This week's guest blog post comes again from Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson. As usual its a solid piece providing a digestable "big picture" view of a modern training model. Enjoy!

            The purpose of training is to create specific structural and functional adaptations that lead to the attainment of personal goals. The more closely the training mimics the exact nature of the sporting activity or personal goal, the more likely it is that adaptations will lead to improved performance for the desired outcome. Increasing the specific training volume over a multi-year developmental period is the optimal methodology for helping athletes reach the highest level of performance and competition. Every sporting movement has an accepted window of optimal biomechanics for performance. Individual anatomical, psychological, and emotional components lead to certain styles that athletes bring to the way in which they execute their sporting movements; however, the commonalities of sporting movement execution and the required muscle recruitment and sequencing of muscle firing are more prevalent than differences amongst elite performers. The aim of coaching is to teach the technical and tactical components of sporting movements to athletes that lead to the attainment of optimal biomechanics and kinetics to help the athlete reach their ultimate potential within their chosen sport. Coaches need to possess knowledge of how to correct faulty technique as well as outline training plans that maximize fitness while minimizing the chance of injury. While these aims of coaching seem fairly straight forward, in truth, they are only achievable if the coach possesses high levels of knowledge within anatomy, physiology, and hands-on performance of the sport itself. Keeping athletes healthy while maximizing the amount of training specificity is a very delicate balancing act within a dynamic, multi-variate environment.

            Non-functional overtraining is a concept related to having athletes perform excessive amounts of fitness related work that does not directly translate over to improved performance in the desired sporting activity. Anatoly Bondarchuk, in his book, Transfer of Training was able to document the degree of carryover from different training activities to sporting performances in the world of track and field. Transfer of Training is a very interesting book that all performance based coaches should examine. One of the clear messages from the book is that the more elite the athlete, the more narrow the window of transferability from traditional fitness exercises to sporting performance. Another way of relating this message is to say, the worse the athlete, the greater the reward the athlete receives from traditional strength and conditioning training, and the better the athlete, the lower the reward from traditional strength and conditioning training. Another clear message from Transfer of Training is that certain exercises do in fact lead to performance improvements in some athletes (bench press for shot putters), while the same exercise may have no carryover to other sports (javelin). Transfer of Training provided an in depth evaluation of runners, jumpers, and throwers, and the degree to which an exercise might benefit one type of athlete while having no impact on another athlete was striking. This leaves the performance based community in a very interesting position, for we do have some references as to what works with track and field athletes; however, no such systematic review has been performed on traditional team based athletes, such as those who compete in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. There is no definitive way to know whether you are choosing an exercise that leads to performance based improvements in these athletes from a reliable literature source that has specifically chronicled elite performers. Despite this knowledge gap, intelligent and thoughtful coaches can rest assured that increasing the amount of specific training for these athletes is still the methodology that will lead to improved performance. Analysis of sporting tasks from a biomechanical and energy systems demand perspective is the avenue through which training specificity can be gleaned. Concentrating the training workload on these regions will reduce the incidence of non-functional overtraining and avoid wasting the valuable and non-refundable training time that athletes need to invest within their short lived careers.

            The warm-up/movement preparation component to the training session is the first area to examine when making decisions that will limit non-functional overtraining related exercise choices. The common denominator amongst the major professional sports in the United States is that they are locomotion dominant. Maximal locomotion velocity, change of direction, and the highest sustainable oxidative energy system driven velocity are all critical variables that should be maximized amongst these athletes. The keys to maximizing these locomotion components are helping the athlete achieve optimal gait mechanics, acquisition of maximal efficiency within gait , and the ability to create appropriate physiological recruitment strategies of the gait musculature. Analysis of gait is an area of study that has been taken up primarily by physical therapists as well as those who study developmental kinesiology. There is a great deal of information related to the gait cycle within the body of knowledge within these fields. Gait is a complex intra-organ, multi-system task that is highly regulated by the efferent and afferent communication strategies of the nervous system. Intervention strategies that lead to alterations in sub-conscious gait are highly specific and require true expertise on the part of the therapist/coach who is working with the target patient/athlete in question. Working within the confines of an objective testing battery specific to the gait cycle is a fundamental requirement of any practitioner who is attempting to induce actual change and improved performance within this motor program. Practitioners must understand exactly what their client is presenting them with in terms of gait dynamics in order to create the appropriate intervention/training strategy that will lead to positive outcomes.  

            A warm-up that focuses on improving the gait cycle appears to be an effective strategy for preparing athletes for training that will carry over to injury reduction and performance enhancement. Such a warm-up is based on individual assessment of the gait cycle of an athlete and a determination of which exercises appear to result in the greatest observable objective changes for improved gait efficiency. The testing battery provided by the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) provides objective tests that analyze gait, categorize the individual tested, and provide a systematic corrective exercise algorithm to reposition, retrain, and restore the athlete/client/patient. Other models exist, and ultimately all models are based on the authentic anatomy and physiology of the human organism; however, at this time, the PRI model appears to be the most complete and usable system available to practitioners. Learning this system, and possessing the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with optimizing gait appear to be the best practice methodology for driving demonstrable change into people you are coaching during the phase of training that prepares individuals for higher intensity exercise, particularly if the goal is to maximize locomotion capacities in athletes.

            The traditional dynamic warm-up which features many drills from the track and field community (high knees, butt kicks, straight leg marches, and varieties of skips) will increase body temperature and recruit large muscles involved with the thorax, pelvis, and limbs; however, it is highly unlikely that these drills will alter objective tests associated with improving the gait cycle. Time may be better spent by the coach and athlete by discovering what drills lead to objective change in tests and then focusing on those drills during the warm-up as opposed to following a traditional dynamic warm-up.

            Following a warm-up supported by positive outcomes on objective locomotion tests, it is important to try to maximize mechanical work that induces physiological fitness adaptations during the training session. Adaptations are organ and system specific. Examples of adaptations to exercise include, eccentric and concentric cardiac hypertrophy, increased capillary and mitochondrial density in cardiac and skeletal muscle, increased stores of glycogen at skeletal muscle, improved acid buffering capacities within cells and blood vessels, and protein synthesis of skeletal muscle. The degree of mechanical work which is specific to the requirements involved with inducing these types of adaptations should be maximized within the time frame of the training session.

