In this week’s Blog I asked Corina Murray to write a summary of the presentations at the 7th Annual Strength & Conditioning Student Conference, Middlesex University.  I hope you enjoy!

About me
My name is Corina Murray, I am currently a student studying Sports therapy at the University of Hertfordshire. I have just completed my second year and am now on a placement year to gain experience ready to go back into my third year. I have been working with APA at Gosling since September and am here until the end of June. I am really interested in Strength and conditioning so this placement has been really good for me and given me an insight into tennis.

Strength and conditioning conference – my blog!

On Saturday 5^th of march I attended the 7^th annual strength and conditioning student conference at Middlesex university. I haven’t been to a big conference like this before so didn’t know what to expect but found it all very interesting and learnt a lot. There were 4 speakers, Ed Baker, James Wild, Mark Russel and Eamonn Flanagan.

Ed Baker: Wheelchair Rugby Athlete

The first speaker was Ed Baker who spoke about Planning, programming and training of elite wheelchair rugby athletes and the road to Rio. 

This was probably my favourite talk as I learnt so much that I never knew before.Wheelchair rugby players can roughly produce 1000w peak power at 5.9 m/s. This is due to the high intensity training they have day to day.

To test things such as acceleration, they use court sprints, as well as testing power to weight ratio and technique and flexibility. However, all of this testing requires a lot of skill due to the lack of function in parts of the body.

No hand function – no problem!! Most wheelchair rugby players have had spinals injuries from as far up as C3-4 so don’t have much function of their hands, therefore can’t perform exercises in the same way as other elite athletes. Their programmes have to be adapted to suit their needs but enable them to be the fittest and strongest in their sport. To be able to move their chairs with speed and power but with little hand function they have to produce force and friction by squeezing in their arms to the side of the body. The neck and core will also be strengthened to ensure they have got scapula control strong abdominals to enable them to turn the wheelchair without using their hands. I

t is also important to do a lot of resisted work such as sprints pushing weight, uphill sprints and interval training. To gain upper body strength it is important to do exercises like pull ups and chest press etc. but how?
Velcro straps have been used with many wheelchair athletes to strap their hands to the bar in a grip position. They can then strengthen the arm and upper body muscles effectively.

Ed’s programme for the elite athletes consist of three training blocks each being 2-3 hours 2 times a week. The first block is Aerobic development which is built up of:
-Interval training
-Low to high eccentric load
-Building up to longer intervals of 4 minutes continuous
-Technical practice, and strength training.

The second training block is the anaerobic power block which consists of:
– explosive and repeatable intervals
– lactic/ alactic explosive power
– maintaining skill training
– regeneration of ATP

The final block is the Peaking block which involves lactate capacity intervals.

Overall this talk was extremely informative as I learnt things about training with wheelchair athletes that I probably wouldn’t have thought about before.

James Wild: Sprint Acceleration Techniques

The second talk was by James Wild on sprint acceleration techniques of team sport and sprint athletes and how useful is a technical model?

So are these theories true?

The first question asked was should you touch down with your foot behind or beneath your centre of mass? With every athlete it completely depends on the sport and how quickly they need to accelerate. However, in a sprint your foot will get further in front with every step you take but to start it is more natural for the foot to be behind the centre of mass. 18cm is the common distance from the foot to the centre of mass with the first touchdown but this distance will decrease with every step. Rugby players tend to start with the foot closer as they are in more of an upright position as they need to keep their peripheral vision and generally start the sprint from a rolling start. But, which is best?

It has been found that placing the foot further back gives more of a drive and acceleration whereas placing it under the centre of mass or in front produces more of a breaking mechanism so therefore slows the athlete.

Does musculoskeletal structure affect how athletes sprint?
Bezodis et al (2015) found that the less dorsiflexion of the ankle there is then the more horizontal external power there will be.

Should athletes achieve full triple extension at toe off?
No – there are almost no athletes that get full triple extension when starting. If an athlete triple extends then it is potentially slowing them down as the time to recover from that step and go into the next is a lot longer, it also places a lot of force on the ligaments and tendons surrounding the joint as they would have to work a lot faster. It is rare in team sports to get triple extension anyway as they are not running as fast as sprinters would so therefore not producing enough force. Most athletes in team sports start from a rolling start anyway.

