The Conditioning Centre Blog

Do you TRAIN or workout?

2012-05-15T08:25:00.000+01:00

It’s been a while since I last blogged: been busy coaching and doing my MSc and i’ve also had a bit of writer’s block. But this little terminological distinction gets to me on a daily basis. So let me ask you the question....do you go to the gym to train or do you go to workout?

There’s no difference you say, well I would disagree. Going to the gym to train implies that you are going there to work hard, to follow a programme, to get better at specific things that are hard but worth doing. It shows me that you have thought about your training and have your head screwed on.

The words “i’m going for a workout” tend to come from someone wearing joggers, a beanie and a vest. They can wear these items because they’ll never work hard enough to start sweating. The joggers cover their chicken legs, which they are fine about because “legs are hard bru” and “girls can’t see my legs when i’m in the club”. If you’re this guy....sort your life out. If you’re arms are thicker than your pasty white thighs and you have the ass of a 10 year old boy you are NOT STRONG..... and you look like a tool.

And if you ever say “I’d rather LOOK strong than BE strong” please eject yourself from my gym.

To wrap up: TRAIN with a purpose, TRAIN hard and put some Junk in your Trunk (see pic above of 4 time Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy's legs....#mancrush).

5 reasons why you need to be training at The Conditioning Centre

2012-01-07T07:06:00.000+00:00

I've seen a lot of 10 things for this and 5 great gifts for that recently so I thought I’d do something along those lines but use it to show you why you can get so much more from your training if you do it with us. So here are 5 reasons why you should be training at The CC:

1, Programming: Most people seem to know what they want from their training, but have all sorts of crazy ideas of how to get there. Well that doesn't happen at the CC. Everyone gets the programme they need, written from the most current knowledge in S&C, from the experience of coaching literally hundreds of athletes everyday to get them to their goals the fastest and safest way.

2, Coaching: Remember that time in your gym when you had a big lift to do and couldn't get up for it or when you were lifting like Bambi on ice trying to get the right technique? My members don't...Because it doesn't happen in the CC. If you’re struggling for motivation we whack the music up and get everyone in to make sure you get the lift that you need to get better. Qualified coaches help you do the right exercises the right way to keep them safe and working what they should be.

3, Great members: That tool in the beater stood curling in the squat rack stopping you from squatting; or the guy shouting "it’s all you bru!" while reverse curling the bar for someone benching like a mating walrus don't exist in the CC. The members are all there to genuinely get better, not just to boost their ego. They are keen to listen to the coaches and each other and help everyone improve.

4, Real kit for real lifting: We have the right equipment for you to train hard and make serious gains. If I ever think that I don't have what the members need to make them better I do my best to buy it because I want the CC to be the best gym in the country and have what you need to make continual progress.

5, Care: This sounds cheesy but it’s true. I care about my members. I want them to succeed and will do everything I can to make that happen. I'll write you the best programme, I'll coach you through it all, I'll get you psyched for the big lifts; I’ll help you with any injuries, if work picks up and you haven't been in for a while I'll call you up and check everything’s OK. I'll also tell you when you need to just get on with your training. I want the CC to be the part of your day that you look forward to most, because you know it’s full of great people and you will leave better than you arrived.

So if you want to be part of the CC and start getting better, get in touch and take a step towards success http://www.conditioningcentre.com/

Russell

Max Strength Programming For Beginners

2011-11-06T18:01:00.000+00:00

I hope you enjoyed the last post and it got you thinking about your max strength work. I realised after reading through it again that I never told how you might go about building your max strength. So I thought I would give you some more info.

The key to max strength development is to keep the sets small (1-5 reps) and the rest long (3-5 minutes); this will keep you fresh and allow your muscles chance to recover the energy supplies required for big effort sets. There is no point trying to lift really heavy on short rest periods, it can’t be done.

