With the initiation of a third lock down in the UK we thought it would be a great idea to engage our readers in some motivating posts to help keep you motivated.  We welcome back APA coach Konrad McKenzie with a weekly guest post.

This lockdown 3.0 I have been fortunate to gain some more knowledge from leading practitioners in strength and conditioning & sport science.  A few weeks ago I took part in webinar on load management by Dario Novak. This webinar series had interesting speakers on it including professor Ales Filipcic and Matt Little who currently leads Andy Murray’s strength and conditioning programme. This series inspired me to share the information and perhaps create more conversations around monitoring using some of my own thoughts.

I will be first to admit that this was something I struggled with in the first years of coaching. Not so much the theory behind it, rather the implementation in highly dynamic environments. Usually, it is much easier to monitor this if you have  large sports science departments who can meticulously monitor training readiness, volume, quality & intensity of training. As mentioned in my previous blog (Keeping athletes shoulder healthy) training volume is a large stakeholder when trying to reduce injury.

This blog will not go into all the different monitoring methods but will discuss the following:

• Why do we want to collect data on player’s health and performance?
• Painting the picture
• Do we need to look at session content?
• What we can start off by doing
• Practical implications

What and why do we want to collect data on player’s health and performance?

I am going to split this into two sections to make it more reader friendly.

What do we want to collect on player’s data health and performance?

A range of metrics can be collected in my opinion, the higher the level of the athlete the more in depth analysis needs to be. Metrics include (not an exhaustive list):

Player’s physiological and anthropometric  data

• Average heart rate
• HR zones
• HR recovery
• Morning HRV Index (menstrual cycle affects HRV)
• Cardiovascular load
• Peak height velocity (when dealing with growing athletes)
• Height and weight

Other metrics include time characteristics, in the case of Tennis these are:

Time characteristics

• Start time
• Session time
• Active time
• Average rally time
• Average real time

Why do we want to collect data on player’s health and performance?

Measuring a player’s health is important for longevity and injury prevention. We are all aware that high performance sports is brutal on the body.  If we think about the game of tennis for example, a high level junior player rapidly putting the brakes on when travelling at 6m/s is experiencing 3-6 times their bodyweight on each leg. Not only does this place structural and neurological stress on the body, training and competition can take a psychological toll on the human body. Additionally, those who work with growing athletes will also know the physiological stress around growth and maturation. In simpler terms we want to use data to:

• Keep players healthier
• Prevent OT & Burnout
• Aim to Reduce Injuries

Painting the picture

“It is better to measure something than nothing”

This was a quote that stood out to me from the webinar. I wanted to further add that it is also important to know what you are measuring and more importantly how you are going to use the data. Sounds obvious I know but it’s easy to get lost in a sea of data collection that will have no actionable consequences on day to day practices.  It is important that we use loading data to paint the picture of the athletes we are working with. Pertinent questions from the webinar regarding data collection were:

1. What kind of data/info do we use for planning?
2. How do we treat and approach our players?
3. How do we collect and store player’s data?
4. How many different aspects of training do we work in the training process?
5. What is the role of players in the training process?
6. How are the players responding to load?

Do we need to look at the session content? Some food for thought

Although when they spoke about session content it wasn’t focused on youth athlete training, it is a passion point of mine and definitely created some food for thought around this area. It was highlighted that a typical academy tennis session would be very high in volume and not high enough in terms of intensity.  The current training volumes may not be tolerable for a growing athlete. Also, if 60-80% of the average rally is over in 4-5 shots, are the current training volumes reflective of the game? This is an interesting question. My personal thoughts are, is there a period where we overload the volume? A period where we intensify in skill training load?  So, on different training days and/or phases we emphasize volume or intensity.

A primary question from the webinar was do we know what types of load we are exposing our players to? Is this reflected in the session? Some humbling questions.

It is quite common to see a session start with high volume drilling and end with high intensity match play. This webinar was in Tennis, however I see this across the board in a lot of field and court sports. Perhaps, flipping this structure will allow for a more optimal session, makes sense from a scientific point of view. Something for the skills and strength and conditioning coaches to converse over.

