Category — Performance

In my last blog entry on stress, Carson Boddicker asked about some ways to quantify stress without getting to extreme.  I offered a few “low-tech” methods which work very well and at the end of the article mentioned some of the more ”high-tech” methods that people can use when sufficient funds allow.

In the comments section of the blog article, track coach Carl Valle mentioned an app available for the iPhone or iPad to evaluate HRV called ithlete.  I heard that they may be making one compatible with the Droid, however nothing for the Blackberry at this moment (which is unfortunate for me).  This seems to be a reasonably priced product and cheaper than some of the Polar watches which can be used to measure HRV.

What is HRV and how can it be used?

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is one method being used to evaluate the stress of the athlete and determine if they are in a more sympathetic or parasympathetic state, which would then guide the training program for that day. 

HRV assess the interval of time between heart beats by measuring the time between R’s in a QRS wave.  Having a high HRV corresponds with a high Vo2max, while having a low HRV can be an indicator of increased mortality and possible cardiac events.  Additionally, when R-R intervals are plotted the frequency at which the length of time between them is measured – very low frequency power (VLFP), low frequency power (LFP), high frequency power (HFP) and finally a ratio of LFP to HFP.  Different frequencies have different influences on both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system.

In a nutshell, when HRV is high, this can be taken as an indicator of a parasympathetic state and being well rested.  When HRV is low it suggest sympathetic domminance, high stress, and a potentially overtrained state.  Additionally, it should be noted that parasympathetic activity is a major contributor to HFP, while LFP is often accepted as a marketer of sympathetic modulation (however, LFP has been debated in the literature with some suggesting that LFP is a paramater of both sympathetic and parasympathetic influences).  Finally, when the ratio of LFP to HFP is high, this reflects sympathetic dominance.

If HRV is low, back off that day, lower the intensity and volume, or take an off-day and recover.  If HRV is high, then training today is business as usual.  Another interesting thing to evaluate is how well the athlete recovers following a high stress situation like competition.  Athletes who are better conditioned will return to a parasympathetic state faster than those with poor conditioning.  This information can be used to plan training the day after competition for individual athletes.

Trained athletes have higher HRV, HFP, and increased R-R interval times compared to untraied individuals.  Additionally, as noted above, athletes who are in better condition are often able to recover at a faster rate following intense bouts of training and competition.

One thing that I would like to investigate in future articles is the influence that soft tissue therapy and manual therapy can have on HRV and promoting a more sympathetic state, as this has important implications to both recovery from training/competition and rehabilitation from injury.

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

In response to Monday’s blog post, Stress!!, the following question was asked

Getting into some of our conversation from yesterday, is there any way we can quantify this stuff without extreme ends? Have you used anything like the Profile of Mood States?

Regards,

Carson Boddicker

Carson, great question.  Quantifying whether or not the athlete is under high amounts of stress and ready for intense/high quality work that day can be done several ways.

First, on my general intake form there is a question regarding the clients own subjective stress levels.  This is something that I further enquire about when talking with the individual, as I want to try and determine where they are at before I start adding more stress.  I’ll ask them about their sleep, their overall daily mood, and times when they feel the most stress.

Having a stress profile as you suggested can be helpful.  Having the individual jot down and/or rate how well they slept the night before, how they feel today, are they sore, how hard would they rate the last workout, etc, can provide you with valuable information to plan training on a specific day.  Additionally, resting heart rate and blood pressure can be taken and compared to previous tests to determine if they are at or around their general norm.

If you don’t want to have the athletes fill out paper work every time, you can also just talk to them and observe them during the warm up.  Being a good observer is an important aspect of being a good coach.  Notice how the athlete(s) look when walking into the gym.  Are they looking sluggish?  Do they look down?  What is their overall posture like (this can tell a lot about a persons general mood)?  From there, during the warm up, you may notice the athlete(s) moving in a slower or uncharacteristic manner.  When I see things like this, I immediately start asking more questions.  If I feel that the athlete is not prepared for intense/high quality training that day, based on what I see and the feedback I am getting, then we go ahead and do a back off day or we just do some soft tissue work and mobility exercises.  I have also sent people home on certain occasions when I felt that taking a full day of rest would be the best thing for them.  Additionally, knowing when stressful periods of the year are coming up can help you plan training.  For example, you work with several collegiate athletes.  Midterms and finals time would be a good time to turn down the training stress as the athletes are usually staying up late to study or write papers, and under high amounts of stress from taking tests all week.

