Training Talk

Sadly this is going to turn more into an angry, pissed off rant than anything really informative.  Some of you might get a little out of this, but more or less, this is going to be a way for me to release some pent-up steam.  This has been brewing for a while watching the atrocities take place in gyms across the country, and it has a name… Crossfit.  Now, some of you might feel the same way, and some of you not, but I can’t stand Crossfit!  This may surprise some of you that share my hatred, but I actually like the concept of Crossfit.  Cross disciplinary fitness regimens for a universal training experience.  Jack-of-all trades so to speak, but master of none.  For the average Joe or Jane, police, firemen, or military this is “conceptually” a good way to train, but we’ll discuss its drawbacks later.  My number one problem with Crossfit is,… and listen closely,…. IT SHOULDN’T BE USED WITH ATHLETES! For some reason, Crossfit seems to think that it is perfect for everyone.  I’ve seen subtitles: Forging Elite Fitness, under Crossfit signs, and this couldn’t be further from the truth with regards to performance.  Now we have high school, college, and club sports programs using Crossfit styles of training with athletes, and for whatever misguided reason people have bought into this.

I don’t want this to turn into a complete negative rant, so I’m going to take a step back and explain what I do like about Crossfit.  For the lay person, who wants to get into general shape and break up the sedentary lifestyle, Crossfit’s universal fitness quality regimen would be advantages to keep people well rounded and experience a lot of different training styles and types of fitness.  In “idea,” I like exposing people to complex multi-joint movements and movement patterns like the clean & jerk or squat.  Developing coordination and control with gymnastics tumbling and rolling movements would be extremely beneficial.  Cardio vascular enhancements through endurance training and GPP “strongman” type circuits.  A mental toughness, built through workouts, to push thru and come out on top.  But, now comes the harsh reality of what is taking place at Crossfit facilities and Crossfit workouts all over the country.  Crossfit is a sub-maximal, poorly performed, sloppy attempt at complex and highly skilled (at times) movements with un-attainable volume schemes performed as fast as possible with no regard for fatigue or potential injury.  Crossfit sessions become a puke session with no real training goal other then to try and finish.

When training for performance, as all athletes should, there has to be a purpose and desired performance goal (other then puking) for the workout session.  Structured performance systems typically take athletes through blocks of time with specific fitness traits as desired qualities for goals.  Each workout therefore is highly specific to that outcome and built off of previous sessions/fitness qualities.  The accumulation of several general fitness qualities can develop into more specific fitness qualities, which are all highly specific to the sport and role you play in your sport.  Anyone worth their salt in a training setting, knows that the CNS is EVERYTHING in regards to training.  You are training to increase inter and intra-muscular coordination that will enhance performance.  So why, is this style of training detrimental to performance you ask? They’re doing explosive movements and working hard!

I happen to know that speed, power, and strength are skills and like any skill they require extremely detailed focus and practice to attain.  Teaching yourself to generate as much tension as possible in the shortest amount of time possible and then relax as fast as possible doesn’t happen by just doing any workout.  The old saying goes, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent!”  Engraining faulty movement patterns only leads to less than optimal performance and injury, particularly in fatigued states.  Regardless of the load intensity, multiple repetitions performed poorly in say a squat, squat to press, clean and press, or deadlift will cause injure.  A man squatting a mere 27k imposes a compressive load on his spine of 7000N or 1,560lbs (McGill, 2006).  Now that is just 27k, lets imagine what 60k of “thrusters” (squat to press) would do to a spine for say 50 total repetitions, intermixed with box jumps, 400 meter run, and pull ups?  All of this would be done against the clock as fast as possible.  Let say also, like most weekend warriors our hero doesn’t have much of a training background and after a layoff of two weeks or so decided to jump back into this WOD (workout of the day).  I’m very curious about the amount of damage his back took from this session?  With the multitude of exercises and training styles undertaken by the Crossfit community just guess how many of the certified “Crossfit Trainers” know everything regarding gymnastics, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strongman training, kettlebell training?  In Crossfit sessions I’ve seen and heard stories of people getting thrown into these workouts day one with nothing more then a quick explanation and the demonstration of another misguided sole next to him or her.  Good luck with that.  Something as simple as a handstand push up has enough technique and conceptual information regarding tension and rooting for the shoulder health that is harmful to a person who doesn’t know and performs high volumes in a highly fatigued state.  When training for performance there is nothing called slop, as Crossfit has, technique is skill, and skill is strength.  Safety and performance are the same thing not opposite ends of the spectrum.