Dr Mark Russel: Half time and extra time in team sports

The third talk was by Dr Mark Russel who spoke about Half-time and extra-time in team sports: opportunity to influence performance?

Half time and extra time are important times for the athlete, half-time gives them a chance to rest, talk about the performance, hydrate and regain some energy. It is also important that their body temperature does not drop too much as this could cause injury in the second half. To ensure their temperature stays roughly the same they should perform another 3-4-minute warm up. However, there can be many barriers to re-warm up such as lack of time and unwillingness from the players and coaches as they will want to recover and have a team talk. If the warm up is not going to be done, then passive heat maintenance should be carried out in the form of extra clothing or foil blankets which will help keep heat in.

Even if the re-warm up is completed, a passive heat maintenance strategy has been found to improve lower body power output and repeated sprint ability in professional rugby union players so would most likely be beneficial to all athletes that get half time.
Before a game begins and also at half time, a 6-10% carbohydrate drink should be consumed so that energy levels do not drop too quickly throughout the game. This will also help players going into extra time as there are generally many reductions in performance in the last 30 of 120 minutes due to fatigue. Keeping warm, hydrated, motivated and keeping energy levels high will all help to improve performance in the second half and extra time.

Eamonn Flanagan: Velocity based Strength Training

The final talk was on Recent trends and future directions in velocity based strength training which was taken by Eamonn Flanagan.

I found out that velocity based training is the use of a velocity measuring device to provide feedback during strength training to optimise the strength training process however is not an alternative to strength training. It is not an essential part of S&C delivery but does have some simple and effective applications. It is becoming a lot more popular due to it being more recognised and the technology becoming cheaper and accessible. Before starting any kind of velocity training it is important that the athletes have got plenty of stability and have experienced different types of weight training in the past. Without the knowledge of strength training and their own abilities the athletes should not take part until the coach agrees it is ok.

Technology is important for velocity training however it can become a distraction in the weight room. It is ok to use when completing testing however when you are in the middle of coaching your athletes, leave the technology behind as it can distract the athletes and also yourself which can lead to mistakes.

As I write this blog I have just finished two of the most difficult sessions I have done physically for quite some time- both boxing sessions.  I am without question pushing myself and no doubt getting in better shape than ever.  This blog will give some of my reflections on how I think recovery can help improve the gains I am making.

Let’s look at the training first- for all of you out there curious about what I’m doing.

Training:

Wednesday night’s session: Conditioning

Warm-up: 5 sets of: 100 skips, 20 press ups, 20 squats, 20 V sits

Main session:

Set 1: (1 x Press-up into 4 punch combination- jab, cross, jab, cross) x 50

Set 2: (1 x Sit up- with feet around base of heavy bag into 4 punch combination- hook left right left right) x 50

Set 3: Repeat set 1

Set 4: (1 x Squat jump into 4 punch combination-head shot left hook, body shot left hook, body shot right hook, head shot right hook) x 50

In my opinion the volume is a little high on the press up front- 200 press ups total.  This is always the challenge of sports like boxing and tennis which have a lot of repetition in the forwards direction- so I needed to make sure I work on the pulling direction in my gym sessions.

Saturday morning session: Sparring

This was my fourth session and today my coach got me into the ring to do some sparring.  I didn’t realise but I had asked if we could train at 11am which is the same time that his ‘regular’ fighters come in for sparring.

The fighters were asked to come in and give me some sparring practice.  I heard him utter the horrible words- ”go light, he’s a beginner.  But if he drops his guard give him something to think about.”  I was wearing a head guard for the first time, but they were without one.

I had 3 x 3-minute rounds with 1-minute between, and a new opponent each time.  I then had 10 minutes to ‘reflect’ before I had to do it again for 3 x 3-minute rounds, again with three different opponents.

