This blog is one I am really excited to write.  I have been really enjoying being part of a Youth Strength & Conditioning forum on Facebook.  So in the last few days a couple of questions came in that got me fired up and excited to contribute to the discussion.  One question was about sport specific training for children and another was about endurance profiles of children.  I thought I would share some of the learnings here and I’ll address the first topic in this post!

Question:

Hey Guys,

Just looking to start a bit of a discussion on sport specific training.

I was asked the other day if I would be giving their 12 year old daughter sport (tennis) specific training. I simply stated I would be working on the fundamentals that underpin any sport such as movement competency/efficiency, strength, mobility, balance/coordination etc and that this would be most beneficial for his daughter. The father did not seem very convinced after our short discussion. Maybe I should have stated that the child needed ‘individual specific training’ in order to make her the best she can be.

In my blog I refer to research that show that the incidence of injury goes up significantly once adolescents are doing more than 16 hours of one sport per week.  It’s a good idea to educate parents on the risks associated with doing high volumes of sports practice (including sports specific training!)

Agree the definition

It was also suggested to define clearly what the parent meant by the term sport specific. It’s best to ask the parent what his definition of specific training is first. Then explain you will be programming individual, sport, maturation and training age specific training.

Set the context

It’s amazing how much more buy in you will get if you just take the time to show how something will improve performance indirectly.

‘Link it back to their specific sport. Show the parents how mobility/balance/strength will improve their child’s performance. I find most parents idea of S&C or any sort of performance coaching is very uneducated. They don’t understand how the body works and are then quite sceptical about anything they haven’t “seen before”. If you can give a clear example of how a certain exercise will improve their kids physical performance (in the specific sport), in my experience, they are far more accepting of my methods.

So basically, if you say you will be working on the fundamentals that underpin the physical demands of tennis, then give an example, you’ll get a far better reaction. Of course the fundamentals underpin every sport, but the parents are paying you for tennis specifically, so gear everything you say back to tennis performance.”  Cathal Murtagh.

Or…….

Agree on some level with the notion

According to one coach.

1. Tennis is an early specialization sport so their parents are right

2. If the athlete hasn’t trained before then a general strength program will make the most improvements and set up for power training later.

3. Make the dad happy and yourself…compromise.

4. Use things like med balls (or back it up to isometrics) for the extra power and can work on techniques right away. I’ve worked with many female tennis players and parents at this stage.

Understand Long Term Athlete Development: It’s all in the Blend!

Every athlete should do a blend of training that falls on the spectrum from very general to very specific.  This wasn’t mentioned in the discussion but for me it’s the big piece of the puzzle that needs to be discussed.  If you read my content regularly you’ll hear me say it time and time again.  My APA Training System is all about concurrent programming of all the biomotor abilities.  This means that in any given training session or training cycle there will be a blend of different types of fitness components (suppleness, skill, speed, strength and stamina) AND……….there will be a blend of means and methods that develop both general and more specific qualities.

So in the example above the 40% proportion of the training session might be very general in nature for a athlete with limited training experience.  The same 40% might represent very specific training with a more advanced athlete.  But the question you need to educate your parents on is why???????? Why is it necessary to do exercises that don’t look like the sports movement???

Here’s what I had to say:

”There is a difference between specificity and specialisation. Specialisation infers you have a major focus in one sport. We don’t encourage specialisation in most young athletes. However, specific training simply means that you are training the particular skills of a given sport at a moment in time. You can be specific in training without specialising. This is appropriate.

When a young child comes for a tennis lesson the parent expects the coach to be teaching the ‘specific’ sport skills or ‘techniques’ of tennis- not necessarily doing skills like football passes, rugby throws and so on- ie multi sports. They want forehands, backhands and serves. In S&C the parents therefore have the same impression- that you will be doing ‘physical skills’ that are specific to tennis. I can see their logic- maybe they expect to see multi directional sprints, throwing a medicine ball using the same muscles as the shots etc. Therefore we have to appreciate why the parent might have this perception.

