls are too weak for a 6-8lb ball and the drill will turn into a strength movement vs explosive movement.
I would use the 4-5 lb ball, but I don’t have access to anything lighter than 6 lbs at the moment.
Like you mention before keep it simple, I love training female athletes because no matter what I do they always respond well to my training. I agree with the poster above don’t keep yourself in the 10-20yd range for speed I would extend out to 50-60, also since you only have 6 weeks you may want to keep the reps in the 6-10 zone - sub max.
She’s very novice with weights, would you start out with bodyweight only the first few weeks? Also, we will have about 9 weeks of total training time, not 6.
And I will def extend the distances out longer. Would you post an example session of speed work with resistance training and throws for this type of athlete in my given situation? Thanks man.
Volumes are always going to vary as some athletes can tolerate a lot, some can’t. Some get injured easily and some are extremely durable.
I think sprinting twice a week should be fine, but just be careful. If you have to warm-up on the concrete, your sprint volume is going to be lowered even more.
To start off with, I would normally do something like 10x10-15m from a lying start. I am not sure how viable that is in your situation, but it can often be a good starting point. The volume there is really low, but is a start and you can begin to either extend the reps or increase the number. Typically, breaking it into something like 5x10m, 5x20m would be the next progression and slowly extending it (perhaps 4x10, 3x20, 3x30 would be next, etc.) as I felt necessary and useful. Vary the starting positions as much as possible
You could start out with some body weight training but with the short training block I probably would start out with higher reps while teaching proper tech with an increase vol of GS circuits etc at the end of each strength training workout. Sample Strength Training:
Mon/Fri:
Power clean
Back squat
Bench press+db row
Rdl
Gs circuits A/B
Wed:
Clean Pull
Sled pulls 6x20
Rev lunges
Db incline press+pullups
Rev hypers
Gs Circuits C/D
Tamfb–
Do you think it is useful to do Olys and their variations working with an athlete from scratch if you have such a limited time frame? You set-up looks good for an athlete who has some time to train substantially or has already had a good background, but I’m not sure I’d throw and untrained girl into that unless it was really easy (and treating the weights almost like they were an easy GS/BB circuit).
GS circuits stuff like light bb type exercises for 1-2 sets of 10 each I’m guessing? And with this short of time to teach, would you prefer to teach this athlete snatch over clean?
How frequent would you include speed work in a 3 day training week (MWF)? I’m thinking twice a week would be plenty with her given practice schedule.
It really depends on the athlete, I have had success teaching a multi sport freshman high school female athlete the power clean in only a couple sessions. So in this case I probably would have taught her the power clean this week before starting her training. This is the teaching progression I like to use with success.
- Free standing Squat
- Front Squat
- Back Squat
- Rdls
- Hang Shrug
- Hang Shrug Jump
- Hang Clean
- Clean Pull
- Power Clean
Remember she is a not a weight lifter, so if we can get her to be 80% proficent then I think it’s good.
We will most likely warm up inside the facility where at least the flooring is a bit softer (rubber mats). Might have to do her drills on concrete; there is a small patch of grass next to the concrete but it’s a bit sketchy; has some holes in it (damn gophers!!).
Yes, I am a fan of DP GS circuits tons of bw and mb drills.
I think 2 days of speed is plenty.
I perfer the clean myself, has she ever clean or snatch before?
I don’t think she has much experience lifting weights, let alone the olympic lifts. What do you think?
If you have any doubts then don’t use them. I had a basketball athlete join last weekend, I taught him my clean progression in one hour and the following week we started training the clean, it’s a working progress but his tech is solid and safe enough at this point. Some athletes are athletic enough to pick up the progression fast and some are not.
In this situation I would avoid complex lifts. They aren’t so valuable that they couldn’t be replaced with something else (like med ball work) here.
I’ll assess it on Monday and go from there. Thanks for your help!
play it safe and keep:
1: speed work
2: throws
3: unweighted jumps
4: weighted jumps
I wouldn’t worry about the ol’s. With the amount of time you have and with the new things you have plan, I would keep the ol’s out it would be one less thing she would have to adjust to.
Those are my two cents.
Thanks for the input. I think I will opt to not use the olympic lifts for this situation. With the time frame given, I just don’t see it being practical.
Do you guys feel with her given practice schedule (Tues/Thurs) that speed work on Monday/Friday will still suffice/be productive without compromising recovery from practice sessions, etc?
I also found out she has prior groin injury that happened around April-May… I will make up the draft tomorrow and post it for anyone that would like to critique.