A little anecdotal story; I routinely see a chiropractor like I see the dentist.  On my last visit, I was talking with one of the new doctors there, who was setting me up on a traction table.  Knowing I work as a performance coach at a local university we started to talk about training.  She asked if I’d heard of Crossfit, and I reluctantly told her I did.  She told me how she went to go through a work out and how they just threw her in a WOD without any real formal instruction on how to do anything.  Learn as you go style of training.  She couldn’t believe the approach and how many people she saw loading there backs and moving incorrectly.  Laughingly, I asked why she had gone, and she replied, “Because we are seeing so many new clients because of it, I wanted to see what the deal was.”  That was all I needed to hear.  Crossfit was sending people to the chiropractor because of poor technique due to instruction, unrealistic loads and volumes, and lack of fatigue management.

I understand how the lay person wants to get in and work hard and, who doesn’t want to keep up with your peer while you’re working out.  Well, if she’s doing 95lbs, I want to do 95lbs type of mentality.  Here in the West, we always have that mentality that we need to work harder and more is better.  We don’t need to train harder, just smarter!  Random exercise selection, load intensities, and work volumes that look as if they were pulled out of a hat and selected based on likely hood of puking doesn’t mean working smarter.  It’s plain stupid; nothing else can describe it.  And now they have Crossfit Football, were football players can do more “football related style of Crossfit,” to enhance your performance!  I don’t know how many other styles or branches of Crossfit there are, but I’m almost certain there is a style for every sport out there.

Ok, time for me to calm down, take a pill, and discuss how this could be fixed.  I don’t want to be the person that complains the whole time with not bringing anything to the table to actually resolve the matter, so here we go.  My attempt to save Crossfit from itself.

1. Set up a system of training based on concentrated blocks of one to two related fitness qualities at a time.

2. Blocks of time should be roughly 4 to 8 weeks in duration.

3. Set up an exercise teaching progression with testing and assessment to progress to the next level.

4. Knowledgeable practitioners in a particular training style should be teaching the exercises and be in charge of establishing the exercise progression.

5. Mobility and stability should be the first block of training any introductory trainee goes through as that is what is most lacking for the general population.

6. Record keeping for trainees on amount of time spent in particular blocks of training to track training age and performance.

7. First several blocks should be organized as follows:

   1. Mobility and Stability education and assessment

   2. Body weight training

   3. Gymnastics training

   4. Power lift training (squat, bench, deadlift)

   5. Olympic lift training (clean & jerk, snatch)

   6. Track and field/ Endurance

Each block should start out extremely elementary and slowly progress toward more challenging and complex lifts and loads.  With assessments and testing to progress to the next level in a particular lift or style, trainees would be forced into training at lower level and focus and achieving better technical mastery, as well as, physical enhancement before moving onward and upward to greater challenges.  Trainees could build off the lower level skills they have and progress at a level on par with them selves.  The puke sessions could be held once or twice a month for a push and challenge, but only utilizing the current level of skill sets and movements the trainee currently possess.  If think this set up would fix a lot the problems I’ve seen and heard out there.  I don’t think there is much left to say other then ATHLETES SHOULD NEVER DO CROSSFIT!