On one hand I felt pleased that I was able to get through six rounds, considering my fight will be for three.  But at the same time the reality has hit me because it was incredibly hard to keep throwing punches for three-minutes.  I was struggling to get my combinations away, and also struggled to keep my guard up when they would counter.    Don’t get me wrong, they put in a few punches to the face and body but if they really were going for it, I’d be in trouble.

I have dropped to 75kg but I’m pleased because I’m still able to deadlift 90kg  for 5×5 pretty comfortably. Not strong by elite standards but a good benchmark for me.  100kg is normally where I like to get to and still plenty of time to hit that target.

Recovery:

So in conclusion Training is going well.  I am training 5-6 days a week- single sessions.  It’s more than I normally do!

But despite exercising more frequently, and eating more strictly than I normally do….and I mean super strict, I haven’t got as lean as I would like.

I will qualify that last statement because on this occasion I haven’t taken skin-folds or even done a bio-electrical impedance test.  I have stuck with girths and photos.  I am currently around 75kg after 3 1/2 weeks strict eating and training around 5-6 times per week.  This represents a weight loss of around 3-4kg.  But please don’t put too much stock on the weight loss- most of that will be water from restricting the grain based complex carbohydrates.  Why do I say don’t focus on weight loss?

Think fat loss not weight loss

With my clients who are trying to get more lean, I normally say to my clients ”please don’t get disheartened” if they are seeing a similar or even smaller amount of weight loss to mine above.  So many people have been lead to believe that the best way to measure progress is through weight loss, rather than measuring fat loss.

Things the scales CANNOT measure:

• Your fitness levels
• Your energy levels
• Your strength
• Changes in your body composition
• Your sense of achievement
• Your confidence
• Your happiness

I’ve had clients who have completely transformed their bodies over 90 days and yet the scales have only dropped by 1kg. In some cases, your body can be burning fat while the scales are going up! This can be hard for some people to comprehend because we’ve become so used to measuring our bodies on scales. But if you’re training and eating right, those extra numbers on the scales do not mean you are gaining extra fat. You will actually be building lean muscle. Also when you consume carbohydrates they are stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen and more glycogen means more water in the body which can equal outrageous gains on the scales.

I hear stories all the time from my clients who wake up and weigh themselves every single morning. More often than not, this leads to instant negative feelings and this can set the mood for the rest of the day. It’s massively disheartening and can kill your motivation. This isn’t the way to live and that’s why I encourage all my clients to use progress pictures rather than the sad step to measure their success.

The best thing I can advise is to take a selfie of yourself in your underwear every 2-4 weeks, probably every 4 weeks. 

If you work hard, stay motivated and are consistent with your training and nutrition, you will see positive changes in your body that the scales will never show.

Progress photos are also more reliable than the mirror, because our minds can play tricks on us, especially when we’re feeling low, and tell us that we are not making progress.

But in my case, I’m taking photos and seeing a bit of change BUT my girths are pretty much as they were.  So I thought I would think about my stress levels and quality of sleep and overall recovery.

What about recovery?

It got me thinking.  Could the quality of my sleep and the level of my overall stress influence my fat loss?

I happened to come across a great article on T-nation which I will summarise.  If you want to read the whole link you can HERE.

Key concepts:

1.  Cortisol will burn fat under the right conditions
2.  Chronically high or low levels are bad for you!
3.  Cortisol can cause cravings for junk food
4.  Pay attention to hunger, energy and cravings (HEC)

Calories don’t control metabolism, hormones do. And when it comes to hormones, the stress hormone cortisol is critical.

Not only can stress hormones impact how many calories you eat in a day, they can also impact the quality of calories you choose to eat and even influence how, and where, those calories might get stored or burned from.

During exercise:

During exercise, cortisol works with your other fat burning hormones, the catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) and growth hormone, to increase fat release.

Cortisol- (during exercise and fasting)- >fat burning- increases the activity of hormone sensitive lipase (HSL), the body’s chief fat releasing enzyme.

During rest:

High cortisol levels when you’re not exercising? That’s a different story. When cortisol is “socializing” with insulin instead, it has the exact opposite effect.