However, where we are different is that the child probably has sport skills coaching from different sports coaches which allow that child to develop a broad range of sport skills (throwing, catching, kicking etc)- think of it as a sport skills foundation. But they probably don’t have that same multi-lateral physical development because we may be the only coach they see for S&C. Imagine if they were seeing several S&C coaches- one S&C coach for speed, another for strength, another for endurance etc then maybe they could come to you and say we want you to be the ‘speed’ guy and do a narrow type of fitness specific to that sport ( I get asked to do tennis specific speed work all the time because it happens to be an area I am well known for)——> but I also totally agree that even if that was possible for kids to work this way we really ought to all be developing a general base of physical skills for the reasons everyone has already mentioned a) injury reduction: early burnout, over use and b) proficiency barrier => maximise performance”

Proficiency Barrier

APA’s slogan is ”Maximising your Athletic Potential.”  Potential takes time to be realised.  I compare the athletic potential journey to the academic learning one.  Apart from the 2% outliers of proteges who are members of MENSA- the society for bright people who have an IQ in the top 2%- most of us need time to develop our knowledge and skill. But the good news (see Figure above) is that if we start them early doing Strength & Conditioning they have a greater chance of realising a higher neuromuscular performance potential!! Most important for this discussion is that the potential is higher than doing sport alone.

However, starting early doesn’t meaning rushing through or skipping steps.

You ‘cook em slow’ and build them up to more advanced training methods.  You wouldn’t expect a child to be grasping complex aspects of University maths and physics. Unfortunately most parents (and coaches) don’t understand principles of sports biomechanics or motor learning!!!  They want them to be doing things that look like the sport.  However, what most people fail to recognise is that sport is VERY STRESSFUL on the body.  We need to prepare the body for the demands of it and that’s why we need to do general work to prepare for the more specific high intensity high speed work that is part and parcel of sport.

Let’s look briefly at sports biomechanics- understand the difference between kinematics and kinetics.

Parents (and coaches) focus in on the kinematics- they want to see the movements that look like the sport (same acceleration, velocity, position).  I get it! But they don’t make the link that it is FORCE PRODUCTION that is the underlying cause of motion.  To get more explosive you first need to build a general foundation of strength.  The END.

As Des Ryan said in the forum, ”Tail doesn’t wag the dog!”

Specific training is the ‘realisation’ and expression of those qualities that we need to build in a general sense such as movement efficiency (balance, coordination, mobility/stability, basic strength). We can then apply those physical skills to more high intensity and high speed sports skills. When the kids are young I am comfortable that they get most of their ‘realisation’ opportunities from playing the sport. Let’s work on the foundation in the early years.”

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Mike Boyle wrote Functional Training for Sports in 2004, and since then has been a proponent of unilateral or single leg training.

Death of Squatting

During promotion for his Functional Strength Coach DVD he went on record to say, ”Squatting is not a lower body exercise.  It is a lower back exercise.  At some point your lower back doesn’t allow you to transfer any more force through your legs and you stop.”  Meaning at a certain point for most athletes, the ability to stabilize through the core/torso during the back squat becomes the limiting factor to increasing squatting load.

He talked about some of his athletes who could do 115 lbs split squat for 15 on each leg.

”If I had said you are going to back squat 230 lbs for 15- absolutely no conceivable chance they could do, and I don’t think they could even do 5.  It’s so far out of whack what they are capable of doing on two legs.”

Mike is referring to what is known as a Bilateral deficit, meaning the sum of force production from each leg individually is greater than the force production of both legs together.  A full definition of a Bilateral deficit is below:

During maximal contractions, the sum of forces exerted by homonymous muscles unilaterally is typically higher than the sum of forces exerted by the same muscles bilaterally. However, the underlying mechanism(s) of this phenomenon, which is known as the bilateral strength deficit, remain equivocal

Mike affirms that in a back squat the failure, the injury area, is always the lower back.  ”If we can take the load and cut it in half that has to be a good thing.