Different people will tell you different things about how many sets you should be doing: some will work up to 1 big set; others will try to keep the same weight for 5-10 sets. I would suggest that your first foray into max strength development looks like 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, where the weight builds from a reasonably easy first and second set up to a tough final set. That allows you a good warm up and builds the weight gradually so you know you can handle it. The worst thing is to jump too high too fast and get stapled to the ground! One or two heavy sets are plenty for athletes new to strength training. Athletes that are experienced in strength training will need a lot more stimulus than this and will go into the higher weight for many sets.

Obviously it’s vital that your technique and form are very good when lifting heavy, as any limitations that you have will be magnified under heavy load, so make sure you get this sorted early on or you’ll be risking an injury.

So there you have simple way to attack your max strength and start getting strong.

Please feel free to post any comments or questions.

Cheers

Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/

Why Do Max Strength Work

2011-11-03T05:56:00.000+00:00

Good morning crew,

Its been another great week, lots of hard training from you lot and the stash is in (T-shirt above) so we can all show everyone else that we train to get better and not just because we think we should.

Today's post is a little longer than usual because its something that I feel is really important. So bear with me and have a read.

I firmly believe that maximum strength is the foundation to high level performance and that trying to get anywhere without developing it is going to lead to failure. Creating strength gives you the potential to be powerful, efficient and conserve energy; as any load bearing task, be it walking, lifting, jumping etc. has become a proportionately smaller load and therefore requires less effort.

Many feel that doing strength training will make them slow, that they will get HUGE and cumbersome within minutes of touching a heavy weight. This may be true if you only train by lifting maximal loads for years, but if your max strength training comes as part of a balanced programme and you continue to play your sport it can have fantastic benefits. My football (soccer) players at the Uni often say they don't want to lift weights because they don't want to get slow; I usually refer them to these studies:

There is a strong correlation between maximal strength in half squats and sprint performance and jumping height in soccer players. (WislØff et. al., 2004)

In elite basketball players Squat 1 rep max performance was the best single predictor of 5m and 10m sprint times. (Chaouachi et. al. 2009).

I once heard Dan Baker explain the adavantages of max strength really well: Increasing your strength can increase power production and your ability to succeed in contact sports: Peak Power is found at 45-60% of 1 Rep Max (Baker et al. 2001). Therefore, increasing your 1RM strength widens the range of weights that fall in this zone and the ability to accelerate yourself, an object or an opponent. Let’s say you are a 95kg rugby player with a 1RM squat of 140kg, if your max power is achieved at 45-60% of this, you are able to exert the most power against an opponent weighing 63-84kg. If you increase your 1RM to 180kg, your max power range increases to 81-108kg. Which puts your opponent perfectly in your max power range; so you can smash them all over the field!

Further support comes from a study by Moss et. al. (2003), they showed that training at a high % of 1RM increases power throughout the entire weight spectrum, whereas training at low % of 1RM only increases power at lower loads. So if you only train at low % of you 1RM you will get very good at moving light loads quickly, but you will be on your arse when it comes to being powerful when dealing with heavy loads, such as other people.

It is even good to strength train when competing as an endurance athlete: Paavolainen et. al. (1999) Studied the effect of plyometric, barbell and sprinting exercises on endurance athletes and found that “simultaneous explosive-strength and endurance training improved the 5K time in well-trained endurance athletes”. So even distance runners need to be strong. I have found this to be true in my own personal experience. When I was a rower at University level I was the fittest I have ever been in my life, I had a 1RM back squat of 135kg, so I could do 125kg for 2, maybe 3 reps. 3 years later having done zero fitness training for 2 years and trained almost exclusively in Powerlifting I had a 1RM of 207.5kg and did 125kg for 25 reps! That’s because 125kg is now only around 60% of my 1RM, so I can bully it around all day long. If I ever went back to rowing again I reckon I would be a hell of an improved rower now that I am nearly twice as strong as I used to be.

So there you have it, getting stronger can give you a greater opportunity for success.

Hopefully that has given you an insight into my thinking and hopefully an urge to get in the gym and lift!

see you in the gym.