Cortisol (during eating)-  > fat storing- increases activity of  lipoprotein lipase (LPL), the body’s major fat storing enzyme.

Insulin will be increased and increase cortisol’s fat storing properties.

But what about stress during rest?

I am a busy business owner.  I have less sleep now in my mid 30s than I did in my mid 20s.  Don’t get me wrong I went out partying more in my 20s than I do now- but that wasn’t every night.  The other nights I could wake up around 8am in my student days and early work days, and often have lie ins at the weekend.  I’d have exams and the like but I wasn’t constantly thinking about my responsibilities

Now I am starting work at 7am or 8am most days, including weekends and struggle to have a proper DAY OFF- days are usually also finishing at 7pm and often I’ll fit my admin around coaching which can start at 7am and finish at 7pm.

If you’re a savvy fitness enthusiast, when you think stress you think cortisol. If you’re really on your game, you’ll also think catecholamines. But there’s one more hormone produced by stress that even the most advanced experts know little about – NPY.

NPY is involved with hunger in the brain as referenced above. But cortisol doesn’t just impact brain NPY, it also impacts body NPY. When you’re under acute stress you release catecholamines and cortisol. When you’re under chronic stress you release more NPY. When catecholamines and cortisol are “socializing”, they help you burn fat. But NPY makes you gain fat, especially when it’s hanging around with cortisol.

When NPY is released in large amounts it causes immature fat cells to grow into mature fat cells. Chronically high cortisol makes the body more responsive to this fat storing action of NPY.

Here’s the Twist: Belly fat produces Cortisol

Cortisol is made in the adrenal glands mostly, but there’s one other place it can be made – belly fat. The deep fat of the belly, called visceral belly fat, contains an enzyme called 11-beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11-HSD). This is an enzyme that converts inactive cortisone into active cortisol. This means belly fat can produce its own cortisol!

There are many situations where stubborn belly fat remains despite best efforts with diet and exercise. Sometimes an extra hour in bed, to lower cortisol, may be a better strategy than an extra hour on the treadmill.

How do you manage cortisol level?

Pay attention to hunger, energy and cravings (HEC)

Hunger: Eating Frequency

When it comes to eating frequency, don’t get caught up in what the research zombies are telling you. Let research refine your approach, not define it. There are many approaches that can work. Eat frequently enough to keep your HEC in check. For some this may mean lots of small frequent meals. For others it may mean fewer smaller meals.

Exercise:

Short intense exercise, or exercise that’s weight training dominant, and slow relaxing exercise are best for cortisol. In the case of short intense exercise, cortisol is elevated along with growth hormone and the catecholamines. That’s good for fat burning. Plus the shorter duration may mean less compensatory hunger later and less chance of going catabolic.

With longer-duration moderate and intense exercise, cortisol can easily dominate over the growth promoting hormones and be associated with more post-workout hunger and cravings and less anabolic potential. Is this the reason sprinters and marathoners look so different? Probably not entirely, but after accounting for genetics, it’s not a huge jump to suggest this mechanism is playing a role.

Another great way to lower cortisol is finishing workouts with slow relaxing movements like leisure walking. I’m not sure why this isn’t used more often, but slow walking is one of the best approaches to lowering cortisol. And it has been shown to be even more impactful when done in a nature setting.

Rest-Based Living

Finally, if you really want to beat cortisol you should develop a new appreciation for what I call rest-based living. Find as many opportunities as possible to prioritize R&R workouts. These include naps, sex/physical affection, massage, foam rolling, laughter, time with pets, leisure walking, sauna, hot baths, contrast showers, meditation, etc. All of these activities have application in lowering cortisol.

I am now more motivated than ever to make sure I am doing the recovery basics well- having more sleep, doing recovery exercises like leisure walking at the end of sessions, massage, hot baths etc etc

I’ll keep you all posted 🙂

As I write this blog I am struggling to lift my arms- yesterday I had a really tough second session with Team Complete Fitness Academy Head Coach Gerry Jackson.  Check out a promo video of their facility here.

I’ve booked myself in for 10 Personal Training sessions with him in the lead up to the fight which is on April 2nd.  Having been involved largely in Tennis since 2003 it has been refreshing to get involved in training for a different sport.