Let’s say you can back squat for 300lb for 10 but if you can split squat 150 lbs (75lbs dumbbells in each hand) for 10 that is the same equivalent load on that one leg.  But the difference is that the spine is experiencing half the load.”

[author’s note- as we will see later 150lb is not the same equivalent load on one leg, it’s actually more!!  However, for the bilateral proponents the point I feel is worth discussing is how the total body system responds to working against 150lbs or 300lbs!!! From my personal experience the ‘stress’ of managing a bigger weight across two legs has to have a different effect on the nervous system than doing less across two separate efforts on each leg,   But for now let’s focus on the single leg topic. ]

So what are the best options for single leg training??

Thanks to years of experimental data with Mike Boyle he was able to suggest a tried and tested progression.  Before progressing on to unilateral work Mike suggested that you want to build up to around 50% bodyweight for a bilateral Goblet squat.  

At APA I personally recommend the following progressions:

• Step Up
• Lunge
• Pistol squat (single leg squat)

Let’s look at how you can progress the Lunge pattern into the single leg squat.

Regular split squat

Start with a goblet squat hold.  This helps to keep the torso upright.

But when you get up to a certain weight….Mike found athletes complained that the big toe was killing them on the back foot.

Rear foot elevated split squat

Quadricep dominant version– in this version with a tall torso the centre of mass is back right over the hip and because of this the quadriceps are having to do a lot more work.

Glute dominant version- in this version the trunk flexion drives hip flexion and now the centre of mass has shifted forwards in between the hip and knee and increases the demands on the glutes.

Benefits of the elevated rear foot placement:

=> takes the pressure off the rear foot toe

=> takes the load down (with less stability from the rear foot you can’t lift as much)

Tips for correct technique:

=> mid foot to heel pressure on front foot

=> it’s an elevator not a saw- vertical orientation of push, with knee just a little bit posterior to hip so you get a gentle rectus femoris stretch.

The idea is Goblet load until you can’t goblet load any more- you can’t get the weight up anymore.  At that point go to dumbbells held down by your side.

Target: Split Squat

1.0 x Body weight for 10 reps.  So a 200lb athlete could lift 100lb in each hand.

Single leg or Pistol Squat

The “pistol type” version Mike used initially (see above) caused some low back pain in some athletes, particularly those with long femurs. He solved that by using two boxes, one to stand on and one to squat to.  They solved that by using two boxes, one to stand on and one to squat to (see below top two images).

Target: Single Leg squat:

80lbs x5 is good for a one leg squat and 110lbs x5 is excellent 110 lbs (50 lb vest w/ 30 lb DB’s).

Load Comparison Ratio

At the recent Child to Champion Conference Alex Natera spoke about how he uses single leg work in his training with track and field athletes.  [authors note: the single leg squat is to quarter squat depth- not parallel]

He said track coaches often get ‘twitchy’ about doing heavy squats once it gets closer to important competitions but they were only too happy to let him put 10-50% body weight (BW) through them on one leg!!!!  This was a sneaky way to keep going with strength training.

Owing to the fact that 68% of the total system mass is supported during double leg movements versus 84% of the total system mass during single leg movements we find that you can use ”less load” with single leg work BUT have the same effect as doing very heavy double leg work!!!

Assuming an equal load distribution between limbs in a double limb movement, the SL movement equates to 1.62 times the intensity in one leg of the double leg movement.

To be honest, the mathematics is a little too much for me but Alex was pretty clear in estimating the following:

BW Pistol = <1.0 x BW Back squat

10% BW pistol =1.5 x BW Back squat 

50% BW pistol = 2 x BW Back squat 

100% BW pistol = 3 x BW Back squat

Conclusions

Mike doesn’t have his athletes back squat heavy.  He teaches them the squat pattern early on with a goblet squat so that they can be set up for the olympic lifts which he does use in his programme- but the back squat is not a focus.