            Eccentric and concentric hypertrophy of the cardiac tissues are considered to be central adaptations within cardiovascular training. Eccentric hypertrophy involves increasing the volume of the ventricular chambers of the heart, and concentric hypertrophy involves an increase in the thickness of the cardiac musculature which makes up the walls of the heart’s chambers. Eccentric cardiac hypertrophy is considered to be a volume induced phenomenon, whereas cardiac hypertrophy is a pressure induced phenomenon. Rhythmic exercise that does not involve a great deal of sustained skeletal muscle tension increases venous return to the heart via an action referred to as the skeletal muscle pump. This increased venous return to the heart puts more blood into the ventricle with each beat. More blood in the ventricle stretches the chamber in a manner similar to filling a balloon with water. If the heart receives more blood on a consistent basis with each beat, the size of the chamber will grow. Concentric hypertrophy is brought on when the heart is forced to eject blood from the left ventricle to the body when blood pressure is elevated considerably. Exercise involving considerable skeletal muscle contractile activity creates this pressure overload due to the muscle tension clamping down on blood vessels. As you may be gleaning from reading this, the two types of cardiac adaptations are vastly different from one another, and it is therefore fair to say that different modes of exercise can create different forms of cardiac adaptations. Discerning the type of and degree of cardiac adaptation that a specific athlete needs for success in their sport is important when determining the optimal training plan.

            Increasing the capillary and mitochondrial density of a tissue is highly specific to the tissues used during training. The same can be said of protein synthesis and increasing substrate stores (glycogen). These types of adaptations are considered to be peripheral, or local adaptations to exercise. Only those fibers that are recruited and fatigued during a training bout are able to experience adaptations to training. If you are attempting to improve running performance and see an increase in glycogen, capillaries, and mitochondria in the running muscles, a swimming training regime will not provide the desired outcomes. Only running will induce the previously mentioned peripheral adaptations based on the principle of specificity.

            Recruitment and fatigue of muscle fibers is the method that will induce peripheral adaptation. Recruitment is a neurological phenomenon. Typically training based science only focuses on the force production requirement associated with recruitment, and load is considered to be the primary variable to manipulate for this effect; however, neurological processes are multi-variate in nature. Reciprocal inhibition is a major player involved with the ability to recruit specific fibers. Most skeletal muscles have an antagonist muscle that performs an opposite movement. When an antagonist muscle is firing, the nervous system inhibits the agonist muscle so that movement can occur. If the agonist and antagonist were to fire equally, static tension would be induced, and no joint rotation and subsequent movement would take place. This same phenomenon takes place when we discuss muscle slings and chains, which are groups of muscle that are recruited to perform more global based actions. Chains can exist in a right/left situation, or different chains can create an anterior/posterior arrangement of agonistic and antagonistic behavior. One of the fundamental muscle chains within the PRI system is the Anterior Interior Chain (AIC). The AIC consists of the hemi-diaphragm, psoas, iliacus, tensor fascia latae, vastus lateralis, and biceps femoris. There is a left and right AIC. The AIC is considered to be the lumbo-pelvic-femoral locomotion chain. Recruitment of the right AIC can be compromised if it is the victim of reciprocal inhibition from an overly active antagonistic left AIC. Alternatively, we could also say that there is an inability to inhibit the left AIC in such a situation. From a training perspective, we could say that it is relatively easy to recruit and fatigue the fibers involved with the left AIC, thus driving significant tissue adaptations into them, while the right AIC would lag behind due to a difficulty in recruiting its fibers. Techniques that inhibit the left AIC would reduce the reciprocal inhibition strangle hold being placed on the right AIC, thus allowing the right AIC to be recruited, which would set the stage for potentially providing physiological adaptation to this chain.

            Proper biomechanics for a sporting task, and the recruitment of the correct musculature that drives those joint actions is a critical factor in driving adaptations into the proper tissues. When proper biomechanics are found within an athlete, the training aim shifts towards maximizing the fitness of the tissues that drive sporting actions. Training that recruits sporting muscle fibers in similar vectors and ranges of motion as that which occurs during the sport performance has the potential to improve sporting performance. Training that is performed at or near the intensity level and duration of the performance of the sport has the potential to improve the bioenergetics capacities of the sporting musculature. Thus, a good overall model for training can be said to involve a systematic procedure that begins with assuring the potential to perform sporting actions optimally, and then increasing the mechanical work capacity of the tissues that drive appropriate biomechanics.

            Mechanical work capacity is based on the force and the ability to sustain force production capacities of specific tissues. Adaptations that lead to increased force production are a combination of enhanced recruitment and rate coding of muscle fibers as well as increasing protein synthesis in those fibers. Recruitment of muscle fibers tends to follow the Size Principle, wherein fibers are recruited in a gradation format beginning with slow twitch fibers, and as force increases, more and faster twitch fibers are recruited. When a fiber is recruited once, it becomes easier to re-recruit that fiber. Thus training that recruits a previously unused fiber for a specific task, “unlocks” that fiber for subsequent performance in that task. If the unlocked fiber can be fatigued within the performance of an activity, that fiber will improve in fitness by undergoing stereotypical adaptation responses. If an athlete improves the ability to recruit and utilize more fast twitch fibers in their sporting movement, the force production demonstrated in the sporting movement will improve. If an athlete improves the fatigue resistance of the fibers used in sporting movements, the ability to reproduce optimal sports movements will be enhanced.

            This article has presented the reader with a, “theoretical big picture” of a modern training model. The primary aim was to discuss the fact that major American sports are locomotion dominant sports. The ability to run faster and to sustain high locomotion velocities are a dominant factor in determining success in American sports. Narrowing the focus of the warm-up and training process towards a more thorough understanding of improving a specific function appears to be a reasonable approach to take in developing athletes. Utilizing objective test results for determining the relevance of exercise selection is a progressive step towards reducing the number of training movements that do not translate over to improving performance or reducing injuries, thus reducing non-functional overtraining, and saving more training time for exercises that lead to positive physiological outcomes for athletes. 

The post Missing Links in the Training Process first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.

Here is the last installment, Part 3, of Dr./Coach Davidson's program design series! Be sure to check out Part's 1, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 before reading this one so you're caught up with his thought process and why this program is written the way it is.

Training Program in Preparation for the 175# Strongman World Championships

            This article will detail the rationale and design for the preparatory cycle prior to the 175# Strongman World Championships that I constructed for myself. When referring to myself in this document I will refer to myself as, “the athlete”. The contest was a two day event, with day one taking place on Friday, March 1 at 8 am, and day 2 taking place on Sunday, March 3 at 1:30 pm. The contest was held at the Greater Columbus, Ohio Convention Center as part of the Arnold Classic. The top four athletes were allowed to move on from day 1 to day 2. The following is the list and explanation of the events.

