Ever since I discovered my dad’s concrete and plastic “K-Mart” weight set in the basement when I was an eighty pound adolescent, I have been obsessed with feats of strength, particularly those that would make me a better athlete.
I’ve been lifting weights for over twenty years now, and coaching athletes in the craft for the last ten. In the process, I’ve found some truths that stick with me whenever I sit down to write an athletic based training program.
Here are three of those truths to help your mindset in what makes a great performance training program:
- Use ballistic work to improve your weight room numbers
- Move better in the weight room to dominate the field
- Utilize multiple types of muscle contractions in the weight room to get strong and explosive
Let’s get to it!
Use ballistic work to improve your weight room numbers
Athletes are wired for explosive movement. In a vertical jump, the instantaneous muscle recruitment of the hips, knees and ankles is actually beyond what is recruited in a maximal squat attempt.
Although brief, the maximal recruitments that occur during displays of explosive power are huge for helping athletes to realize their full spectrum of strength potential. It is not uncommon at all for sprinters to attain their highest power clean of the year in the middle of the competitive season, where they are sprinting hard a lot, and lifting less often. The explosive glute stimulus of sprinting aids hip extension in the Olympic lifts.
With that in mind, you’ll need a training program that marries ballistic training with barbell training in a way that delivers maximal gains to both worlds. Haphazardly applying plyometrics into a training regime can yield unfortunate results. When intense plyometrics are cycled in and out in a proper manner, the effects on lifting can be dramatic.
I’ve learned by trying nearly all training configurations available that many athletes need high intensity plyometrics somewhere in the mix to be at their highest levels of absolute strength-to-bodyweight strength ratio, which means a more powerful and durable athlete.
A popular Soviet study on volleyball players showed that a depth jump training program improved athlete’s maximal strength by 14%, in addition to explosive power benefits.
Move better in the weight room to dominate on the field
In terms of athletic output athletes who respond better to barbell training are those are have better athletic positions, posture and firing patterns in the course of the lifts than athletes who struggle to dominate on the field.
Characteristics of athletes who are hitting that point of diminishing returns in the weight room are things like:
- Strained neck and jaw muscles
- Underutilization of glutes in common lifts
- Compensating hip and back mechanics due to stiff ankles in squatting motions
Athletes who can take the weight room to the field with ease tend to:
- Be able to Olympic deep squat/front squat very well (low bar back squat can be hit or miss in terms of building athletes)
- Be able to perform pistol and skater squats with good control
- Have strong glutes and muscles controlling the pelvis
- Have strong, and properly firing iliopsoas muscles
In order to maximize that transfer between the weight room and the field, I recommend the following steps:
- Start each training period with a few weeks of perfecting longer duration isometrics, and “super slow” repetition movements. These are designed to perfect position and posture in the movements, and enhance proper technique.
- Make single leg stance movements such as the pistol and skater squat a staple in the training program.
- Perform overhead movements, such as the split jerk, snatch, overhead barbell lunge, and overhead squat to help athletes gain better awareness of their spinal control and build stronger core musculature.
- Ensure that athletes are getting a proper glute strength program, either through therapy means, or specific strength exercises.
- Be sure that you are performing a number of hip flexor strength movements in your program, or a therapeutic intervention to improve hip flexor activation.
- Be sure to utilize a variety of ground based calisthenic exercises to improve the connective qualities of the torso.
Utilize multiple types of muscle contraction to enhance maximal and explosive strength
The best strength programs are certainly simple at heart, but need elements of complexity in order to deliver maximal gains over time. Those elements are that of various contraction speeds and emphasis. Lifting programs that utilize tempos, pauses, and eccentric overloads will beat out traditional programs in terms of strength and power gains.
A research study conducted on Russian athletes highlighted in Yuri Verkhoshansky’s “Special Strength Manual for Coaches” highlights 5 groups of weightlifters seeking improved strength in the barbell back squat. Four of the groups each utilized a slightly different speed of movement in training, ranging from very slow to fast. There was one group, however, that combined equal proportions of the 4 different bar speeds over the course of the research.
It turned out that the group that utilized multiple bar speeds over the course of their training achieved double the strength gains of every other group except for one, and it still beat the closest group by 5kg in 1RM strength gain.
On the other hand, athletes should be careful regarding how much “fancy” work they do, as research has also shown that making more than 20% of the total workout volume as supramaximal eccentrics, or isometric holds, brought about sub-optimal strength gains.
To have your strength program transfer over to your athletic performance maximally, use simple movements, but have a plan on how to mix up those tempos strategically. There are two popular ways of accomplishing this.
The “Triphasic” Way (made popular by Cal Dietz):
- 2 weeks of slow eccentrics, such as 8-0-X tempo
- 1-2 weeks of explosive paused reps such as X-4-X tempo
- 2 weeks of reactive, or concentric focused work
The Track and Field adaptation of Triphasic Training:
- 2 weeks of 5-0-5 tempo lifting
- 2 weeks of 5-0-1 tempo lifting
- 2 weeks of regular tempo lifting
Either of these formats are a simple, but brutally effective way to squeeze more strength and explosive gains out of your strength regimen.
Slow tempo eccentric squats are one of the most basic way to utilize variation in basic lifting movements.
Conclusion
Making a program better for athletic performance is accomplished by subtle changes in all aspects of training. Athletes need to be strong, but they also have subtle nuances that demand more than simply “go in the weightroom and get your 1RM as high as you can”.
Move well, move fast, and vary your strength training emphasis, and you’ll be well on your way to athletic excellence.
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