Like anything in life it is never black and white.  I respect Mike for taking a stance on this because he believes the compressive loads at high weights is not a good situation for the lower back.  I personally think you need to train both double and single legs with the highest safe load you can manage.  But I think it’s really smart to recognise that you can focus a bit more time on single leg work knowing that the spinal loading might be lower but the overall stress through the lower limb is significantly higher.

I hope this has been of interest to you.

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Last week I had the pleasure of spending the morning with my former lecturer Dr. Iain Fletcher.  I love popping in to see ”Fletch” who oversees the BSc in Strength and Conditioning at University of Bedfordshire, is an external examiner for a number of Universities and is also a Tutor and Assessor for the UKSCA.

My original purpose of the visit was to get Iain’s take on the ‘Role of the University to prepare students for the workplace,’ as it’s a topic that I’m very passionate about.  It was a pity that my video camera had a meltdown and I didn’t get us both in the shot- but what Iain had to say was really interesting and you should definitely check it out below:

Daz Dee TV Episode 9

But like all visits to see Fletch the topic nearly always turns to Strength and Power and I wanted to give you the low down on what we talked about.  You see, as anyone who knows me will testify to, I’m a curious coach and I’m always questioning why I do things.  If something doesn’t make sense it really grates on me so I have to seek out people and try and make more sense of things.  The nuts and bolts of our discussion were focused on two topics:

1. Strength endurance– why bother?
2. Velocity Based training– who cares about Power any way?

At first glance these topics might not seem related- but on closer inspection I think there is a common element- our preoccupation with the need to do work, and the ability to do ‘more work’ in a given time.

I’ve previously written a couple of blogs on these topics:

Strength endurance:

Building Strong Foundations- Volume and Intensity

Do you need to build a Volume Base?

Power:

Gil Stevenson Workshop Lesson 2: The Science of Strength and Power

Why the midthigh clean pull is all you need to develop power

What is Power and have you got some?

Strength endurance

Strength endurance is a term I like to use which is similar to muscular endurance but is somewhat of a bridge between the classical 3×10 with incomplete recovery and the pure strength 5×5 programmes with full recovery.  I’ve previously spoken about doing 5×5 prescriptions with incomplete recovery and calling it ‘strength endurance.’  But whatever you call it these type of concepts for me fall into the greater topic of work capacity.

The fascination with work capacity is there for all to see- many coaches believe you need to put in a foundation block of ‘work capacity’ training to have the basic level of fitness simply to be able to train properly for an hour with good quality.  But what does this mean?

Work Capacity: definition

Workout Density: The amount of exercises, reps, and sets that are performed per workout. Think super-sets.

Density builds capacity.

In terms of strength qualities  you will hear a lot of S&C coaches saying that you need to do a ‘strength endurance, anatomical adaptation, work capacity, strength foundation, strength base, robustness [insert other name] phase FIRST to prepare you for the higher intensity work to follow.

 

So onto my discussion on strength endurance.  For years I have been sticking to my guns that 3×15=>4×10=>3×12=>4×8 (or something similar) is a nice progression for athletes to work up to the holy grail of strength programmes around the 5×5 range- where we start approaching and exceeding the magical 85% 1RM load.

If you go back through those blogs on strength endurance you’ll see I talk about how higher reps is better because it allows for more reps since the intensity is lower.  This is great for skill acquisition and connective tissue adaptations.

But having spoken to Iain and also some personal communications with Alex Natera (senior S&C coach at Aspire Academy) they both said that you can still get the adaptations as long as the total volume load (sets x reps x load) is high enough:

Alex Natera- personal communication: 05/06/17

Rare cases and certain sports will have me chasing growth but most of the time I’ll push for growth using lower rep schemes, with higher loads and high total volumes.

Even in early GPP I shoot through the higher reps ranges with each week and by week 4 or so I am already down to 5’s.

Even in athletes who might not have “earned the right” I’ll still focus on quality through lower rep sets. I’ll get the volume in with increased number of sets instead.

