Periodization

I apologize for the long break in writing this blog.  However August is a great month for some rest and recovery from all that life throws at you.  That sets up a perfect transition into discussing the concept of periodization. 

Periodization is a concept that can be viewed in a very simple fashion or at very complex level.  In theory it is the management of work, stress, volume, intensity versus rest in a systematic fashion.    The objective is to create a strategy for the training that produces the maximum amount of improvement allowing athletes and non athletes to reap the greatest benefit from training.  It also integrates training into the competitive calendar of athlete during the competitive season.   

As mentioned before one of the most important parts of a successful training program is the strategy developed around the training to reach a particular goal.    The tactics are the day to day training modalities that support this strategy.  If the strategy is weak then the tactics do not have as much of the intended effect and the athlete’s progression is slowed or reversed.   Therefore, periodization should be a large part of the strategy for an athlete.   From my experience you see endurance athletes or cyclic sports paying the most attention to periodization.  I think that is because the volume of training time is typically greater.  Also with cyclic sports the training and the sport are often times the same.  Think of cycling.  In other sports or non cyclic sports the strength and conditioning is usually much different than the sport.  Think tennis.  However, non cyclic sports would be well served to look closer at periodization to maximize training results.  At Titan  we utilize periodization principles in the training of our athletes in both cyclic and non cyclic sports  as well as with personal training clients.  

So in principal periodization is a well planned, systematic, methodical training plan that maximizes the concept of overload and adaptation.  This periodization should address the neuromuscular requirements of a sport, the metabolic requirements, and the cardio respiratory requirements.  

I have found the most effective method to creating an effective peiodization is to work backwards.  The training should be based on an evaluation the current fitness level and how these relate to the goal of training.  The eastern bloc countries during the 1960s and 70s were structuring 10 year periodization.  I think the periodization should be long.  Today’s fast food mentality makes this difficult for many and increases the risk for overloads that are too great and subsequently injure or over train the athlete.  It is important that the long term perspective is evaluated even though many would state that 10 years from now is not that important today.  That is a naïve perspective that will hurt the progression of the athlete in the long run.   By working backward and understanding the starting point, coupled with a goal a periodization can be developed.

Overloads and regeneration must be monitored and managed through the periodization.  This progression and regeneration both in the short run and long run must be monitored and measured.  This also allows the strength coach to better understand total stress on the body, plus how athletes and individuals adapt and respond to training stress.  Training stress is cumulative and must be measured both on a macro basis and a micro basis.  

The periodization is usually broken into micro cycles and macro cycles.  The coach must understand the energy systems utilized by the athlete for a particular sport and the time it takes for the athlete to recover.  Without this understanding training becomes a patchwork of stresses and recovery that does not maximize training time.    The goal should be both physical and psychological.  The psychological aspect is of even greater importance with an athlete.  

I will be addressing the different approaches to periodization in future posts. 

Train smart, have fun and you will prevail.

jacques

Thinking About Recovery

If you have not spent much time thinking about recovery, you need to start thinking about how this impacts your performance and training gains. I discussed earlier the idea of overload and adaptation and the need to obtain greater and greater overloads with appropriate rest to illicit a positive training response. This is the idea of supercompensation. If the body has adequate time for recovery from overloads it will adapt and become stronger. ( Bompa, T. Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics (2001) Much of the adaptation takes place when you are not exercising and recovering from the stress that exercise puts on the body. This stress is not just physical, but psychological. Many athletes today have very busy lives outside of their sport and do not take into account the toll that mental stress has on the performance and recovery of the body. Make sure you keep this in mind when looking at your own recovery strategy.

There are a number of areas of recovery that must be thought about. When people think of recovery the first thing that usually comes to mind is the time between training sessions. Next people think about the rest between particular sets of exercises. For example someone does 10 squats and then rests before performing more repetitions of the same exercise. The area that many people spend no time thinking about is the time between repetitions within a set. At Titan we have spent a lot of time focusing on this recovery period to maximize our training efforts. All of these are areas of recovery need to be addressed to allow the maximum overloads and the quickest adaptations from the overloads. The area that must also be considered is the competition stress and recovery. In many cases the physical stress may not exceed what is experienced in training, but the mental stress of game time environments must be taken into account when recovery time is being considered.