What we can start off by doing

Using Minutes alone, is not a good indicator of session load, without content of the session e.g. (Volume, intensity, quality)

There are countless articles and papers by people who are much smarter than me on this topic so I am not going to dive into any monitoring tools. I will link the reader to this article which I found informative.  But I wanted to highlight an idea which may be overlooked and that is categorising sessions. I have tried to do this over the years working with technical coaches to identify different types of sessions. For example, high and low intensity days. But we can go even deeper and distinguish between high intensity match play and high volume drilling. Furthermore, we could pair this with conditioning sessions which complement the type of loading from skill work. Vertical integration is popular in the domain of Rugby union and football and I am a firm believer in learning from different sports.

Practical recommendations

After hearing the webinar I wanted to offer some practical recommendations from the talk and some of my own. Firstly, I want to stress that this is by no means an easy task. Especially, if you are working alone without a team of sports scientists. I want to start off by saying first;

• Do the best you can.

• Figure out what is important to measure and how it will affect your decision making, for example, peak height and weight velocity in youth athletes.

• Build buy-in by educating coaches and athletes as to why you are collecting data.

• The higher the level of the athlete, the more in depth the analysis.

• Once you find out what you want to measure, find out the most cost effective way of doing this. There are a wide array of wearables that athletes can purchase which are fairly inexpensive. For example, Heart rate monitors for objective measurements.

• Once you have the collection method for example HR monitoring, paint the picture by working out the intensity of matches and seeing how that compares to training for planning purposes. Are we wanting to work at or below match intensity?

• Work with the technical coaches using your understanding of scientific underpinning of training and their knowledge of skill development to come up with an agreed monthly/yearly schedule.

Thanks for reading guys,

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

Liked This Blog?

You might like other blogs on this topic from APA:

APA review of the Middlesex Students S&C conference 2014

The Dubious Rise of the Corrective Exercise ”Pseudo-Physio” Posing as a Trainer- My thoughts

as well as two recommended articles:

This article on weak Glutes during Squatting

And this one on Exercise Modifications 

Do you feel that this would be a perfect time to work on the weak links that you have been avoiding? The things that you know you should be doing that you keep putting off? Would you like us to help you with movement screening and an injury prevention program? Then click on the link below and let us help you!

? TRAIN WITH APA ?

Aspiring Pro Training Support Packages

Follow me on instagram @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz on instagram @apacoachdaz

With the initiation of a third lock down in the UK we thought it would be a great idea to engage our readers in some motivating posts to help keep you motivated.  We welcome back APA coach Konrad McKenzie with a weekly guest post.

Supporting Female Athletes

This lockdown I have been fortunate to gain some more knowledge from leading practitioners in strength and conditioning & sport science. A few weeks ago I was enlightened by some great speakers at the “The Well HQ”. The topic was around female health and performance. This was pertinent to me, as I am a male coach who currently works with a large amount of female athletes. I wanted to share some insights from this talk to enhance the awareness around this topic. This blog will be a synopsis of the webinar but will also contain some of my experiences training young female athletes, which will hopefully create some provocative insights. The blog will contain the following topics:

• Knowledge gaps
• What we do know about training female athletes
• Menstrual cycles and how it can affect performances
• Potential Barriers to sport and engagement
• Steps we could take to support female athletes better

“80% of active women said they haven’t had enough education in relation to their body and how it affects their sport”- Dr Bella Smith.

What we do know about training female athletes

There is a great book the “female athlete handbook of sports medicine” which I encourage you all to read. This book is quite extensive so I will give a very brief summary on parts of chapter 1&2 that stood out to me.

Female athlete triad

The female athlete triad is defined as a spectrum of three interrelated medical conditions 1) energy availability, 2) menstrual health and 3) bone health (ACSM, 2007). These conditions range from optimal/healthy range to a pathological state of low energy availability, amenorrhea, eating disorders & osteoporosis. It is said that in order for female athletes not to suffer any components of the triad, it is paramount that they understand their energy needs and train and live in an environment which supports healthy energy availability.

Non-contact ACL injuries

Female athletes are reported to have higher risks of non-contact ACL injuries. Interestingly, the research is trying to determine whether ACL injury is a result of gross failure of the ACL in one episode or multiple episodes over time. However, valgus of the knee and change in upper body trunk mechanics tend to be high risk factors for this. Although the research is said to be transient and the best intervention is not yet identified, changes in dynamic loading, proprioceptive training and sound coaching go a long way in mitigating these risk factors. Training programs containing a healthy dose of strength, power, plyometric and neuromuscular training, seem to have promising results.