He went on to say on how you develop strength endurance:

Agreed- for sure with this type of athlete endurance will be gained for getting stronger. When they are an advanced athlete then schemes for endurance based lifting may have importance.

Connective tissue responds well to high loads, and volume with high loads so don’t be too concerned about the anatomical adaptations purported to come from a 3×15 scheme. In fact most of the evidence for that comes from text books and articles looking at untrained or recreational trained.

Iain explained that you could use the 5×5 prescription but if you only give them 45-60 seconds rest between sets it will negate the desire to lift heavy and you can include several warm-up sets too so you are getting in the volume.

Iain said that for sports like rowing, cycling and even wrestling and so on where there is a need to have a lot of muscular endurance you could make a case for doing 15-20 reps at a time although if training time is limited you might as well let the sport take care of the endurance adaptations.  For most sports that are acyclic you need to produce short bouts of strength, rest and repeat so he agrees with Alex on the way forward.  Get to the 5×5 soon and use more sets and less rest and you’ll get endurance come along for the ride.

 

Power and Velocity Based Training

I’ve been thinking again about what are the key performance indicators that discriminate among sub elite and elite.  I would normally always answer with the response, ‘Power.’  Lately I’ve been reflecting on this and an article that Iain wrote on Biomechanics made me question why we still put so much focus on Power.

Typical thinking about Power puts the emphasis on measurement of Velocity.  Let’s look at why.  Peak Power is measured during the concentric portion of the movement and typically occurs with a medium force and medium velocity.

Power= Work / Time

Work = Force x Distance

STRENGTH (Force) is required to produce work.  So it follows that coaches value doing the same work in less time to develop power.

==============================================================================

Since Velocity = Distance / Time => Power = Force x Velocity

Going back to this idea that time is the limiting factor you can see why coaches are really concerned with velocity.

Velocity is concerned with the time to complete a given distance.  It follows that we then want to focus on any exercise which might decrease the time to complete a given distance. Assuming that the distance is constant then yes, moving something in less time will increase velocity, which will increase Power.  This has led to the proliferation of exercises like speed squats, speed deadlifts and speed presses, and the coaching cue of lifting ‘everything fast.’  But the problem is that these correlations with athletic performance are based on the concentric portion Force-Velocity curve without considering how the musculotendon unit functions in sport where there is usually an eccentric and isometric component.

We are focusing on how quickly the work is performed in the entire CONCENTRIC portion of the movement.

This is why something like a counter movement jump will produce very high power outputs if you can jump higher but to do this you will have a slightly longer jump cycle (time on the ground) which you will not be rewarded for in most sports actions.

These type of moderate load speed exercises which emphasise the concentric muscle action make sense for ballistic striking actions like punching, kicking and even hitting a ground stroke in tennis where there is little to no external resistance other than your limb. But this isn’t the full story!

Assessment of the concentric portion of the curve does not grasp the underlying principles of acceleration which states that accelerations are linked to the production of Force.   The F-V graph doesn’t account for HOW we produce that force.

Acceleration = the rate of change in velocity  and  Acceleration = Force / mass.  

I think we need to start thinking about the increases in how the forces are occurring over the entire sport movement, not just the concentric portion of the F-V curve.  The forces required for sports movements which involve displacement of our ENTIRE BODYWEIGHT in time frames of less than 250 milliseconds are huge.

If we only focus on the velocity component we might focus on doing things like jump squats with 0-40%1RM loads because that would produce the greatest bar speed in the concentric phase, believing we are training acceleration optimally.  This is often called ‘starting strength.’  I personally don’t like this term.  I think it is fine if you are using these loads to augment improvements in the fast striking actions or even eccentric loading of the tendon- which we will talk in more detail below.

I think we need to put more focus on what happens at the onset of the concentric contraction, particularly when it takes place as part of a ballistic movement involving the stretch shortening cycle, or at the onset of movement from a stationary position.  The graphic below really captures for me the difference between acceleration and velocity.