Thanks for listening,

Jeremy

Last week on T-Nation Nate Green posted an article The Squat: Good Exercise Gone Bad? In which he talked to several coaches about legitimacy of the squat due to comments made by Mike Boyle.  In the article Mike makes the case that the squat isn’t a leg or hip exercise so much as it is a lower back exercise.  Due to his conclusion about squats, he has cut the back squat from all of his programs with his athletes.  Everyone always seems to get upset when you pull the “King of All Exercises” from the program for some reason.  I agreed with all the contributing coaches in the fact that there is no such thing as a bad exercise.  There are exercises that aren’t going to be as optimal for the individual due to limb and torso length differences, but with correct technique, any exercise can be accomplished correctly with everyone. 

What it gets down to for a performance coach such as Boyle or Chris Korfist (another individual who seems to get heat for “bad mouthing” the squat) is that they enhance performance in the most timely and efficient manner possible.  Efficiency means not taking steps backward, like when an athlete injuries himself training.  There is more than one way to skin a cat and the back squat is just another tool in the tool box to enhance performance.  Like it was stated above, some exercises are going to be more beneficial and accomplish the same task or goal as the squat with fewer issues for some individuals.  As Christian Thibaudeau stated, “shorter legged, longer torso body types are typically better at squatting and the longer legged, shorter torso body types are better at deadlifting.”  The “squatters” are typically the types that need to be extremely conscience about quad dominance. 

In his article The Deconstruction of Speed Development Chris goes over how many times he has seen the “King of All Exercises” ruin one of his sprinters who has returned from the college strength program and the coach had the athlete due nothing but squats.  When this happens, the once fast hip dominant runner is now a slow quad dominant runner.  Enhancing performance is the name of the game and big squat numbers do not always mean running faster, jumping higher or performing better.  It seems like too many college strength coaches get so caught up in the numbers game that they lose sight of the real purpose.  That is partly due to lack of job security and how dealing with “sport” coaches isn’t an easy task (everyone wants the athletes to do what they did). 

Typically with most athletes I deal with, mobility and strength are the most glaring under developed qualities that will increase performance right away.  In the end, quickness and power are the true qualities of a high level athlete.  Whether the squat, squat variation, deadlift, or pull variation is used doesn’t really matter as long as the athlete develops the strength.  Now, being able to squat is an important and essential movement pattern, but it’s a movement pattern that can be grooved or strengthened with altitude landings and depth jumps as well.  So using any optimal lifting movement, depending upon the athlete and then in teaching them to land properly you will inherently be teaching the squatting pattern.  Landings are much more difficult and involve larger faster forces, which transfer over to the sporting realm much better then back squats anyway.

This ( http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/546/ ) just went up on the dragondoor page. It details my use of kettlebells with my athletes. It shows a couple of my former athletes Tanya Torres and Juliet Moss. These two girls are studs and will be playing over seas very soon.

Recently on the WGF Forum the Doc’s have been discussing ankle rocker and posted some videos on YouTube regarding the 5 compensation strategies for a dysfunctional ankle rocker.  This is new topic for me, but watching the video, I was able to identify several of my athlete’s movement compensations.  Compensation pattern 5 was exhibited by several of my young female water polo due to wearing sandals often.  Several of the female volleyball players also exhibit some major movement dysfunction that could definitely be caused by ankle rocker dysfunction.  Three young ladies have a common posture with internally rotated, valgus knees, while their feet are slightly externally rotated.  I believe it’s due to the years spent with ankles braced up taught to play defense in the internally rotated valgus knee position..  With “function dictating structure” and ankle braces hindering dorsi flexion (to a certain extent), it’s no surprise the issues that these girls have.  This posture exacerbates the forces at the knee upon landing, which will lead to an increase in ACL tears.  ACL tears are already a plague of the female jumping athlete, but with ankle rocker dysfunction, which leads to hip instability, it is even worse.  The foot is the beginning of the kinetic chain so returning the foot and ankle to proper function needs to be the first assessment made when looking to help an athlete.  Literally, a “ground up” approach needs to be taken when looking a performance assessments.  The ground is the start of the kinetic chain, so it all starts there.