Boxers- fittest athlete of all sports?

Boxers are some of the fittest athletes in sport

Boxing often gets put in the category of ‘fitness sports.’  Perhaps it would be impossible to really make a case for one sport being the ultimate fitness sport.  Pure endurance sports such as distance running fully tax the aerobic system but how can you not admire the power and fitness of a 17 stone rugby prop covering the pitch over 80 minutes.  Or a tennis player who stays out there for 4 hours having covered a few kilometres worth of sprints and high intensity running.

It’s a good debate.  All I can say is that I wasn’t fit going into the training and I’ve now got a really good motivator to get fit!  Having to do three rounds of 3 minutes doesn’t seem like much.  But after my second PT session he put me through one round of hell and said, “when you can do three rounds of that, you’re ready to fight!”

Energy systems

CP System

Tennis is really an alactic sport ”which involves mainly the CP energy supplying mechanism, and followed by short phases of low intensity activity or rest intervals, during which the aerobic processes ensures the restitution of the anaerobic source.” Verkoshansky, Special Strength Training pg 196.

Boxing is similar in that you also need this same alactic power.  Therefore a big part of my weights training session is going to include a finisher with some work to improve my Maximal Anaerobic Power. Basically I’m going to shadow box with 0.5kg dumbbells in my hand 15-seconds maximal rate combinations x 6 reps per set with 2-minutes rest between reps and 2-3 sets.  I want complete recovery so I can focus on getting as much out of myself in the 15-second bursts.

Boxing is 3 minutes of work but that work never involves complete rest.  You might move away from your opponent momentarily to give you a second to catch your breath and drop your guard briefly to rest your shoulders.  But really its all about being able to maintain a fairly high rate of work that undulates between higher and lower intensities without a break therefore you also need endurance.

Local Muscular Endurance

To improve my endurance I will also be doing a circuit instead of my sparing if for whatever reason I can’t train with Gerry.  For example, Gerry is on holiday this week so I’ll be doing one of these on Monday and Wednesday.

Variation 1:

Jump circuit (more emphasis on Power)

1.  Barbell squat Jumps for 8 reps
2. A ten-fold jump from leg to leg for 2 repetitions
3. Kettle bell squat jumps for 8-10 reps
4. Double leg half squat jumps for 10-12 reps
5. Jumps on a box 40-50cm high with a double leg take off jump for 4-6 repetitions
6. Six-fold jumps (2 on left and then  2 on right-6 take offs on each leg) for 1 repetition.

Variation 2:

Weights circuit (more emphasis on Strength)  30-60 sec on: 1-min off, with aim to get pulse down below 140 bpm in the 1-minute rest.

1. Barbell squat
2. Bench press
3. Straight leg sit ups
4. Bent arm chest flyes
5. RDL
6. Barbell side bends
7. Barbell pullovers
8. Supinated grip bicep curls
9. Barbell bent over row
10. Barbell overhead press

Variation 3:

No rest between exercises bodyweight circuit

1. Press up- 20 reps
2. Double leg jumps over 10 small hurdles
3. Overhead medicine ball throws- 10 reps
4. Leg circles lying on back- 10 reps to each side
5. Single leg hops over 10 small hurdles- repeat on each leg
6. Get ups- 10 reps

Power

The main thing I have noticed that I don’t really train with tennis athletes is the demands of making high speed short contacts between opponents when striking.  Throwing several high speed combinations in a row really taxes your speed strength.  You also need a bit of explosive strength from the legs when moving the body in and out of the reach of your opponent.

Tennis uses a lot more reactive power using the fast stretch shortening cycle during footwork and more hip dominant explosive power during sprinting to wider balls.

Therefore my legs feel strong but my arms are absolutely wasted from all the punch combinations using speed strength i don’t really train.

My Boxing Training

Warm-up:

In Tennis I guess I am guilty of sometimes holding the athletes hand through their training, although I have certainly got better in recent years.