Day 1

Event 1, Axel Clean & Jerk for reps, 60 second time limit, axel weight, 225 pounds

Event 2, Yoke to Truck push. Carry a 630 pound yoke 50’, push a Nissan Frontier 50’. Fastest time wins

Event 3, Deadlift Medley – 4 implements must be deadlifted in a 90 second time limit. 1 rep for the first 3 implements, as many reps as possible for the 4^th implement. Implement 1, 435 pound axel. Implement 2, 585 pound straight bar. Implement 3, 730 pound frame. Implement 4, Ford Focus on 2 blocks

Event 4, Giant Wheel Barrow Keg Loading Race – Push the wheel barrow through the 100 foot course. 3 stops at 25’ intervals to load kegs into the wheel barrow. Kegs ascend in weight

Day 2

Event 5, Circus Dumbbell Clean & Jerk for reps, 60 second time limit, dumbbell weight, 140 pounds

Event 6, Hussafel stone carry for distance. Stone weighs 300 pounds. 50’ turns

Event 7, Stones over bar – 240 pound stone loaded over a 52” bar. Most reps in 60 seconds wins

Thought Process Behind Program Design:

Part 1, Timing

            As you may be able to tell from reading the description of the events, this contest was a test of a variety of movement patterns and strength qualities. Contestants needed to display explosive power endurance for the two overhead events involving the clean and jerk. Three different types of loaded carries were featured in the yoke, wheel barrow, and Hussafel stone. Deadlift strength and strength endurance were put to an extreme test in the medley. Finally, the two loading movements (kegs into wheel barrow, and stones over bar) challenged the isometric strength and endurance of the tonic chain of the upper quarter and the explosive power endurance of the lower quarter. A modified block program was created to try to best prepare the athlete for the demands of the contest. Modifications were introduced because of the great diversity in strength qualities that needed to be displayed in the different events.

            The training cycle to prepare the athlete for the world championships began on Monday, January 14, and continued until Tuesday, February 26. This allowed for a 6 week preparatory period. The original thought process that went into the design had to be modified due to injuries that were sustained the week prior to the start of this cycle, and in the first week of the training cycle. Both injuries were muscle strains of the spinal erectors on right side of the lower back. Both injuries were sustained while attempting to deadlift in a new deadlift suit. The athlete had never worn a deadlift suit prior to this training phase. The athlete learned very quickly that the technique he utilized during raw pulls would have to be changed significantly while deadlifting in a suit.

            The training cycle began on January 14 because the athlete competed in a regional contest on Sunday, January 12. The contest on January 12 featured some of the same equipment that would be present in the world championships. The athlete viewed the contest on the 12^th as an excellent check point prior to the world championships for competitive readiness, and maintenance of competitive weight. Just prior to competing in the contest on the 12^th, the athlete had completed a concentrated loading block targeting limit strength. A similar concentrated strength block was used in the final two weeks of preparation prior to the world championships, so the reader can see the concept of this block in that portion of this article.

            The original thought process going into the 6 week training cycle was to follow the following order. Phase 1, 1.5 weeks – hybrid phase (medium intensity, medium volume). Phase 2, 1.5 weeks – concentrated volume. Phase 3, 2 weeks, concentrated strength. Phase 4, 1 week, taper/peaking. The thought process had to change because of a low back injury that was sustained on January 19. The athlete was unable to lift from the 20^th until the 25^th. When the athlete returned to lifting on the 25^th, the initial training days needed to be modified from the original plan.

            Due to injury, the overall plan turned into approximately a 5 week preparatory cycle. Week 1 changed from hybrid to a focus on mobility, stability, and unilateral resistance training. Week 2 became a hybrid. Week 3 was a quick swing into volume. Week 4 and 5 were concentrated strength loading focused. The time between Thursday, February 21 and the travel day of Wednesday, February 27 was used as a peaking phase with a couple of sessions of high intensity, and very low volume.

Part 2: Rationale

Phase 1:

            Following injury, the first phase was focused on mobility, stability, and unilateral resistance training. The athlete is an individual who could be considered a general mobility problem. The athlete has hypertonicity and hypotonicity associated with Janda’s Crossed-Syndromes and the left anterior interior chain pattern. The pelvis is tilted anteriorly, with left pelvic tilt being greater than right. The athlete’s pelvis is rotated to the right as well. Such pelvic alignment leads to lumbar rotation and lordosis with corresponding thoracolumbar hyperkyphosis, right posterior rib hump, left anterior rib flare, thoracic rotation to the left, and cervical rotation to the right. Such a postural scenario leads to decreased zone of apposition and ineffective diaphragmatic breathing capabilities. The upper traps, levator scapulae, and suboccipitals are also hypertonic. The athlete lacks T-spine mobility primarily at the region of T4. The athlete also displays significant right paraspinal hypertrophy, which is asymmetrical compared to the left. These muscles imbalances likely predisposed the athlete to the injury that he suffered. The athlete ultimately had to return to heavy resistance training that would be event specific, but taking time to try to inhibit the hypertonic areas and activating hypotonic tissues through proper joint positioning was essential during the initial block. All pain associated with the injury was alleviated within seven days of the injury.

Phase 2:

            Phase 2 was named a hybrid phase. The primary exercises trained during this and all other following phases were as following (note the exercises that are coupled in the list were paired for work sets):

–       Deadlift

–       Circus Dumbbell Clean and Jerk

–       Axel Clean and Jerk

–       Stone loading

–       Yoke carry to Prowler push

–       Hussefel stone carry for max distance

The paired exercises were trained with a set and rep scheme of 6 sets of 4 repetitions. One minute, fifteen seconds rest was given between the paired exercises. The loading was 80% of the daily one rep max for each of the paired exercises. This phase cannot be called a high volume phase or a high intensity phase. The phase was somewhere in between each of these extremes. The two phases that would follow would be a high volume phase followed by a high intensity phase. The selection of pairing the deadlift and the circus dumbbell was that the deadlift is a bilateral multi-segmental flexion family exercise, and the circus dumbbell clean and jerk is a unilateral multi-segmental extension family exercise. The two exercises differed enough in muscle activation to allow for some level of recovery for each exercise while at the same time maximizing training density. The stone load and the axel clean and jerk are less easy to rationalize because they both feature a fairly similar pattern; however, each required training adaptations, and logistical concerns ultimately led to this being the only option.