As always please check us out on Facebook Twitter Website and post any questions that you might have below.

Russell

Hip Flexors: Small Muscles; Big Problem

2011-09-27T09:36:00.000+01:00

Imagine the situation....A new athlete or member of your gym comes up to at the start of their programmes saying they have back ache and tight hamstrings all the time, they haven’t made much progress in training recently in the big lifts like the squat and aren’t getting much faster. What is it that’s causing this and how can you help?

You take a look at their posture and their hips are tilted forwards and they have a big arch in their lower back. A few basic tests seem to reveal that they have chronically tight hip flexors. OK, but how will this cause their problems?...The tight flexors will pull the top of the pelvis down and rotate it forwards, this will cause the arched back. It will also lengthen the glutes (bum muscles), which basically stops them from working properly. As the glutes are the major muscles involved in extending the hips (a vital action for basically anything involving jumping, running or squatting) they cannot now effectively do their job, so the hamstrings and lower back start doing a rubbish job of trying to compensate for the lack of work coming from the glutes. They are weak in comparison and don’t have enough strength to really help and over time they become overworked and sore. This could be the cause of many people’s chronic back pain and at best is a major limitation to their athletic success or achievement of their personal fitness goals. At worst it’s an injury waiting to happen.

So how are we going to fix this:

Specific time needs to spent to address this issue, leaving it or half-heartedly doing a couple of stretches will not solve anything and will leave you frustrated from the lack of progress. All my athletes and members that have this issue are now spending 15 minutes at the start of every session to get the problem sorted so they can move on and progress towards their goals. They are doing 3 basic things:

Glute activation: Basic drills like glute bridges to make sure the athlete knows how to activate the glutes so they can make sure they are working in the lift or movement.

Stretch the Hip Flexors: Lengthen the muscles to help reduce the tilted pelvis. Use Lunge stretches and rotational squats as part of your programme (Mike Boyle has some great stuff about this).

Strengthen the Hip Flexors: Lengthening the muscles isn’t enough; they need to be strong as well. Use exercises like cable hip flexion and sled crossover drills to get some targeted work done.

In time they should find that their posture and performance improves, all from 15 minutes of focussed work on the small muscles that were holding them back.

sportBU S&C begins

2011-09-23T08:46:00.000+01:00

As the new term starts at Bournemouth uni and the freshers flood in wide-eyed and beer fueled I am doing my best to get those that are looking to compete in our varsity sports into the gym early doors. This will give them the best chance to hit the season running and more importantly...winning.

There are many potential road blocks to this effort, one of which being a misunderstanding of our programme by our athletes. Before they even get in the gym many seem to think that my job is to make them massive, sore all the time and of course lifting weights makes you slow....right?

This couldn't be further from the truth, my job is to train the athletes in the appropriate ways to make them faster, fitter and injury free. Yes for some teams like rugby that will mean adding plenty of muscle mass to be able to produce huge forces and tolerate big tackles. For other sports we will be lifting less weight and concentrating on movement skills, balancing muscle groups and giving them the best chance to play well all season.

You probably will get sore the first few sessions...its inevitable if you are doing something new, but this will subside and you will soon see the benefits on the playing field. If you give up because the first few sessions left you aching and were tough then welcome to the bench, you'll be sat on it all season.

Strength & Conditioning is vital to improving sporting performance....many of your opposition know that already.....see you in the gym.

Make Your 15 Minutes Count

2011-08-16T13:46:00.002+01:00

15 minutes of exercise each day can increase your fitness, lifespan and physique all at the same time! A recent study found that performing 15 minutes of exercise per day could increase your lifespan and the benefits increased up to 100 minutes of exercise per day (Wen, et al., 2011). Not everyone has over an hour and half of time every day to perform exercise, so how can you make the most of the small amount of training time that you can free up on a regular basis

It has been proven that High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most time efficient ways to improve fitness and lose weight: One study showed that 4 minutes of exercise comprising of 20 seconds of maximal cycling followed by 10 seconds rest improves your fitness more than 60 minutes of moderate cycling if both are performed 5 times each week (Tabata, et al., 1996). So you get better fitness results from 20 minutes of hard exercise per week compared with 5 hours of moderate exercise each week, yes that’s 4 hours and 40 minutes less every week!