The objective behind the tactics and strategy of recovery are to allow the individual to adapt and improve from training and competition.

Below is a table that outlines some of the different methods of recovery between workouts and what are some of the pros and cons. At Titan we have had great success with active recovery for our athletes. Active recovery also helps in the athlete relaxing from mental stress as well as physical. The idea of just going easy is great for an athlete when training and competition become intense. It is a great relief when a coach tells an athlete to go easy.

Recovery Pros and Cons

Passive Rest Recovery
Pros: Requires minimal effort
Cons: Not effective for quick recovery

Compression Garments
Pros: Requires minimal effort, good for travel
Cons: Expensive, requires correct fitting, inconclusive data

Contrast Water Therapy
Pros: Works well, quick
Cons: Requires facilities, difficult for large squads

Active Recovery
Pros: Free, easy to do, effective
Cons: Bad Weather and team talks can distract or delay

Cold water immersion
Pros: Passive, effective
Cons: Can shock the player and actually be stressful, requires facilities

*Table from Peak Performance Newsletter, June 2010


The strategy of rest between sets and rest between reps is something that needs to be addressed. This is a subject that I will have to address at length in another entry because it is an important component in getting the greatest value from every workout. Utilizing the appropriate time between these efforts allows the athlete to maximize the training overload within individual workouts.
I will go into more detail on this subject in a future post, but if you are reaching plateaus in your training start adjusting and experimenting with the rest between exercises and repetitions. Small changes here can result in big gains in your performance. I have found that most of the time there is inadequate rest in these areas, especially as athletes become fit.

Train smart, have fun, and you will prevail.

Jacques

Short Term Training Tactics & Specificity in Training

In the list of building the perfect athlete I talk about strategy and tactics. Strategy is the longer term road map or plan to get you from where you are now to where you would like to be as an athlete. This includes the establishment of goals, the timing and measurement of the progress. What are your strengths and weakness as an athlete? Are there any external factors effecting your performance and how are they addressed. It answers the why of a workout on any particular day. It is the architectural training plan so that that the outcome satisfies your goal as an athlete.

The tactics are many. What particular exercises? What is the volume and intensity of a particular training methodology? Does the exercise enhance the ability to perform the particular movements required in the sport? The answer to that question revolves around the idea of Specificity of Training. At Titan, we believe that winning in sport is derived from the development of power (moving your body through space) in a fashion that suits a particular sport. This is (power x X Factor) The X factor is the amount of times or level of absolute power required to perform a task. For example: Swinging a baseball bat is a much different X factor than throwing a punch for a boxer. The boxer has to produce a smaller amount of power numerous times in a fight than the hitter of a baseball. The mechanical requirements and metabolic requirements are much different and the training must be adjusted to accommodate the different requirements of the different sports.

This accommodation and differences in the trainings is defined as Specificity of Training. This accommodation ties directly into the concept of correlation and training that I discussed in a previous post. The focus of the training should be on exercises that modify the body’s complex neuromuscular systems to overcoming movements that apply directly to the particular sport.

This requires the analysis of a particular sports movement pattern. Looking at baseball again, the training must evaluate the movement patterns of hitting, throwing, and running bases. What are the biomechanical adaptations necessary? What type of movement pattern? What is the type of muscle contractions necessary? What are the metabolic requirements of the baseball? These requirements are just a small list with many more factors to be considered and addressed when training a baseball player.

So you get the idea of specificity. This is not to be confused with simulation. Many strength and conditioning programs are developed to try to simulate the sport and just add a level of resistance to the movements. This can be helpful in certain movements, however if done without foresight the training can actually confuse the neuromuscular patterns that have been developed and therefore result in a diminishment of sport performance especially of a very high level athlete. Simulating the sport with resistance does not take into account all the physics of movement like center of gravity, inertia etc., so be thoughtful and understand the difference between simulation and specificity.