Phase 3:

            Phase 3 was a volume phase. This phase was one week long. Main exercises were not paired during this phase. A wave loading scheme was used on the main exercises. The training was broken down into an A day and a B day. The main exercises on the A day were the axel clean and jerk and the deadlift, and the main exercises on the B day was stone loading and dumbbell. The rationale for pairing the axel and the deadlift together was that they both represented the heaviest loading methods for their respective patterns. The barbell deadlift is the heaviest form of the hip hinge, and the axel jerk is the heaviest overhead movement in the extension family. The stone is a much lighter version of a hip hinge during the pick, and the dumbbell clean and jerk is a lighter systemic loading method compared to the axel for overhead extension. In addition to these reasons, the axel and deadlift were going to be in day 1 of the competition and the stone and dumbbell were on day 2. Pairing them on the same training day seemed appropriate for greater specificity of contest demands. The yoke to sled push and the hussafel carry received less attention during this block, but were used as assistance to the main lift. The following table reflects the way that the axel and deadlift were programmed on the A day.

Main Lift…do not pair…1 min, 30 sec between sets

Phase 4:

           Phase 4 was a concentrated loading phase. The phase modified a cycle that I have used many times before. I have found this cycle to consistently deliver outstanding improvements on strength. In the original version of my concentrated strength cycle I use a 3 week plan. The cycle pairs main exercises. Week 1 features 6 sets of 3 at 88% with 60 seconds rest between exercises. Week 2 features 8 sets of 2 at 92% with 60 seconds rest between exercises. Week 3 features 10 sets of 1 at 95% with 60 seconds rest between exercises. There were 4 modifications put on this phase due to logistical concerns and special considerations of the magnitude of the competition. In the modified version of this cycle used for preparation for the world championships this phase was only a 2 week period. Therefore, the third week of 10 singles was excluded from the design. Another difference from the original concentrated loading design was that wave loading was utilized during week 1. The wave loading was used to try to make the transition from volume to loading concentrations less of a drastic change in an attempt to minimize muscular soreness. The third difference between the modified cycle and the original was that exercises were not paired. 90 seconds of rest was given between sets, and a focus was put on each exercise individually. This was done to try to ensure greater quality being placed on each exercise. Training density was reduced in this equation; however, this variable was deemed less important at that point in time. The following table demonstrates week 1 loading for the A day of week 1.

Main Lift…do not pair…1 min, 30 sec between sets

The B day featured stone loading and circus dumbbell clean and jerk and was loaded in a similar manner. Precision in loading stones and the dumbbell is less than that with the axel and deadlift, therefore a wave scheme was not used for those implements. Loading was more of an approximation with those implements as well.

The following table is reflective of the loading scheme used on week 2 of this cycle.

Main Lift…do not pair…1 min, 30 sec between sets

The fourth difference in the modified cycle from the original is that extra training sessions were added. The athlete performed double or triple sessions every day during this cycle. The extra sessions were unilateral focused strength training sessions. The main exercises used during the unilateral sessions were the single leg contralateral loaded deadlift and the unilateral half kneeling dumbbell press. These exercises were loaded in the exact same manner as the major contest specific lifts. In the 14 days that comprised this cycle, the athlete performed 31 training sessions where all lifts were performed with a minimum of 82% of the daily 1 rep max.

This phase was truly a concentrated loading phase. All assistance exercises used were loaded in an extremely heavy manner. The World Championships was going to be the heaviest show for 175 pound strongman athletes that has been held to date. Every event was extremely heavy. The strength quality of limit strength was deemed the most important quality to develop for the athlete going into this phase. Based on this belief, no other stimulus was provided to the athlete other than limit strength challenges during this final phase. The only message that I wanted sent to the brain was that the organism had to lift the heaviest possible things. The hope was that the brain would receive this very clear message and respond by providing the proper adaptations to the body…no mixed stimuli, no mixed adaptation. Also the thought behind multiple training sessions per day was that the nervous system needed to be in a state of constant stimulation. The axons for pressing, pulling, and every other major force production capacity required needed to be excited as often as possible to make future recruitment possible. In addition to this, the thought was that fatigue needed to be brought to extreme levels to deplete the athlete’s multi-factorial stores (substrate, energy, etc.) prior to a taper to elicit an extreme supercompensation bump. By the end of this phase, the athlete was clearly in an overreaching state. The athlete was achy, miserable, and exhausted. The phase actually ended a few days early on Tuesday, February 19. On that day the fatigue level was at such a high level that the athlete was physically unable to perform a training session…it was clear that the taper needed to begin here. This would leave for a 9 day taper.

Phase 5:

            The first day of the contest was held on Friday, March 1. The final hard training day was performed on Saturday, February 24. This training session was performed 5 days into the taper, and the athlete felt tremendous. The athlete PR’d on the axel, circus dumbbell, and deadlift that day. Very few sets were actually performed though. One warm-up set and then one big set seeking a PR for each movement. This day was intended to assess readiness status, and also be a confidence builder going into the competition. Following this training day the athlete chose to shut it down and relax for the final days before the competition. The only exercise used between the last training day and the competition was Bikhram yoga. This was used primarily for the body weight control aspect, and to condition the athlete for dealing with water cutting the night before weigh ins. The athlete theorized that if he practiced dehydrating and rehydrating that the body would adapt to the phenomenon and would go into less of a state of shock on the day prior to competition.

Conclusion:

            I ultimately placed 10^th in the world at this contest out of a field of 21 international competitors. I am extremely pleased with this finish considering that I had only been competing in the sport for 14 months and that I am much older than most of the other competitors. Strongman is a young man’s sport for the most part. When you start creeping up into the mid 30’s it seems as though you lose a little of the explosion that was present in your early and mid-20’s…which is probably why we don’t see too many 35 year old running backs in the NFL. The talent at this competition was outrageous, and my placement could have been significantly better with slight improvements in my performance in some of the events. When the competitors are all really close together in ability, the difference between places is a rep here and there or a fraction of a second in a carrying event. Overall this was a great experience, and if I had to do it over again, I probably would use a very similar training plan. I felt as though the plan I conceived of and implemented prepared me physiologically for the demands I had to face. The areas where I need improvement are in the tactics and techniques of the events themselves, and those are things that you learn over time with competitive seasoning. 

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Here is Part 2.4 of Dr./Coach Davidson's program design series! Be sure to check out Part's 1, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 before reading this one so you're caught up with his thought process.