Gerry was just like I expected- in session 1 he said go and warm-up and I’ll see you when you’re finished.  He will expect you to take care of business yourself and won’t sit around to watch you do it.

• 100 skips
• 20 press ups
• 20 V sits
• 20 squats

Repeat x 5

I have to say I have a new appreciation for what Brendan Chaplin meant when he said you have to have a basic level of work capacity to get a full hour of training done.  I wrote a blog about it here and here

Gerry’s warm-up is like a work capacity circuit, something that Brendan has been an advocate of for a long time, no doubt influenced by his own martial arts experience.  Just doing that was very tough for me.  It made me think that as much as I preach that getting stronger will also raise your work capacity anyway, there’s a big difference to lifting heavy weights and actually doing direct work capacity training.

In my second session Gerry’s greeting was, “glad to see you’ve got your running trainers.  Go and run down to the bottom of the road and back.”

Again, just another example of how you’re building in more and more work capacity, because after my 6 minute run I had to do the warm-up circuit!!

Workout:

Bag work:

In the first session we did 3-minutes on the bag x 3 with a 1-minute rest between.  Gerry asked me to just do what I want to do and he will use that to evaluate my technique and make refines during our sessions together.

The main thing I was working on was coming towards and away from the bag.  If you come out and then come back in you have more space and momentum to throw your punches.  I also worked on recoiling the punch more quickly so you don’t just strike and then slowly bring it back.

I did this bag work on both my first and second session.  On the second session Gerry asked me to do the final round using a combination of left jab- right cross- left hook- right cross.

Pad work:

In the first session and second session we did 3 x 3-minutes on the pads.  The first session we focused on mainly single and double combinations, and a little bit of defensive work.

In the second session we did another two rounds of 3-minutes as per the first session.  However, it was noticeably harder because he made me throw more combinations and also at the end of the second round made me do a jab finisher- doing singles, then doubles then triples all the way up to 10!!  In the final round we did something that was one of the hardest things I have done.

Gerry called it the ”Cry Like a Baby round.”  Basically in the final round Gerry would push me all around the outside of the ring and said I had to keep working the body and if I didn’t get a strike in, he would hit me.

Basically for 3 minutes I was just hanging on to the ropes and trying to move around but I couldn’t get any space at all and a few times he gave me a few strikes to the ribs which almost winded me.

If you’re like me you love to play sport, the competitive challenge of testing your skills and physical attributes against a worthy opponent. But playing sport can take its toll on the body.  Chances are you’ve probably had some form of niggling injury to your knees or back, or maybe worse still you’ve had to stop all together and spend a fortune on physiotherapy.

Well it doesn’t have to be that way.  Many sports related injuries are preventable.  The trouble is most people think that because they have a reasonable amount of general fitness, they’re fit to play sport.

General Fitness

General fitness is also known as Health related Fitness and incorporates five key aspects- cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility and body composition (the proportion of muscle and fat you have).  To be truly fit- either for everyday living or for sports performance- requires that all these elements are worked on and are either maintained at a healthy level or are continually improved beyond that level.

Sport Specific Fitness

Being fit for sport means being able to meet the physical demands of that sport.  This can be thought of sport specific fitness.

To be fit for sport involves additional sport specific skills and physical attributes such as speed and power but these should be developed on top of a broad base of general fitness.

It is true that these sport specific attributes will help you to play harder and last longer.  You will be more consistent and make better decisions under fatigue.

A lot of people who want to improve their sports performance for these reasons believe that they will get all the speed and power work they will need by playing the sport.  Firstly- this is a myth.  There is no single sport that can fully develop one quality.  Even a 100m sprint requires multiple types of speed.  Instead check out these top tips to keep you on the right path.

5 Top Tips for getting Fit for Sport

Top Tip 1- Do a fitness test

Seek out a sports performance specialist such as a UKSCA accredited strength & conditioning coach who can assess your current levels in sport specific fitness.

Top Tip 2- Do Strength training

Let’s not forget that the demands from most sports place very high stresses on the body.  Most people are not well conditioned to cope with these demands, but they can be handled better by doing appropriate strength training.

