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strength & conditioning

Adaptations to Training

Flexibility

Strength Training in Young Athletes

Training to Reduce Injuries

Strength and Conditioning Team

Strength and Conditioning Team

Introduction

If an athlete makes it to college or the pros, he/she will be trained by the strength and conditioning staff. This staff has many jobs but all those jobs relate to one main objective. That objective is to keep their athletes in the best conditioning level possible. Unfortunately many high schools, club teams, and independent athletes can’t afford strength coaches. This job usually falls to the coach of that particular sport. Here the coach may not know biomechanics, exercise physiology, and sports medicine. Thus, the coach may not know how to best condition the athletes. This is why it is good for coaches to attend seminars and learn the proper conditioning protocols. Find out if your coaching staff has a person trained in strength and conditioning. This will make or break an athlete. If the program is strong and the coach is knowledgeable in this area, then an athlete may become the best athlete he/she can be. Without proper strength and conditioning, athletes will not maximize their full potential.

Note: Your Ideal strength coach will have a B.S. or better in exercise science and will be a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) or other well respected organization/certification such as the CSC.

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The Role of the Strength Coach

The role of the strength coach is to break down an athletes sport into components. The strength coach will then study each component or skill and assign a training regimen to strengthen that component. For instance, in basketball they will train for speed, vertical jump, throwing the ball, reaction time, agility, endurance, and more. Simultaneously, the coach will break down the athletes training into 1 year cycles. This is known as periodization. It usually begins after their season and consists of a power phase, strength phase, endurance phase, and competition phase. Each phase is further broken down into smaller cycles called mesocycles. These are used to work on the individual skills or components of the game. Therefore, the strength coach is responsible for the general conditioning of the athlete.

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The Strength Coaches Role in Injury Prevention

There is one vital role of the strength coach and it is one that is becoming increasingly popular in the field, and that is the role of injury prevention. Strength coaches are now implementing more and more injury prevention training into their programs. Injury prevention training is things such as flexibility, endurance, strength, and more.

Why does endurance, flexibility, and strength count as injury prevention training? It is not why are they applied, but how they are applied. In football and hockey a lot of lower back and neck strengthening is applied. This is to make the muscles in those areas strong to help support the structures of the spine during impact. Thus strengthening these structures reduces the chance of a catastrophic injury. How does endurance help in injury prevention? Well we know that muscles help to strengthen joint and bone structures, and we know that fatigued muscles can’t exert maximum force. Therefore, endurance training helps delay fatigue and increases or helps sustain a muscles ability to stabilize structures.

How does flexibility help in injury prevention? Flexibility is the amount of range of motion a joint can travel in. Muscle strains can occur when a joint is pushed past its range of motion. Straighten your leg and bend down and touch your toes, or as far as you can go. Now imagine someone hitting you in your back, knocking your head closer to your knee. This would extend you past your range of motion and would tear your hamstrings. This is why flexibility is so important.

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Designing a Program

Strength coaches will design programs according to the specific injuries, components, and skills seen in a particular sport. They will then break it down even further to specific positions, because within each sport are positions that require different skills and different components. They may require different energy systems, strengths, endurance, power, and more, all these will have to be trained differently. The next few sections will lay out a general overview of how a program might be designed. Realize that every coach is different and there are many ways to train for each sport. Successful athletes receive a program that has at least the following components.

Program design should only be done by a strength and condition specialist. If the program is done wrong, it will decrease performance and probably injure the athlete. Program design is very delicate and only experienced strength and conditioning specialist should implement the training protocols.

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Methods and Modes
The very first thing a strength coach will do is break down the athletes sport into components (running, jumping, swinging, hitting, taking hits, etc.). They will then see what types of injuries may occur in the particular sport (rotator cuff injuries, knee injuries, neck and spine injuries, etc.). They will look for the best ways to maximize performance. Then they will select the best training method according to their analysis for the team. In addition, they will do it for every player on the team according to that players position or special needs (weight loss, injury status, weight gain, etc.), plus they will look for strength and weaknesses within each player. Once the methods of training have been selected, they will then select the appropriate mode (specific exercise like squats, bench press, 20 yd sprints, etc.) of exercise.

Note: Your facilities will determine what you can and can’t do when choosing methods and modes.