From the Well HQ talk it was said that women are 4.5 times more likely to sustain an ACL injury. Although the skeletal structure and the anatomy of pelvis is non- modifiable, factors such as muscle imbalance, proprioception and landing mechanics can be trained.

Knowledge gaps in coaching female athletes

The aforementioned quote is alarming right? A high proportion of female athletes still to this day are not educated enough about their bodies. Why? It was suggested, that there may still be a reluctance to talk about it, due to feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Whilst this is perfectly understandable, the more we communicate about this the easier it will become.

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair”

Gaining trust is vital for clear communication pathways especially about sensitive subjects so this quote is important to bear in mind. Furthermore, I would like to note that it is important not to take offence if a female athlete does not immediately open up to you about what she is experiencing, this is a delicate manner thus, it is important to guide her to someone she feels more comfortable talking too. Women, unlike men, appear to value the quality of a relationship as opposed to the quality of a coach, meaning you have to take the time to cultivate and nurture the relationships you have with your female athletes.

In my experience, I had a young female athlete who was going through her first menstrual cycle, you can imagine this was very troubling and awkward for her to mention. So she just gave me a sign and then I took the hint, to adjust certain exercises for her. Now whilst this is not very “scientific” it lead the way for her to download an app, which allows me to see when she’s entering that phase.  A pretty huge breakthrough if you ask me. More on this in “Steps we could take” Section

Lastly, the women at Well HQ gave another profound statistic. I was pretty shocked about this myself. As little as 4% of sports science research is done on women only. Moreover, they had mentioned that the 70% of research done on mixed groups fails to control for the changing physiology and psychology during the menstrual cycle.

Performance and the menstrual cycle

The team mentioned that a 28 day hormonal cycle can really affect a woman physically and emotionally. From a performance perspective an elite 1500m runner with a 4:03 minute time could, on the day before  (or on the same day of her period) run the same event in 4:15 minutes. That’s a colossal difference. Interestingly, determinants of performance such as VO2 max, running economy, strength and power are not significantly affected during a healthy cycle. However, how a woman feels emotionally and physically fluctuates as her hormones change. As a result, this challenges her ability to tap into peak performance.

It is known that having a period is a healthy sign of bodily function and health. On the other hand, 30% of female athletes lose their cycle at some point. To give an illustration of how significant this is, lack of periods meant a promising runner did not produce enough oestrogen (An important hormone in the cycle which aids bone strength) and thus developed osteoporosis in her 20s.

Interestingly, Oestrogen creates a great physiological environment for muscle growth and repair. So much, that strength gains in the first half of the cycle can improve by 15%.

Potential Barriers to sport and engagement

I wanted to share some barriers to sport and engagement which, perhaps, is overlooked by trainers, coaches or Teachers.

Bras

It was mentioned that 80% of female athletes had poorly fitting bras. Furthermore, ahead of the Tokyo Games 72% had reported pain in training as a result. A poorly fitting bra can have significant effect on performance by up to 4% which is large at the elite level, where margins are thin. On the engagement side it was said that 33% of women with a cup size of D or above say they don’t exercise because of their breast size

Pelvic floor

It is common knowledge that pelvic floor issues affect older and post-natal women. However this is not the only category of women it affects, it also affects athletes. Leaking urine during training and competition as a result of pelvic floor issues (even in women who have not had babies) is quite common in high impact sports such as trampoline, sprinting or basketball. Pelvic floor dysfunction is an understandable barrier to sport. Positively, this can be rectified by including gym based pelvic floor exercise.

Steps we could take to support female athletes better

I wanted to share some ideas in how we could support our female athletes better, this is not an exhaustive or very descriptive list however I wanted to create some discussion and more awareness around this area.

Education

With such a large amount coaches and females themselves not knowing their own bodies, the first stage is education. However, educating is nothing if we do not create a safe space for female athletes to speak out and share what they are going through.