Not only are you fitter but you also burn more fat: A study on inactive but healthy women aged 18-30 years old found that the group performing interval training for 20 minutes per session three times per week lost on average 2.5kg to 4kg of fat (10-15% of their body fat) over 15 weeks, whereas the group who moderately exercised for 40 minutes per session GAINED 0.5kg of fat over the same period (Trapp, Chisholm, & Boutcher, 2008)

You don’t have to do exactly 20 seconds ON 10 seconds OFF every time; you need to start at the right point for you. If you haven’t done much before you could start with 5 seconds ON and 20 seconds OFF and build up the work and decrease the rest over a few weeks. If you wanted to vary the length of the work period within each workout you could start with a longer period and decrease it through the session, maybe 30 seconds ON 30 seconds OFF at the start and reduce it by 5 seconds each time to 5 seconds ON while keeping the rest at 30 seconds. That format has been shown to be more challenging to the energy systems but easier on the mind than increasing the work length through a workout (Meckel, et al., 2001). The way you perform the exercise is up to you: if you like riding bikes then do that, go running if you can run fast, or you can use weights in the gym, this is perfect in a group exercise setting. So find the way that you are most comfortable with and use that.

Hopefully this has shown you that you don’t have to go out and spend hours pounding the pavement to lose weight. You can spend as little as 15 minutes each day performing shorter bouts of more challenging exercise to get much better results.

Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/

"It's not THAT heavy!"

2011-04-12T10:56:00.000+01:00

A great phrase I have been using recently came from one of my athletes who was doing a heavy sled set sled in the gym and to motivate himself for the last trip he said aloud:

"It's not THAT heavy!"

It obviously worked because he got down and drove hard and that trip was much faster than the previous one.

This proved a point that I have been finding in my own training and with the guys I have been coaching at The Conditioning Centre; that perception of what you are doing is everything. If you let yourself get beaten by a set or rep in an exercise by thinking that it is too hard then you're not going to get it done. If you tell yourself at the start of the set or mid way through a heavy sled push that is starting to slow that "It's not THAT heavy" and drive hard I am convinced that you will find the strength to get it done and finish strong.

The reason for the effect of this simple phrase is that I believe there is a place in your head where it doesn't want to go in a normal situation, a place where a few extra percent of strength, fitness and power are waiting to be unleashed. They wait there in the dark corner because it hurts to go there, its not fun and it takes mental strength to stay in there. But once you have got there and bullied the sled, bar or rep into submission you will be glad that you found that place and feel like you learnt something about yourself today.

So next time your struggling in the gym, stop thinking about how hard it is and say one thing: "It's not THAT heavy!"

Russell Jolley ASCC
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/

Stay in touch

2011-04-03T14:11:00.005+01:00

I have been training for powerlifting since November 2008, so I have been training max effort lifts in the big 3 as a priority. It has been a pleasure and I am a damn sight stronger tham I was over 2 years ago. This however is not how I programme and coach my athletes at sportBU and The Conditioning Centre; we work on explosive and Olympic lifts, hip and and knee dominant exercises, bodyweight and postural stabililty work with minimal rest and supersets with an emphasis on work capacity as well as strength. I realised recently that it had been a long time since I actually trained myself in that style and I felt that I had lost touch with what my athletes are having to complete in a normal training session. So I am now going through a phase of training to get back in touch with my programme. It still covers the major lifts, but is aimed at developing my weaknesses: deficit Deadlifts because i'm weaker off the floor in the DL, high bar beltless squats because i'm not happy with my posture and trunk angle and pressing variations for my bench. Obviously there is a lot of upper body pulling and core in there as well to maintain balance and general joint health. I can tell you that I am loving the change and as I have no competitions for a long time I have the time go through this phase and come out stronger in the big 3. I feel that keeping a solid understanding of the sessions that you expect your athletes to do is vital for a S&C coach. Obviously i'm not saying go out and do a session from 10 different team's programmes every week, or try to compete with them all the time. But how can you coach if you can't remember what its like to train properly.