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Determining Periodization
The strength coaches will look at the season of play. They will plot a map of training according to the fitness level needs during a certain time period of a sport season. A player physically can not keep up maximum conditioning all the time. What they will do is peak during the season. This means they will be in there best shape, and perform at their best. This type of conditioning level cannot be held very long. Therefore strength coaches will train for the peak, so that during the season the players get in better and better shape, and their performance gets better and better. They want the peak to happen when the player’s competition levels are highest. This is at the end of the season during play offs, regional, nationals, or world competition.

The goal of periodization is to train year round so that at that week or two week period of championship type competition the athlete is not burned out. The athlete will be at their best physical shape. There are some coaches who make their bench players run after the game. Parents get mad but they don’t not understand that every game the bench players do nothing physically, while the starters are training (playing) for the entire game. They are getting stronger and more physically fit every game, while the bench players are not. Some coaches know this and make the bench players run. Sounds like a horrible thing to do, but if a starter gets injured and a bench player takes over, he/she needs to be in just as good of shape as if he/she had been playing all season.

Periodization can be broken down into phases or mesocycles. Depending on the sport and number of big competitions throughout the year, there may be two or more mesocycles. The duration of the cycle depends on the goals of the athlete and the time between competitions.

The first period usually begins after the last game of a season. This is the transition phase. In the transition phase the athlete is allowed to rest and recuperate from the season. The transition phase can last from 1-4 weeks and during this period very little physical activity is done.

After the transition period comes the preparatory period. The preparatory period is usually considered the off season. The preparatory phase will usually begin with high volume low intensity work outs. The athlete will do things like long slow running, low intensity weight room work outs, and low intensity specialty work outs. The activities will progress through micro cycles. The micro cycles will slowly intensify while at the same time lower the volume of training. Usually this phase is sub divided into three other phases.

  • Hypertrophy Phase- this phase is usually done first although it depends on the coach. The phase will concentrate on adding muscle to the athlete. This phase has the largest volume and lowest intensity.
  • Strength Phase- focuses on adding strength to an athlete. This phase has a moderate volume and intensity.
  • Power Phase- focuses on adding power to the athlete and contains the lowest volume and highest intensity.

After the preparatory period ends a small transition periods begins. This period is very short usually a small 1 week rest period and then 2 weeks of high intensity conditioning (preseason training). Once the transition period is over, the competition period begins.

The competition period will start to slack off of the high intensity conditioning. The athletes will not receive the high intensity conditioning during competition. Instead the focus is on skills and game strategies. The goal of this period is for the athlete to be at the highest level of performance for the most important competitions. The graph below shows that the fitness or performance level of the athlete will rise until the championship part at the end of the season. After that the resting transition period begins. Some people may refer to the competition phase as the maintenance phase. The athlete will try to maintain everything he/she gained from the off season training program.

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Determining Training Volume
Training volume is the way that strength coaches can calculate how much work is being done. Volume is the total amount of weight lifted in a training session. The weight per repetition determines the amount of volume per set of exercise. For instance, one set of the bench press may contain 15 reps at a low weight. To calculate it a strength coach may say 2 sets x 20 reps x 100lbs = 4000 lbs of volume. If they wanted to keep the same volume but increase the intensity they could do 2 sets x 10 reps x 200lbs = 4000lbs of volume. Strength coaches will monitor and manipulate volume in order to reach the goals they want throughout their periodization schedule.

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Assigning the Right Load to Lift
The load is the amount of weight lifted and often goes side by side with intensity. Since intensity is one of the most important aspects of a training program, the load must be chosen carefully for each work out. To little a load per work out and the training stimulus will not be enough to cause an increase in endurance, power, and/or strength. To much load in a work out and the training stimulus may be too much which will cause injury.

Usually load is chosen as a percentage of the 1RM (maximum amount of weight lifted one time per exercise). Weight coaches know how many reps an athlete can do at certain percentages of their 1RM. For example, if an athlete has a 200lb 1RM bench press, then I know if I want him to do 10 reps he will have to lift 70% of his 1RM (140lbs). If I want him to do 3 reps, he will have to lift 90% of his 1RM (180lbs). The load assignment is important in that the different percentages in weights will hit some energy systems and muscle fiber types harder. This will greatly influence the outcome of performance in an athlete. The strength coach will manipulate the load according to the performance outcome that is desired by the sport and position.