Q: Since you train with your team, how do they get coached on their exercise technique?

A: In truth, they probably get coached very poorly. I have random people join at random times…at the beginning of the spring semester, half way through a semester, half way through a block…literally whenever. We are a club team, we are open to anyone, and we are looking to increase numbers all the time. Now that being said, we do have a lot of experienced lifters on the team. These guys will talk to the more inexperienced guys when they see something that is terrible. I will talk to people when I see them completely missing a concept.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, and most of them are hypocritical. Part of me believes that new guys need to watch, learn, and figure things out on their own to a certain degree. Then I get worried that they are going to get hurt and perpetuate movement dysfunction. Part of me believes that the exercises are so simple that any idiot should be able to figure them out. Sit your butt back, keep your chest up, grab the bar, tighten your body, stand up…push the bar over your head while not arching your low back too much…look at experienced lifters, copy them, easy. Then I see something that is just deplorable, and I want to fire myself for gross negligence. Part of me knows that if I just leave people alone, let them watch and figure things out that most of them usually start looking better without too much input from me after a couple of weeks. Then I see the few people who have movement dysfunction that supersedes coaching cues, learning through modeling, or effort.

There’s no good answer for this question. I’m a little bit of an old school lifter in that I think people need to educate themselves and that they shouldn’t just be handed every bit of wisdom on day one, but I am really nervous about people hurting themselves. I believe that everyone should receive an individualized plan and should be coached on how to do everything to the highest level in a very cerebral style with awareness being the ultimate driver, but I need to build a team and teams need to work hard and work together. So you could say that I am struggling to find the right thing to do and I am ultimately presenting a plan that is a compromise.

Q: Since you train with your team, do you find it hard to focus on your own training given you're probably worried about everyone else around you as well?

A: No, I don’t find it too hard to focus on my own training. When I am in big contest prep mode I announce that it is probably not a good time to interrupt me and ask me too many questions during training sessions. When I am not in training for an upcoming major competition I’m pretty easy to approach in the weightroom, and I do a lot more stepping back from my own thing and I help coach other guys. Generally, I try to stay away from the guys who I call, “human rain delays”…you know, the guys who talk your ear off during a training session, the guys who take ten years to set up for every work set, the guys who bring everything to a screeching halt. I try to identify those guys and work elsewhere. In general though, I’m not too worried about my own training. I train for strength development four times per week in a block approach…there’s plenty of focus on whatever quality it is that I’m working on.

The post Strongman Program Design with Dr.Davidson: Part 2.4 – Program Design first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.

Here’s part 2.3 of Dr.Davidson’s strongman program design process. Be sure to read Part 1, 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 first!

Q: Does the daily training session differ depending on what year the athlete is (freshman through senior)?

A: No, for a variety of reasons. First, I’ve got some freshmen who are outstanding, and I’ve got some upperclassmen who are lackluster at best. If I just divided it up by year I would be putting people into inappropriate groups. We’ve got to keep in mind that this is year 1 of this team, so we haven’t really fully established who the long term leaders of the team are going to be, or what our overall system really is. Second, if you got to interact with some of my freshmen, you would know that it would be a bad idea to sequester them off into their own group doing their own thing. I really don’t know exactly what would happen with that, but you can count on some general ass-clown like behavior.

   The younger guys need to work with the older guys, and the older guys need to develop the younger guys for the most part. Maybe five years from now when I have a fully established and integrated system with this team there can be something like that, but these are my first athletes. I need multiple years to establish a true system. I need athletes who have worked with me for multiple years to truly become leaders within my system, and then we can start thinking about dividing them up into different groups. For now we are a rag-tag bunch of miscreants who are starting to form a cohesive unit. We need to collectively go through the same trials and tribulations to form a group bond. 

The post Strongman Program Design with Dr.Davidson: Part 2.3 – Program Design first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.

Here’s part 2.2 of Dr.Davidson’s strongman program design process. Be sure to read Part’s 1, 2.0, and 2.1 before getting into this part here.

Q: Do you write a separate individualized program for each athlete or does the whole team do the same thing?

A: I do not write separate, individualized training programs for all the athletes. In an ideal world I would have assessments conducted at least once a month on the athletes. The athletes would receive up to date corrective exercise packages based on their assessment results. I’d like to run them through the FMS, SFMA, and PRI tests at these assessments and track their progress over time. I’d discover each athlete’s main driver of dysfunction and focus on that. I’d try to give them some mobility, then try to lock it in with an appropriate static stability challenge in a transitional posture, and then give them a dynamic stability challenge prior to making the decision on whether or not to load them. I’d test and retest their primary dysfunctional pattern before and after my interventions. The reality is that there are about 25 people for every training session, and I’m training then too. There is no assistant coach. A few of the athletes really get this overall concept because they’re smart and they’ve had multiple classes with me. Some of them are absolutely clueless and they are movement nightmares. Most of them are somewhere in the middle.

          So here’s what I’ve come to do lately with the corrective exercises –  I’m guessing and generalizing. I’ve tried to do a lot of background reading into PRI. I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve learned enough to help me make some decisions. The PRI people are really smart, and they seem to be saying that just about every human is stuck in the left AIC pattern and the right BC pattern (I haven’t learned anything about the stuff north of the neck yet) except for people who have their heart and their liver on the opposite sides of their body. I’m assuming I don’t have any of those people on the team. I see these guys exercise all the time, and I see the same things. Lack of deep core stability, inability to prevent anterior pelvic tilt, compensatory extension, pronation collapse, right foot stance at rest, inability to breathe in certain postures and positions, left hamstring and adductor inhibition, right adductor hypertonicity, spinal erectors that are acting as people’s new butts due to poor pelvic position, hip flexors that are acting as people’s new abs due to poor pelvic positioning, scapular downward rotation syndrome, anterior humeral glide syndrome, the list literally goes on and on. I get sick of looking at the same dysfunction in multiple individuals on a daily basis. I feel like 90% of them all have the same major driver of dysfunction…poor pelvic position and an inability to get an appropriate ZOA and breathing strategy. I also get tired to seeing people butchering their corrective exercises and not having the coaching manpower to fix my worst offenders . So I decided to print out a bunch of pictures of PRI corrective exercises with written descriptions under the pictures. Everybody can access the picture and the description. What I’m seeing isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what I was looking at before. I could have a more individualized thing going on, but I know what I’d see…crap technique…lack of awareness…a good idea on paper, a train wreck when seeing it live. PRI seems to be offering corrective techniques that are pretty specific to movement dysfunction associated with the human condition…so in many ways it is individualized. There is tremendous focus on the pelvis, breathing, and alignment…I like that stuff, and I don’t know any of my athletes who don’t need to work on those pieces. So maybe if I can get assistant coaches at some point and have them out on the floor and coming over and cueing people I’ll go back to specific individualized correctives for the guys, but for now, I’m sticking with my PRI pictures and written descriptions.