Think about the X factor of your sport and train in a way that addresses the specific needs and requirements of that particular sport. Your tactics should be adjusted so that it addresses the specific requirements of the movements and metabolic requirements of your sport.

Train smart, have fun, and you will prevail.

JD

ISOKINETIC TRAINING “VERT” TRAINING:

If one looks at our website you will see a video with one of our athletes doing jumping squats on a machine with a computer screen. This is an isokinetic machine which we call the Vert machine. We have utilized isokinetic machines in our training since our inception almost 8 years ago. There are a number of advantages that these machines provide in the development of power in an athlete. The machine that you see is multipurpose and can be used for both upper body exercises as well as lower body exercises.

Isokinetic machines have been around for some time and the resistance overcome in an exercise is a function of the force applied. In other words the faster you move the greater the amount of resistance the machine provides. The machine also measures the velocity of a movement and the force production of each individual repetition. It also allows us to have a ton of additional data to evaluate our entire training protocol to ensure that the athlete is progressing at the optimum pace.

There are a number of advantages to utilizing isokinetic training in sport.
• This method of training forces the muscles to work with maximal effort all the time and renders a larger, faster increase in strength. This accommodates the athlete’s capabilities throughout the range of motion. This training also lowers the risk of injury dramatically when training for power. (James Counsilman 1971,1972)
• In my previous post I spoke about overload and adaptation. Small incremental overloads on a regular basis increase the body’s ability to perform a particular movement with greater levels of performance. I indicated in earlier posts that the biggest enemy of an athlete is time. There is only so much time to devote to training, so wasted time carries a substantial cost to the career and performance of an athlete. In most instances when athletes have adaptations to particular training the strength and conditioning coach is unaware of these changes until time has passed and the athlete tells the trainer that the exercise regimen is too easy and is no longer overloading the athlete. The isokinetic machine eliminates the cost of lost time. The minute the athlete starts the exercise the machine recognizes the increase in performance and increases the overload immediately. There is no delay!!
• Isokinetic equipment eliminates training in “no man’s land” No man’s land training is the rut that most good athletes fall into. The training is too hard for recovery and not hard enough for an overload. The athlete is taxed and tired but is not improving performance. This is where a lot of good athletes stop progressing. They dig themselves into a hole, working harder and harder but see no improvement in performance. The isokinetic equipment provides us with data to see the force production, velocity, time to peak force, and a ton of other data that allow the trainer to see if the athlete is not training at optimal levels to elicit performance improvement.

At Titan we have utilized isokinetic training for a wide spectrum of athletes. If power is a necessary component of a sport, we have developed methods that are of great impact on the production of power.

One of the most interesting areas we have spent great time on is Maximum Sustained Power. (MSD) Most coaches are very focused on absolute power. Absolute power would be displayed when a volleyball player tests there vertical jump. A 40+ inch vertical jump would be very important to a volleyball player in a game. However, what wins a tournament is the ability to jump close to 40 inches in the last game of a tournament. Most athletes will train for absolute power to get their vertical jump as high as possible. Then they do endurance training separately. At Titan we have developed innovative training to not only maximize the absolute power of one jump, but to allow the athlete to produce maximum or close to maximum power for hundreds of jumps with the use of the isokinetic equipment. An absolute jump is great, but being able to continue to produce that type of power over a long period of time is what wins games.

This idea of maximum sustained power applies to all sports just at different levels of output. When organizing your training think about your ability to produce power not just once but for a sustained period of time.

Train smart, have fun, and you will prevail.

Jacques

Strategy Development: How is a training strategy determined based on the sport?

In the last entry I discussed overload and adaptation. The idea was that incremental overloads on a regular basis, allows the body to adapt to these increases in stress by a physiological change in the ability of the body to perform the specific task at greater and greater levels of output.