Finally, performance measures can be used if you have a base to measure them against.  A vertical jump or a broad jump (following a good warm up of course) can help to determine if the athlete is ready for strength or power work on a given day.  I believe in Fleck and Kraemer’s Optimizing Strength Training, they recommend taking the average of three jumps.  That number should be roughly 90% or greater than their normal vertical or broad jump if you are going to train power or strength that day.  If it is below 90%, then the athlete is not prepared for high quality work that day and should take a back off day to allow for more recovery to ensure they are ready for the next intense workout.

Those are a few “low-tech” ways of evaluating the athlete, others may have additional ideas, so hopefully they leave the in the comments section.  Of course you can also try and go more “high-tech” with things like the Omega Wave (which I confess I don’t know much about at this time) or even a Polar watch/heart rate monitor that can take your heart rate variability (HRV).

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

Stress plays an important part in what we do as strength coaches/trainers, as well as in other areas such as physical therapy, chiropractic, and even massage therapy.

Basically, we apply a stressful stimulus to our athletes/clients - either in the form of a training intervention or in the form of a therapeutic modality (soft tissue therapy, manipulation, stretch, etc) and we ask their bodies to respond.  When stress resistance is low, the response is not favorable as the athlete cannot recover properly and their body will not respond the way it needs to.  When stress resistance is high, we can push the envelope a bit more and train at a higher level, knowing that the individual is able to sustain this level of stress, recover from it, and come back for more.

With a sound training and recovery program we can help to enhance stress resistance.  Obviously this is also dependant on what else the athlete has going on in their lives, as this too can play a factor in how they respond to the stresses of training and treatment. 

Unfortuntely, stress resistance is not infinite.  We can’t increase our resistance to stress forever.  Rather, stress resistance tends to modulate depending on what we have going on.

• Your girl friend breaks up with you and you may be feeling depressed, which brings you down and lowers your stress resistance.  Alternatively, perhaps breaking up with your girlfriend is a huge relief and a large amount of stress has now been lifted off your shoulders….stress resistance goes up!!

 

• You start working another shift at work and your stress resistance may decrease because you are now cutting into some of your recovery time and adding more hours in an environment that can be taxing (both physically and psychologically).

 

• You get sick for a few days and stress resistance is impaired.

As coaches and therapists it is important to understand stress and take into account all the factors of your athletes/clients lives.  If you push an athlete with low stress resistance to hard, you may run into a rather large set back in training.

A favorite book of mine was written by stress researcher and Standford professor, Dr. Robert Sapolsky.  Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers does an excellent job of explaining stress and its affects on the body in a rather easy (and often times humorus)  manner.  I can’t recommend this book enough.

Additionally, National Geographic did a great piece on stress featuring Dr. Sapolsky called Stress: Portrait of a Killer.  Below, posted in six parts (about an hour), is the entire episode. 

I hope you enjoy them!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

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Last month I attended the NSCA National Conference and watched a lecture on sprint biomechanics given by Jon Goodwin.  The lecture was easily the best of the weekend and I jotted down a lot of notes.  Jon was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule (as both a coach and researcher on sprint biomechanics) to do this interview and I am very excited to present it to you.

Enjoy!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

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1. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to do this interview, Jon.  Could you please tell the readers a little bit about yourself.

