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.
There are certainly benefits that translate, but it is not specific with respect to the kinetics and kinematics of sprinting.
Has anyone read Transfer of Training, by Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk? I’m looking for a copy of the book, but it’s kind of expensive.
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.
How can you say that? Explosive strength, increased body mass? You do coach football, right? Where do you coach again?
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?
I agreee Pioneer. I just don’t see how these guys justify all the redundant volume. It borders on overkill. I try to make sure that nothing is getting to far out of balance. I was working with one of my guys who plays with 49ers and noticed he was developing an alarming degree of internal rotation. I showed him how this altered his arm swing in sprints. He is a 4.35 guy, so his game is speed. I will get to do quite a bit to fix that as it looks like CBA is going to expire. No team contact for a while so I can help him get straight.
What I was alluding to is very little in the form of exercise selection is that specific when it comes to weight training. To me organism strength is not specific. It needs to be honed into specific qualities through plyos, speed work, skill work, etc. Just being strong to me isn’t a direct effect on performance. I have played with guys weak as kittens who were absolute beasts on the field. I have seen many a weight room hero who played like a zero. I just think that you will always end up disappointed if you are looking for an exercise in the weight room that has a direct and specific translation to the sport. Thats just my feeling. Sport is played at such a higher speed than any lift.
The growth hormone output is pretty low and in my opinion sometimes the squat can actually impair a good stabilization (it heppened to me, for some reason poor glute medius “activation” --> poor pelvic stability). I know you were talking in general, of course, and in general I agree.
Kelly Johnson who built the plane in my avatar (SR-71) had the same philosophy. He said he tried to find the most simple solution to a problem.
Skunk works…
Hell yea. I got to book and read it. It was a fascinating read. From my understanding it’s a must read for CEO’s, entry CIA agents and business tycoons.
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
At the same time it’s a sad read because I don’t believe that America will ever be as technology advanced as it was during the 1950/60’s.
Anyhow back on topic… sorry for the detour.
At the small skill positions, maybe. Speed is definitely king there. But the strength used to hold a block or push through a block or tackle, are much longer than GCT in a sprint. And this doesn’t even touch on the development of body mass. Bigger, stronger and faster, not just faster,is what wins football games. Our high school (Coppell, TX) lost one game this year, late in the playoffs. We lost to the #1 team in the nation, Euless Trinity, by one point. They were not more skilled, we were. They were not quicker or faster, we were. They did not have a better game plan, we did. They beat us by pushing our butts down the field old school, overpowering our line and running over our linebackers. Size and strength matters, and you can definitely improve both in the weight room.
I agree whole heartedly. Trust me, my kids are big and strong and I don’t just worry about speed. I think it is a collision sport and strength helps as much as speed. What I was saying was in response to saying squat doesn’t have a direct translation to ability to run, etc. It to me is an indirect relationship. Just because one squats more doesn’t necessarily translate into more speed. It builds strength, hypertrophy, MUA, etc. Unless these are honed, just being strong alone doesn’t make one good. I was just commenting to the post saying very little you do in the weight room is going to translate directly to sport as it pertains to the movement alone. The qualities developed certainly transfer, if they are transferred to the sports requirements. Obviously, at some point getting stronger or more powerful is going to give diminishing returns on investment, as increasing strength may only deliver a tiny gain in on field ability. Then it isn’t worth the effort to develop that characteristic any further.
Transfer of Training by Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk.
Free Download: http://hotfile.com/dl/742888/6a17652/Transfer.of.Training.in.Sports.pdf.html
Thanks RR. I managed to find a copy already. Looks like an interesting
Read.
Fair enough. However I definitely feel that a combination of resistance work, sleds, hills, and plyos do a lot to improve the first 20-30m of an athlete’s sprint. Maybe not Max V, but improving speed in the first 20-30m is very significant in football.