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Determining the Proper Amount of Rest
The proper amount of rest between sets and between work outs is crucial. Again as with the other sections to little rest and the athlete may become injured or too much rest and the athlete may not have enough training stimulus. The amount of rest will be determined by the needs in performance. A strength coach will have to balance energy systems, muscle fibers, Wolf’s Law, and more in order to reach the performance needs of the athlete. For example, it only takes about 5-15 seconds to deplete the phosphagen stores of ATP in the muscle at maximum intensities. Yet it takes 2.5-3 minutes to replenish these stores. Therefore, the athlete may need at least 2.5 minutes between sets depending on the training outcome desired.

An athlete will need a proper rest period between workouts as well. In this rest period, the body will recuperate and repair. The intensity of training and volume will depict the amount of rest needed. Resting in between work outs is very important as it gives the athlete the chance to repair tissues and filter out toxins that build up during workouts. It also allows the athlete the opportunity to replenish their nutritional stores such as carbohydrates and water. Recent studies have shown that well trained athletes can or have the ability to rest less. In other words they can take shorter rest breaks between sets because their bodies will recuperate faster. In addition, they can achieve a better quality of sleep and rest in between work outs.

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Determining Frequency of Training
The frequency of training refers to the number of training sessions during a period of time. It will be different for each age group and sport. Frequency must be manipulated properly in order to receive the desired gains. Frequency of training depends on the factors listed below.

  • The type of body movement done during training such as a single joint movement (bicep curl) or a multi joint movement (bench press).
  • The volume of exercise
  • The load and/or intensity
  • The training level or preconditioning level of the athlete.
  • The goals of training
  • Whether or not the athlete is injured

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Strength Coaches Role in Rehabilitation

In the past few years the role of the strength coach has expanded into the rehabilitation setting. The strength coach now has the responsibility of providing late stage rehabilitation to injured athletes. When an athlete is injured they may go to a sports therapist or athletic trainer for the early stages of their rehab. Then when the athlete is about 80% healed they may start going to the strength coach to do more sports specific conditioning and strengthening. This will help them gain their confidence back and boost their moral by doing more exercises that pertain to their sport.

Anytime athletes are injured the psychological state of that athlete through the injury should be monitored closely. Athletes can go from running a 4.4 sec forty yard dash to barely being able to get out of a chair after an injury. Often when athletes get injured they heal back 100%, but mentally it takes them longer to gain their confidence back. They will still be scared that their knee is going to blow out or their muscle is going to tear again. The strength coach can help get them involved back into their sport earlier in the rehabilitation process. Thus the athlete is weaned off of the clinic/training room and weaned back into their sport. With the medical team working with the strength coaches the athlete can get back with their team and use practice and conditioning as part of their rehab. This way the athlete does not get thrown back into the sport directly from the training room or clinic. In addition, by being with the other players, the players will encourage the injured athlete. This will also boost the injured athlete’s moral, plus the athlete will be able to observe, listen, and participate in practice. Thus, the athlete will not be in the clinic or training room and miss the opportunity to be coached or learn something from practice.

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The Athletes Role and Responsibility in Strength and Conditioning

The athlete has a very important role in the strength and conditioning process. Strength coaches go to great links to carefully plan every second of a conditioning period. Time, number of athletes, and other things are carefully formulated in order to make the best conditioning period possible. When athletes are late or don’t show up, they can completely disrupt the flow of the conditioning period. A lot of times coaches will make drills with athletes pairing up. When an athlete is not there, it forces an odd man out and the strength coach usually has to jump in the drill with the other athlete. This takes the coaches focus off the team and doesn’t allow him to be able to coach. By an athlete not showing up or being late, it can greatly hurts the team during conditioning.

In college the punishment for not showing up or being late to conditioning is usually Saturday morning dawn patrol. Strength coaches take their practices seriously and thus the repercussions for letting the team and coach down can be harsh. On Saturday morning at 5:00am while the rest of the team is sleeping a non-punctual athlete will be participating in hell runs (so called because of their difficulty), military like calisthenics, or many other forms of punishment. In the pros athletes can be fined thousands of dollars for being late or not showing. If athletes are responsible and punctual it will save them a lot of pain and grief, plus they will not let their team down in the long run.

The following are a few more roles and responsibilities of the athlete.

  • The athlete should give 100% effort at every session. This will ensure that they are training to the best of their ability and that the athlete is setting a good example for the rest of the teammates.
  • The athlete should receive the proper amount of rest to allow the body to recuperate and repair. It is up to the athlete to get at least 7-9 hours of sleep each night.
  • It is up to the athlete to eat right while training. Without the proper nutrition the athlete will not grow and repair. They must eat right during training.

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