Essentially, I’m a frustrated athlete. Injury ended my involvement in athletics and like many, coaching was my next avenue to stay involved in the sport I loved. I started coaching in 1997 and from there my coaching interest progressed from athletics to strength and conditioning. Whilst this was going on I completed a BSc in Sport Rehabilitation and an MSc in Biomedical Engineering before progressing from teaching biomechanics at undergraduate level to validating both a BSc in Strength and Conditioning in 2006 and a distance learning MSc in Strength and Conditioning in 2008 at St Mary’s University College in the UK. I now run these programmes whilst continuing some coaching and starting studies towards a PhD in sprint mechanics.

2. Your presentation at the NSCA National Conference on sprint mechanics was excellent.  In that presentation you talked a lot contact length and contact frequency in attaining high velocity.  Can you please talk a little bit about this?  More specifically, why is contact frequency so important and what can we do about it?

The mechanical relationship here is real simple and governed by real simple rules.
 
Firstly, obeying simple laws of mechanics our motion is only altered by forces. We are subjected to 2 important forces when we run – gravity vertically and air resistance mostly horizontally. If not for these 2 forces we would just continue throught the air at a constant velocity forever. The job of running at max velocity is then to apply forces in such a way that we overcome the changes in motion that these forces create. i.e. when we land we need to arrest the downward velocity we have accrued during freefall and also overcome the loss of horizontal velocity we are subjected to due to air resistance.

Next, we need to think about when we are able to apply the forces that can do these jobs. The answer to that is simple too. The only time we can express these forces actively is when we have a surface to push against. i.e. when we are on the ground.
 
So now we’re left to consider; what are the variables we have access to while the athlete is on the ground? What things can a coach enable an athlete to change to apply force in a more effective way to allow faster top running velocities?
 
There are 2 variables we have access to here.

The first is contact length, the distance travelled by the centre of mass whilst the athlete is in contact with the ground. This is controlled by how long your legs are and how far you reach in front of your mass and/or push off behind.

The second is contact time, the time you take in contact with the ground. This is controlled by how long it takes the athlete to apply enough impulse (force x time) to halt their downward velocity and reaccelerate themself back into the air for the next flight phase.

You should be able to see here, we have the components of our standard equations for velocity; a displacement and a time taken to cover that displacement. This leaves us with a fundamentally important relationship for speed (and acceleration and agility) coaches to keep in mind.
 
Velocity = Contact length / contact time

Obviously our leg length isn’t something we’re actively going to change (not ethically anyway) and wide contact positions such as reaching in front or pushing off a long way behind have been demonstrated to become progressively more ineffective mechanically. Whilst there is likely to be some plasticity in contact length, possibly controlled by athletes strength around the hip, contact length probably only offers small opportunities for change. i.e. getting stronger might enable you to handle longer contact lengths (so allowing faster velocities) but we certainly aren’t going to cue athletes technically to reach out in front or push off further behind.
 
Contact time on the other hand has been shown to be a huge variable of importance. The primary thing faster sprinters do differently is they generate much higher peak leg extension forces on the ground and they do it much more quickly. This means they can overcome gravity and project themselves back in to the air in less time (air time being virtually almost constant across runners of different ability). With this capability they are able to cover their contact length in less time. So what happens to our equation? Contact time gets smaller, so velocity gets larger. This is the primary mechanism by which faster sprinters travel at faster velocities than slower ones.

3. Coaches are always looking for ways to make their athletes faster.  Some coaches teach “quick feet drills” and other coaches work on starts and more technical aspects of the drive phase.  You have been critical of these types of drills for speed development stating that, “Technique is only important if it produces greater ground force production”.  Can you please explain your stance on these drills and what you recommend coaches do instead?

I’ve never thought of myself of being critical of anything, but I guess I have been just a little! Certainly I’m always looking to understand what adaptation/responses we are likely to see in response to different drills to allow us to cut potentially ineffective elements. 
 
I guess my central point is, the only way we can travel at faster velocities is through the way in which we affect ground force production and therein the equation given above. Therefore understanding good technique, good coaching cues and effective drills is about seeing how these things are related to ground force production.
 