          As far as the strength training goes, I don’t have individualized programs. The exercise selection that I use in the program design is unbelievably simplistic. We deadlift and we push things over our heads…that’s what I want people to be good at. I throw in variation with the assistance exercise, but I’m not a big believer in a ton of variety from an exercise selection standpoint for strength development. The deadlift is the biggest pull you can do, and the overhead is the biggest push you can do. The deadlift is a flexion pattern, the overhead is an extension pattern. They complement each other beautifully, and I feel like most people can do these things with competency. I look at these exercises with the same 80/20 perspective that Coach Boyle uses for his training facility. I just wish I could have a few interns or assistant coaches to pull the 20% of guys who are incompetent movers out of the program design, because I do have a couple of guys who are ugly pullers and pushers. Sometimes I start thinking that I should write up individualized things for those guys…but then I start thinking more about those guys…they’re my most clueless guys. They wouldn’t know what to do with an individualized program without a personal coach walking them through it. I’d rather have them working at a rack with other athletes who have a clue rather than sending them out into the wilderness by themselves. 

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Here’s installment 2.1 of Dr./Coach Patrick Davidson’s program design process. Be sure to first read Part 1 and 2.0 so you understand where he is coming from with some of these answers.

Q: Do you print off programs from pre-written templates or the same programs from last off-season?

A: I borrow from things that I have done in the past, but I typically institute something new with every training block. I try to never stop learning, and I think that my learning is reflected in my program design. Program design is a window into a coach’s soul. You get to see what they think is important. I have a few things that are old standbys. My three week strength block is an old standby. Some of my hypertrophy protocols are old standbys. I basically know what those blocks are going to accomplish at this point, and I can dust them off and haul them out at certain times of the year. Training and coaching is an evolution though. The field of strength and conditioning has the fastest changing climate that could be imagined. I must continue to adapt, otherwise I feel like I will be a dinosaur in a matter of a month’s time.

          I suppose that I stick with a few principles. I outlined some of my principles in the first answer, but I’ll give you a few more here. Principle #1: The greater the imposed stress, the greater the end product following recovery (at some point). Principle #2: Figure out a protocol that would cause the least amount of intraset fatigue while still driving tremendous interset fatigue/overall training block fatigue. I don’t want form to break down, and I don’t really want too much of a loss in power production during the work set, but I want to ultimately stress the athlete’s system as hard as possible…this is something that Triphasic Training seems to talk a lot about and accomplish better than anything that I have previously done. Principle #3: Let the qualities that you are trying to develop drive the program design, not specific exercises. I used to do a lot of squatting and olympic style lifting. I don’t program with those exercises anymore. I have carved my exercise choices down significantly because I’m not in love with any particular exercise anymore. I just try to pick the ones that the vast majority can actually do correctly without compensation, and the ones that will be directly performed in contests that people will compete in.

          Finally, to answer this question in a slightly roundabout way, I can say no, I generally do not use pre-packaged training sessions or anything from the previous year. Most of the time when I look at what I thought was a good idea from previous years I want to throw up. I look back and think…what was I thinking? I berate myself to some degree. I had good intentions, but I display my own ignorance to myself. I probably won’t ever run the strength block that I described here again. There’s too much fatigue from an intra-set perspective. I can get similar results by dropping the load and cutting the sets shorter in terms of reps. Reducing intraset fatigue and performing fewer reps per set will ensure optimal technique for every rep and avoid driving increasing levels of movement dysfunction into athletes while still allowing them to achieve tremendous strength gains. 

The post Strongman Program Design with Dr.Davidson: Part 2.1 – Program Design first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.

In our last installment with Dr.Patrick Davidson, he elucidated the specifics of his assessment process and how he overcomes real world logistical problems with his athletes in the public sector of coaching and training. Today Dr./Coach Davidson moves into the finer details of this program design after the assessment is complete. Some of his answers to the following questions are so long I broke them up into separate blog posts so everyone has time to catch up.

Part 2.0

Q: After you've finished with your assessment (link to last post) you then sit down to write the program. Take us through your general thought processes.

Part 2.1

Q: Do you print off programs from pre-written templates or the same programs from last off-season?

Part 2.2

Q: Do you write a separate individualized program for each athlete or does the whole team do the same thing?

Part 2.3

Q: Does the daily training session differ depending on what year the athlete is (freshman through senior)?

Part 2.4

Q: Since you train with your team, how do they get coached on their exercise technique?

Q: Since you train with your team, do you find it hard to focus on your own training given you're probably worried about everyone else around you as well?

Part 2.5

Q: From your experience, what works, what’s important, and where do most people get in trouble?

Stay tuned to here to samleahey.com every several days for the next part of Dr./Coach Davidsons elucidations! Let’s get started now with the first question.

Q: After you've finished with your assessment (link to last post) you then sit down to write the program. Take us through your general thought processes.

A: As a disclaimer to this entire entry I would like to state that what I will present to you are my ideas for program design from the last year. I feel that I have gotten significantly smarter during that time period. I would probably do things very differently with my current understanding of things. This disclaimer should not be viewed as me bashing my program design from the last year. The programming worked very well for the athletes on the team and I think it made a lot of sense given the timing and logistics of our competition schedule and training facility situation. This answer will basically be a history lesson. Lessons can be learned; however, the aim of a science based endeavor is moving forward.

There are three primary questions I answer before beginning a long term program design:

1. How can I keep things the same, but different?

2. What qualities and movements are truly critical for performance and training?

3. What methods will I use for developing the important qualities and movements?

I program exercises from a block program design perspective as I understand it. All relevant fitness qualities are trained all the time (or they are left alone for short periods that would not allow detraining of the quality); however, during a given block a focus is placed on one or perhaps two qualities while all the other qualities are trained at maintenance level. Typically the block focus moves from general (farthest away from major competitions) to specific (just prior to competitions). Therefore, the nature of the sport dictates exactly what fitness qualities are trained at given time periods of the overall block layout.