With ankle rocker issues recently coming to light for me, I took some football athletes who had issues with their squat depth and elevated their heels.  This takes ankle rocker out of the equation and bam, a rock bottom squat maintaining great neutral spine position.  This however, is a band-aid and not a fix.  I realize this, I need to re-educate ankle rocker and strengthen foot and anterior tibials musculature.  This is slightly above my knowledge set at the moment, so the new DVD’s from the Doc’s can’t come soon enough for me.  It amazes me how many hat’s performance coaches have to wear.  I remember when I was extremely naive I just thought, all I had to do was get athletes stronger.  The good old days…

Tell me what you’ve experienced…

Jeremy

Isometrics

When was the last time you heard the term Isometric? When was the last time you heard of a coach or athlete who used Isometrics in their training? If you are like most people, your father and grandfather were the last guys that who utilized iso’s, doing countertop curl holds before bed time.  Most view this training method as another passing fad that has died a slow and meaningless death.  The remainder of this article will shed some very interesting and exciting light on this underutilized yet powerful training method.

Isometric, meaning constant (iso) meter (metric), or no change in muscle length during a muscular contraction is part of the “classical” repetition.  If we look at the three phases of movement, there is the pliometric or eccentric loading phase followed by the isometric, coupling, or amortization phase and lastly the miometric or concentric phase.  As you can see in the down and up repetition, you are performing a brief isometric contraction whether known or unknown, but typically not emphasized.  The misconceptions that isometrics are not beneficial or challenging enough are profound.  The underlying research has stated that the only strength gains made from isometrics are fifteen to thirty degrees from the joint angle trained (not entirely true), thus filing this method up there with bosu strength training in the beneficial category.  

The first major benefit from isometric training methodic would be to teach proper position.  It never fails, every year, a new crop of freshmen who of about eighty percent have no training background at all.  Worst is, of the twenty percent that have training background, they have the worst technique and movement patterns known to man.  Of the two, I’d always rather start with the clean slate then try to re-wire bad motor programs to adolescents who think their dad knows everything about training and couldn’t have been leading them down a dark path.  But, none the less that is the job description.  First thing in teaching newbie’s or the dysfunctional is to teach proper position.  Proper position means correct technique and injury free training (To learn more on proper position read Dan Fichter’s article on the subject The Purpose Position ).  Pavel Tsatsouline says, “Strengthen the top position and bottom position and everything in the middle will fall into place.”  Isometrics, even if brief in duration, accomplish this goal and can easily be administered to a large group.  Using the isometrics, trainees have less distraction and more time under tension in those particular positions to “feel” the proper muscles working and understand how to get there. 

“Feeling” the proper muscles fire brings me to the second great benefit of this methodic, proper muscle recruitment patterns.  When a trainee has less distraction and more time to put his “mental intent” on the correct musculature (as long as position is maintained), he/she develops a better body awareness or kinesthesia.  In teaching dynamic movements right out of the gate, often times, too much is going on and the trainee typically will just go through the movement as best as possible without really getting a chance to make it internal.  That internal process is always what leads to a greater understand and depth of mastery for any new skill.  Jay Schroeder of Evo-Sport and Ultra-fit, might be the master at this with his “Extreme Isometrics.”  Don’t let the name fool you too much, what truly seems to be going on here is an active yielding isometric hold in the deepest position possible for (what seems to me the longest time possible) five minutes.  This in actuality becomes a quasi-isometric action; As you pull down into the deepest position possible you start to fatigue and slowly pull yourself deeper and deeper.  Regardless, Jays trainee’s are learning how to actively pull themselves down instead of just giving in to gravity and fall into position.  This is one of the biggest obstacle for most as we are accustomed to collapsing into the car seat or “plopping down” on the coach.  We don’t move like the yester-years of our childhood anymore and we should be ashamed.  We first off taught ourselves how to do it right as we started to crawl and walk, but shortly after that , we got lazy!  We gave in to the status quo and now we can’t squat down without knee or back pain.  In trying to accomplish Jay’s five minute “Extreme Isometrics” your body is forced to find the most optimal firing patterns as your body fights to maintain position for the insanely long duration. 