Fast feet drills have an outcome of focussing attention on geting the foot off the ground quick, but this isn’t how we reduce ground contact time in sport. In sport we reduce ground contact time by expressing our forces more quickly to enable the acceleration job to be done in less time and so the athlete to move off the ground into their next movement skill. Fast feet drills are therefore cueing an inappropriate pre-activation pattern which results in low ground force production on contact.

Drive phase coaching I believe I often see go wrong as coaches cue their sprinters to stay in a drive phase for longer when in fact they don’t have the leg extension strength capabilities to allow this mechanically. Athletes then just try and achieve the outcome of ‘staying low’ by folding through the torso and losing effective body position. Weaker athletes should not be coached to stay down for longer until they are given the strength capacity to do so. To stay in a drive position they need to be able to apply enough leg extension force, in the ground time available, to overcome gravity vertically and then have plenty of force ‘left over’ to be directed horizontally. i.e. the strength ability to accelerate at a high rate is what enables a low drive position. Athletes who are too weak to accelerate at a high rate need to come upright much sooner. If you want your sprinter to stay down longer, get them stronger.
 
In the end the rules are simple for me.

Drills should involve active strike patterns towards the ground, affirmative foot contacts and generally high levels of stiffness throught the leg i.e. the leg doesn’t flex much on landing.
Coaching cues should always consider the strength capabilities of the athlete. Often (although not always) the route to improving the technical model is changing strength or mobility qualities rather than giving repeated technical cues.

4. When talking about developing speed you mentioned that the vertical foces are the most important ones that we need to overcome, which makes sense since gravity is something that is always there.  You say that the horizontal forces are not as important.  Can you please expand on this?

As you say, large horizontal force production is not the answer as we are not overall accelerating horizontally, only vertically. Even when we accelerate horizontally at the start of a run we just tip/incline the system forward to facilitate using strong triple extension pushing mechanics. We only come upright as we approach top speed because we have less time available and so more of our effort has to be directed vertically to overcome gravity. If gravity was smaller we would be able to stay in a drive phase for longer.

This isn’t to say that horizontal forces aren’t relevant. For example if our athlete exhibits high braking forces then they will have to equally generate horizontal propulsive forces to conter this. Therefore reducing horizontal braking forces is often a focus of coaching, with powerful hip extensors being a potential factor here.

5. Lets talk about exercise.  What are some exercises that you have your sprinters do that you find particularly effective?  Are you using any special strength exercises or stick more to the meat and potatoes lifts like squats, cleans, deadlifts, etc.?

As a scientist as well as a coach I would say I don’t have enough data to demonstrate what works. We are doing training intervention studies at St Mary’s to try and answer this and I think some other universities in the states are also on the case (Peter Weyands group for example).
What I can tell you is what I have used, and therefore believe works (having removed plenty of things I tried that were probably mistakes!).

Obviously balance around the body is key for injury prevention, but in the main there are a few key functions of the body that are key to sprint performance.

Powerful hip extensors potentially reduce braking forces and brace the leg against the ground, preventing collapse of the leg spring and facilitating high rates of force production vertically.
An ability to stiffen the knee and ankle through eccentric control in knee extensors and ankle plantar flexors plus strong tendons, allows for fast force production on contact.  \Therefore I periodise general training activities into the programme to provide variation and a progression in stimulus from strength towards power and speed.

Although most exercises are in the programme all year round, emphasis shifts in the pattern here:

Hip Extension: Deadlift and RDL — Weightlifting — Heavy sledge runs – hopping and bounding

Knee stiffness: ATG Squats — heavy eccentric (over 1RM) single leg leg press — 1/4 squat jumps and jerks  — 2 foot hurdle bounds

Ankle: Heavy eccentric (over 1RM) single leg calf raise/lower  — 2 foot hurdle bounds
Plus some general hip flexor strength work to facilitate deceleration of the leg in late stance and initiate forward swing of the leg.

If acceleration is the target of general training then the knee and ankle focus changes a little so that concentric power is the focus rather than eccentric control.
 