Top Tip 3- Do speed training

To fully develop speed and power you also need to train these attributes in isolation when you’re fresh to maximise their capacities.  Playing sport isn’t enough.

Top Tip 4- Work on addressing your imbalances

To develop sport specific fitness without maintaining general fitness across all these parameters can lead to physical imbalances and even injuries.  Most sports are one sided or over work certain muscles from repetitive use.  So it is important to do work outside of the sport to correct these imbalances by following an injury prevention programme.

Top Tip 5- Plan your workouts

Working on general and sport specific fitness doesn’t mean you need to do seven different workouts to develop all the fitness attributes.  Many fitness activities work one or more of these attributes at the same time.  You just need a qualified coach to help you put the training programme together.

In summary

Sport places high demands on your body.  Many of the injuries incurred are preventable.  Make sure you invest in your fitness and get fit to play sport!

If you would like to be trained by a team who work with professional athletes which will assist you improve faster and win more then contact APA Director Daz Drake at: daz@apacoaching.co.uk   www.athleticperformanceacademy.co.uk

For almost 15 years I have had the privilege to train professional and aspiring professional athletes.  One might call this high performance physical preparation coaching- and we like to call ourselves strength & conditioning coaches.

Having briefly flirted with the role of Personal Trainer in my early days after University I’ve recently started coaching adult general public clients again- delivering an Adult Fitness class twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  The class is pitched at adults who want to get fit for sport.  The premise is that we get you fitter, faster and stronger so you can excel in sport and life.

Having reached out to a new audience of adults who clearly want to improve faster, win more and believe getting fitter is the best way to do this it got me thinking- can anyone get in peak physical condition?  I’ve already been fielding plenty of questions where keen as mustard weekend warriors are asking me how fit should they be for their age, their ability etc?

What is peak physical condition and is it different to elite physical condition?

I think the demands of sport dictate the levels of physical condition required at the elite level.  It’s natural selection- if the best men and women that play the sport can run, jump and throw a certain speed or distance you are either able to do it too or you can’t.  Not everyone is capable of reaching elite levels of physical condition.

Below is the testing results for the Pros this pre-season.  These sport specific fitness tests focus on speed, agility and power.

The sample comes from three female pros and six male pros.  Overall the group average is slightly below the Target score across all the parameters.

This shows me that we have a great opportunity to make some good gains which cannot help but make them even more competitive from an athletic stand point.

Of course the athletes are all close to achieving many of the targets- that’s what makes them professional.

Tennis is a sport where athleticism is certainly important but there is not a strong linear relationship between physical performance and ranking and many of these players are still achieving very high success in the game.  Having said that they need to be thinking about achieving the targets in as many fitness tests as possible as they are not only chasing peak performance but elite performance levels- demanded by their sport.

Now not everyone can achieve elite physical condition.

But everyone is capable of achieving peak physical condition- the act of getting your body in the best shape of your life.  It’s what we call at APA ‘maximising your athletic potential.’

So the question then becomes what is peak physical condition for the person who isn’t capable of achieving elite levels of physical performance?

Start with the start in mind: 

I have found the process of helping the general public achieve peak performance fascinating- with elite athletes you always have some sport specific fitness outcomes in mind that are demanded from the sport- you always start with the end in mind.  This is because they have a long training history and have a very good foundation of general fitness which they can build sport specific fitness on to.  They also have only a few weeks at a time  to build fitness components owing to competition schedules, so you tend to focus on the qualities that they need for their sport.

With the general public you need to start with the start in mind- the targets that we strive for to reach elite levels of performance may be out of their reach, or may not be the most appropriate types of fitness to aim for in the beginning.  They are generally less conditioned but on the up side have more time to train with no interruptions from competition.  So rather than shooting for that target we start with building a foundation of general fitness.

It’s also important to recognise that with many of the adults I have started to coach they are ‘sporty’ but not necessarily focused on just one sport.  So the journey to peak physical condition may not be based on such a narrow view of ‘sport specific fitness.’

I have often joked I am a specialist generalist.  

