SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application

Strongman Program Design with Dr.Davidson: Part 1 – Assessment

Sam Leahey — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:00:14 +0000

Preface

The recent exclusive articles from Dr.Davidson have been general in nature, dealing with overall perspectives on certain topics. The recent sports science roundtable was equally as big picture minded. Here in this edition we want to delve deeper into the specifics. The next several posts will be an exclusive look into exactly how Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson organizes and implements his program for strongmen athletes. The following are questions Dr.D answered:

Can you summarize the sport of strongman in one paragraph?

Why do I assess my athletes?

Who do I assess?

What do I assess?

What are the logistics of my assessment?

How is my assessment carried out?

What gives me the right to assess?

What do I do with the assessment results?

Do I change the program based on the assessment results?

What is my post-assessment?

Introducing the Sport of Strongman

Strongman is a weight class based individual sport where competitors seek to gain the most points in multi-event contests. Points are awarded based on how you fare against your competitors, and the number of competitors. If you have 12 competitors in your weight class, the person who finishes first in an event receives 12 points, the person who was last receives 1 point, unless they were unable to complete one repetition, whereupon they would receive 0 points. Every competitor between first and last receives the number of points that correspond with their standing in the order. Things get tricky when there are ties because points start being split. Strongman weight classes are divided into the over 265 class, under 265 class, under 231 class, under 200 class, and under 175 class. Contests typically involve 4 to 7 events. Events usually involve at least one of the following, an overhead event, a deadlift event, a carrying event, a loading event, and a medley event. Overhead events and deadlift events sometimes involve single effort maximal attempts, and other times involve maximal repetitions performed in one minute. Carrying events are typically broken down into the categories of yoke carries, anterior carries, farmers walk carries, and duck walk carries. Loading events involve loading objects (most often stones) onto boxes, or putting them over bars. Loading events typically involve performing as many reps as possible in 60 seconds with a singular object, or loading progressively heavier objects in series.

Why Do I Assess My Athletes?

I will keep this answer as simple as possible, and divide my response into two components. The first reason for assessment is to determine injury risk from training, and to try to identify problematic patterns that should not be loaded. The second reason I assess athletes is to identify glaring weaknesses that could lead to parking brake or energy leak situations.

Kiesel, Plisky, and Voight (2007) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953296/ found that NFL players who scored below a 14 on the FMS had a 51% chance of serious injury during the season vs. a 15% chance of serious injury with athletes above a 14. In Gray Cook’s book, Movement, he identifies that asymmetry is the second leading predictor of injury, only trailing previous injury. I believe that if someone gets hurt on my watch that it is generally my fault. I cannot say that the athletes who I train never get hurt during training, because there have been several incidents this year where injuries have occurred. I hate when this happens. It makes me feel like the worst coach in the world. I want to do everything in my power to reduce the chances of injury happening to anyone who I train.

In regards to eliminating certain movements from a loading perspective in the program design, I have tried to keep things pretty simple. First, I have eliminated two foot squatting from the program design except from a mobility standpoint. Nobody on the team scored a 3 on the deep squat test. This means that there has to be some compensatory movement somewhere, and if I load that pattern, I will be driving forces into inappropriate tissues. I have not eliminated overhead work from the program design of individuals scoring 1’s on the shoulder mobility screen. There were a very high number of athletes who scored 1’s on their shoulder mobility test…quite frankly, an alarmingly high number. The sport of strongman always involves overhead movements in competition. I understand that there is increased risk of injury with overhead work for athletes who do not score a 2 on the shoulder mobility test, but you have to go overhead in the sport, so in a way it’s a catch 22. My hope and belief is that the elimination of 2 foot squatting reduces some of the same stressors that overhead work also brings on for individuals with shoulder mobility screen dysfunction (lumbar hyperextension compensation primarily).

I’ve heard it said many times that good athletes train things that they are good at, and great athletes train their weaknesses. I look at every possible change that the body can go through as a stimulus/response phenomenon. If you provide the appropriate stimulus, the body will be forced to make an adaptation that should give you the response you were looking for. This stimulus/response phenomenon is something that takes place at the cellular level. The better developed a cell is, the less you can improve upon it. The more poorly developed a cell is, the greater the potential room for positive change. With regards to movement dysfunction, the cells that we may be talking about could range from local tissue cells (altered number of sarcomeres in series, ratio of collagen to reticular tissue) to neuronal cells lying anywhere along the pathways of the afferent, CNS, and efferent tracks. If I identify the most limited of movement patterns and then provide the athlete with the best corrective strategy I have available, I should be altering the cellular function of the myofascia from a piso electric flow manner (see Anatomy Trains), or trying to change the communicative capabilities in the nervous system (diminishing neural lesion somewhere in the PNS or CNS). The key to improving someone is to correctly identify their weakness, and then to provide them with the right stimulus that drives the adaptation that you are looking for. Of course this is easier said than done, but as I am getting better at assessment and corrective strategies the process is becoming more predictable and the changes I am driving into people are becoming more powerful. In a crude manner of speaking, you can summarize my philosophy as the following: Step 1: Find out where you suck the most, Step 2: Take the appropriate medicine to eliminate your greatest suck, Step 3: See if you reduced your suck, Step 4: If you no longer suck at that thing, find the next thing on the list that you suck the most at, Step 5: Wash, rinse, repeat.

I said that I view corrective strategies as figuring out and addressing whether someone has a problem with parking brakes or energy leaks. Parking brake problems are problems of hypertonicity. Energy leak problems are stability or motor control problems. It seems like all of the smart people in the field consistently say that every exercise can be an assessment of an individual, so let me try to give some examples that way. The most common parking brake situation I see is with the overhead lockout motion. With some guys, the weight explodes off the chest, and then about half to three quarters of the way out it sort of stalls. This problem seems to be the typical upper-crossed syndrome phenomenon with these individuals. Overactive suboccipitals, upper traps, levator, pecs, and lats create a hypertonicity situation. The overactive traps and levator seem to be the two worst pieces for this puzzle. The scapula doesn’t protract and elevate properly. It sort of spins on trigger points in the upper trap or the levator. The elbows never get to the point where they look fully straight. The head is slow to get through. The result is something that looks sticky, painful, and frustrating. My most common energy leak siting is deep core control. A lot of people just cannot pull themselves out of extension. They go to conduct any movement you can think of and they immediately go into anterior pelvic tilt and the lumbar spine increases in lordosis. Their head shoots forward, they shrug, there’s probably a healthy dose of pelvic rotation thrown in there as well…it’s the same ugly stuff everybody else sees on a daily basis. Trying to get these individuals to feature a sternum to pelvis motion coupled with getting long through the top of the head, controlling their scapula, and taking a real breath is a challenge to say the least. The push-up is probably the easiest exercise to evaluate this with. I’ve also found the same individuals tend to be the ones who have tremendously slow dips on jerks, and the amortization phase between dip and drive takes a fortnight, and often involves lots of ugly knee repositioning. It’s the kind of dip and drive that just makes you cringe and start yelling about how they’re slow and not going fast enough. The reality may be that they’re going as fast as their brain will allow them to given the recruitment, muscle imbalance, and joint position situation that is going on in their body.

Who Do I Assess?

I assess everyone. Why wouldn’t I assess everyone? I look at assessment as the basis from which all decisions are made regarding what to do with the training of an individual. I like assessing people. I feel like it gives me an opportunity to play the role of detective. I find the human body fascinating. Just when you think you are comfortable with predicting what people will consistently show you, someone comes along and throws you a huge curve ball, and you have to think hard and critically to try to solve this new problem. Every time I assess someone I learn something new, and I understand more of what other people in the field are saying. I also feel like I understand what the technical literature statements are saying to a greater extent from the practical experience I gain assessing people. I also have come to realize that whenever I have moments where I don’t know what to make of what I’m seeing in an assessment, that someone out there has the answer. I’ve developed a good network of people who I can ask questions of, and usually I get answers from them that educate me. So I think that even if you’re not the best at assessments you’ll still be providing the athlete with a great service by conducting them, and you are also ensuring that you will be educating yourself in the process.

What Do I Assess?

Movement and exercise technique for the most part. I also assess state of mind and what kind of diet the guys are implementing. The last thing I assess is whether people are getting better in their contest standings. The primary goal that my athletes have is to win strongman contests. My primary goal as coach is to help these athletes become elite competitors who can win national championships, become professionals, win world championships, or whatever absolute level of achievement they can reach. As Dan John says, the goal should stay the goal. How do you get good at strongman? You train and compete at strongman. How can I assist the guys in their pursuit of training and competing at strongman? Clean up problematic movement patterns so that when they execute competition based movements they do them without insulting soft tissues, improve their quality of food selection and hydration strategies so that making weight is an easier process than it otherwise could be, see where their heads are at so they don’t go too hard when they’re feeling good and too soft when they’re in the dumps, and seeing if a change in program design may be necessary based on whether or not our competition results start to stagnate.

What Are the Logistics of My Assessment?

Ah logistics, dreaded logistics. The logistical concerns I face are unique. The athletes I coach are also the people I train alongside. So I’m not on the floor coaching them during training sessions. In between sets if I see something egregious I will typically yell at someone, and if I see common patterns of terrible exercise performance I will address the matter after practice. So what does this mean from an assessment standpoint? I did assessments at the beginning of the year, and I haven’t done them since. Not good according to best practice coaching scenarios/advice, but I do have one advantage that many coaches do not have. I get most of my upper classmen in the classroom as well.

Springfield College is a different kind of college. Everyone wears sweats and everyone seems to be obsessed with sports and training. Exercise science is looked at as being one of the preeminent majors on campus. At most other schools, exercise science is viewed as an obscure major of meatheads (just my opinion here). Here it is one of the biggest in terms of student enrollment. A lot of the kids I get to coach want to become strength and conditioning coaches in either the public or private sector. A lot of the kids I coach are obsessive about learning everything they can about training and nutrition. Getting to work with students like this is why I came to work at Springfield College. I think I have had nearly every upperclassman on the team as a student now. In the classroom setting I get to teach these guys the FMS inside and out. I get to teach them about the top tier SFMA side of things. I get to teach them the philosophy of test, intervention strategy, retest…see if you caused the result you were looking for…if not, try something new…if so keep riding that horse ‘til the legs fall off. I get to teach them corrective strategies. I get to teach them about the importance of a systems based approach. I get to teach them about breathing. I get to teach them rolling patterns. I get to teach them how every exercise represents an opportunity to challenge your posture in a static or dynamic setting. I get to teach them the short foot. I get to teach them every little detail of everything I know. I also get to teach them that they can do things like listen to podcasts rather than music on their iPods. Then these guys execute their training exercises with all those components. The freshmen and the newbies get to watch these guys train like pro’s, and they know that there is something different about the way the advanced guys execute every component of their training compared to the way they are doing things. This perks their interest in learning more and getting better.

Now what we’ve got here at Springfield College, in particular with my Team Ironsports is that the guys hang out with each other when they’re not training and they talk shop. They’re constantly looking to learn and get better. They watch DVD’s with each other. They mess around with each other with some hands on stuff (I’ve got AT students and PT students). They test each other in their dorm rooms and try to correct stuff. We’ve made this thought process our culture at Team Ironsports. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve got guys who are total messes who do the least amount of work possible to make themselves better movers and they don’t seek out knowledge, but every group has some stragglers. I’m going to give these guys time to find their way. Overall though what we’ve got is a small army of guys who are damn good strength athletes, who train HARD, who have good backgrounds from an educational standpoint, and who are constantly seeking to get smarter, stronger, and better. One final note here…for those people out in the field who are looking for good interns…well let me just tell you that you will not find college students who are more advanced than the guys I’m developing here at Ironsports.