When a pendulum swings from side to side, its velocity and acceleration vary — both in magnitude and in direction — at each point during the motion.

The magnitude of velocity of a pendulum is highest in the center (think ‘power’) and lowest at the edges. On the other hand, the magnitude of its acceleration is highest at the edges (think ‘Rate of Force Development’) and lowest at the center.  For me this is like what we do when we focus on velocity and power- we look at the velocity at the middle of the movement at the concentric portion. But the acceleration at the start of the movement is key in the initiation of the concentric muscular contractions.

Scenario 1: Onset of Concentric Contraction: Heavy Load

If you are trying to improve your ability to start better as in ”get off to a good start in a 100m race” I would put emphasis on heavy isometric loads and heavy Olympic lifts- where you will need to gather large forces quickly, as well as traditional heavy strength lifts such as the Back squat at >85% 1RM.  When you have to accelerate your body from rest you will have more time to produce higher Forces.

The heavy strength exercise will help with initiation of movement and the explosive strength Olympic lifts will help with acceleration over the first few strides during acceleration.

The forces on heavy strength lifts will not be associated with high velocities but the intent to produce maximum rate of force development (RFD) will be!!!

According to Mel Siff- starting strength occurs isometrically before the load is moving.

Scenario 2: Onset of Concentric Contraction: Light Load

Most sporting movements take place in less than 200 milliseconds- we have limited time in which to produce force in order to be competitive.  We know therefore that being able to produce force quickly in order to accelerate our body and other objects is vital.

In order to produce the required High Forces in only a few hundred milliseconds relies on the eccentric storage and release of energy in the tendons while the muscle tries to maintain an isometric contraction- until the point of release of energy in the concentric phase.  This is why ballistic exercises that utilise the ‘Stretch-shortening Cycle (SSC)‘ are more correlated with athletic performance.

The SSC is associated with a Rapid rise in Force as measured by the Rate of Force Development (RFD).  Remember that this concentric measurement occurs after the eccentric loading.  In this type of work Plyometric drills are most suited.

What are the Best Exercises for developing RFD?

Both plyometrics and Olympic weight lifting exercises are a great way to obtain RAPID impulses as measured by the gradient of the Steep part of the Force-Time curve above.  These activities are represented at opposite ends on the concentric part of the Force-Velocity curve for simplicity sake.  But in reality both are associated with a massive build up of eccentric force on the left side of the curve before delivering the concentric output on the right side of the curve.

Dan Baker- Exercises can be deemed by their biomechanical attributes as either “strength” or “power” oriented. In power exercises, the velocities are high and acceleration continues to the end of the range—the forces do not have to be decelerated. Basically the energy is released into the air through jumps, hops, and throws. Olympic lifts also fall into this category (they are jumping exercises, essentially). If the force is safely dampened at the end of the movement, like hitting a heavy bag, then throwing punches and kicking are also power exercises.

Strength exercises have a deceleration phase at the end of range when resistances are low (< 50% 1RM)= to avoid stressing the tendons and joints. On major strength exercises like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts, with resistances below 50% 1RM, more than half the ROM is spent in deceleration, making them less than ideal for power training even though at this low level of resistance the velocity may be high.[agrees with my previous comment about the practicality of speed squats and deadlifts at lower loads]

The length of the deceleration phase decreases as resistances go above 65% 1RM. By 85-90%, there is no real deceleration phase, but the velocities are so low at this level of resistance that they cannot be classified as power exercises. So using light resistances below 50% 1RM in traditional strength exercises to develop power is often counterproductive as it is training the body to decelerate for much of the ROM, rather than continuing to accelerate.

So we do strength exercises with heavy resistances to develop force/strength, and power exercises with the appropriate resistance to train the body to use force with high velocity until the end of range. If you want to use “strength exercises” to develop power, you need to use resistances of 50-70% 1RM. Something to dampen the ferocity of a rapid lockout (such as bands and chains) also helps.