Monitoring the menstrual cycle

There are many apps out there including Clue, Flo and Eve. Although collecting this data is sensitive it would be great if we got to a stage where we had this information on the female athletes we worked with and tailored workouts accordingly in every club or academy. For example, focusing on strength and reducing the volume in speed and plyometric training during certain stages of the menstrual cycle.

Environment

As alluded to in the first paragraph, creating a safe space also means creating an environment where there is no scarcity in items such as sanitary towels or menstrual cups as an example. If this is evident in academies then I believe this will positively add to female athletes being comfortable enough to share their feelings.

Training

I will not go into this in too much depth as there is a lot of great work out there. Conditioning programs will have to address the areas of proprioception, muscle imbalance and strength to serve the needs of the female athlete better. It may be, that we spend longer in phases that address these qualities and spend more time to focus on things like landing mechanics and single leg squatting.

“Check, Challenge, Change”

Thanks for reading guys,

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

Liked This Blog?

Find out more about Female Health at the Well HQ

Do you feel that this would be a perfect time to work on the weak links that you have been avoiding? The things that you know you should be doing that you keep putting off? Would you like us to help you with movement screening and an injury prevention program? Then click on the link below and let us help you!

? TRAIN WITH APA ?

Aspiring Pro Training Support Packages

Follow me on instagram @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz on instagram @apacoachdaz

With the initiation of a third lock down in the UK we thought it would be a great idea to engage our readers in some motivating posts to help keep you motivated.  We welcome back APA coach Konrad McKenzie with a weekly guest post.

During Lockdown, I have tasked myself with gaining an increased knowledge of anatomy and physiology so I have greater accuracy in my prescription of exercises. By this I mean, gaining a thorough understanding of how this particular exercise can positively affect performance. Today I wanted to talk about the ballistic quarter squat. Particularly, a concentrically focused variation. People looking at athletes performing this exercise and criticising the “lack of depth” need more context.

So today, I wanted to talk about why I would like to include this exercise in my programme for field and court based sports. This blog will consist of the following sections.

• Principle of specificity
• What is the Ballistic quarter squat
• Why is it relevant?
• When to include the ballistic quarter squat

Principle of specificity in Strength training

I was digging up some old material and I found this book, which I plan to reread “Periodization Training for Sports” by Tudor Bompa. They say nothing is new, just repackaged so it seems prudent to go back over the old texts. I’ll briefly go over some of the components of specificity and give a brief summary of them. Specificity is of huge importance as the body adapts in specific ways to a recurring stress, see “SAID principle”. There is a reason you form callouses on your palm, not your face when participating in frequent weightlifting (I hope).

SAID

A common term used in the area of strength and conditioning is an acronym for “Specific adaptations to imposed demands” meaning that the body will make adaptations that will allow the body to get better at tolerating a specific form of stress that is placed upon it.  Some of the variables to consider when determining an exercise’s specificity to the sporting demands include:

Joint range of movement

This refers to the joint angles regularly displayed by athletes performing the sport. For example, a tennis player preparing to initiate movement from a ready position. Or a front row rugby union player pushing in a scrum.

Bioenergetics

This refers to the energy system demands of the game for example, a game of junior tennis is predominantly an aerobic based sport with intermittent bursts of anaerobic activity. Another example would be the short sprints with high demands on the anaerobic-alactic system. Understanding energy systems will help decipher the work to rest ratios of the sport you are working in. Check out my blog on the “demands of the game” for tennis performance.

Planes of movement

Body movements occur in different planes around different axis. The three planes that you are typically taught are the frontal, transverse and sagittal plane. Field and court based sports would typically move in all the planes mentioned. For example, when hitting a groundstroke in Tennis a player will be predominantly working in the transverse plane however, when moving forward for a volley or dropshot there may be more of an emphasis in the sagittal plane. This is quite reductionist and planes of motion in sport could be an article in itself.

Muscle contraction (type and speed)

This is interesting and most recent conversations in this lockdown period, have forced me to ask how a muscle is “behaving” during a specific activity. What is the contraction type? How fast and how hard does it contract? For example isometric activity of the glute maximus in the stance phase of sprinting.

When constructing a needs analysis a coach would typically have these in mind when preparing a training programme. See my blog on Fundamentals underpinning a physical development strength program for the youth athlete.