How Is My Assessment Carried Out?

Movement is informally assessed at all times. I call them out on any bad posture, any poorly performed exercise, any bad anything. Movement is formally assessed with the FMS and the top tier SFMA tests for the most part. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve started to really use the SFMA breakouts in the large group assessment standpoint. A few of my athletes are familiar with the breakouts and they conduct them on each other outside of training. I do assess breathing, but for the most part this assessment is a formality…none of them know how to breathe at first. Not a single one of them has taken a diaphragmatic inhalation or driven out a powerful abdominal exhalation in years most likely. They’re all chest breathers. They all lack core control. The assessment proves it to them so I use it. State of mind is something that I assess informally, but I don’t find this one to be too hard to do at this point. The guys love to lift and get stronger. When they’re feeling it in the weightroom they let me know. When they’re dragging ass it’s pretty obvious too. The other advantage I get with this is that I’m going through the same training with them, so I get to directly feel the effects of what they’re going through physically. Nutrition is something that I get to assess by eating lunch with the guys. I get to see what is on their plate. I walk around the dining hall and see guys from the team scattered around the tables, and I always inspect their plates. I usually chastise them about food selections that I feel are inappropriate. Competition performance is easy to track. Something you need to understand about strongman competitors and probably all individual athletes is that we are all obsessed with our contest results, and that’s pretty much all we talk about before, during, and after competitions. I’m going to hear every subjective and objective piece of information regarding contest performances from every single one of my athletes seven million times.

To expand upon my appraisal of movement I would like to first point out that I consider myself a novice in regards to formal movement appraisal. I’ve read both of Gray Cook’s books and watched just about every single one of his DVD’s and I’ve listened to every single strengthcoach.com podcast including the Ask Gray/Ask Functional Movement sections. So I get the Gray Cook thought process. I know that the SFMA is the medical model, and the FMS is for healthy people, but I use both because I just simply want lots of evidence to examine. I’m starting to see why I don’t need to use both because the results are redundant, and I’m getting better at picking up a lot of things in the FMS quickly, but I’m a cautious man, and I don’t mind proving the same thing to myself over and over again. I also use the SFMA because I have found myself very interested in examining the motions of the cervical spine and the multi-segmental rotation test. We have a team massage therapist. The guys who do not do well on the C-spine tests are referred to him. The guys who don’t do well with rotation (locked up or asymmetrical) are the guys we focus on further examining with some PRI techniques for the pelvis. These tend to be the same guys who don’t do well on shoulder mobility, which is where I’m seeing the redundancy, but I’ve definitely caught a few people with rotation who I otherwise would have missed without including that in the testing. The other thing I’ve noticed is that there are some guys with great overhead lockouts who don’t have good shoulder mobility screen scores; however, these same individuals have good looking C-spine SFMA test results. I’m not ready to say that there is an absolute connection between these things, but I feel like I’m starting to see a trend.

What Gives Me the Right to Assess?

Good question. I don’t really know what the scope of practice is for someone with a Ph.D. I also don’t really give a crap either. I’m going to use every tool that I know to make my athletes better. I’m also going to teach them everything that I know so that they can do it on each other. These guys are all training with me because they want to improve themselves and become champions. I’m doing this because I want to improve myself and become a champion. We are brothers on a common mission. I would basically do anything for these guys, and I know that they would do the same for me. How could I deny them the opportunity to figure out where their strengths and weaknesses are if I possess the knowledge to be able to help them? Besides, what is an assessment? It’s me looking at you and telling you what I think. I guess the one line that I don’t cross is the pain line. I’m not medically trained, and I understand that pain changes everything about movement. I sort of understand healthy movement, but I have a lot to learn. I’m not going to try to kid myself and pretend I know anything about painful/pathological movement. It takes more than reading some Sahrmann and Janda to be able to feel comfortable playing with people who are in pain. So if I’m dealing with joints and patterns that are not painful, I assess away. If I encounter someone in pain, I stop and I beg them to please get checked out by someone who is competent in the medical side of things.

What Do I Do With the Results of the Assessment?

I email everyone on the team the training sessions. Attached to this are the top 3 movement problems discovered from that athlete’s assessment. Also attached in the email is the list of corrective exercises, and the description of how to perform each corrective exercise for the movement problem. The athletes are instructed that they are to only focus on the number one movement priority during the beginning of their training session. I am taking what Gray Cook calls the sniper rifle approach rather than the grenade approach to correcting movement. Identify the biggest problem, focus on it. Use the best corrective exercise in your bag for that movement pattern…identify the target, aim, one shot, one kill. The athletes know that if they improve the FMS or SFMA results to passing levels following their corrective exercise that they have opened up a window of functionality within the most troubling of their movements, and that perhaps all their movement patterns will have spontaneously improved. They are now ready to perform a variety of global patterns and have these patterns be functional (or at least better).

Once the athlete can come in and own their number one pattern without preceding it with corrective exercises, this pattern is no longer their number one priority. Now the new priority is probably what was number 2 on their list. In the beginning of the fall we had a very large group that I was calling, “The Shit Neck Group”. We have moved everybody who was in that group out of it and onto something new. The goal needs to stay the goal. We aren’t in this to do corrective exercises all day. These guys are in this to be champions in strongman. We need to lift weights. I want them to be able to lift weights under the safest possible training conditions. If I can acutely remove someone from dysfunction, or bring a 1 to a 2, then I am reducing the likelihood of injury when we’re doing what we need to do.

Do I Change the Program Design Based on Assessment Results?

I want to tell you that I have. I want to tell you that I’ve created an elaborate system of red lighting, yellow lighting, and green lighting exercises based on results. I haven’t. I give leniency to veterans who want to avoid certain movements, or want to work around some nagging problems, or want to avoid certain implements, swap out the straight bar for the trap bar, etc. With the rookies and new guys though, they follow the base program and I’m not pulling things out and inserting things in based on their individual results. The goal is that the corrective exercises, dynamic flexibility, and improved heat from movement skill and linear and multi-directional speed development that we do prior to lifting opens a movement window where they temporarily remove themselves from dysfunction to the point where they can adequately perform the loaded movements programmed in for the team.

The movements that I select are based on contest demands for the most part. When we are in our base training facility at school, we do not have strongman implements. We have 4 big loaded movements that we perform. Two foot deadlifting, single foot deadlifting, two hand overhead jerking/pressing, and one hand overhead jerking/pressing. Normally, day 1 is two foot deadlift with one hand overhead. Day 2 is one foot deadlift with two hand overhead. The sets, reps, rest change depending upon phase. Sometimes we do things a little different to avoid stagnation and monotony, but that is the general methodology.

The guys I worry about are the guys who score 1 on the shoulder mobility screen, and as I mentioned before, I have a very high number of guys who are 1’s on this test. These are the guys who have parking brakes fully on during overhead movements. These are the guys who have to get their extension motion from somewhere, and a large part of that extension often -times comes from the lumbar spine. These are the guys who I try to stay up to date with regarding how they’re feeling physically. These are the guys who I’m really trying to spare by removing two foot squatting from the program. These are also some of my strongest guys. One thing that I have found to be very helpful for these individuals during overhead pressing maneuvers is coaching these guys to really drive hip extension. The extension that goes through the body during overhead lifting has to occur somewhere. I want to limit the amount happening in the lumbar spine. When these guys really focus on getting their hips through on moves like the push press it seems to spare their spines. This notion is a mantra that I try to live by with these athletes…how can I continue to get them stronger while sparing their spines? This is one thing that I believe is a solution at that point in time.

What Is My Post-Assessment?

The first thing that I try to do post assessment with anybody is to educate them. I want them to know exactly what I think. I want them to be cognizant of the problems that I have identified. I then want to teach them the corrective approaches. I believe in trying to empower the individual. I think this is critical because I’m not going to have much time to work with this person. I have no idea what this person is going to be doing during the 22 to 23 other hours of the day when they’re not with me. I want to make the time they spend away from me as beneficial towards their physical development as possible. The only way I can do that is to get the athlete to understand the concepts as fully as possible. As I alluded to earlier in this document, I believe that my team has a great culture associated with it. The athletes are my students, and for the most part, they’re great students. We train together and then I get to teach them the theory of why we do what we do in the assessment, corrective block, dynamic flexibility phase, movement skill development phase, speed development phase, resistance training phase, and energy system development phase of a training session. It makes it a hell of a lot easier for me to coach them with this setup. I’m sure that many of you out there wish that you got the opportunity to lecture your clients or athletes about assessment, correction of problematic movements, training theory, etc. for hours every week.

Sports Science Roundtable – Volume 1 – Training Specificity

Sam Leahey — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:00:08 +0000

For those not aware, we’ve entered into a contractual agreement with Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson where he will be providing exclusive content on sports science and fitness. Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Q&A Series has already been published and this is Volume 1 of the Roundtable Series.

In this installment, we discuss the art and science of “specificity” and its various components as it relates to sports performance training. To keep the content jam packed with juicy details, for this edition, both myself and Dr.D will limit each answer to 650 words or less.

1. Define “training specificity”.

Coach Leahey: In terms of program design, I look at “specificity,” primarily, through the lens of two disciplines – biomechanics and physiology. Biomechanics, for our purposes, is divided into Kinematics and Kinetics and physiology consists of the body’s ~12 physiological systems (depending on how you want to list/integrate them; neuro-endocrine, muscular, fascial, etc. etc.).

The rationale “we sprint on one leg so we train one leg at a time” is a kinematic argument. The rationale “ground reactions forces are up to three times bodyweight when sprinting so we squat extremely heavy on two legs” is a kinetic argument. The rationale, “repeated sprints become more aerobic over time so we train the aerobic system” is a physiological argument. The rationale, “the athlete has a stability dysfunction, not a mobility problem” is rooted in neurology.

So, step one in training “specifically” is identifying the biomechanical and physiological demands of a sport/activity. Step two is identifying how a certain positional demand or style of play differs from the research done on the sports overall needs. Step three is building a program that creates adaptations needed for said sporting demands, sporting position, and style of play.

For novice trainees, training many qualities at once has proven effective for centuries as many adaptations will be created at once given their untapped adaptive potential. The more trained the athlete, the less adaptive ability they might have for a certain quality so the more focused/concentrated load they will need. This suggested a programming continuum from “concurrent” (many qualities at once) to “blocked” (few or only one quality at once). With respect to the latter, the key is sequencing the training to ensure optimal adaptations, or, to ensure a performance peak at a desired time. If the sport/activity does not require a performance peak at certain dates, you absolutely still have to sequence the training adaptations properly because if you do not, you absolutely can experience decreased performance during the competitions and negative adaptations. This speaks to the importance of having a great understanding of the technical-tactile aspects of the sport itself as well as knowledge of the science that underpins it.

Where do you draw the line between “novice” and “advanced” trainee? YOUR setting and experience will dictate that because there is no absolute level answer. However you operationalize the definition, it should be consistent and justifiable in YOUR system. How much of the program (if at all) should be non-specific before progressing to specific initiatives? Again, there is no absolute answer as it is a separate question altogether.

Dr./Coach Davidson: Training specificity refers to performing, practicing, and training the sporting movements of the competitive sport the athlete participates in. These movements may be the entirety of the sporting movements or components of the sporting movements. In order for training to be specific, the practice of the sporting movements must be done within the same bioenergetics and time frame considerations as experienced during competition. General training is the other side of the spectrum, and is defined by movements that are not the sporting movements, and performance of these movements is done outside of the bioenergetics and time frame associated with the competitive environment of the athlete. There is a continuum that exists between specific exercises and general exercises. As the athlete utilizes similar musculature, similar bioenergetics, similar vectors of force production, similar velocities, similar postures, and similar intensity zones as experienced during competition, the training swings closer to the specific side and farther from the general side.