The results of the study below nicely summarise what I have been inferring to in this blog- peak power (watts) is produced at the lowest load for the mid thigh clean pull (40% 1RM power clean) whereas the highest rate of force development (N/s) was produced at the second highest load (120% 1RM power clean).

J Strength Cond Res 26(5): 1208–1214, 2012.  This study specifically looked at the force-velocity characteristics of the mid-thigh clean pull across a range of loads.

Peak Power across loads

When training to maximize peak power output, lower loads are recommended. Moreover if the goal is to train force, impulse or RFD higher loads, of 120– 140% 1RM, are recommended

And Finally……

I couldn’t do a post that mentions Dr Iain Fletcher, Dr Mike Stone and Alex Natera and talk about strength training without giving a quick shout out to my friends at Emerge Fitness in the USA, who specialise in provided training products for serious strength athletes.  They have some great knee wraps for weightlifting.  Check them out HERE.

In this week’s blog we are summarising some of the points I made on my recent Episode 7 of Daz Dee TV.

A lot of the content is already for everybody to see on this website so I’ll save myself some time and tell you all to go to the Education section of the website and look at the Speed section.

For those of you who just want to get the headlines of the 20 minute show we covered:

• Something to ponder for another show- why S&C coaches need to get better at communicating your message- it’s not just about the ‘what to coach’ and the knowledge, and why do S&C coaches get so concerned with brand equity and self-promotion.
• Definition of speed- difference between speed, velocity and acceleration
• What does world class look like? How fast do the fastest sprinters in the world run?
• What other factors can affect speed

In this episode we are setting the scene for Speed, it’s definition and some factors to consider.  In the next episode we will talk about the Means and Methods to actually improve it in everyone!

Definition of Speed

Speed, being a scalar quantity, is the rate at which an object covers distance.  Speed is ignorant of direction. On the other hand, velocity is a vector quantity; it is direction-aware.

Speed is the distance covered in a unit of time while acceleration is the rate of change of speed. The unit of speed in the metric system is meters per second (m/s) while that of acceleration is meters per second squared (m/s2).  Speed is a scalar quantity while acceleration is a vector quantity.

With respect to the subcategories of Speed I covered this on the Education section of the website so go check out the page for the full definitions.

• Straight ahead Speed
• First step Speed
• Multi-directional Speed
• Sport specific Speed (Footwork)

What does World class look like?

This graph shows a couple of interesting things- it shows two clear phases.  The first phase is the acceleration phase. This is defined by a significant drop in the time it takes to cover a 10 metre split over the first 50m or so. When you are no longer accelerating you have officially reached top speed.  It is often said that the person who wins is the person who slows down the least so this speaks to the concept of speed endurance.  What made Usain Bolt’s word record so amazing was that he was able to hold on to his top speed from 50 to 100m.

Break down of the splits

The Table above shows the actual data that I was referring to above.  The part of the race that no one has been able to compete with was Bolt’s performance of 0.82 m/s from 50-80m.

Until Bolt came along, 0.83 was the fastest top end speed recorded. 0.83 seconds per 10 meters translates to 12 meters per second (m/s) or almost 27 miles per hour (mph) or 43 kilometers per hour (kph).

Tennis Players versus Sprinter

In the Table above I highlight the first 0-20m splits.  If you look at Mo ’01 he was fastest over 20m taking 1.83 seconds to cover the first 10m and then 1.00 to do the next 10m.  This gave him a total time of 2.83 seconds.

The fastest time I have ever recorded for a tennis player was 2.73 seconds!!!!!!

What other factors affect Speed?

Any performance you evaluate needs to take into consideration

=> Mental

=> Physical

=> Tactical

=> Technical

Before you jump to conclusions that someone who ‘appears’ slow is actually in fact slow, test some of your assumptions.  Perhaps they are not mentally ‘focused’ and concentrating.  Maybe they are not showing the desire to try hard and run as fast as they are physically capable of.  Are they starting in the right place and do they have the most efficient technique??

What next?