Clearly in my day to day work with professional Tennis players I am leaning more to the specific demands of the game and specialise in tennis specific strength & conditioning.  There will always be a market for the coach or company that position themselves as the experts in a particular type of specific conditioning- whether that be suppleness, speed, strength or stamina- or in a particular sport (such as Tennis).  People want to be associated with the coaches that they feel are experts in the discipline they want to improve in most.

But I have always worked with children who I feel need to train with a more general focus, and now with the adults I am coaching it feels the same.  Children need to and adults want to feel more fit in general first and foremost. But what does that mean? For me the journey to peak physical condition starts with building a foundation of general fitness.

It’s a balancing act

What I am promising my clients is that I will get them in the best shape of their lives- fit for sport and fit for life.  It means I am going to develop their fitness across a range of abilities including speed, strength, stamina, suppleness and skill and in a progressive way.

We will address sport specific fitness in due course (qualities like speed and power) but we will firstly make sure we address their general fitness which includes body composition, muscular strength and endurance and cardiovascular endurance.

What methods of General Fitness are out there?

Crossfit is known as the sport of general fitness.  In my opinion high-intensity interval training (HIIT) should be known as the sport of fat loss!

People clearly want to feel fit and this is why these methods have such a big following.  These training methods have become sports in themselves, as athletes compete to be the fittest or compete to get the leanest bodies with the latest combinations of HIIT.

However, I think APA bring something a little different to the table.  It’s called PROGRESSION.  For me Crossfit doesn’t progress through the various components- it puts them all together from a very early stage.  Do the athletes really have the time required to develop the various components including running technique, weight training and Olympic weight lifting techniques?  Should they be exposed to them all in one session?  It is constantly varied which makes it fun and challenging, but in my opinion there is too much put into the pot at once and I’m not really sure where the end goal is other than the Crossfit games- but even then they don’t know exactly what the demands of the competition will be as they constantly change what the demands of the games will be.

Crossfit is something I like on one hand but the components are very high intensity- shouldn’t necessarily all happen in one session, and not everyone is ready for. Same with HIIT- it actually represents just one method in the whole APA stamina continuum- and it’s about half way up the APA mountain.  I don’t think HIIT should be the first and only thing used for fat loss.  It’s one tool.

Minimal stimulus dose not Maximal destructive dose

I really think peak physical conditioning is about finding out where someone is on the mountain and pushing them upwards until they get to the top.  But you need to spend some time at base camp.  Adjust to the training stress and then move up the next part of the climb.  Find out where they need to start the journey and STILL MAKE GAINS

Once you get to the top (or your peak physical condition) you probably can’t stay there too long- just enjoy the view then start thinking about coming down.  That’s why elite athletes plan in rest periods following major tournaments where they have had to reach a peak performance level.

It’s time to come back off the peak again and then after some rest get ready for another go.  Only this time maybe we get there a bit faster or we take on a bigger mountain!!  This is the cycle of training.  It must start from where the client’s capacity is currently at and then it is your job as a coach to push them gradually until they reach a plateau in each new stimulus. You train a component or series of components until they have been maximised and then you get after the next thing.

3 is the Magic Number 

I feel very strongly that it takes at least 3 months to develop peak physical condition (see cycles 2 below). I generally look to develop the body’s capacities towards a peak in three blocks, during a 3 month cycle from hypertrophy to strength to power.

Having said that I find most adults need to do a preparatory cycle first (see cycle 1 below) to help restore normal range and function to the muscular system and build general fitness before progressing to the speed/power work that we focus on in the second cycle.

So for me a peaking plan will typically work through Hypertrophy to Strength to Power.

Above is an example of a training plan for Cycle 1- where I have done a preparatory block which focuses on mobility and foam rolling in an extended warm-up, and bodyweight strength.

Once they have gone through cycle 1 and cycle 2 by which time they should have reached peak performance, I then come down off the mountain before repeating the whole process in cycles 3 and 4!!!

Hope this gives you an idea into what peak physical conditioning training looks like.  If you are interested in coming along the journey with APA then get in touch.  Our #12weekstopeak Performance Programmes are guaranteed to get you fit for sport and in the best shape of your life!