ATTENTION!

2011-03-05T21:05:00.003+00:00

Its been a long time since I last blogged, since July 2010 I have started a masters degree in strength & conditioning and opened my own gym, so I haven't had too much time to sit and write. But I have found some time so I thought I'd write a little about what i've been finding recently while coaching student athletes.

I am finding that 5 months into a programme they are still asking me what many basic exercises are and how to do them when they have been in the programme since the beginning, in some cases they have been doing them for 18 months. This makes me wonder why they still cant remember the basics; one of my interns hit the nail on the head while coaching the ladies football team when he told them to "give the exercise their full attention". It suddenly became blindingly obvious that there is too much other stuff going in their heads while they are training: should I get pink or yellow leggings for the tight and bright social tonight? is my blackberry going off? is it Ok to leave for a lecture now? So they aren't giving the training the attention it deserves and therfore aren't getting the full benefits of the programme.

So from now on I'm going to ensure that all athletes training with me attend fully to every exercise and reap the benefits that are there for the taking. There will be no talking from the athlete while they are holding a weight from now on. Only concentration on what you are doing. I'll let you know how it goes.

Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD)

2010-07-09T11:17:00.002+01:00

Just read a good blog post from Neil Welch (here) on LATD and as I have just finished the Talented Athlete Lifestyle Support mentoring course I thought I would throw in my opinion on the matter.

Neil is completely right in saying that we should try to keep the athletes in education for as long as is required to allow them to get the most benefit. A few potential benefits are listed below:

1/Education can obviously increase the chances of success both in their sport, as they may have an increased capacity to make decisions with logical thinking and also outside of sport, as they may be more likely to find a job (although the graduate market has just got a lot tougher).

2/Financial and sporting support schemes can have a huge positive effect on their development. Throughout education there are programmes that can support the athlete in education e.g AASE at School level, TASS through college and Uni or the institution itself through a scholarship. This can allow the athlete opportunities such as Strength and Conditioning, equipment and travel fees, physiotherapy and rehab post injury that they would otherwise have not been able fund themselves. These schemes require the athlete to be in education and can be pivotal to the success of the athlete.

3/ The education provider will often offer a large support structure for the athlete outside of sport. They may have advice centres for everything from housing to careers and may be able to help in a difficult time with councillors and support.

Alongside education LTAD is about developing the person as well as the athlete, Neil alluded to retirement from sport earlier than planned, this is called a non-normative transition (a change to the lifestyle of the athlete that is unexpected) and can have a negative effect on a person that they never recover from. It is vital that as part of the support staff of athletes we emphasise aspects of their life outside of sport to give them a sense of worth for non-sporting achievements. This may be by showing the benefits of their family, achievements in education, working goals etc. In this way if the athlete is forced to retire early for whatever reason they still have self worth for other aspects of their life and have not lost everything that matters to them.

We must make sure to create rounded athletes with the best opportunities for life in general, not just single track robots who are left to gather rust at the age of 35.

Russell Jolley BSc (Hons) ASCC CGFI
www.conditioningcentre.com
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SMOLOV Squat Programme

2010-07-07T09:53:00.003+01:00

After my experiences at the European Drug-Free Powerlifting Champs I have a renewed hunger to lift big and start winning the national level competitions. So Tom and I have decided to do the Smolov Squat training programme.
Take a look at it on the following link:
http://www.ontariostrongman.ca/Resources/training/smolovsquatcycle.htm

Its going to be very tough and I am currently 2 days into the base mesocycle. The legs are sore but Today I don't have to squat so will be benching. It will all be worth it if I get the proposed 10-20kg PB in 4 weeks.