The sport of strongman presents many challenges from a program design perspective. The sport features a tremendous variety of challenges with events. Ways that events vary from one another include; movement pattern, primary plane of motion, primary muscles targeted, velocity of movement, and energy system contributions. Based on this variety there is literally a limitless way that coaches could go about designing blocks.

Coach Mike Boyle often-times references a program design concept that he got from Charles Poliquin…the concept of keeping things the same, but different. I think this is an incredibly important concept, and it is something that I keep in mind at all times when designing a long term plan. In my mind this seemingly simple, but ambiguous statement is truly at the heart of what it means to create a block program. In the long term plan I wanted to keep certain things constant throughout the year. Those things included the way that we warmed up, the way that we developed speed from a linear and multi-directional perspective, and the primary lifts that were done for force production increases. Only during the first block were the lifts different. The things that changed throughout the year were the sets, reps, rest time, muscle action (eccentric, isometric, concentric) focus, and degree of how specific the training was for competitions.

Every training session this year unfolded in the following manner:

1. Corrective exercises – individualized based on assessment results…athletes worked in platoons…towards the end of the year we all did PRI based correctives

2. Global movement patterns (Gray Cook movement sequences)

3. Easy locomotion (tempo runs)

4. Global movement patterns (Gray Cook movement sequences)

5. Movement skill development (drills for things like lateral pushing mechanics for side shuffling)

6. Plyometric primers (pogos and other low amplitude stretch-shortening cycle activities)

7. Plyometrics (either linear or multi-directional)

8. Speed and agility work (either linear or multi-directional)

9. Speed endurance development (either linear or multi-directional)

10. Strength training

11. Assistance exercises

Coach Boyle also references a Charlie Francis concept for program design a lot too…the concept of training threads. That certain threads need to remain present at all times in the program design. The difference is the degree to which those threads are present. At some times a thread is quite striking, and at other times the thread is slightly more muted. I try to keep the idea of, “same but different”, and the “ever present thread” in my mind at all times when I am designing a program. This is partially my interpretation of Dan John’s famous quote of, “If something is important, do it every day”. For the sport of strongman I have things in mind that I believe are important. I think those things are overhead pressing, deadlifting, carrying objects, loading objects, linear locomotion speed, change of direction abilities, general fitness, and movement efficiency (which is heavily tied into functional movement quality). I can’t afford to ever have a period of time where these things are ignored. I also cannot ever develop any of these things to tremendously high levels unless I focus on a couple of them at a certain time while letting the other ones simmer on the back burner. Here is the details for our off-season programming this year.

This past year when I got through with my assessments I looked at the general trends that I saw. What was most apparent was that we had a lot of shoulder mobility and active straight leg raise problems. Based on this I made the first block a mobility, stability, and unilateral exercise focused block. Block one lasted for the entire month of September. The second block was a strength block and ran for most of October. This block became more and more specific  for competitors competing at the Strongman National Championships (first week of November) each week. There was a brief deload following Nationals. The next block was a volume block that ran ran right up to the Holidays in December. A transitional block (hybrid between strength and hypertrophy) was implemented in January after the holidays. This block ultimately merged into a specific block for a contest that many athletes were competing in that took place in New Jersey. Following this, the training shifted towards specificity for the World Championships which took place in the first week of March. Following the World Championships there were no more big competitions on the horizon. Based on this I wanted to try something new. I had just finished reading Triphasic Training, so we started the over 80% block. That brings us right up to today, where we are finishing our last week of the over 80% concentric work.

The primary exercises that were trained in block 1 were the single arm push-up (on an incline), the pistol squat, the half kneeling unilateral dumbbell vertical press, and the single leg contralateral loaded kettlebell deadlift. By placing the load on one foot or one hand, I was hoping that I could force them into utilizing deep front line/deep core/authentic stabilization tissues as their route of stabilization. Janda classified tonic muscles as those muscles that stabilize during single leg stance. Tonic muscles are typically deeper and function more locally. I felt that the guys on the team were superficial stabilizers and that this phenomenon was what was causing their hypertonicity. I wanted to create an environment where even if they weren’t doing things perfectly they would be doing no harm to themselves while still building some general fitness. During this first block we followed a high/low day protocol. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays were high days where we did speed and agility work, plyometrics, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the primary low days. These days featured mobility and stability training along with tempo runs. 

The second block was a strength block. The exercises changed slightly and reflected my exercise selection for the remainder of the year. Each training week (which could be longer than seven days) we would have four primary training sessions – two A sessions and two B sessions. A sessions featured two big compound lifts, which were the two foot deadlift and the single arm overhead press. B sessions featured two big compound lifts, which were the one foot deadlift and the two hand overhead press. I have run a very similar strength block of my own design many times and each time I have run athletes through it I have seen remarkable results. The phase lasts three training weeks, which is typically between 18 and 22 calendar days. There are three loading schemes used during the block. Each A day and each B day must be performed twice under each loading scheme (when you have completed two A and B days under a specific loading scheme that is considered a training week). The three different loading schemes that I utilize are as follows:

Training Week 1: 6 sets of 3 at 88% of the daily 1RM ( if unable to finish a set, done)

Training Week 2: 8 sets of 2 at 92% daily 1RM (if unable to finish a set, done)

Training Week 3: 10 sets of 1 at 95% daily 1RM (if unable to finish a set, done)

Beginners and Intermediates who run this phase typically put about 40 to 60 pounds on their deadlift, although I have seen some athletes gain 80 to 100 pounds on their deadlift in this phase. Advanced athletes can expect to see somewhere between 10 to 30 pound increases with this phase. Overhead lift gains are much more unpredictable. This is a tremendously stressful phase. Something that must be pointed out is that the percentages are based on what the athlete is able to lift for a 1RM on that day. All maxes are performed in an unemotional setting. If you are basing these percentages off of your all time max you are going to get buried. I am certain that anyone who is reading this may question my sanity with placing beginners in this phase. I have seen beginners do just fine with this phase. If anything I feel the demands placed on the advanced athletes are much more severe and those are the people who I worry about more than anyone. In my mind I believe that Charlie Francis was correct when he said that everything for beginners is high intensity…even though it’s really not high intensity at all. When I have beginner athletes pulling less than 3 plates on the bar the actual systemic stress is really not “high intensity”. I have athletes who pull in the mid 600’s to low 700’s on a daily basis…when these guys work with multiple sets over 90% this is what I would call high intensity training.