Ultimately, the purpose of training is to induce structural and functional adaptations to the human organism. These adaptations allow the organism to be more competent when experiencing a similar challenge as that which has been previously encountered (recently). Truly the only way to get better at anything is to practice the exact thing that you want to do in a competitive situation. I often times think of it as being similar to studying for an exam. If I have an exam on fat metabolism in a biochemistry exam, I should spend my time learning as much as I can about that specific subject. If I spend time reading Plato, I will probably be expanding my mind and increasing my overall intelligence/awareness; however, when it comes time to take my biochemistry test, I will not have gained the specific changes in the functioning of my brain to tackle this particular exam. When it is time for an athlete to prepare for important contests, the athlete must focus on the sporting moves, in particular those movements which are the most problematic for the athlete.

The final point that I would like to make here is that many athletes, in particular young athletes, try to skip to the stage of training in a specific manner too early. Ultimately for high level sportsmen, training specificity is the key to progress in their sport performance; however, lesser athletes typically need generalized development. Once a base of movement competency has been reached, the athlete needs to become strong enough for the sport in question. If the athlete has established that they are strong enough for the sport they participate in, then they may develop other regions of the load/velocity curve. When widespread development of force and velocity has been reached, the athlete is then ready to enter into a system that will allocate periods of time where focus is placed on specificity of training.

2. Should conditioning be done with the ball/implement/equipment the sport uses? Why or why not?

Coach Leahey: I think this question is really multiple questions. In terms of equipment such as body pads and helmets that do not obstruct hand or foot use, I believe these should be worn in the latter phases of conditioning. In terms of a stick, ball, puck, racquet or any equipment requiring the use, and strategy, of the hands/feet I currently do not have athletes use them during training. However, I am open to any suggestions as to the superiority of their use during training. I have looked into the literature regarding this topic and overall, considering all sports, I am less than convinced that it is superior to not using these implements during parts of the training program.

So in general, the majority of my off-season programming is done without the non hand/foot obstructing equipment and is only implemented towards the end of the off-season. When I think of sports outside the “traditional” ones, such as the strength sports (powerlifting, strongman, Olympic weightlifting, highland games, etc.) the rules change in my mind because resistance training is the sport. In that case, yes, I believe the majority of programming, should be done with the implements the sport uses.

Dr./Coach Davidson: At certain phases of the sport calendar, conditioning should be done with the equipment associated with the sport. The cerebellum is the site where motor programs are refined for timing, coordination, and precision prior to being transmitted to the skeletal muscle via the descending tracts in the brain. Once a motor program has been established and honed, that program will then be stored in the cerebellum. If different equipment and implements become involved in a task, the reality is that you cannot rely on the same motor program, and a new motor program must be created.

When I think about training motor programs, I think about my childhood, and walking on paths in the woods. If you take the same path, day after day, that path will become beaten down. You’ll break the branches that interfere with your travel, and you’ll ultimately have a very nice walking path. Even if there were other paths that led to a similar end location, chances are you would choose to take the path you walk on a daily basis, because this path has been grooved and you are familiar with it.

So I think of my nervous system as being very similar to paths in the woods. There’s lots of paths that go to lots of different places, but a lot of athletes tend to walk the same paths on a daily basis. These paths become easy to walk down. These are the kinds of paths you could probably walk in your sleep. For a powerlifter, the squat, bench, and deadlift pathways are probably so well established that they’re paved by now.

In bringing this back to conditioning with sports equipment, you need to realize that running, cutting, changing direction, and other sports movements are different when you are carrying implements and wearing equipment. In thinking of this from the paths in the woods analogy, you can think of conditioning without equipment and conditioning with equipment as being two separate, similar looking paths, lying very close to one another. If you do not condition in the equipment, you are going to be tramping down the non-equipment path, making that path easier to traverse; however, you will not be deepening and grooving the equipment path. At some point, if you want to improve the working effect of the skeletal muscles involved in the motor programs with equipment you need to train with the full array of implements and equipment. Without eliciting the exact motor program you cannot begin the processes of causing localized tissue adaptations in the exact muscles that are recruited with equipment and implements. During the time of my life where I was training as a fighter, I learned this in a practical manner, because when you put the 16 oz. gloves on again for the first time in a while, your arms fatigue in an unexpected way that does not happen when you are just training in wraps or training with MMA gloves.

3. Should resistance training be done in a “specific” manner? If so, how?

Coach Leahey: Relative to strength sports see my response to the last question, as it still applies. For all other sports (team and individual) the idea of “special strength training” comes to mind here. With respect to resistance training, at its most essential level, “special strength training” literally refers to loading the same motor pattern experienced in the competition. For many coaches this is heresy. Examples would be a baseball player using weighted baseballs, a high jumper training loaded hip flexion/hyperextension, a tennis player going through a swing pattern against a loaded cable column or band tied behind them, etc. etc. The best elucidation I’ve come across was via Yuri Verkhoshansky describing the “competition exercise” where an exercise is created that is as biomechanically and physiologically similar to the activity done in sport as possible. The competition exercise should correlate remarkably with actual performance. Thus, in order to create a “special/competition exercise” you must have an incredible understanding of the biomechanics and physiology involved in that particular technique used in sport . I think the creation, implementation, and sequencing of said exercises makes for more practicality in individual sports and less for team sports where there are many high yield motor patterns involved in successful and high level performance. Trying to go after them all might leave you accomplishing nothing in the end. Outside of powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and strength sport athletes, I do not currently have team or individual sport athletes perform a loaded pattern that is trying to mimic their sporting action. I’m not opposed to the idea of “special exercises”, it has been validated, but I do not feel at this point I have an adequate way to evaluate its efficacy for team sport athletes. With the strength sports it is easy to see the “special exercise” effects but for mixed motor pattern sports with various biomechanical demands I struggle to apply the concept in practice.

Dr./Coach Davidson: After reading Siff, Verkhoshansky, Bondarchuck, Zatsiorsky, Issurin, and others, it seems pretty apparent that resistance training should be done in a specific manner. Verkhoshansky really drives home the idea of creating specialized exercises for the athlete within the working range of motion of the sporting movements for the highest levels of success through training. The trick, apparently, is being able to truly understand sporting technique at the highest level, and then being able to create special exercises that recreate, and then ultimately increase the force production of the sporting movements.

I suppose that for me, my problem is that I don’t have the faintest clue as to how to actually do this for most sports. I do not possess the technical mastery over the majority of field and court sports that are popular in our country. I am quite sure that I am not the only person who falls into this category though, so I don’t feel too bad. I can recall from reading of Special Strength Training for Sports, Verkhoshansky mentioned that special boards were formed in the USSR to create special exercises for various sports. I’m certain that these boards were filled with the leading experts from the country on training for those sports.

The important point of this is that when you are working with high level athletes, general fitness development will not give them much, if any help in their sporting performance (assuming that they are already in acceptable physical shape). When I think of general fitness development, I am basically talking about increasing things like traditional barbell lift strength, VO2, jumps, and agility work. There just is not much carry over from the traditional weight room modalities to the motor programs of the sporting actions. Perhaps for low level athletes, significant improvements in the traditional weight room movements will transfer over to improved sports performance; however, elite athletes typically do not show such a transfer effect. These athletes need to improve the working effect and working capacity of the sporting movement(s) itself. High level athletes need to be, “strong enough”, or, “fit enough” for their sport/position, and once they reach these criterion measures, then they must try to improve the very specific movements of the sport to make gains. I do not think the process of devising special exercises for every sport is going to be an easy one, but I think it is an extremely valid task. I think that it is better than practicing one sport (powerlifting, weightlifting, body-building) to try to get better at another sport (football) .

One caveat that I want to point out prior to continuing here is that when I’m talking about incorporating all of these special exercises, I want to make clear that if they are to be done, they must be used with athletes who have a tremendously strong movement base, and who have exceptionally clean sport and training biomechanics. I cannot think of a bigger disaster than, “specializing” young, inexpert athletes. These methods are things that are appropriate for only the top of the food chain people. Everybody else needs to get stronger in general, more fit in general, and of course move better.

From my experience competing in strongman, I have learned the importance of failing to train in a specific manner. In the past year, I competed in about 10-12 contests. None of these contests were the same. Each had different events, implements, times for events, etc. When I was able to take a minimum of 3 to 4 weeks to train and lock in on the exact events of that contest, I either won or took second place in my division. This realization of having to drive the training in a specific manner towards the exact demands of the coming contest came after a incredibly humbling performance at an event called, “The Battle of the Badass”. I had been training for general strength and fitness going into this event, and was sort of talked into competing at the last minute. Sure enough, I finished dead last in this contest and was completely humbled.

4. What do you believe is the current attitude of the sports performance world when it comes to, “specificity of training”? Would you like to see the attitude towards, “specificity of training” change?

Coach Leahey: I think the global attitude toward “training specificity” is pretty balanced. I communicate weekly with coaches and trainers from around the world, from the public, private, and academic settings and I definitely note the full continuum of “everything should be as specific as possible 24/7” to “specificity is overrated so we don’t pursue it.” The idea of recreating competitive events during the preparation period has been around for centuries so it’s nothing new. Just decades ago the USSR went to insane lengths trying to create exercises that were as biomechanically detailed and physiologically close to the competition as possible that it almost was a mock trial competition itself! It’s been years since the USSR was dissolved but during their reign the records show they crushed the rest of the world in the Olympics, overall. Does that mean their sports science approach is superior to all other countries? Not exactly. A ton of factors play into the results. Olympics aside, countries aside, in the end, I think we all need to be far less sure about our paradigm and be less dogmatic about “training specificity is antiquated” or “everything needs to be 100% specific 24/7”. We don’t have everything figured out and never will. Be open to trying to new things. “Specificity” is more high yield for advanced athletes than novice trainees but I do believe it is part of our job description.

Dr./Coach Davidson: I believe that the current attitude towards specificity of training is that it is a nice concept, but within the performance enhancement environment, it is something that is either beyond the scope of what we do, or something that does not really apply to any of the athletes we are working with. In the literature, it is stated that specificity is appropriate for elite athletes. The problem is, what exactly makes someone an elite athlete. It seems like the experiences of many strength coaches working in professional sports is that many of these athletes are great in their sport despite the fact that they do not have great general physical development. Also, it seems like the majority of sports performance specialists are finding much more basic things to try to remedy with their athletes prior to feeling it is appropriate to go on to anything resembling specific training in the weight room.

I think the fact of the matter is that the greatest help the sports performance specialist can provide to the athletes that they work with is removing asymmetries (side to side, front to back, rotational), correcting faulty basic developmental movement patterns through mobility and stability enhancement approaches, improving the breathing stereotype, improving body composition, and enhancing the force production of the basic loaded movement patterns throughout the velocity spectrum. These are all foundational elements that must be in place to try to, “catch up” the general physical development of the modern athlete with their level of sports development. These are all tasks that are going to be coaching intensive and time consuming. These are all tasks that will require tremendous continuing education of the sports performance specialist to be able to master. Where is the time to worry about the specialization? Where is the time to actually learn the biomechanics of each individual sport? When do you begin to implement this stuff? I think these are all reasonable questions to ask ourselves.