Next benefit in line would have to be active flexibility.  Note that this is only the case when the isometric contraction is at the deepest joint angle possible (while maintaining position).  Going back to Schroeder’s Extreme Isometrics, as fatigue sets in, you’ll pull yourself lower and lower developing greater ROM using strength.  Active flexibility is the only type of flexibility that has any carry over in to actual performance settings.  Schroeder’s Extreme Isometrics it has been theorized increase fascial length, which in turn has been correlated to increased running speeds or ability.  The increase in lactic acid and metabolites at the extreme end ranges of motion has also been theorized to increase fascia thickness in elongated states.  Once again, possibly increasing your ability for ROM and speed! 

Getting down to the fundamentals there are two basic types of isometrics, yielding and overcoming.  Both have very separate and distinct training effects.  Yielding is holding a given load at a particular angel (typically bottom of movement) for a designated time.  As previously covered this becomes a super slow eccentric  or quasi-isometric movement with enough fatigue and has a major training effect on your connective tissue or series elastic component of the muscle.  This is great for strengthening tendons and fascia and is an excellent preparatory stage for speed strength or plyometric work.  Typically longer durations work best, holding for 15-35 seconds in length is most beneficial. 

Overcoming isometrics on the other hand is for sticking points and generating power.  Overcoming isometrics have also been referred to as sticking point training, where the trainee will exert maximal force against an immovable object at a particular joint angle that is a weak point of the movement.  Louie Simmons’s conjugate method of training which has produced some of the most prolific powerlifters ever is all about, “training your weakness” and overcoming isometrics is one of the most specific ways to accomplish that.  This can be very stressful and demanding on the connective tissue so, durations are typically short.  No more then 5-15 seconds in duration would be recommended due to the stress and strain.  Doing a set or two of overcoming isometrics followed immediately by a set of the regular lift can also have a potentiating effect on the lift.  Performance plateaus and sticking points can be a thing of the past. 

Continuing on to the potentiating effect of isometrics, Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky has stated that an isometric contraction followed by a concentric dynamic movement will increase the force of the movement by up to twenty percent! This has help given rise to the static-dynamic method of training, which most intermediate and advanced trainee’s due to some degree automatically with most lifting movements.  Prior to performing a big lift, you can witness advanced lifters pre-tense their bodies and develop full body tension to help rip the weight off the floor or explode the bar up.  In “Inno-Speak” this is your Isometric Miometric (ISO-MIO) work, which develops that explosive rapid acceleration like jumping or throwing.  Hang cleans are also utilize this effect (if done correctly) and that is why they can be beneficial.  Jay Schroeder has his Explosive Dynamic Isometrics (EDI’s) which utilize this effect as well.  This potentiating effect is extremely beneficial in developing “Starting Strength” and “Acceleration Strength.”  These two factors make an athlete explosive off the line and lighting quick!

Potentiating complex’s for you to try on your own at the gym.

Movement: Bench Press

Try performing 3-5sec. maximal Overcoming Isometrics then rest for 2-5minutes before performing maximal bench press singles.

Movement: Pull Up

Try holding a 10 sec. Yielding Isometric then rest for 2-5 minutes before performing pull ups. 

Movement: Glute Ham Raise

Have a partner manually resist you as you try to pull up for 5-15 seconds, them rest for 2-5 minutes, followed by reactive glute ham raises. 

Using Iso’s and complexing Iso’s into your training will enhance performance during training primarily which will cultivate to a better performance on the playing field.  In the group teaching settings where equipment and space are usually a limiting factor, isometrics side step the problem as equipment and space are typically minimal at worst.  Skill retention and mastery are aided with the utilization of Iso’s first or mixed with other methods to enhance understanding and performance.  Try giving the complex’s above a try during your next workout and see the benefits first hand. 

Until next time

Jeremy Layport, MA, RKC TL, C.S.C.S., USA WL1