I'll keep you updated as to how I am doing.

Cheers

Injured? Drop the ego and get it checked out.

2010-05-16T18:59:00.006+01:00

Lately I have been watching the Ultimate Fighter series 2 and I thought I would write a quick post about my thoughts on the way that athletes deal with injuries. In the series the athletes are told to continue training and fighting through injuries because they should be prepared to break themselves in order to get the contract at the end of the series. I guess I can understand the reasoning and mentality behind that: if it is your only chance to fight and prove yourself then you want to take it, it also prevents people stopping training to deal with an injury that isnt as serious as they thought.

But it also means that the injury often gets much worse and becomes a long term problem that can result in surgery and possibly prevent them from ever competing again, in which case you're ego has just ruined your chances of long term success.

I have also had this situation many times in the gym with my athletes, they come to you with a possible injury; be it a rolled ankle, sore knee or shoulder and you have to decide whether they should continue training or rest it and see a physio or chiro.

I think as a coach it is your responsibility to help them decide what to do, so here is how I would go about it:

I would usually have a quick chat with them about circumstances of the potential injury, i.e. how they did it, when they did it, what hurts now, what it looks like, if it made any sounds at the time of injury (i.e a pop, crack or crunch) and if there are any obvious dangers to the athlete if they train. If it doesnt sound like it was too bad I would let them warm up and see how it feels. If it continued to hurt or got worse during light exercise i'll send them to the physio, if not it will probably be OK to train.

If they tell me that they were tackled in football and their knee bent inwards, made a loud popping sound and swelled up immediately I'm gonna tell them to go to the physio ASAP and in the meantime RICE it like crazy!

This is all fine if the athlete then takes your advice and goes to the physio. What really pushes my buttons is when they turn round to me and say:

"I'll go to the physio next week because I want to train on the weekend, I just can't not play sport for a week".

I cant believe that if they really love sport that much they wouldn't take the chance to get the potential injury fixed as soon as possible, they would rather play on it and almost definitely make it worse, thus preventing them from playing for months instead of weeks.

In my opinion: if in doubt, get it checked out. Especially if you have the services available in your own sports centre.

I like the dedicated attitude but listen to your coaches if you want to compete in the long run, its for the best I promise.

Top 3 non-bench presses

2010-05-14T11:05:00.000+01:00

Many people ask me about variety in pressing exercises and trying to get the most bang for your buck. I am not catering for the powerlifting market in this post so I have left out the various bench exercises.

My top 3 full body pressing motions for athletes and clients are:
Push Press
Lunge single arm cable press
Cable upwards chop

I rate these exercises so highly because they all have a substantial postural stability component. So you can only achieve a good press if you have a strong core and can maintain your posture throughout the exercise. This has a great carry over to athletic actions such as hitting a ball or withstanding a tackle, which is the end goal of my coaching. If you have a weak core you will need to work on that first by starting light and making stability the key priority.

You may be saying that the cable chop is not a pressing exercise, but if you focus on a pull to the chest, then rotate the shoulders, then press to full extension you will see that it is a great all round pull and press.

These exercises can be used as a major lift (push press) or a supplementary press and core stability exercise (cable upwards chop) depending on your goals. I use them regularly with all my athletes and clients and see great results from either style.

Have a go and let me know what you think.

Russell

Strength and Conditioning for Golf

2010-02-15T16:50:00.003+00:00

There are many people who believe that you don’t need to do any fitness training to play golf, all you do is stand still, hit a ball and walk to the next tee…Right….Wrong. The age of Tiger has come upon golf and showed the masses that a strong and well conditioned athlete can sweep the board and dominate the sport.

Golf is the most successful and highly supported team that I coach at Bournemouth University and as a Titleist Performance Institute (T.P.I.) Certified Golf Fitness Instructor I put more time into working with them to ensure that they stay on top. Our top nine has an average handicap of 0 and is made of some very dedicated players.