I believe that unless you are an expert of both a given sport and performance based training strategies, do not worry too much about special exercises. You are probably just as likely to error on your creation of a special exercise and perhaps worsen the working effects of the muscle involved with the sports action. Also, chances are that the athlete will have other factors that are closer to your area of expertise to improve.

Perhaps the specificity discussion is reserved for those who are not in the trenches…Perhaps the specificity discussion is reserved for sports performance coaches who work with competitive lifters…I’m not sure anymore. I believe that the Russian literature speaks the truth, and the science of specificity is pretty rock solid. I just don’t know how realistic it is to expect most American sports performance specialists to be able to compile binders full of special exercises to unleash on athletes during concentrated blocks of specific focus. I would like to see the attitude of what I perceive to be the majority of the sports performance world change when it comes to specificity and special exercises though. I think that we need to remain open to anything. I think we should at least explore what this stuff is all about and try it before we label it as anything. As a competitive lifter who, “specializes” in a different way for about 10 to 12 different strongman competitions per year, I can tell you that from my experience, that unless you have been working the exact event that you’re going to have to compete in, you’re going to be unprepared and probably unsuccessful when it’s time to do it for real.

Sports Science Q&A’s with Dr.Davidson – Volume 2 – Analytics

Sam Leahey — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 05:16:33 +0000

Last time we discussed a bit about sports science in general. Let’s go deeper. Many public and private sector organizations have been, or are delving now, into higher levels of technology and deeper levels and data analysis for player monitoring, program design purposes, etc. to the point where now many organizations hire a staff person who does nothing but data analytics for the coaching staff and trainers.

1. Generally speaking, what role do you think technology and data analytics play in our jobs as trainers/coaches and for the sport/skill coaches?

In the first installment of my answers to your questions, I stated that sports science is grounded in the empirical method, and the empirical method is walled in a quantitative paradigm. The end stage of the empirical method is making evaluative statements about observed and measured phenomena. These evaluative statements are based on comparison to norm and criterion referenced perspectives. Ultimately this means that our ability to make any type of declarative statement about the merit of something is entirely based on comparing numbers.

This quantitative paradigm is only as strong as our ability to make accurate, reliable, and precise measurements. Advances in technology provide coaches and scientists with better tools to measure phenomena. The better the tool with which you are using to make measurements, the more trustworthy the data. Testing environments where coaches, trainers, or scientists consistently make accurate measurements on relevant bio and performance markers ultimately leads to a situation where coaches, trainers, and scientists have a clearer picture of what is going on, and the ability to appraise, formulate conclusions, and decide on future courses of action for the athlete are improved.

What we must remember is that the ultimate goal of the coach, trainer, or scientist is to be the best possible informed decision maker for the individuals they are working with. An informed decision maker tends to choose courses of action that lead to success more often than decision makers who make choices based on whims. This is true whether we are talking about an informed decision maker who watches the weather forecast the night before and brings his/her umbrella with them on their morning commute vs. the whimsical decision maker who is clad in flip flops and a tank top for the day, or sports performance coaches who test the movement qualities and capacities of their athletes prior to designing a training plan vs. a trainer who puts every person they work with into a generalized training plan. If the goal is to increase the movement qualities, capacities, and sports skill of an athlete, then the informed decision maker coach, trainer, or scientist will utilize every tool that will help him or her gain a clearer picture of the current state of the athlete in question. The informed decision maker will reduce the chances of injuring or not improving the performance of the athlete in the short term and long term training plan.

Technological advances in the equipment used to measure the performance of athletes in specific tests can be very helpful; however, what we must keep in mind is that tests are only tools used for the purpose of measuring something. Every tradesman or craftsman has a tool box. Each craftsman’s toolbox contains the tools best suited for the jobs that individual is likely to have to perform on a daily basis. Often times these tools are simple. Fancier tools do not necessarily need to be utilized. Hammers, screw drivers, and wrenches have been around for a long time, and a good craftsman is able to utilize these devices with incredible precision, accuracy, and usefulness. The best tools are those which are efficient, easy to use, and give the individual wielding them the results they were hoping for. In the modern world of sports science, the technological advances have in many cases bogged practitioners down with excess data. Perhaps the potential for discovering something previously unknown in this data exists; however, the route to getting to this information is often convoluted, lengthy, and one that can sometimes be a greater hassle than was truly necessary.

Technology is certainly not going anywhere. Generally speaking, technological advancements have ushered in some unbelievably useful things. Accountability and informed decision making has improved, and new discoveries will continue to be made which will reshape what we know about the exercising human body. Coaches, trainers, and scientists should utilize technology to the best of their abilities. In doing so though, they should keep the following in mind: 1. Know exactly what it is that you want to measure 2. Know what the right tool is for the job 3. Be able to compare the collected data to something 4. Interpret the findings carefully 5. Continue to master this process.

2. Do you do anything with training quantification?

I coach athletes who train and compete with Springfield College Team Ironsports. We are the only mixed resistance training college team in the country as far as I know. We have strongman athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, crossfitters, and a Highland Games athlete in our mix. My main focus is on the strongman athletes because they make up the majority of our team, particularly from a competitive standpoint. The common denominator that brings all of my athletes together is iron, and the metric that is most important is load. Now that being said, I am tremendously concerned with the movement quality of the athletes on the team. Based on this concern, if we find that certain exercises are causing problems and leading to regression of FMS scores or pain, then we delete those exercises from the athletes’ playbook.

Our team trains at different facilities, but the primary facility that we train in is a collegiate weightroom. We do not have access to strongman equipment in this weightroom. Due to the lack of contest equipment, I have to use other training lifts as indicators of training status. The four lifts that I have chosen to be our cornerstone/indicator lifts are the deadlift, the push press, the single leg contralateral loaded deadlift, and the dumbbell clean and jerk. I believe that these are the four lifts that are closest in terms of specificity to the demands faced in strongman.

My methodology for monitoring performance in these four lifts is something that many may find unusual. On training day A, our athletes pair the deadlift with the dumbbell clean and jerk. I like this pairing because you have a slow bilateral pull and a fast unilateral push involved in the same training session, which I view as juxtaposing one another and creating balanced development. On training day B, our athletes pair the barbell push press with the contralateral loaded single leg deadlift…again, similar juxtaposition of movement and velocities. We perform training day A and B twice a week. In every training session for A and B, the athletes begin their resistance training session by performing a 1RM test for both lifts. I ask the athletes to not tap into emotional arousal for any of their test sets, and I ask them to try to find their max within a maximal of 4 sets. The athletes have become extremely adept at this process by now, and most of them find their daily 1RM within about six or seven minutes for both lifts.

So, yes, I ask all the athletes on my team, including myself to hit 8 maxes a week on four pretty big lifts. Why would anyone do this? Doesn’t this cause CNS burnout? Well I don’t really know what CNS burnout is, but I do know that the Bulgarian weightlifting team maxed the snatch and the clean and jerk six days a week all year. I do this for two reasons. First, I want the athletes to build the skill of performing 1 rep max movements. If you do not believe there is skill to this, then you have never competed in a strength sport. I want them to develop this skill in an emotion free environment. The athletes understand what this means. It means no yelling, no slapping each other on the back of the head, no pacing around and snorting like a bull, no shaking the bar. You walk up to the weight like a professional, execute the technique with no expectations, and accept the result whether positive or negative. Second, I want the training percentages for the athlete to be as precise as possible. 6 sets of 3 @ 88% of what?…of what you were able to handle today in a controlled environment. In my mind this ensures the proper stimulus for the goal of the training session within the phase of the training plan. From what I have seen, strength gains are fairly unpredictable, but when they happen, they are often substantial. This is fairly obvious when thinking about 18 year old freshmen, who seem to increase strength session to session, but from my experience this is true for my seasoned lifters as well, and some of these young men are deadlifting in the mid 600’s to mid 700’s (belts and straps usually) with no lifter at a body weight higher than 240 pounds.

3. What metrics do you think are significant in indicating fatigue?

In terms of what I believe good indicators of fatigue are, I will answer from a theoretical basis and from what I do on a practical basis. Clearly, measuring heart rate variability with the Omega Wave is the gold standard for assessing preparedness. Heart rate variability is indicative of the status of the supersystem in the brain that assesses the total stress load imposed on the organism. The supersystem is primarily made up by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the medulla. When this trio of structures in the brain interprets the inner and outer world as one that the organism is in control of, then in general, HRV stays high. When the environment is perceived as one that is unfamiliar to the organism or one that is highly unpredictable or out of control, HRV ultimately will measure as being low. Low HRV is associated with an increased likelihood of sickness, decreased performance, and increased risk of injury during training or competition.

I do not have access to any device that can measure HRV currently. This does not mean that I cannot take advantage of the underlying concept that governs HRV though. Ultimately, the most important variable related to increasing HRV is the feeling of being in control of one’s self and one’s environment. What increases feelings of control? Awareness appears to be the key. How clear do you understand what is happening around you or inside of you? In truth, knowledge is power when it comes to HRV. How well does the athlete understand the technicalities and the tactics that are associated with the movements that you are asking them to do? Do they know what the purpose of the program design is? Do they know the length of the phase they are in? Do they recognize that the changes and fatigue in their body near the end of a phase are normal?

Based on this knowledge, the most important thing that I do with my athletes to monitor their fatigue is talk to them. I have lunch with my athletes every weekday at school. We talk before and after training sessions. Many of them I teach in the classroom as well. In short, I spend as much time with my athletes as I possibly can. I end up knowing them very well as people. I can look at them and see as much information as any device could ever give me. Would this work in every coaching situation? No, as it would not be feasible in certain situations. If you have hundreds of athletes then you simply cannot get enough interaction with them to gain such familiarity. In such a circumstance, a paper and pencil survey may be a great idea. From what I understand, psychological mood state is one of the earliest markers that athletes are heading towards overtraining conditions. Athletes whose mood state falls within what sports psychologists call the Iceberg profile appear to be fresh and in a good place with their training status. Athletes who display the Inverted Iceberg profile are likely moving towards overtraining.

In closing, I will say that I have had very poor success in trying to assess preparedness with performance measures. Trying to gauge levels of fatigue with 1RM testing has proven fruitless. From my experience, it is nearly impossible to kill the 1RM no matter what you do to someone. I have also not found jump tests to be tremendous indicators of training readiness for the day either. I would recommend that coaches and trainers be very careful in making major alterations in the design of a training day based on jump height or 1RM testing results.

4. More importantly, what metrics do you think are significant indicators of adaptations to training?

This question is difficult to answer because it does not include a specific type of athlete or sport; however, I believe that I can still answer this effectively. I will start by talking about the athletes who I coach, and I will end by talking about athletes involved in more common field and court sports. Prior to answering, I would like to point out that I think this is an excellent question thematically, because I do view the purpose of training as a process of trying to stimulate the appropriate adaptation in the athlete for the specific demands the athlete has to face in competition.

The sport of strongman is a weight class based sport. I do not coach any athletes who are heavy weights, so tracking body weight is critical simply because the athletes cannot afford to not make weight for the contest. Based on this, the most important indicator that a positive training adaptation has occurred is increased strength in competition performances and the four cornerstone training lifts previously described without significant increases in body weight.

In this paragraph I am going to say something that may initially appear to be contradictory to the last sentence of the previous paragraph; however, I hope that I can adequately explain my views so that I can shed light on something that I believe to be critical. During specific phases of training, the marker that I am hoping to see is a drop off in performance. Again, I am examining the 1RM in the deadlift, push press, contralateral loaded single leg deadlift, and the dumbbell clean and jerk. When my athletes are engaged in a concentrated loading block, at some point, perhaps at the end of week two or three, I am hoping to see their numbers start to decline. I base this view on my interpretation of Zatsiorsky’s Fitness-Fatigue theory.

