{"id":830,"date":"2011-08-29T06:30:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T06:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/?p=830"},"modified":"2019-01-19T23:25:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T23:25:54","slug":"strength-conditioning-keeping-it-all-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/strength-conditioning-keeping-it-all-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Strength & Conditioning: Keeping It All Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many coaches tend to view strength and conditioning as two separate entities \u2013\u00a0\u201cWe strength train and then we condition\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oftentimes, this sort of thought process leads to a rigid compartmentalization of qualities as the coach is trying to\u00a0develop too many different and\/or competing qualities at one time.\u00a0 This sort of separation ends up creating an antagonistic environment within the training program and can have a\u00a0dampening\u00a0<\/em>effect on the end result as the individual does not have the opportunity to\u00a0really develop one thing, but rather, becomes a\u00a0jack of all trades and master of none.<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps it may be more beneficial to look at both strength and conditioning as a singular entity working together to enhance the physiological state of the athlete.\u00a0 In doing so, we can efficiently establish training phases that prioritize whatever fitness quality we are looking to enhance.<\/p>\n

For example, if the athlete is just starting their training program (perhaps coming back from an injury, the start of offseason training after taking time off, or a total beginner with a training age of zero) your initial goal would be to develop general fitness in order to set them up for more intense training and higher volumes of training in later phases.\u00a0 Therefore, your training program in this phase should reflect that goal and the methods you choose \u2013 whether it be lifting weights or performing conditioning on the field \u2013 should work together and not compete with one another.\u00a0 In this example, the resistance portion of the program should be of a lower intensity (65-75%) for a moderate\u00a0number of reps and the methods selected for your field work should be lower intensity also (tempo runs, aerobic plyometric activities, cardiac output work, etc).\u00a0 This does not mean that you cannot work at a little higher intensity\/lower reps in resistance training, it does not mean that you cannot work on a low volume of plyometrics,\u00a0and it does not\u00a0mean that you cannot work\u00a0on a more intense\u00a0method at the field; HOWEVER, these sorts of things are not the priority at this time!\u00a0 A greater amount of your training should be spent focusing on the goal of the training phase, keeping strength and conditioning as one singular entity, and only a very small percentage of the time should be spent with the other qualities.\u00a0 This allows you to prioritize your training \u2013\u00a0give the athlete what they need –<\/em>\u00a0without making things too cluttered and having a program that it schizophrenic.\u00a0 I know block periodization is very popular these days and there seems to be a ton of semantics surrounding that stuff depending on which book you read and which coach you listen to.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t think it has to be any more complicated than:\u00a0Train everything but have only one emphasis at a time and rotate that emphasis as the training program\u00a0progresses on.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The way that I do it is I set up a spread sheet and put down each phase and the length of time I am looking to spend in each phase (obviously this is flexible depending on how the athlete is progressing) across the top of the page.\u00a0 On the left side of the page I write down the various qualities and from there, I fill in the boxes\u00a0determining how much frequency\u00a0each quality will be trained in a given phase, again, always keeping the goal in mind and the idea that strength and conditioning are not separate and need to work together.<\/p>\n

What about hypertrophy training and general fitness?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A young strength coach asked me a question recently about setting up training phases and was concerned that doing more hypertrophy type of training in the first phase (a quality that some of his\u00a0rugby athletes needed) would interfere with their development of cardiac output in the conditioning portion of the workout because the hypertrophy work would be more \u201canaerobic\u201d in nature.<\/p>\n

I think it can\u00a0be easy to get swept away in all of this stuff\u00a0and writing a\u00a0training program can be a daunting task as there seems to be so much stuff to consider.\u00a0 In this instance, however, I don\u2019t see too much of a problem.\u00a0 First, it is important to remember that most people\u00a0who are unfit\u00a0and in need of cardiac output type training are going to make some anaerobic adaptations first.\u00a0 What I mean by this is that anything they do\u00a0with any little bit of intensity will push them up\u00a0into an anaerobic state to meet the demands of the task.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, after a few weeks of this sort of training, they will begin to make the\u00a0necessary adaptations, their fitness level will increase,\u00a0and it\u00a0will take a different sort of stimulus\/stress to get more changes and improvements.\u00a0 For an athlete in need of hypertrophy training, 2-3x\/week of hypertrophy specific work with low to moderate volume (when just starting out on the training program) should be sufficient to see those sorts of adaptations.\u00a0 This leaves a lot of time to develop the main quality of cardiac output and ensure that the athlete is recovering properly and making the adaptations that you seek.<\/p>\n

I think the key thing is to look at your training week and ensure that you are managing stress well and that the progressions you are using are sound and not destroying the athlete right from the get go.\u00a0 Too often coaches\u00a0will start a training program with incredibly high amounts of volume and\/or intensity\u00a0only to have an athlete that is broken down 3-4 weeks later.\u00a0\u00a0As I talked about in a previous article,\u00a0Movement Reserve: Enhancing the Physiological Buffer Zone<\/a>, managing stress and training appropriately are paramount.\u00a0 An athlete who is just starting their training program should be eased into the process to ensure they are sufficiently tolerating the stresses you are exposing them to and the training program should be created to help them develop a higher level of fitness over several weeks.\u00a0\u00a0Train\u00a0only as much as you need to get an adaptation and then no more.\u00a0\u00a0The problem of undertraining is an easy one to remedy \u2013 simply add a little more work and see if you get the changes you want.\u00a0 The problem of overtraining can be a bit more difficult as you are always trying to playcatch up<\/em>\u00a0with the athlete as they are\u00a0generally breaking down more frequently from training and needing to take time off only to try and start over again.\u00a0 Additionally, if the athlete is overtraining\u00a0because they are\u00a0slammed from their offseason training program, as the pre-season approaches this presents a serious problem as the athlete is not going to be able to miss\u00a0practice or\u00a0pre-season games, causing the\u00a0strength coach to determine what parts of training\u00a0the athlete should miss out on or scale back on and then sometimes the athlete will also need therapy (which is an additional stress on the system).<\/p>\n

At the end of the\u00a0day it really comes down to two things:<\/p>\n

1) Figure out what you need from your training program and prioritize that.\u00a0 Don\u2019t separate\u00a0strength and conditioning, as they should work together.\u00a0\u00a0Separating them causes the program to have mixed messages\u00a0as\u00a0there is a bleed over between strength and conditioning when they are trained as separate functions and one will start to rob the other.<\/p>\n

2) Manage stress, start slow, progress properly, and only train as much as you need to get what you want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many coaches tend to view strength and conditioning as two separate entities \u2013\u00a0\u201cWe strength train and then we condition\u201d. Oftentimes, this sort of thought process leads to a rigid compartmentalization of qualities as the coach is trying to\u00a0develop too many different and\/or competing qualities at one time.\u00a0 This sort of separation ends up creating an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strength-and-conditioning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}