When training a particular athlete, how is this idea of overload/adaptation implemented?
The training, both tactically and strategically, must be specific to the sport. This statement is obvious but becomes much more complicated and tricky as the athlete becomes fitter.

A good example would be in training a 100 meter sprinter. It makes sense anecdotally that having a really strong grip is not going to make you a great sprinter. So spending large amounts of time on one’s grip would not be the best use of training time for a sprinter. Now a wrestler would look at his grip as an important part of the sport, and a weak grip would be something that would need to be addressed. The correlation of grip to wrestling has a much higher relationship than the correlation of grip to sprinting.

The above example demonstrates the concept of correlation and how it relates to training. If one had the time and the inclination, correlation coefficients could be measured on different performance measures to rank the value of training exercises relative to a sport. The correlation coefficient is a number between -1 and 1. If there is no relationship between the predicted values and the actual values the correlation coefficient is 0 or lower (the predicted values are no better than random numbers. This would be the example of grip strength to sprinting). As the strength of the relationship between the predicted values and actual values increases, so does the correlation coefficient. A perfect fit gives a coefficient of 1.0. Thus the higher the correlation coefficient of an exercise to the specific needs of the sport, the greater the value of the exercise. A negative correlation number would be actions or exercises that actually take away from the performance of a specific sport. These correlations are really measured by the experience of the coach or through trial and error of an athlete.

Strength and conditioning coaches must think through this idea of correlation, and determine what aspects of a training strategy have the most impact on the performance of the athlete in a sport. If this is not being evaluated then precious training time is being wasted on areas that have little impact on the performance of the athlete. At Titan we look for “tipping point” fitness gains. These tipping points are areas of fitness that with small gains can produce huge changes in the performance of the athlete during the game. In most cases the tipping points present themselves after evaluating an athlete for functional fitness. Many tipping point fitness issues can be identified in this evaluation. Another area that has this type of fitness leverage is found in movements where power needs to be maintained for longer durations of time. There are a lot of athletes that have great vertical jumps; however they can only execute a handful of jumps at a high output level. Training the athlete so they can maintain 90-100% of this output for a longer duration creates champions and changes their performance dramatically in competition.

In summary, think about the correlation of your training to your performance in sport. Constantly be evaluating where this concept can help your performance. In addition, if you want faster results look for areas of weakness that would provide you with that “tipping point” performance progression. These are both game changers.

Train smart, have fun, and you will prevail!

Jacques

Overload/Adaptation

I am going to spend some time in the next few entries discussing some training principles that are necessary for anyone training today at any level of sport or fitness.

I am going to start with the concept of overload /adaptation. On the surface this principle is simple. An overload is a stress on the body over and above what is normal. If the body is stressed at this level on a regular basis it will adapt to that stress by altering the body to accommodate this new above normal stress level. Once the adaptation accommodates the new stress level there is a new normal level of performance.

On the surface this seems like a very simple concept, however without the appropriate training infrastructure to support this concept there is great amount of time that is wasted. At Titan we understand that the real product we provide to our clients is time. I know that sounds funny coming from a strength and conditioning center. An athlete has a limited amount of training time in a career. Let’s assume they start their sport at 12 years old and if they rise to the highest level of sport and become a professional they typically retire at 30-35 depending on the sport. This is a best case scenario. Most athletes have a much shorter career, but I just want to demonstrate the impact of poor training on an athletic career. Now let’s assume that an athlete has 12 weeks a year that is off season. This is the time where they can really focus on improving their fitness. By the way, this is usually much less than 12 weeks. That is 276 weeks over 17 years. This is the best case scenario excluding any downtime for any reason. Life has a tendency to get in the way and training time is regularly compromised. The purpose of a strength and conditioning coach is to maximize the athletic performance during this time. If an athlete has subpar training for one of the 17 years there is a 4.34% loss of training time. In other words the athlete is 4.34% less fit in the 17th year of their career if all else is equal. If you lose 2 off seasons the loss is 24 weeks and the loss goes up to over 8%. Of course this is a very general way of looking at the idea of time, and is not exact, but you get the idea. The impact in the first 8 years of an athlete’s career is even more damaging. In addition, early in a career when an athlete is less mature and has just begun to realize their genetic potential, the gains can be substantial and also contribute greatly to the mental game of the athlete. As fitness improves confidence grows.