If you would like to discuss these topics in more detail then come along on June 4th to my next Speed, Agility & Quickness for Sports workshop.  Book online HERE

In this blog I am going to be summarising the latest Episode of Daz Dee TV- Episode 5 Periodisation.

I am slowly getting better at giving the elevator pitch- the 30-second summary of what APA’s Training Philosophy is all about.  Only this week I had decided to put a four page summary up on the notice board at Sutton Tennis Academy.  I’ll share it with you here

The Elevator Pitch- what is APA all about in 30-sec

When you play sport at the highest level, you need to be in peak physical condition.  We aim to maximise your athletic potential meaning we make you Fitter, Faster and Stronger so you can excel at sport.

We believe in the 5 S’s of Sport

• Suppleness
• Skill
• Speed
• Strength
• Stamina

The Delivery of our Training Programmes comprise of: 

Complex Sessions (suitable for those coming 1-2 times per week and those with lower training ages).  Each 30-60 minute session will have elements of:

=> 10-20 minutes Skill/Suppleness

=> 10-20 minutes Speed

=> 10-20 minutes Strength

Focused Sessions (suitable for those coming 3 or more times per week and with higher training ages).  Each 1 hour will prioritise a specific component of fitness such as:

=> Speed

=> Strength

=> Stamina

=> Injury Prevention (comes under the Suppleness component)

Annual Planning:

Complex Sessions– For the athletes coming 1-2 times per week we believe in training all the components ALL YEAR ROUND however it is important to have a Key Focus.  Typically this will involve progressing from basic skills to more complex ones across three x  12 week terms.

Focused Sessions – For the athletes coming 3 times per week or more we believe in training all the components ALL YEAR ROUND however it is important to have a Key Focus.  Typically this will involve changing emphasis from Endurance => Strength => Power => Power Endurance over six months and repeating this cycle twice in the year

Linear versus Concurrent Periodisation:

Linear Periodisation:

At APA you might say that at first glance the training plans we use for our more committed athletes are based on LINEAR periodisation.  I can’t deny this as we clearly progress over time from those qualities that we can do in greater volume at lower intensity to those that we do at higher intensity in lower volume.  This sets the direction of travel horizontally over time.

So using the example of Strength above- we might work from Strength endurance => Hypertrophy => Max Strength => Power

However, the danger here would be to assume that we take this concept literally.  That would mean we don’t do any power work at all until we come to the end of the training cycle.  This is NOT what we do at APA.  Rather, the Linear route map only informs us as far as what the main focus of TRAINING is.  In any given moment we will also be TEACHING Max Strength exercises such as Back squats and TEACHING Olympic weight lifting exercises for Power such as the Clean.

Concurrent Periodisation:

At APA we always train all components of fitness all of the time.  Concurrent periodisation is based on the premise that we train every component of fitness each week.  However,  again the danger here would be to assume that we take this concept literally.

If you tried to overload ALL the components equally, if that were even possible, you would get a blunting of the training effect as there would be an interference effect.

Interference occurs when the improvement in any one component being trained is reduced in relation to what would have been achieved if this area was trained on its own.

Stafford (2005) Coaching for Long-term Athlete Development, p44. Sports Coach UK

Therefore we choose one or two things to TRAIN and others to TEACH.  The exception is with our advanced athletes where we might TRAIN multiple components in the same session, or at least in the same week.  But we would need to plan the week smartly so as to ensure we don’t try and hit too many qualities in any one day.

Strength Cycles: Volume versus Intensity Deloading

I just wanted to finish with a quick tutorial on how to manage your strength loading schemes for different levels of athletes.  Please watch the video in full to see exactly what I am talking about here

I want to give a shout out to James Baker of Proformance who is doing a great job in Youth S&C with his group in Gloucester, and I refer to an example of his training programme here.

Hope you enjoyed the show!!

Don’t forgot I am running a 1st4sport Level 2 S&C Certificate in June where we talk more about these concepts.  Head over to the website to find out more!!!!