There are many exercises in my programme that people may not expect to see, we do Hang Cleans, Squats and Deadlift variations because I believe these fundamental lifts should be in any sports programme to create a rounded athlete. We also do a large amount of mobility, stability and balance work, which is vital for a consistent Golf swing and preventing injuries due to poor form.

The programme starts with a Golf specific movement screen taken from T.P.I. This will show up problem areas, such as poor external shoulder rotation or pelvic stability, which could lead to a number of swing faults, many of which could not be rectified with Golf specific coaching alone; The athlete simply may not be able to do what the golf pro is telling them to due to weakness or instability. This would make the lessons pointless and slow the development of the Golfer.

The screening results are used to directly create a programme for that golfer, it is designed to address their specific issues and to also increase their general strength and power production capabilities. When combined the individual will now be functionally strong and have the right mix of stability and mobility to be able to perform consistent swings and long drives, they can then work with their golf coach in the confidence that they have fewer physical limitations holding them back.

For further information or to book a golf screening programme please contact me on the details below.

Russell Jolley BSc (Hons) ASCC CGFI
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
Follow me on http://twitter.com/ConditioningCtr
russell@conditioningcentre.com

Post From Neil Welch about the logistics of being a ski S&C coach

2010-02-10T10:43:00.002+00:00

Here is an interesting insight from Neil Welch into his work as the S&C coach for a ski team. Some good information about the issues faced and good ways to optimise the training.

"Working with a ski team presents many challenges. During the season the race schedule is very tight making it difficult to get a volume of dryland (off snow) training in. The last trips coincided with gaps in the technical training and race schedule that allowed for a week of high intensity dryland training each time, they were the last opportunities for some adaptation before the race program started in earnest. I took the guys for their strength and conditioning sessions and assisted with some of their on snow technical training.

A typical day began with technical on snow training, it would be an early start aiming to be on the hill for 8 (which takes a certain amount of travel; a drive and then gondolas and lifts to the training course). The guys would go through their warm up routines while the course and timing gates were set by the coaches. After that they would take between 6 and 8 timed runs (for giant slalom) and that took them to lunch. The late afternoon generally consisted of a strength and conditioning session of lifting, conditioning or a lighter stretching and core session before dinner and video analysis of the day’s training.

There are a number of key qualities that we look to develop with the team. Neuromuscular patterning and movement skills are vitally important, once that base is there it’s much easier to build the other necessary qualities. Lower body and postural strength are also important as, particularly during the longer speed events, some very large ground reaction forces are generated through the turns and technique has to be maintained throughout.

A coach will generally have an exercise or two that they would consider a key component of a training program for a particular sport. For me with the ski team that would have to be the clean and it’s derivatives. It’s a very versatile exercise, for example by putting different loads at either ends of the bar, it’s easy to increase recruitment of core musculature or by changing to a split catch position target knee mechanics and move it to a more unilateral exercise. Also from a logistical point of view, the guys don’t always have a fully loaded gym to lift in, the bar and plates go in the van and often it’s a garage or an underground car park that becomes the gym, they may not always have a squat rack but they always have a floor to lift from.

It's this variety and the need to adapt that help to make it such a rewarding sport to work with."

For further information see Neil's website and twitter:

Neil Welch MSc, ASCC
http://www.nwconditioning.comyou should follow us here twitter.com/nwconditioningbecome a fan at facebook.com/nwconditioning neil@nwconditioning.com

sportBU Max Testing Results December 2009

2010-01-04T17:10:00.008+00:00

Term 1 at sportBU is complete and we finished it off with a round of max testing. The leaderboard and improvers boards are shown here and as you can see there are some very impressive scores. There were 7 weeks between the initial and second rounds of tests and the improvements are a testament to the hard work of the athletes that regularly attend sessions and put in the effort.

The biggest increase is a huge 76% in Gina's vertical jump. As a basketaball player that is going to have a massive effect on her game performance. Large increases in vertical jump were seen throughout the women's basketball team, an average of 17% should lead to a drastic improvement in game performance.