This format is then adapted to deal with individual athletes mechanics. If an athlete is hip dominant then there will more of a knee ankle focus for them and vice versa. By way of example, Christophe Lemaitre who recently won the euro championships, I would class as hip dominant. He has a long contact length (observation, not measured) reaching in front and therefore for the velocity he travels at, affords himself a long contact time which helps him overcome gravity with what appear to be relatively weaker knee and ankle. In my mind a knee/ankle dominated programme for one winter would allow him to combine this ability with a shorter contact times and then run a good deal quicker. (he’s also light and has long legs so has some natural advantages for top speed running. If we was to be given a hypertrophy programme I would suggest it should mostly only be for knee extensors and ankle plantar flexors.)

6. In your opinion, how strong is strong enough?  We have seen some great sprinters who do very little resistance training.  How much lifting do sprinters need to do, volume or frequnecy wise?  While every athlete is different and has different needs, do you have a basic template that you follow for programming training for your sprinters that you can speak a little bit about?

There is no ‘strong enough’. Providing they don’t break, you can never have a spinter that wouldn’t benefit from being able to express more force more quickly when the hit the ground. However there are some caveats to this statement.
 
One is that there certainly is a point of ‘muscular enough’. More muscle mass enables sprinters to run faster through the application of higher ground forces. However for all athletes there is a threshold where this relationships flips; where the strength pay off is outweighed by the additional resistance you have to overcome to accelerate your bodyweight vertically. We don’t have any numbers to say when this point is for individual athletes so coaches have to make a judgement call. I certainly think there are some 10.0 sprinters around that would run a bit quicker if they weighed a few lbs less. Perhaps dropping some of the pecs and guns and even a bit more body fat in some cases would help!

The second is that with a finite limit on optimal muscle mass there is then a ceiling on how strong we can get a sprinter. Our general training is designed to educate the athlete to rapidly activate all of their big, high threshold, fast twitch motor units in a co-ordinated fashion. Well once they can do this maximally and with sound steering/control, since we can’t get them bigger to get further strength increases, then general training ceases to be effective in pushing the athlete forward in terms of force production (not to say there aren’t other benefits).
 
As strength coaches we need to accept that the closer athletes get to their optimal muscle mass, and rapid maximal activation of that mass, then our general training methods become progressively less effective. Eventually all that is left is becoming more skillful in expressing that force in the specifics of our sports task, in this case sprinting.

The sprinters we see eccel without strength training are the rare and lucky breeds who are naturally able to achieve many of the outcomes that our general training is directed at. Perhaps they are gifted with a level of hypertrophy that is optimal without any resistance training, perhaps they naturally are able to recuit all of their big fast twitch motor units in a skilfull manner upon ground contact. I’m sure we can often still improve these athletes further, but certainly the gains are likely to be a lot smaller.

Having said all that, most of us aren’t lucky enough to work with animals like that, and generally have big gains to be made. In those cases then typically gym based work takes a precedence for me in the first 3 months of a winter off season. 3 gym based sessions, and possibly 4 will be in place where we think the athletes structure and general force producing capabilities are a limiting factor. Progressively running reclaims the front seat through mid winter and by the time May/June comes round then general strength training gets dropped almost completely, about 8-12 weeks before key races of the season. In this period all training efforts are in refining the way forces are applied in running specifically. It’s another common mistake that I think is made, people wanting to hang on to their big general strength training exercises for too long into a season. General strength gains built over months or years don’t disappear when we stop lifting. Our squat score goes down but that’s more a skill issue than an underlying strength issue, and the skill we are concerned with is running, not squatting. The fatigue from continuing heavy lifting far outweighs any benefit from continuing strength work. Squatting a 190kg PB 2 weeks before a race will not likely enhance performance as that strength is ony being expressed in a squat action and we haven’t had any time to transfer that to force production in our running action. Squatting 180kg 2 months before and then practicing running with that strength, in a more rested state, is what is likely to improve performance.