Zatsiorsky has proposed a two factor model of adaptation that appears to be a more complete explanation of what happens to the human organism during training compared to the single factor supercompensation model. We typically only think of training adaptations according to the idea that the athlete trains and depletes the systems of their body, and then after recovery, a new higher level of homeostasis is reached. If the athlete conducts the next training session while at this new higher level of homeostasis then they will display increased abilities. Based on this model, coaches believe that if the athlete cannot outperform or at least match their previous training session’s numbers, then the program design is incorrect. In contrast, Zatsiorsky has proposed that the instantaneous ability of the athlete to display ability (preparedness) is based on the net of their fitness and fatigue. Fitness is the true underlying capacity of the athlete within a specific realm (limit strength fitness, speed-strength fitness, power endurance fitness, etc.). Fatigue is the degree to which training induced stress masks the ability to display fitness. The greater the fatigue, the greater the inability to display fitness; however, this does not mean that fitness is gone, or that fitness was not improved in a training session that appeared sub-par. Also, based on this model, the greater the increase in fatigue from training stress, ultimately the greater the potential to increase fitness once the fatigue is removed from the picture.

Based on my interpretation of the Zatsiorsky Fitness-Fatigue model, I want to see fatigue mount to high levels at various times of the training process. If I am truly driving what will result in a positive adaptation, I need to see decline first. This process appears to be intimately tied into the endocrine system’s function in the human body. The role of the endocrine system within the organism is to respond to deviations in homeostasis. The stress of exercise causes deviations in homeostasis. The training principle of overload is also intimately tied into this concept as well. According to the overload principle, the body must depart from homeostasis in order to incite the internal repair mechanisms which will ultimately rebuild the system at a higher level than where it previously existed. The further the body departs from homeostasis, the greater the ultimate repair response. Sometimes this repair response can be delayed (the concept of delayed transmutation); however, it appears to always come. So I need to know that I have in fact driven my athletes from their comfort zone. I need to see their performance decline from time to time.

There are other areas that I examine with my athletes to try to get a sense of whether they are adapting to training, but I will end the discussion regarding strongman for now, because I believe that the drop off phenomenon is tremendously important, and I do not want to undermine its relevance in this answer by delving into any more specific topics.

In regards to traditional field and court sport athletes, the answer regarding what are important metrics for adaptation indication is that it depends. While I always find it annoying when I hear other people repeatedly answer questions by saying it depends, in this case it really does depend on the individual athlete. Are we talking about a college freshman baseball player, or are we talking about a 15 year veteran in the NBA? Now, even though I have taken the route of being vague at the start of this paragraph, my next statement will be extremely specific. The best metric for training adaptations for an individual athlete is seeing an improvement in whatever it is that is the ultimate weak link for that athlete.

Determining the most important metric comes down to testing results. Good coaches collect data from a combination of subjective and objective sources. Often times the subjective sources of information are overlooked. Coaches should trust their eyes, and they should also have conversations with athletes to get a sense of what the athlete believes are their strengths and weaknesses physically. This practice may save time in constructing a battery of tests, and it also empowers the athlete to feel like an active participant in the process. When objective data is collected from the testing battery, the coach should have some idea about the hierarchy of test results. Movement quality is generally thought of as the most important objective testing variable. In regards to quantitative performance measures the weak link is often most easily seen by comparing test results to norm referenced perspectives for other athletes in the same age level and same sport.

5. Relative to the above three questions, what data visualizations do you find most effective/telling for coaches?

If you are looking for drop off or for improvements in realms of fitness, I would recommend doing a legitimate statistical test, like a T-test on Excel or SPSS. I think that would be the easiest thing to do. Simply compare scores from an earlier time in the season to a later time in the season. See if there is a significant difference between scores. Sometimes there can be fluctuations in performance that are not really meaningful. You cannot possibly know if fluctuations are statistically meaningful or not unless you use a legitimate test. Chaos theory tells us that there are quantitative windows of normalcy for all measurable phenomena. Nothing in the world appears to be truly static. There is always variability, or what you could think of as good days or bad days. The difference is whether something truly has changed dramatically. This is where statistics comes into play. Statistics can tell us that something is in fact different, and the difference in measurements is 95% or 99% not due to chance.

Once you have determined if something is truly different from something else based on statistical significance, feel free to make charts and graphs and whatever else it is that helps you visualize things. I would simply caution coaches to not become to exuberant at data visualizations unless some sort of statistical technique has confirmed that there really is something there. Scientists understand that finding significance is easier said than done. This leads scientists to being very cautious people in the way they interpret data.

6. How do all these metrics implicate performance? Should they?

What we must keep in mind is that metrics are only as good as the phenomena which we have legitimately recognized in the world around us and the tools with which we have attempted to measure these phenomena with. If we do indeed identify valid measures and we can measure these things with precision, then metrics can be devastatingly effective. Yet, it is important to understand that we have not identified everything that is relevant yet, and we probably never will, so we must remember that metrics can never tell the whole story.

The ability to grow food increased dramatically with the advent of fertilizer. Fertilizer is NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium). If you put a seed in NPK, it will grow. This caused early scientists to conclude that this was all that was necessary to be present in soil. What we have come to realize is that natural soil is rich with ingredients that we previously could not even measure. When you grow food in nothing but NPK, that food is in many ways malnourished. We thought we knew it all regarding the science of soil, but as it turned out, we did not, and we still do not know it all in that area.

In terms of metrics as markers for performance, I see a parallel with soil science. We used to believe that sprint times, agility performance, 1RM, and jump heights would tell us everything. We were wrong. Then movement quality testing came along and the theory behind that form of testing seemed to explain some of the missing links in the traditional performance quantity testing paradigm. In my mind, the problem is that the movements of most field and court sports are so unbelievably specific that they cannot be mimicked close enough in sports performance testing environments.

The lesson of specificity is something that I have become intimately and directly aware of with my foray into strongman. One would think that a log clean and press would be fairly similar to an axle clean and press. They are not that similar. If you do not train the specific movement with the specific implement in that sport, when the contest comes, that event will be one that you will struggle with. I have learned the hard-way that a car deadlift and a straight bar deadlift are not the same thing: that different types of loaded carries are completely different from one another: that a barbell clean and a stone load are not the same thing. So if these lifts, which are kinetically and kinematically almost identical to one another could vary so much, how could we really expect weightroom numbers to translate over to sports performance prediction?

The one thing that is sticking out in my head right now as I write this is something that I heard Bill Hartman talk about. He was talking about the importance of taking still photos of athletes while they are in competition performing their sports moves. He showed side by side comparisons of high level performers, like Adam Vinatierri kicking a field goal against a lower level kicker. He showed that the joint-by-joint function of the high level performers appeared much better while they were performing their sports movements compared to the lower level performers. Bill Hartman also talked about how fatigue changes everything, and that we should get a sense of the way the person moves from a joint by joint perspective when they are fatigued as well. These two simple procedures stand out to me as being incredibly brilliant recommendations. We need to see how the body moves in terms of the most specific demands it has to face, and we need to see what breaks down from a movement quality perspective in the presence of fatigue. Are these, “metrics”? Well maybe, and maybe not, but they are invaluable pieces of knowledge that may bridge the gap between the weightroom and the field of play.

Glycolytic Conditioning & Psychology vs. Physiology. “Mental Toughness”?

Sam Leahey — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 05:15:42 +0000

Surveying the opinions for doing, or not doing, “glycolytic/lactic conditioning” with team sport athletes, generally, coaches express one of two rationales:

1. Team sport athletes should spend a considerable amount of time doing glycolytic/lactic conditioning because:

o It takes them out of their comfort zone by forcing them to deal with sensations of fatigue due to decreased pH and thus building mental toughness as they resist the urge to cease the exercise.

o Their bodies need to adapt to and buffer the accumulation of metabolites thus we need heavy doses of this type of conditioning.

2. Team sport athletes should only train the glycolytic/lactic energy system sparingly because:

o Most studies show metabolite buffering adaptations of glycolytic conditioning peak after only 3-6 weeks.

o The sensations of fatigue via the accumulations of hydrogen ions (thus lowered pH) that are associated with glycolysis only occurred because the athlete’s aerobic system could not handle the loading and recovery of efforts. Thus, it is the aerobic system that we should devote more attention to instead of the glycolytic system.

Below are some random thoughts regarding each position. After which I’ll conclude with my summary application.

Lactate. It's a molecule. Get over it.

Thoughts on Rationale #1

I think the psychological literature, as it relates to fitness training, is so underappreciated in our professional circles. A sports psychologist I used to work with even suggested to me we train the psyche/driver systematically just like we do the physical body. Just look around at the many college public sector programs and you’ll note coaches implementing a "mental toughness" day, for example, every week which involves some kind of glycolytic capacity work where the coach is screaming and hollering under the guides of "building mental toughness". Going through my own athletic career I always felt this was more meathead mantra than anything and that "mental toughness" was a lifestyle, not just a 15 minute circuit the team goes through once a week, or for three straight weeks of the dreaded American football “6AM’s.” However, as I’ll speak to at the end here, I do think there is a place for that type of activity.

In assimilating the amalgam of sports psych research and books over the years I began to give much more credence to the notion "psychology dictates physiology" that many scientists tout. After consuming Tim Noakes studies and the "central governor model" concept for a while now, I’ve come to question my disregard for psychology even more to the point where I sat down last year and tried to come up with training protocols for enhancement of "attitude", "toughness", and other intangibles that we often note in successful athletes. As one can imagine, this became a frustrating task and I never really could convince myself that doing things like "team building Friday’s" or "competition Wednesdays" via glycolytic conditioning or “team building” activities, was the mechanical answer to enhancing the Driver/Psyche. In the end I concluded that as opposed to a certain "psychological set and rep" protocol, training the Driver is more about the following:

-Weightroom Culture:

Promoting and cultivating a positive, competitive, accountable, etc. culture and attitude in the weightroom can be a potent stimulus that when exposed to chronically (4 years of college or high school) can have a profound effect from freshman to senior year on athlete’s personality, in my opinion. I have no doubt there is a psychological term probably assigned to this phenomenon but essentially I view it as “group dynamics” or “group synergy” being a powerful tool in causing incoming freshman to conform and eventually embrace said positive attributes. It starts with the coaching staff first.

-"Outside of the gym" interventions:

I allow my athletes to text me whenever they want and often times they'll message me about complete nonsense (jokes, etc.). Nevertheless this establishes an open line of communication and this open door policy, be it via phone or even in person, has led athletes coming to me with personal problems that perhaps they didn't feel comfortable discussing with their sport coach. Having the chance to influence/help them has been a positive experience and something I notice gives those athletes more confidence during our training sessions.

Having a team psychologist around (if you work in the public sector) also helps but even with that service available I believe the above two points are much more high yield in developing “mental toughness” than glycolytic conditioning as your primary method. Essentially, I’m suggesting that when a coaching staff, or trainer, fosters comradery and positive culture, or “team swagger” as some call it; it does more for “mental toughness” than simply putting them through glycolytic conditioning and forcing them to “push through the pain!” More on this below.

This guy has swagger. Nature or nurture? Perhaps both. He might have developed said swag after being exposed to said training environment.

