Not sure if this is the thread for talking about caffeine, it’s been discussed quite a bit on the forum elsewhere, but…
From what I’ve read, caffeine helps performance if used intermittently, but not if used all the time. I know one of Canada’s top sp[rinters in 96’ used to take 400mg or caffeine before a race (with L-Tyrosine and I think something else…all perfectly legal). I would let my athletes use caffeine before competitions, but with a few of them it made them too nervous and as a result they lost their appetite and wouldn’t eat before their races, and they would run tight, not relaxed.
OK yeah sorry if I changed the thread topic, I was just thinking about it after reading NumberTwo’s original post on doing what is necessary in order to run fast in training itself.
Because it’s a diuretic, it can block mineral absorption and of course, affect sleeping patterns. I am sure other members of the forum can be more scientific on this, but as a general strategy I would go with Herb here.
Lyle, one of my professors alluded to the duiresis effect of caffeine the other day. She lectures to the med school and used to be a clinical dietician. She doesn’t believe in the mantra of the usual dietician. She said she laughs when people tell her you can’t count coffee or tea toward your daily fluid intake goals due to diuresis. She was like what the hell do you think tea or coffee are 99% water. I doubt the diuresisis very much at all. I would be leery of using it all the time, but when one really needs a kick in the pants, I see nothing wrong with caffeine. As far as your comments Number Two, they are well heeded and well respected.
I stopped drinking coffee for the last three months because it seemed to make me irritable. Now I sleep much better as well. However, my kids passed on their cold to me this past week and having a tall coffee in the morning certainly jump-starts my engine during these low periods. I am likely caffeine-sensitive and avoid higher amounts on a regular basis. But when I can use a ‘lift’ a stiff dose does wonders.
Probably best to follow the same infrequent dosage pattern with athletes, topping up during low periods, key workouts or competitions.
I agree whole heartedly. You see everybody and their brother using preworkout mixes these days. I related the experience of taking Jackd where I almost blacked out on incline with 335lbs. Midway through set, I thought I was going. I once drank an Endorush when I was dog tired at 10 am. I didn’t sleep for somewhere in the vicinity of 40+ hours; never again. I even watched the Notebook at 3 am. No luck, I dont know if the movie made me sad or no sleep. Haha! I use things for a jolt when I need it. I hate depending on anything, especially with athletes.
It was my impression the original post (on the caffeine topic) was referring to training in general and not a single workout; perhaps I am wrong. As for the rest of your points, they are noted and I agree on one-off situations, as others have stated.
It’s important to consider the fact that squatting and jump squatting motions aren’t biomechanically similar to sprinting so the correlation with advanced athletes may be relatively weak.
Squats imo are a great general strength exercise. Good for increasing growth harmone output and strengthening stabilization muscles. What sprinter doesnt need that?
Very little I see in the weight room translates directly to the field in any manner. The game is played at speeds far above any thing that can be replicated in the weight room. I use weights as a very general adaptive tool. Develop a quality that can be converted positively in your given endeavor and disregard all the BS that doesn’t help achieve that goal. Yes, there are things that can be much more specific, but nothing is like playing the sport(i.e. running 95%+).
Probably the thing that I see in programming that irritates me to no end is redundancy of exercise selection. Something like Bench Press, followed by Dumbell Bench press, followed by incline press, etc. I try to work as effieciently as possible. Max stimulus, minimum exposure. Did Florida workout with my kids on a trash week. One of the kids is going to Florida in June. They weren’t even tired. The one father remarked that they are usually pretty sweaty and tired by 50 mins. That is on 1/3 the volume. I try to remember they play football, not weight lift. If it isn’t improving them, don’t do it. Simple words I live by.
Yes I have…interesting read and some good info as far as correlations between exercises and sprints, jumps, and throws. Overall good read but wouldnt say you would be missing out if you didnt read it.
At a strength and condititioning clinic I was at, the very 1st NFL strength coach Kim Wood said it best, IF I DONT SEE IT ON SUNDAY I WONT DO IT ON TUESDAY. Same point I tell my guys, DONT DO USELESS STUFF.
We used coffee routinely and so did many of the athletes Charlie worked with. Some people like myself are very sensitive to the benefits of caffine.
You need to treat it for what is and deal and account for the side effects of each individual.
For some it can be very useful for training and others they like the taste but it has no effect good or bad.
I used it for speed days and especially when I was going to go fast. But I needed to cycle the caffine and make sure the work load was high enough ( for examle my work load is not high enough now to justify working it out of my system) to get rid of it so I could begin the recovering the minute I finished my speed work.
Typically we did speed MWF and those were my coffee days.
Tue/THu and Sat were tempo days and I spent them recovering and preparing for speed.
Not everyone benefits or responds to caffine the way I was able to enjoy and use it.
I agree, the redundancy is something I see all too frequently as well. Too many presses for sure are common but I have also seen programs where three different squats were done in the same session. I think at times it is simply a lack of not only knowledge but also confidence that one major exercise for a compound movement might just be enough for the athlete-enough to do the trick. Instead there is overkill.
Last year I saw a program for an SEC school’s baseball program and in it there were four exercises that hit the hams/glutes/lower back pretty significantly in one single session. It had good mornings, glute ham raises, RDL, and reverse hypers. While, relatively speaking, those areas were probably undertrained by many athletes over the years, how many exercises should one do in a single session? Certainly those exercises don’t provide identical stress to those muscle groups but why not wait for a later block or phase to incorporate some of those exercises rather than doing them all at one time?
In the program with good mornings, glute hams, etc. there were a total of about 12 exercises in the session though even for major exercises like back squats, no warm-ups were indicated. Why that many exercises in a single session?