How does all of this relate to your overload/adaptation and training as an athlete? First it should be a wake-up call for the necessity of developing an overarching strategy for your training. In the 1960’s the eastern bloc countries would identify athletes with genetic potential and then create strategies that would cover 10 years in length. This was in the form of a structured periodization. I do not think it is necessary to look forward 10 years, however the idea of understanding where you want to be and how you are going to get there is of great importance in being successful in sport today. Today most strength coaches are usually good at the tactics of training, but not so good at the strategy. In other words, if you go to the gym and workout with your trainer, you will have a good workout with all types of innovative functional training techniques but most of the time there is no strategy to answer the question as to why you did this workout. Why are you doing heavy squats today? Why are you doing deadlifts? How many reps, rest, why? How will today’s workout impact tomorrow and how did yesterdays influence today’s and next week? How will this week’s workout impact 5 weeks from now? Every workout is a link in a chain of a champion.

All of this brings me back to overload /adaptation. As stated earlier an overload must be over and above what is normal for the body to make an adaptation. In other words, if you always do deadlifts with 200 lbs your body will never need to make the changes necessary to lift 400 lbs. This is where the wheels usually fall off in training at the elite level. The funny thing about training is that any change in the normal training routine will typically result in some type of adaptation. That means that any new training routine will show some progress. However, your body usually adapts quickly and then the changes stop once an adaptation is made. This is typically where time slips away in a career. Unless the training program has a structured strategy that is monitored and recorded precious time is lost.

All of our trainers at Titan are required to share with the client the daily workout strategy and also the longer term strategy which was developed when the client started training at our center. This allows the athlete to have a window into why we are training or resting in a particular fashion, and also forces us to constantly be articulating and reviewing our training strategies. The strategy is dynamic and personalized, and will change with increases in fitness. Weekly reviews of the strategy are made by the whole training staff, to insure relevancy and maximize progress. Some athletes recover at different rates of speed and this must be accounted for in the workouts. In fact, as the athlete gets fitter the strategy has to be more precise and the tactics become much more important. Tactics are very important in getting overloads during a workout with an elite athlete.

The work/rest ratio becomes very important in generating overloads in an athlete. I call it training like a lion. A lion hunts to survive. They rest all day long allowing their bodies to recover so that when they hunt they are at optimum speed and ability. If the lion was to half heartedly chase down prey they would become tired and not catch their prey and eventually starve. The lion lays in wait and slowly stalks its prey, then with all of the energy available, chases and pounces on the prey to insure the capture. Athletes can learn something from this. If the athlete is regularly training at sub optimum overloads then no adaptation will take place. They will eventually fall into a no man’s land of training. This training is typified by workouts that are too hard for recovery, but not hard enough for an overload.

The work rest ratio must be vigilantly monitored to determine if the athlete is generating the optimum overloads. As an athlete gets fitter, the rest needs to be greater and the intensity higher in order to obtain an overload. This is why most athletes stay at good and never become great.

The overarching strategy and the monitoring of work rest is one of the most important aspects of quality training. This insures proper overloads and subsequent adaptations.

I will talk more about the tactics of training which are of great importance in obtaining overloads during a specific workout.