Leah Beevers should be mentioned here for a notable performance on the Front squat: 60kg, 1.3 times her bodyweight is very impressive and is 50% higher than in testing only 7 weeks previous!

Ramone and Jack have shown consistent dedication to training all term and it shows in the fact that they are topping both the strength and improvers leaderboards.

We have run through a programme to develop the all-round strength and power of the athletes combined with increasing their work capacity and mental strength. Through the 10 weeks the gains in attitude to training in the weights room and technical ability have been even more impressive than the actual increase in numbers in the tests. This has been shown in many of the teams and I hope it will continue next term.

Now that we have some accurate 1RM's we can look to work at more specific percentage weights to ensure that the athletes get the most from the programme. We will be moving into heavier loads and fewer reps, so the accurate targets will play an especially important role.

I will be testing the athletes again in March so keep checking for further increases in their sporting performance.

Meeting Up With Old Friends

2010-01-02T14:47:00.003+00:00

This Christmas at home has allowed me to meet up with many of my old friends, most notably my old University strength coach Brendan Chaplin. He is now a successful strength coach for hire in Leeds and works with the Huddersfield Giants, the Leeds High Performance Tennis Centre and MMA amongst a few other groups. We spent about 18 hours discussing the best way to develop our athletes and I learnt a lot from him and his wide experience in the S&C arena.

I heavily recommend that you check out his website

http://www.brendanchaplin.co.uk/

Let me know what you think by emailing me on russell@conditioningcentre.com

I will be posting about the massive gains that my athletes at sportBU have made in term 1 of this year very soon, so keep checking this page.

Max Testing

2009-11-10T12:02:00.003+00:00

The first round of max testing has been completed and we now have our baseline scores for the ensuing programme. We will re-test in December to see how the athletes are progressing and I am confident that they will all be a lot stronger.

Here are the scores to aim for:

The Sled

2009-10-16T11:07:00.002+01:00

The next tool to be used to condition the athletes at sportBU is my sled. If you want one quick full body conditioning exercise that works on power, postural stability and (depending on how you use it) shoulder strength that is garanteed to work your athletes hard it is a sled. We have added it towards the end of a session as a finisher and it has gone down very well. Volleyball, Badminton and Cricket have had a go so far and I think they will all agree that it did its job.
We also tried it out with the Bournemouth Uni Powerlifting and Weightlifting Club on Wednesday afternoon, we added a bit more weight and tried a few different styles of pulling it. Again I would say the session was a success.
For videos go to www.conditioningcentre.com.

The Pull Up Band

2009-10-13T10:58:00.003+01:00

This year there will be a lot of emphasis on pulling motions in our strength programme at sportBU, too many people do too much pressing so it is important to balance out the shoulder joint. I think that Pull or Chin ups are a great exercise to develop genereal upper body pulling strength and teach people to deal with their own bodyweight.

For those that cant yet do a full Pull Up we have "the Band", shown to the right. I have never seen something strike fear into the eyes of our female athletes like this small loop of rubber. But once sampled and any knee-to-wall issues have been addressed, it has become widely accepted and even enjoyed. I have even heard them say that they look forward to using it again in the next session. There have been some solid pull ups performed by many of the girls (Leah) and many have improved hugely in their second session. So I am impressed and I'm afraid I'll keep using the band.

Coaching at sportBU

2009-09-29T10:35:00.000+01:00

Just starting coaching the athletes at sportBU in the pre-season programme. Low attendance so far due to sports trials but it should pick up.
Thanks to Beevers and Faye from Women's Basketball for their efforts at outdoor conditioning yesterday.

The California Chronicles: Lessons in strength from across the pond

2009-09-16T06:14:00.000+01:00

Check out my time spent with the 2006 NSCA Collegiate Strength Coach of the Year Robert Dos Remedios at College of the Canyons in California:
http://www.conditioningcentre.com