Thoughts on Rationale #2

This position is pretty straight forward. The argument here is mostly physiological pointing to the fact that the energetics of most team sports generally rely on the phosphagen and oxidative pathways for energy production. Thus from a demand standpoint, oxidative and phosphagen training initiatives are where we focus most of our efforts in training for most team sports. As mentioned earlier, most of the buffering adaptations resulting from glycolytic conditioning peak in a short time period. Secondly, the sensations of fatigue resulting from lowered pH during glycolytic conditioning are premature when our initial defense (the aerobic system) cannot keep up with the demands. Thirdly, many athletes enter pre-season camp and are met with heavily glycolytic intervals via their sport coaches. So for these three reasons it seems logical to focus most of the off-season program on phosphagen and oxidative pathways, concentrating most of the glycolytic conditioning (if any at all) at the end of a team sport off-season program.

Concluding Thoughts

In summary, my feeling is that we cannot validate the notion “glycolytic conditioning improves mental toughness” because 1)we lack a clear operational definition of “mental toughness” as it relates to sports performance, and 2)it may be a far stretch to say that a single exercise method is responsible for changing an athlete’s psychological characteristic/behavior. As I alluded to, I do believe one’s psychology strongly influences many physiological processes (see Robert Sapolsky’s work), however, I find it a stretch to suggest we should be spending a great deal of time in glycolytic conditioning just for its potential “mental toughness” benefits, especially when the physiological demands of team sports are not primarily glycolytic. Indeed, there are certain settings/logistics that require perhaps different sequencing of energy system training and a more concurrent approach; however, these are my overall feelings on the matter.

How do you feel about glycolytic conditioning? Tell me in the comments section below.

Sports Science Q&A’s with Dr.Davidson – Volume 1

Sam Leahey — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:01:13 +0000

As we alluded to last post (read that first), we’ve contracted with Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson to be our first ever content partner here at www.samleahey.com. This is an exclusive relationship as the new home of Patrick Davidson is now here. This is the first of many great pieces to come in addition to our usual content. You can receive free Patrick Davidson updates HERE. This inaugural post is meant to be very general in nature as the subject is inherently vast. In future posts we'll delve deeper and deeper into the specifics of training and science but for now let's keep it big picture.

Sports Science Introduction

According to Wikipedia – “Sport Science is a discipline that studies the application of scientific principles and techniques with the aim of improving sporting performance. The study of Sport Science traditionally incorporates areas of physiology, psychology, motor control and biomechanics but also includes other topics such as nutrition and diet, sports technology, anthropometry, kinanthropometry, and performance analysis. Sport scientists and performance consultants are growing in demand and employment numbers, with the ever-increasing focus within the sporting world on achieving the best results possible. Through the study of science and sport, researchers have developed a greater understanding on how the human body reacts to exercise, training, different environments and many other stimuli.”

A simple research database search for the phrase “sports science” yields an increasing number of indexed studies each year. Pubmed only has 53 studies indexed with “sports science” in the title of the article. Thus, on a relative level sports science is experiencing exponential growth but on an absolute level we are still less appreciated than other scientific disciplines like medicine. This is expected. The term “evidence-based coaching” is coming intro fruition more these days for a number reasons including trainers/coaches being more educated, the push for more objective results and mitigation of perfunctory natured coaches/trainers, desires for standardization, and a host of other debatable reasons.

Without further ado, let’s get some “big picture” thoughts from Dr.Davidson on sports science issues, paradigms, and the practicality of science as it relates to training.

Question#1: What is sports science to you?

Answer#1: All science is based on the attempt to observe, measure, and explain the way that the universe works. Modern science is a step-wise process that operates under the premises of the empirical method. The empirical method is a standardized, systematic approach to observing and measuring phenomena that is rooted in logic. Science allows for examination of phenomena under the auspices of quantitative and qualitative methods. Ultimately all scientific inquiry involves a blending of quantitative and qualitative aspects. This blending of quantitative and qualitative techniques is what allows us to make objective measurements and then to be able to judge the value of what our measurements represent. Sports science is a specific branch that examines factors related to sports performance. Sports are competitive physical games where the success of participants is dependent upon movement qualities, fitness, and specific skills. Therefore, the attempt to measure, judge, and explain movement qualities, fitness, and skill are the primary domains of sports science.

The ability of the sports scientist to explain the factors related to their domain is dependent upon utilizing the best possible tests, instruments for measurement, a sufficient data base of scores from subjects who have been tested, statistical techniques, and a keen analysis of the underlying meaning of the collected results. Perhaps the most difficult, yet important step in the process just described is the ability to provide meaning to the collected data. Scientific evaluation is based on comparing data to reference perspectives. Reference perspectives are divided into two domains, normative and criterion. In essence, the ability to judge the merit of a quantifiable test result is dependent upon comparing the score to previous scores. This ability to only be able to judge the worthiness of a score by comparing it to previous scores is ultimately what provides the boundary to the scientific method.

Sports science ultimately has to create a complete taxonomy of movement qualities, fitness components, and skills associated with specific sports. All sciences must begin by first listing all of the components that make up its domain. Within the world of resistance training, the taxonomy that we currently have includes the division of movements into such categories as hip dominant, knee dominant, pushing, pulling, etc. from a movement perspective, and the division of force production into limit strength, speed, speed-strength, isometric strength, strength-endurance, etc. Ultimately, we need to continue working on creating as thorough a taxonomy for all movement possibilities, all fitness sub-types, and all sports skills in order to move on to being able to measure, collect a body of scores, and finally create reference perspectives for evaluative purposes.

Sports science is the pursuit of truth as it relates to the ability to demonstrate movement, fitness, and skill. This pursuit will continue to elucidate new findings that may be applicable to athletes from different disciplines. Ultimately the sports science and performance community must continue to identify, measure, evaluate, and dispense the findings relative to our field to drive our collective best practices to new levels.

Q#2: Where is the disconnect between sports scientists and sports performance coaches/trainers? Is it universal?

A#2: This is a question that opens up many avenues of conversation. What comes to mind first regarding the topic of the disconnect between the sports scientists and the sports performance coaches/trainers is that many coaches and trainers believe that the majority of the scientific studies that are taking place in our field have nothing to do with the types of modern training practices being used with athletes. Also, scientific studies are based on a reductionist methodology where one movement quality, fitness component, or skill is isolated and measured on its own. Most coaches and trainers view the training process as an entity where the summation of all training components leads to a result that is different from an isolative strategy. Third, the breadth of scope of published studies in the field is so wide that often time’s coaches may be unsure of where to look to find scientific findings that may be of value to them. The number of published studies grows at such an incredible rate that the ability to keep up to date with everything that is happening in the field is impossible. Trying to identify new and useful information that can be incorporated into a coaches’ current training philosophy can be a very confusing and frustrating process. Ultimately, the answer to whether this disconnect is universal is both yes and no. Every coach will continue to scoff at certain research titles, and think to themselves that the researchers are out of touch, and at other times coaches will come across research findings that provide an eye opening experience.

One of the reasons that there is a divide between the research community and the coaching/training community is because of the incentives for researchers and the goals of the sources of funding. The “publish or perish” paradigm which exists at research institutions compels professors to seek publication in journals that showcase reoccurring themes and topics. The repetitive themes in these high-impact journals are those that receive the most external funding from prominent agencies, such as the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation. The topics that are most heavily funded by these agencies are those related to disease prevention. Previous research has demonstrated that cardiovascular concerns are the primary determinants of health related fitness. While muscular performance and hypertrophy/atrophy are heavily involved with health, the majority of funding and research has been aimed at cardiovascular fitness and disease. Thus, while professors perform agency-funded studies focused on preventative medicine and rise the ranks of the research realm and academia, there is a dearth of literature for the science-minded performance enhancement specialist

The declining health of our nation, the obesity epidemic, and the fact that the youngest generation is predicted to be the first generation to not have a longer lifespan than their parents in recorded history are the primary driving factors that have shaped the direction of research within the exercise and sport sciences community. In the earlier days of exercise science, the primary direction that researchers took was to measure fitness qualities and, ultimately, determine the best ways to improve fitness. Eventually, exercise science transitioned disease prevention, treatment, and possible reversal. The current state of exercise and sport science is that the majority of research focuses on very narrow, isolative analysis of factors related to disease. There is a lack of researchers who are measuring phenomena related purely to sports performance in an integrative, holistic manner. This is largely due to the direction of funding, belief that disease prevention is more important than movement quality, fitness, and skill development, and the current trend of the declining health of the nation.

There are certainly a lot of examples of coaches who have used the findings from researchers such as McGill and Wolfe in recent times to reshape the types of exercises that we do and the way that we coach athletes to perform those exercises effectively, but the list of researchers who are being held in high regard by sports performance coaches/trainers is a short one.

Q#3: What is the role of sports science in our jobs as coaches and trainers?

A#3: Sports performance coaches and trainers are seeking to improve the way athletes move, reduce the likelihood that the athlete will be injured in the sport, improve the working effect of the muscular performance associated with sporting movements, and increase the length of the athlete’s career. The role of sports science in this process is to try to identify what methods accomplish these goals the best. To identify the best methods, scientists need to define all of the contributing variables, measure these variables, attempt to manipulate these variables with training strategies, recovery strategies, nutritional strategies, etc., and then compare the efficacy of each manipulative strategy to one another.

The training, recovery, and nutritional strategies used by coaches and trainers to improve sports performance of the athletes they work with are based on a combination of the traditional methods of the sport, the intuition of the coach, and findings from scientific based sources. Ultimately coaches develop a philosophy that helps the coach formulate the overall testing and training framework for the athlete(s) whom they coach. This framework represents the course of action that the coach believes will allow the athlete to reach the greatest possible levels of achievement in sports performance.

Communication between the coaching/training side and the research side of the sports performance community is an extremely important component in ensuring the continuation of progress in sports. This is something that is lacking in our country. Researchers do not have access to high level athletes for testing and experimentation, and coaches and researchers often times do not have open dialogue with one another. Much could be learned and benefitted for both sides if better interaction was taking place. A good place for this process to start would be to have more researchers get out of the lab and get into the field/into the trenches, and to have more coaches read more from scientific texts and primary sources rather than purely from blogs, newsletters, and websites. When people delve into areas where they are not as knowledgeable, comfortable, and experienced the opportunity for real learning and growth is present.

Q#4: How does a coach/trainer integrate sports science into making athletes better at their event/sport?

A#4: Coaches and trainers should be trying to help their athletes be the best that they possibly can. The sporting world is a highly competitive place. Sometimes the difference between winning and losing comes down to very small differences in fitness, skill, techniques, tactics, or other factors. Sometimes the sporting world can be changed dramatically by innovation in any of these areas. Take for instance the sport of high jumping, which was dramatically changed by the Fosbury Flop, which was a technical change in the way athletes performed the sporting move. Take for instance the sport of swimming, which was dramatically changed by the innovations in suit design. The new suits completely changed the buoyancy of the athlete and provided core stability for the athlete. The way that the athletes swam and trained changed for a period of time when there was very little regulation on suits. These examples show that tremendous change can occur in a sport due to innovation. Often times you do not know where breakthroughs are going to come from.

Coaches who refuse to look to new ideas, practices, and techniques may find that they are suddenly outdated in their sport. If a revolutionary new strategy comes into a sport, coaches who are not open minded and open to change may fail to incorporate something that is clearly better than the old way of doing something. This new method may come from the scientific community. This new method may come from anywhere. The point is that things can change dramatically and they can change quickly. Sometimes the thing that can completely change a sport comes from scientific findings. A coach can be the revolutionary of their sport/discipline if they discover something in the science that they can utilize in the training of their athletes. Conversely, a coach can quickly find himself/herself in the unemployment line if he/she is too stubborn to acknowledge the arrival of the next big thing.