The strength block went from October up until November and became more specific to the events for the National Championships. If the National Championships were not in November I may not have placed the strength block at this point of the year; however, I needed to peak the athletes competing at Nationals. The National Championships were a tremendous learning experience for myself and all the competitors who were there. The primary thing that we learned was that all of our athletes were as strong as anyone in the country, but we all had weak links that were holding us back. In major competitions there are usually at least seven events. You cannot afford to have one event where you are abysmal. All of us had one or two events that cost us dearly in the final results. It became clear to me that all of the competitors had to become more adept at their limiting events.

Following nationals we went into a hypertrophy block. Every training day is high volume in this phase. I kept the same sort of A and B training day design from an exercise perspective. The work periods, loading, and rest was very different from the strength block though. When I am designing a hypertrophy block I try to keep a few thoughts in mind. I try to think of what Jim Wendler has said about conditioning…that it has to be either competitive or fun to be effective. I take a somewhat similar approach to my hypertrophy program design. I do my best to make every session fun or competitive. The way I make things fun is that I name protocols. I learn from every venue that I can. While I think there is almost nothing to learn from Crossfit, I do believe that there are a few things that they do that work. One thing that people seem to like in the Crossfit community is that protocols have names like Fran or Isabel. I too have some names for specific protocols that I run people through. One of my favorites is what I call, “Staring Down the Barrel of a .45”. This is a scheme where I have the athletes perform 9 sets of 5 repetitions with 45 seconds rest between sets. I use wave loading during these sets. Set 1 is 70%, set 2 is 75%, set 3 is 80%, set 4 is 75%, set 5 is 70%, set 6 is 75%, set 7 is 80%, set 8 is 75%, and set 9 is 70%. This protocol is what I like to call, “just doable”. It is brutal, but I have found that everyone can always just barely finish it. Hypertrophy work seems to have to be awful to be effective. Naming the protocols makes it just fun enough to stomach the work. To make things competitive, I take a page from Charles Staley’s density training concepts. We will load the bar with a given % of your 1RM and you have a 2 minute window to get as many reps as possible with that weight. I divide the athletes into three groups – strong…over 500 lb. deadlift, moderate, over 400 lb. deadlift, and weak, under 400 lb. deadlift. Strong athletes load with 70%, moderate 75%, weak 80%. Then we see who can get the most reps. Typically we will do 2 or 3 of these 2 minute work periods with 4 minutes rest between. Just about everyone finishes with the same number of repetitions in this protocol…between 17 and 22, so it is highly competitive. I try to change things up during hypertrophy blocks often. Hypertrophy work is a grind and it is tedious. As long as I keep the concept the same…high volume, I try to change things as often as possible in very subtle ways. This keeps people interested and mentally fresh during a hypertrophy/volume block.

The hypertrophy block ran for a while. The gains that the athletes were making were pretty impressive. People’s bodies seemed to stay fresh, and I really didn’t want to mess with what was working. We ran this block from the second week of November right up until the college winter break. When looking at the number of weeks that you can run with a given quality until it will start to plateau, Charlie Francis’ material suggests up to about 20 weeks with accumulation weights (hypertrophy protocols). We didn’t run this quality that long, but our athletes also do not need to maximize this quality either. Ultimately the name of the game is Strongman. As my top athlete, Robert Kearney has said, it’s not called, Moderately Strongman. The one thing that we need to develop above and beyond anything else is limit strength. That was the direction we had to move back towards. Charlie Francis stated that when working with sprinters the one quality that trumps all others is speed…this is what needs to be perfected, and this quality needs the most attention. Sprinters do not need to be champion weightlifters…they need to be strong enough. Well strongman competitors don’t need to be champion runners or rep-out artists, they need one quality developed above and beyond all others, and they need to perfect their craft within that quality…strength.

Charlie Francis has stated that blocks should merge into one another smoothly. You don’t want abrupt ends to one block and a jolting entry into a new block. The athlete should be almost unable to interpret that they have moved from one block to the next. I didn’t do this very well with the transition from strength to hypertrophy in November, but I wanted to make sure I did feature a smooth transition with going back from hypertrophy to strength. During January we went through a transitional or hybrid phase. Was it hypertrophy? Was it strength? It was a little bit of both I suppose. I won’t go into detail in this article about the specifics of loading, sets, and reps because they will be detailed in a future article describing the exact training cycles that I used in preparation for the World Championship between the dates, January 14 through March 4.

Around this time in February and March I was reading Cal Dietz and Ben Peterson’s book, Triphasic Training and it fit nicely into my current understanding of program design, while also bringing up some points that I hadn’t previously considered. I had never tried spending a few weeks straight with a focus on eccentric or isometric qualities. I figured that it was something worth trying. At the very least I thought that it would be something that would be fun, new, and educational for myself and the athletes. I kept the traditional exercises the same as the ones that we worked all year. Overhead pressing and deadlifting. Rather than use the straight bar with the eccentric and isometric phases we switched to the trap bar to avoid significant quad bruising and shin cuts. The triphasic experience has been great for everyone. I have personally gained a lot of strength with this protocol, and one of my top athletes, Zach Hadge has recently pulled 700 pounds with a straight bar for the first time. He gained about 50 or 60 pounds in his deadlift during the 9 week triphasic over 80% phase that we are finishing this week.

As the year went along, I changed from the A and B days described earlier to A and B days that were traditional weightroom implement days and strongman implement days. The general movement patterns stayed the same in terms of deadlift and overhead patterns being the principal training patterns. Training day A would be barbell deadlift and barbell overhead. Training day B would be stone loading (deadlift pattern) and log clean and jerk. The entirety of the programming based on the Triphasic model was done with this type of A and B day system. Utilizing the eccentric and isometric focus with strongman implements was a very interesting experience. This change was done due to scheduling availability that allowed a large number of the team to be able to train at a facility that had strongman equipment twice a week. In the first half of the year the team was only able to train at this facility once a week on Saturdays. As soon as we were able to do two sessions a week with event equipment it made for a much better overall training plan as we were able to develop specific strength to a much greater extent. 

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The post Strongman Program Design with Dr.Davidson: Part 1 – Assessment first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.

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Last time we discussed a bit about sports science in general. Let’s go deeper. Many public and private sector organizations have been, or are delving now, into higher levels of technology and deeper levels and data analysis for player monitoring, program design purposes, etc. to the point where now many organizations hire a staff person who does nothing but data analytics for the coaching staff and trainers.

The post Sports Science Q&A’s with Dr.Davidson – Volume 2 – Analytics first appeared on SamLeahey.com - Sports/Training Science & Application.