We have had some good discussion over at Strengthcoach.com regarding energy system development training.  Dave Tenney, athletic development coach for the Seattle Sounders soccer club, as done a great job of offering some of his ideas and I have tried to add a few of my own as well.

One of the things I observed at the NSCA National Conference this year was the attention to detail the European strength coaches had with regard to a balanced approach to developing fitness in their athletes.  However, as I noted in the review linked to above, the American coaches tend to be much more concerned with the “strength/power” development and leave little room for energy system training, save for 10-15min of interval work.

When we try and discuss some of this stuff, it seems that many coaches are afraid of “cardio”.  I will admit right up front, I have been guilty of this in the past as I placed more emphasis on strength and less emphasis on a well-balanced energy system development program – opting for the ever popular intense interval training, operating under the notion that this is all someone needs to develop their fitness.

Before I go on, I want to make sure that people understand that I am not advocating just going out and jogging for 60min.  What I am more talking about is finding ways to improve your work capacity that get you away from the demanding work of interval training, which in the long run can have a negative impact on the body as it is a much greater stress than a less intensive method.  This work can be used (a) in the offseason to develop fitness and prepare you for the more intense training to come as the season approaches or (b) as a recovery day from heavy/intense training when the body needs a break from so much tearing down.  Some examples of how you can perform energy system development work:

1. Circuit Training
2. Medicine Ball Circuits
3. Tempo Runs with active rest in between reps
4. Sled dragging
5. Oxidative Work

The common recommendation has been that during this work you want to keep your heart rate between 120-140 bpm and work for 30-60min (this can be continuous or with rest intervals in between sets and series).

One of the ways to apply this is in the offseason, as I mentioned above, following some low volume of strength or power work, which would be trained at more of a retention load.  This can be on days in between the strength or power sessions or this can be the focus of the training session as it follows the low volume of strength or power work.  As training progresses on, the strength/power work would start to move into more of a primary focus, while the energy system work above will begin to adopt a more sport specific work:rest ratio.  The work capactiy stuff can still be used at this point, again as noted above, as a recovery workout, in between hard training sessions or at the end of a strength/power workout to maintain those qualities.

What are we afraid of?

People are always talking about how worried they are that strength/power athletes will start to convert fibers to having more slow-twitch/oxidative properties, leading to decreased strength and power.

Are we that afraid that people will just turn into a bundle of type I muscle fibers?

What sort of decease in power output would people expect to see by short 2-4 week blocks of this when strength and power are still trained at retention loads?  I am in no way advocating doing this for the next 12 weeks and doing this exclusively.   The same rules of periodization apply.  After all, the goal of periodization is to introduce a new/novel stimulus to the body in an effort to continue progress.  If all we do is train for maximum strength year round or do intense interval training year round, eventually we burn out, the body starts to break down, and our progress stalls, at best, and at worst we sustain an injury.

A good program should develop all energy systems to some extent as they are all important and valuable to the abilities of the athlete. Obviously some qualities (strength/power) will be more important than others (aerobic) but all athletes need to develop the other qualities as well and all need a fundamental work capacity. Are we not currently seeing a big push for endurance athletes to lift weights and do some strength training? *Gasp* Wont they get strong and lose their endurance abilities?!? Even strength/power athletes need some sort of aerobic abilities (albeit less than a marathoner) in order to recover between training sessions and recover adequately between sets.

Wrapping up

I really don’t see what all the fuss is about.  A well thought out program should focus on a variety of athletic qualities as strength and power are not the only ones.  Cardiovascular work is more than just jogging on a treadmill or riding the stationary bike.  It can reflect movements in the sport.  It can reflect rest intervals in the sport.  It can be performed with a variety of implements – body weight, resistance training, medicine balls, etc.  You are only limited by your own creativity as far as how/when to put this stuff into your program and the manner in which you perform it.

With everyone talking about barefoot running and getting out of very cushy/supported shoes over the past year, I thought it would be good to review the Janda short foot posture and go over some exercise progressions that we have been using to help re-train the intrinsic muscles of the foot.

What is it?

The Janda short foot posture is a technique that Janda proposed to teach patients to shorten the longitudinal arch of the foot, thus moving the patient out of their flat foot position.  The short foot posture offers a variety of benefits at the foot such as:

– Increased proprioception of the bottom of the foot

– Enhanced joint alignment up the chain at other joints

– Improved stability of the body

– Increased strength of the foot for better locomotion

As you will see in the below video, exercises with the short foot posture should follow similar progressions of any other exercise you would use:

Bilateral stance > Split Stance > Single Leg Stance

Important point

Refrain from curling the toes, excessively flexing them into the floor, or trying to grip the floor with the toes.  The arch should be created with the toes flat on the ground, not overly flexed, and drawing the ball of the big toe toward the heel of the foot.

As you will see in the video, when the client moves to single leg stance, his foot stability is challenged, and his big toe starts to come up off the ground (although he works to correct it right when it happens).  The goal is to perform the movement with a healthy arch and the big toe down on the ground.  Trying to push all your weight to the outside of the foot in order to create an arch is not the same as the short foot posture.

Exercises

In the video we used some single arm cable row progressions, however, there are a variety of exercises we perform to re-train the foot:

– Single leg clocks (some call this single leg excursion or star-balance)

– 1-arm cable chest press/rows

– Single legged deadlifts

– Split Squats

– Step ups

– Medicine ball throws and catches

Again, exercises should follow a logical progression:

Static (very little movement) > Dynamic movement with lower extremity stable > Dynamic movement with lower extremity mobile > Explosive movements

Always ensure that the client can handle one progression before moving to the next!

Where to place it in the workout

We use these movements in one of two places during our training sessions.  Obviously these are not heavily loaded strength exercises, so we use these either as part of our warm up, or later in the training session as an ‘accessory movement’.

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.

I have another review up at Fitness Research Review Website for those interested:

The Relationship Between Forward Scapular Posture and Posterior Shoulder Tightness Among Baseball Players

Laudner KG, Moline MT, Meister K, American Journal of Sports Medicine 2010 (in press)

Some of the pertinent findings:

– The dominant shoulder of both pitchers and position players were significantly forward compared to the nondominant shoulder.

– There is a relationship between posterior shoulder tightness, as measured by glenohumeral adduction, and forward scapular positioning.

– There was a negative relationship between glenohumeral adduction and forward scapular position. Those with greater posterior shoulder tightness had greater forward scapular position than those with less posterior shoulder tightness.

– No significant relationships were found between scapular posture and glenohumeral internal or external rotation.

– Differences in internal and external glenohumeral rotation were noted between dominant and nondominant shoulders, with a tendency towards greater external rotation and decreased internal rotation in the dominant shoulder. However, the total arc of motion between the two arms was similar. These findings are consistent with other findings on baseball athletes (6).

If you would like to read the rest of the review, including some practical applications of how we can use the information in this paper to help us better prepare athletes, please log onto Fitness Research Review Website.

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).