Now, how can a coach utilize scientific findings to improve the performance of their athlete(s)? First off, coaches need to be tireless readers and lifelong learners. The more you read and the more you learn, the greater your capacity to integrate new knowledge into your already existing repertoire. Second, coaches need to be creative in how to apply scientific findings. It is one thing for a coach to read something like Myers’, Anatomy Trains. It is another thing entirely to take the knowledge from Anatomy Trains and use it to create new stretches and exercises that work entire fascial lines and slings as a unit. The application of knowledge is the highest level of truly understanding something. In the world of sports, the application may be all that really matters. Being smarter and better educated is an advantage in sports.

Q#5: Generally speaking do you think of yourself as a scientist, coach, or both? Why? Do you think a line of demarcation is even necessary? Why or why not?

A#5: I view myself as both a scientist and a coach. I also view myself as an athlete still. I am as competitive a person as you will ever meet. I want to be the best at everything I decide to do. I want to contribute to the sports science world through writing, lectures, research, and collaborative efforts. I want to coach my athletes to national and world championships. I want to win the national and world championships.

Of all these goals that I have just listed, the one that I want to accomplish the most is that I personally want to win the national and world championships in the sport of strongman. I think the thing that has always driven me harder than anything else has been the desire to excel in the sports that I participate in. I have always been willing to train as hard as I possibly can. I have always been willing to eat as much or as little as I have to in order to be at the optimal weight to win. I have always been willing to acknowledge and then work at my weaknesses in order to improve my performance as much as I possibly can. I have always been coachable and willing to listen to people. Now that I coach myself, I have to be willing to keep my eyes and ears open to all possible sources that could help me improve my performance. I think that I will always have to be competitive in something from an athletics standpoint. The desire to win has always driven me to try to learn from all possible places, because I truly don’t know where the next big thing is going to come from.

As a coach, I try to examine the sport that my athletes are competing in with a methodical and detailed approach. I also try to evaluate the movement quality and capacities of each athlete so that the results I obtain from them direct the program design for them. I target the weak links of the athlete from their movement quality evaluation and focus my corrective approach at their weakest link. I select fitness exercises for the athletes to perform that I identify as being safe patterns for them based on their movement quality evaluation. I program so that all realms of the strength to speed continuum are trained. I program so that all means: general, general-specific, and specific can receive attention in appropriate volumes at appropriate times.

As a researcher, my primary area of interest is in the area of corrective approaches for over-powered, extremely tight athletes. This is probably because I have been an over-powered, extremely tight athlete for decades. The majority of the young male athletes that I work with in the sport of strongman also fall into this category as well. I ultimately want to discover the best methods for trying to reduce hypertonicity in the patterns that these athletes tend to display.

Do I believe that there is a line of demarcation that exists between my role as a coach and my role as a scientist? Not really. I view the process of successful coaching as a scientific endeavor. I make observations, formulate hypotheses, collect testing data, determine a training plan based on the data, and then reevaluate as often as possible. In the research world, I look at things that are directly related to the issues that I face in coaching. I seek out knowledge that I believe will make me a better coach. The two roles feed each other synergistically.

NOTE TO READERS: Any questions, comments, or conerns can be posted below. You can also find Volume 2 of this Sports Science Series HERE!

Best of 2012 for SamLeahey.com & Major Announcement!

Sam Leahey — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:00:27 +0000

I have been remiss in my responsibility and want to apologize for the lack of publishing. My wife and I moved to a new state and I’ve taken on a host of new clientele. However, expect frequent publications from now on as there are many exciting and new things planned for this site. As 2013 starts, I want to quickly reflect on what’s been popular and generated some good discussion over this past year from sports scientists and fitness professionals all over the world.

Statistically, according to our host’s analytics, readers from over 75% of the world’s countries frequent www.samleahey.com with the top three areas being North America, United Kingdom, and Australia. Over half the site’s traffic comes from readers accessing the site directly and the remaining come from referral websites and search engine traffic. The most popular post of 2012 was “The Science and Application of Coaching Cues” and in second place was “Training & Science is Grey. That’s Why You’re Confused.” The website’s free newsletter experienced a 30% growth and blog readers generated some great discussions in the comment section of many posts.

Basically, www.samleahey.com is on the up, even though there was not as much posting as desired. However that changes this new year as we already have a ton of new things on the docket. Subjects from all avenues of fitness and sports science will be elucidated and more importantly, applied. Biomechanics, physiology, and psychology are all fair game for upcoming posts as they apply to training.

Major Announcement

I’ll get right to it. Traditionally here at www.samleahey.com we are not a fan of “guest blogs” or “special author” editions. Any reader can notice to date we’ve only allowed a single guest blog post. Over time though, you come to appreciate there are just some individuals in the world whose messages and paradigms need to be shouted from the roof tops given their utility and potency. I’m privileged to be in constant communication with some of the world’s top scientists, professors, and coaches. I’ve come to find that many brilliant minds out there simply are not getting their messages across because a)they don’t care to self-promote or b)they are too busy in the trenches to do the marketing themselves.

At that, I’m extremely excited to introduce the readers to an esteemed individual who will be contributing exclusive content here on the site, our first ever partner at www.samleahey.com! This individual is equally as passionate and dedicated to his career as I am. He is a personal friend and one of the top 5 smartest people I know. I stand against, and am offended by, ingratiation. Therefore I say in upmost sincerity, he is one of the greatest in the world at what he does. I am honored to introduce none other than Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson:

We both bleed maroon.

Dr.Patrick Davidson received his Ph.D in exercise physiology from Springfield College and is currently a professor of exercise science at Springfield College. He teaches a number of courses in both the graduate and undergraduate programs and is head S&C coach for Team Ironsport (strongman) at Springfield College. He is an athlete himself, competing in 2013 World Strongman Championship for TeamUSA.

He makes the greatest lifting faces to the point one of his athletes made a collage.

The "bowl of dominance" as he calls it.

Spiral Line.

Expect epic elucidations from Patrick Davidson over this year, exclusively on www.samleahey.com. Stay updated on his contributions via our free newsletter. We’ll be utilizing a plethora of formats such as Q&A’s, audio interviews, articles, etc. all relating to the science and application of training. Stay tuned as the future of www.samleahey.com unfolds, you do not want to miss it. Recieve your free updates HERE.

Training & Science is Grey. That’s Why You’re Confused.

Sam Leahey — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:00:38 +0000

I write this having been guilty of it myself in the past. The nature of the sports science is not perfectly black and white with distinct lines of separation. Two topics that are especially grey are Energy System Development (ESD) and Functional Movement Systems (FMS), which at times can be associated with mass confusion. Applying these concepts often frustrates coaches, and ultimately, they end up ignoring these crucial ideas altogether, returning to their programing status quo. Many times their frustration is derived from their rigid mindset, which keeps them from reaping the benefits of new ideas.

Not every paradigm, concept, or new piece of information can be filtered down into an “if-then” excel sheet. Many are confused because of their discomfort with ambiguity and equivocality. They cope by relegating theories into nice, little rigid boxes which can yield negative results or poor applications because some concepts are too complex to be distilled to simple categories. Training and science is grey, not black and white. Try and be a quantifier and qualifier, not just the latter.

Take, for example, energy systems training. Many people assume that Patrick Ward, Dave Tenney, Joel Jamieson, Mark Mclaughlin, Cal Dietz, and others all understand bioenergetics and program “conditioning” exactly the same . False. While the framework of bioenergetics may result in them having similar physiological elucidations to people, they each apply this knowledge differently. If you gave them all the same person to train, each program would be unique as coaches may prioritize the same concepts and principles in different fashions – potentially very different – but can share commonalities resulting from similar overall appreciation of the science.

On a random side note, is the topic of heart rate variability (HRV). Not that it’s inherently connected with ESD, but there is a lot of context being lost with HRV obsessions today and thus more confusion. Indeed it is the best biomarker we have yet and as a profession we’re taking positive steps, but, it is still just a single window into the athletes functioning. You can measure HRV forever and still have a bad program yielding no results. It’s possible to have fantastic HRV readings and still be weak, slow, poorly conditioned, and unathletic. Creating profiles from the amalgam of HRV, other biomarkers, and performance markers is the goal and what tells you if what you’re doing is working (from a programming standpoint). Therefore while HRV is indeed key, it’s only one of the keys on your keychain. Here's a very practical roundtable discussion on HRV and training. Pay particular attention to Joel Jamieson's comments.

In terms of functional movement screening/assessment, the same indefiniteness or imperfectness applies. There is no perfect number of sets and reps you should perform of rolling exercises or the shoulder mobility correctives etc. etc. Talk to many of the FMS experts and you shouldn’t be surprised if they go about their assessment or correctives differently when by themselves. What should be obvious is they all might adhere to the same principles but have different paths to get the same end result.

Assimilation Troubles

When coaches acquire new information some will experience anxiety assimilating these foreign concepts with their pre-existing paradigms and fear applying it “wrong” or yielding no results. In turn, they seek out an expert inquiring, sometimes demanding, a set and rep protocol or an if-then algorithm to follow. Understandably, we have all been here at one point. Eventually we allow ourselves the freedom to make up our own application based on our own understanding of the science.

Point being, you need to study the science in order to understand the limitations and thus feel confident about your application and the grey areas. Ever heard – “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we always fall to the level of our education/training.” It’s true. If you find yourself constantly harassing/annoying experts with rigid black and white questions you might want to ask yourself if you need to be more qualitative and less quantitative and if you’ve studied the science of that topic or are you just being lazy and asking questions because you don’t care to do more referencing first.

Energy system training, movement assessment, and correctives are not perfect sciences (I’m not sure what is) so appreciate the fact that no one has all the answers and no one understands these concepts perfectly. There are no absolute answers to questions like “how many reps should we do for alactic capacity work?”, “how do I determine lactate threshold without going to a laboratory?”, “how long should manual therapy treatments last?”, “what is the best movement assessment tool?”, “how many times should cardiac output work be done per week?”

If you find yourself frequently asking these types of questions it is probably because you have not studied the subject enough to feel comfortable about the grey and your application. Don’t be lazy. Study first and you’ll likely answer your own questions. From there, whatever questions are left over will probably be less superficial and more meaningful in the overall scheme of things.

So Why Do Products/Algorithms Exist Then?

So, if training and science are grey, then why have many industry leaders and sports scientists created algorithms and if-then type of products or progressions to follow (i.e. the FMS/SFMA, books about ESD with specific protocols)? Believe it or not, those materials were created because said experts, in all their wisdom, already anticipated some people would be uncomfortable with qualitative thinking and would be demanding quantitative measures. The experts saved anticipated coaches’ angst with the indefiniteness of science and training by developing “best fitting” algorithms or if-then type of protocols to mollify the cries of those who won’t study the science for themselves and ascribe to rigid set and rep outlines.

The functional movement screen has been around for years and yet people are still confused, accusing Gray Cook of “being vague and circuitous.” In reality, Gray and his cohorts have been applying the neurological concepts that underpin the FMS for years with great success while the rigid black and white quantifiers are still complaining that Gray hasn’t told them to do 3 sets of 10 reps of this or that particular corrective. The latter group simply sits back and waits to be told what to do instead of taking initiative.

The aforementioned applies to bioenergetics as well. If you have ever read Joel Jamieson’s book on ESD, you’ll notice how the programming examples are very broad. For the same protocol he writes instructions like “20-60 seconds per exercise” and “6-10 sets per series with 2-6 series per session”, etc. Some will read these directions and experience massive anxiety because they notice that 20sec of an exercise for 2 series of 6 sets is different from 60sec of an exercise for 6 series of 10 sets. This leads readers to email Joel and ask “so should I do 20 seconds or 60 seconds?” without considering that if Joel himself thought it really mattered he would not have written it that way or he would of included it under different protocols.