Train smart, have fun, and you will prevail.

jacques

Character:

In today’s world of gossip and news at the speed of light, character and sport are closely linked and becoming an issue that will have greater impact on all individuals and especially those performing in sport.  (Tiger Woods is an excellent example) I believe that just as animals play fight to learn about how to survive as adults in the wild, sport for humans is a way to develop character for the future.  Class, honesty, respect, teamwork, and loyalty through sport can be developed in an environment that is safe and controlled.   Character is not learned.  It is developed through experiences that test an individual.   It is easy not to steal when one has pockets full of money.  Character is tested and developed at crossroads in sport and in life.  The great thing about sport is that it allows one to have numerous occasions to develop character on a regular basis.   Great lessons are learned through these experiences.   Unfortunately in some instances parents want their children to have good character, but do not allow them to develop character through experiences in sport.    One of the biggest complaints of coaches I have worked with over the years is that parents want to control the outcome of their children in sport.     The idea that everyone is a winner does not allow a competitor to experience what failure feels like and how to understand that failure is nothing more than a reward for having the guts to compete in the first place.  It is also a disservice to the athlete to not allow them to find their true gifts. 

I loved football when I was young.   Throughout elementary school all I could think about was playing football.   The problem was I was a skinny kid that could out eat anyone but could not put on a pound.   As time passed all the other kids got bigger and I continued to eat and continued to stay skinny.  Football was no longer an option as the coaches were afraid I would get hurt.  I was devastated as football was everything to me and I wanted nothing else.  Unfortunately there is not a position for a skinny 98 pounder.   By not being able to play football I found my way to wrestling where they just happened to have a 98 pound weight class.  Wrestling was the best thing I ever did for myself.  It was a sport that taught me so much.   All through high school and throughout college wrestling gave me lessons in life that I have carried into the present.  Had my mom or dad went to the football coach and insisted that I be able to play football, to protect my self esteem , I never would have found my gifts and would not have been  lucky enough to find a sport that changed my life forever. 

Failure is the best thing that can happen!

The moral of the story is that failure is sometimes the best option.   Building self esteem does not come by only winning.  It comes by learning how to fail.  Understanding that taking risk may result in failure, but the act of taking risk allows a young athlete to learn that failure is not the end of the world and that the lessons you take away is where the true value exists.    A young athlete must learn how to win, not be given a win.    Time training and the subsequent improvement is where the lessons start.   Coaches tell me all the time that most young athletes today want  only to  play in the games  not do the training necessary to play well. 

I think the idea of character is best described in the following quotes.  Needless to say character and integrity is the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete.  Sometimes things are not fair, sometimes we are let down.  How we deal with this is the true value of sport and the training for sport.

In training athletes at Titan we are demanding of our athletes and it is our job to help the athlete develop their bodies but also the character necessary to be a champion.  We develop this character through training and the sacrifices, failures and successes that come with training.  We are demanding of the athletes we train. We want the athlete to be the best they can be physically, but we also want to instill the idea of character that today is oftentimes given little importance.  

 My hope is that through sport and training you will allow yourself to learn lessons that will develop the character that will serve you well your entire life.

The last quote by Thomas Jefferson is very appropriate today.  When I was in high school after a wrestling meet we could not wait to see our name in the paper, because wrestling was pretty much an anonymous sport.  However, in today’s world of technology the internet allows any public action to be recorded for the whole world to witness.  It is a great medium because someday you will be able to show your children and grandchildren what a stud you were.   Just remember that bad actions are also now a permanent record in cyberspace for all to see forever.  

Honesty:

BE MORE CONCERNED WTH YOUR CHARACTER THAN YOUR REPUTATION, BECAUSE YOUR CHARACTER IS WHAT YOU REALLY ARE, WHILE YOUR REPUTATION IS MERELY WHAT OTHERS THINK YOU ARE.

John Wooden

THE MEASURE OF A MAN’S REAL CHARACTER IS WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE KNEW HE WOULD NEVER BE FOUND OUT

Thomas Macaulay

Loyalty:

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

Woodrow Wilson/Twenty-Eighth President

Respect/Unselfishness:

A Philosophy of Life by Thomas Jefferson—

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.  Give up money, give up fame, give up science, and give up earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.  And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing.  Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask; yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells a lie without attending to it, and truths without the world believing him. 

Train smart, have fun and you will prevail.

jd