7. It has been a real pleasure doing this interview, Jon, and I’m sure the readers will certainly take a lot away from it.  Can you please tell the readers what you are up to next or where they can hear more from you?
 
I’m busy writing at the moment; some book chapters on speed, agility, plyometrics and biomechanics in S&C, plus a few research studies that we completed a while back but I’ve been too busy to write up.

Not sure where they might hear from me next. I’d love to come back to NSCA if I’m wanted. Always happy to take a trip to the US to chat about training!

Two days ago I posted some of the pearls of wisdom that Gray Cook laid on us at the FMS Course this past weekend in Phoenix.  Below are some of the other notes I jotted down in my notebook during the two day seminar.

Gray’s Pearls Part 2:

- If you have an issue with your active straight leg raise or shoulder mobility, you don’t have the right to go anywhere else in a corrective strategy.  Don’t worry about your squat, clean up active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility FIRST!

- If you leave out one of the seven tests because of your own bias, your data will be flawed and you wont get the same result.  There are seven tests for a reason.  They are all important!

- After you clean up your active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility, shoot for cleaning up rotary stability, as this is a true test of “soft core” function.

- Pain is not a signal we can train through.

- You need to get your clients to stop doing negative activities that will hold back their progress in your program.  Once movement clears up and is above a minimum standard, they can work back to doing what they like to do.  If they aren’t willing to give these things up, the results of the program will always make you look bad, as they wont improve.  For example, the best back surgeons will not operate on smokers because smoking delays the healing process and their results will not be as good, making the surgeon look bad.  You wouldn’t ask your mechanic to run along side you car and fix the engine WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING IT!

- Don’t be ready to add a positive (corrective exercise/strategy) to a training program.  First try and remove a negative! 

- Any movement that you cannot score at least a two one means that you can’t do any conditioning or strength work on that movement.  You must meet the minimum standard.

- The definition of corrective exercise is move well and then move more.  Most people just want to move more.

- The best way to get your core to work right is to correct your worst movement pattern.  If you can get mobility back, your core will turn on automatically and do what it needs to do (mobility before stability).  Your core may not be able to work properly right now because your ankle is locked up, or your hips don’t move well, etc…Doing all the core work and plank exercises in the world wont fix this problem.

- Work backwards to the crib for correcting movements!

• This was one of my favorite comments of the weekend.  You can read more about how developmental kinesiology applies to the FMS in my article HERE.

- If you don’t move well in a pattern, don’t move often in that pattern until it improves.  For example, if the squat pattern is bad, don’t worry about doing plyos or jumping activities until it is better.

- It disappoints me to see research that tests stability without the researchers clearing mobility first.  Stability is driven by optimal mobility, as mobility improves mechanoreceptor stimulation.  Poor mobility = poor mechanoreceoptor function = poor stability.

- A higher center of gravity will make you authentically stabilize.  Seek to use a higher center of gravity in some of your exercises/movements.

- If you go into a movement pattern and the muscles that are being lengthened contract and push you out of the pattern, THIS IS NOT TIGHTNESS.  This is actually a contraction, even though the client describes it as tightness.  A good example of this is clients who can’t touch their toes and claim that their hamstrings are tight, when in reality, the hamstrings are turning on (when they should be lengthening) during the movement to provide stability to the pelvis since the core is not doing what it needs to do.  This is muscular contraction and not hamstring tightness.

- Inconsistencies in the FMS are usually stability problems, while consistencies are typically mobility problems.

- If you want to see your abs eat better.  If you want your abs to work better, move better!

- The definition of functional exercise is what it produces, NOT what it looks like.

- You gotta break a pattern before you can make a pattern!

- We’d like to think that we can verbalize to people how they can move better, but we can’t.  Try and tell someone who has never rode a bike how to do it and see if they can go out and reproduce it.  They can’t!  They have to actually go out, get on the bike, and try it out a few times to under stand what it feels like.  Exercise is the same way.

- You can’t motor learn authentically in a painful pattern.

Hopefully you found these notes useful and they made you think a little bit.  As I said, the course is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com