More importantly, if one just took the time to study bioenergetics more in depth, they would view many of their own questions as trivial. So ask yourself, before asking someone else a question – am I just obsessing over a superficial detail that really doesn’t have an answer? If I cultivated my understanding of the basic principles and fundamental science behind this topic, would I even have this question? Am I being rigid or black and white with my thinking? Am I being lazy and just asking questions without referencing more material first?

Bottom line – few people are comfortable with abstract ideas and qualitative thinking. Most just want someone to tell them “do 3 sets of 10 reps.” However, there is a simple solution to this pitfall. Study the science; make up your own application, test, retest, and study some more. If you’re obsessing over superficial pieces it is probably a sign you need to revisit the basic science and gain a greater depth of understanding on the topic.

Most of the products and books created on FMS and ESD were done so (from a theory standpoint) to satisfy the cries of coaches who can’t handle being given principles and need to hear an exact number to follow. They were not made because the authors expect you to follow them 100% to the T. The creators themselves change their methods over the years (from continued study) and may not use those exact protocols anymore. Training and science is grey and you’re confused because you want it to be black and white. I take my own advice.

The Difference Between a Thought Process and a System in Context of Training

Sam Leahey — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:52:17 +0000

I write this piece because I am guilty of everything in it and will always be. However the goal is to eschew as much of the thinking flaws presented here as possible. The phrase “thought process vs. system” is something I heard a lot this past summer with Patrick Ward. While I had similar thoughts before going to Arizona, I left with a far better appreciation for what this means in real world examples.

In any profession, developments over time inspire new direction in people’s career. Coaches find themselves delving into material they’ve ignored for years or previously would have discounted. A simple twist on old information can make it seem novel, sparking new interests and revisited application. This is a fun and exciting process for many. Yet it can be a curse if you do not have a mind filter through which to sift scientific developments and training trends through. It is furthermore a struggle if you hold to a rigid system rather than an open thought process. There is a difference.

A closed system of training is rigid. It does not allow for major changes otherwise the whole system would collapse or be forced to change in compensation. An open system, or “thought process,” can allow for the integration of newly approved ideas without compromising everything else. Sports science will always have major developments in the workings. These developments do not globally manifest instantly. It may take years before you are introduced to something already being applied elsewhere in the world for decades. Besides geography, this scenario manifests in knowledge domains as well. Another coach in the same city as you may be implementing something for years that you simply interpreted as “not necessary”, inferior to what you are currently doing, or putative. Years later you may develop a better understanding of the context, science, and/or paradigm that the other coach operates with, causing you to rethink your stance only to finally conclude that you have been missing out on some good things for a while now. You might even feel embarrassed that it took you this long to appreciate what another coach has been saying or doing years. There is nothing wrong with being a neophyte as this is a normal process that every coach goes through. It is part of our development.

Open System Model. Source: Wikipedia.com

Thus, it would be wise for a coach to take on an “open system” mindset, more importantly; it would be behooving to develop a “thought process” or open system of training that is not rigid and bound by self-imposed logistics and details. It should have a thought process that can adapt to no matter how great the change may require should you deem it worthy. For example, if I have a very specific model of training college freshman that includes 5 detailed phases of certain sets, reps, exercises, rest periods, progressions, etc. etc. and then over time I am convinced there is another “big rock” to add in my jar, however the application I’ve derived would require a restructuring of the whole “college freshman model.” Will I do it? Or will I shy away because I don’t care for the mental strain of adjusting my system? Suppose you’ve always believed training for a certain quality in athletes should be done with XYZ method using a progression of ABC. If you set your system up to be an open system rather than a closed rigid one, you will have no problem adapting when years later you discover the far greater method for developing that quality is not the XYZ method and ABC progression but something entirely different. Here you don’t have to freak out trying to change your business model or training model because it’s highly adaptable as it stands. Need more time to implement something new that you think is worthy of more time? No problem, because you have a thought process and not a rigid system of training. In every session you don’t have to have 20 minutes of this or 20 minutes of that followed by 30 minutes of something else in the name of “efficiency.” It’s ok to totally change directions if a client comes in a different state than expected. Need to change the session goals for today? No problem because your open system is adaptable and by switching training methods on the fly you don’t have to worry about throwing off the logistics of the rest of your clients. This is because you have a thought process, not a system. If your training model cannot accommodate new developments in sports science that are worthy of change do you really have an open minded system or thought process? Or do you have a closed and rigid system? Do you find yourself systematically ignoring or always explaining away things that don’t fit your system? Perhaps you are remiss in your responsibility to your athlete’s ultimate development?

In conclusion, it should go without saying here that terms “thought process” or “system” are just that – terms. They could easily semantically mean the same thing if you wanted. The point here is to appreciate the difference between rigid thinking and programming versus open mindedness and non-rigid programming that is not bound by self-imposed details or logistics. The former will leave you frustrated and the latter will allow for constant adaptability and enhancement.

Deep Core Stability Drives Mobility and Mobility Challenges Deep Core Stability

Sam Leahey — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 03:52:04 +0000

I try to stay away from "guest blogs" but my good friend (and in many ways mentor) Dr.Patrick Davidson of Springfield College wrote up some notes regarding mobility/stability and asked what I thought. How could I not publish it! He is one of the smartest exercise scientists I know and he has a good wealth of knowledge in a plethora of subjects. Enjoy!

Deep Core Stability Drives Mobility and Mobility Challenges Deep Core Stability

Oftentimes exercises are categorized as being mobility focused or stability focused. Individuals are deemed to be in need of either mobility or stability as their primary area for improved movement quality. This divisive thought process may lead to less than optimal results when utilizing exercises that are intended to improve movement qualities. Quality fundamental movement lies on the foundation provided by mobility and stability. Movement is the motor display of integrated mobility and stability. Mobility and stability work together in synchrony to provide for desired movement. Indeed, mobility and stability support one another to allow the human organism to display movement qualities. This article will focus on how individuals can drive thoracic spine and appendicular mobility via enhancing deep core stability.

The author was introduced to the concept of the rib tack maneuver via the influence of dynamic neuromuscular stabilization methods. The rib tack maneuver involves consciously trying to drive the ribs in an inferior and lateral direction. When the ribs are moved inferiorly and laterally, they prevent the appearance of the flared rib look. Flared ribs are indicative of developmental dysfunction in infants. Adults with flared ribs likely will display a host of movement dysfunctions, most notably excessive lumbar spine movement coupled with inadequate thoracic spine movement during global pattern performance. The tacking of the ribs tenses the inferior portion of the thoraco-abdominal deep line myofascia. The closed packed neck position tenses the superior portion of the deep line fascia. The combination of the rib tack and the packed neck leads to enhanced deep core stability. When individuals achieve deep core stability, the likelihood of achieving a diaphragmatic breathing pattern is greatly enhanced.

Dr. Lewitt contends that no movement pattern can be optimized unless the diaphragmatic breathing pattern is in place. It is the experience of the author of this paper that this contention is valid. Furthermore, the author believes that the ability to display mobility from the thoracic spine and appendicular skeleton is greatly enhanced whenever deep core stability is increased. The greater the focus the moving human organism diverts towards increasing the packed neck position, the inferior movement of the ribs, and the inflation of the diaphragm during inspiration, the greater the ability to gain mobility from the segments deemed to be highly mobile joints. These methods are primarily used during slow and controlled performance of global patterns.

The appendicular skeleton and thoracic spine range of motion displayed during movement patterns involving multi-segmental flexion, extension, and rotation, along with the deep squat pattern, and all locomotion related patterns can be enhanced by increasing the effort involved in stabilizing the deep core. As thoracic spine range and appendicular range of motion increase, the ability to stabilize the deep core will be increasingly challenged. Based on this, we can say that as deep core stability increases, the ability to display mobility elsewhere increases, and as range of motion of mobilized segments increases, the challenge to stabilize the deep core increases.

As an example, take a movement such as the downward dog from yoga. In this movement, the individual presses the hips up and back from the upper push-up position. Typically people focus on driving the movement with the hips or pushing the ground hard with the hands. Rather than focusing on solely on these actions, the individual should attempt to drive the ribs towards the hip simultaneous to driving the neck into the closed pack position. Such an action will increase deep core stability, and the ability to go deeper into the downward dog pose will happen in a fairly automatic manner; however, as the pose deepens the difficulty of maintaining the position of the ribs and neck will be increased. All of the benefits that are derived from a movement such as this, including serratus anterior activation, upward rotation of the scapula, thoracic spine extension, and hip flexion should all be enhanced by increased deep core stability. These benefits may be taking place as a result of structural phenomena such as an improved relative flexibility ratio between the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton, or they may be taking place due to functional phenomena related to improved proprioception from centrated joints.

1RM Kinematics & Weightroom Culture

Sam Leahey — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 05:34:34 +0000

Any true repetition maximum (RM) is a perturbation to the neuromuscular system, not just the 1RM. So if the system is being tested, experiencing novel movement challenges, especially maximal ones, by default, exercise technique won’t be perfect. Depending how far away you are from a 1RM, joint kinematics can flicker in and out of “ideal” because the nervous system is trying to stabilize the new movement strategy.

Thus, here we arrive at the age old question – how much “bad” technique, if any, should we allow during an RM test? Ask coaches and scientists and you’ll get different answers under a variety of different contexts. Could the proverbial “it depends” answer or “the truth is in the middle” theory be what we’re looking for?

There seems to be more important factors to address here than maximal strength testing

My own opinion changes a little depending on if men’s or women’s teams/athletes are the reference point. As the stereotype goes, most of the female athletes I work with at the NCAA D3 level need more encouragement to lift heavier weights than the men’s teams I work with. I find myself telling the guy’s to lower the weight and the girls to increase the weight. When we test a RM, the same holds true. If I get the female athlete to push herself beyond her comfort zone without the fear of “getting big and bulky” and her technique breaks slightly, I don’t worry about it. To me, the emotional benefit for this demographic outweighs the risk. Conversely, with the men’s teams, I find myself trying to create “emotional maturity” during a RM tests. Getting them to appreciate that a free weight exercise 1RM is just one of many variables in their sporting success. I also preach that we lift weights all the time so they’ll have a plethora of chances to succeed. Testing day is not the only day to push yourself beyond your limits.

I like to think of this whole process of shifting the athlete’s mindsets away from what is natural as one of the many pieces that make up “weightroom culture”. Getting girls to be uninhibited by aesthetic exercise implications and guys to exercise with a “controlled rage” is part of the sociology we as coaches deal with and enjoy. The driver is a huge part of what we do. Let it also be said the stereotypes I mention here are obviously not absolute. You’ll always have some who go against the grain.

All told each coach will draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable RM technique abstractly as I have yet to see a definition that fits all individuals and contexts. Here is an example of one of my athletes from last off-season:

I consider this excellent relative to a group setting. It goes without saying that not every single one of my athletes looks like this during their 1RM however I deem it a fair “ideal” when trying to do damage control in my group of 64 males at once. So in conclusion with respect to this part of a weightroom culture, I’m not sure there is a definition of “ideal” kinematics in a 1RM attempt. However I don’t think there needs to be either. Changing the mindset of our athletes and training the driver may just fix many of the associated “issues” with RM’s. Lastly, appreciate that a neural perturbation (RM) by default will not have perfect technique.

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Sports Science Roundtable – Volume 1 – Training Specificity

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