What is the Ballistic Quarter squat?

Firstly, a ballistic method is a type of training where the athlete’s body (or object) is explosively accelerated throughout the entire movement. If we go back over our notes and look at Henneman’s size principle we know that motor units are recruited in a precise order according to their force output. It seems as though there is a superior activation of type two fibres with heavier loads as opposed to lighter ones (Henneman, 1965). Additionally, when exercises are performed in a ballistic manner they seem to have a superior potentiation effect compared to non-ballistic counterparts.

The Ballistic quarter squat is a squat variation with a heavy concentric focus. The lifter is asked to concentrically propel the barbell vertically using upper and lower limb, from a quarter squat position, as shown in the picture below.

Why is it relevant?

The Ballistic quarter squat is an exercise that I have come across recently, what was interesting to me was the “Ballistic” element of this exercise and rate of force development required to perform this exercise well. High levels of Power is the result of work divided by time, or in simpler terms, applying the highest amount of force in the shortest amount of time, significant for most field or court-based sports.  With some more research I found that performing this exercise at around 90% of one repetition maximum had superior effects on sprint and vertical jump performances (Weiss, 2000).  Other studies have also advocated the integration of quarter squats in a conditioning program (Rhea et al, 2016).

Possible reasons for this was again, the joint angle specificity but also the ability to overload the intensity at this joint angle. Highly trained athletes may squat 30-45% more in a partial range squat compared to a squat with full range.

Whilst this blog is not going to compare the differences between the full depth squat and quarter squat variations (readers are encouraged to read this paper if interested in that) it enables us to understand the relevance of the ballistic quarter squat.

1. Joint angles

Although it is said that many explosive movements in sports are initiated from a knee angle of approximately 90° (Suchomel, et al 2015) these include sprinters in the blocks, wrestling NFL linemen etc, I would argue that knee joint angles shallower than this are also executed. Thus, if we remind ourselves of the laws of specificity, training explosive strength from these similar joint angle positions would be beneficial for performance.

2. Propulsion

In order to overcome the body’s resting inertia, athletes need to be strong. How strong, is a topic for another day. But, muscles of the lower body (Glutes, Calves and quadriceps) most forcefully extend to project the body forward. If you look closely at my first picture under “What is a ballistic quarter squat” you will see the athlete forcefully extending knee hip and ankle. This extension occurs with high levels of intent and speed, although a heavy ballistic squat may not be specific to the speed of contraction, it will certainly enhance the force potential of leg musculature.

When to include the ballistic quarter squat

If we tie in the joint angle specificity, the muscle contraction type/speed, motor unit activation from heavy loads and the bioenergetics of the movement, the ballistic quartet squat seems to have a place in my exercise inventory.

Due to the reported benefits at performing this movement at 90% or 1RM it seems rational to include this in a power phase, more specifically a strength-speed phase of the annual plan.

Thanks for reading guys,

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

Liked This Blog?

You might like other blogs on this topic from APA:

APA review of the Middlesex Students S&C conference 2014

The Dubious Rise of the Corrective Exercise ”Pseudo-Physio” Posing as a Trainer- My thoughts

as well as two recommended articles:

This article on weak Glutes during Squatting

And this one on Exercise Modifications 

Do you feel that this would be a perfect time to work on the weak links that you have been avoiding? The things that you know you should be doing that you keep putting off? Would you like us to help you with movement screening and an injury prevention program? Then click on the link below and let us help you!

? TRAIN WITH APA ?

Aspiring Pro Training Support Packages

Follow me on instagram @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz on instagram @apacoachdaz

With the initiation of a third lock down in the UK we thought it would be a great idea to engage our readers in some motivating posts to help keep you motivated.  We welcome back APA coach Konrad McKenzie with a weekly guest post.

Hi guys,

Today I wanted to talk about one person’s friend and another person’s enemy. The calf. The time where it gets to summer and you realise neglecting your calves all winter makes itself apparent in shorts. But, did you know that the calf plays a pivotal role in physical performance? I’m here to explain why.

At APA we have been having some great discussions around the calves and I am excited to share some of this information with you. Before we dive into training the calf, I wanted to briefly talk about its anatomy, as it will allow the reader to understand what role it plays in sprinting. The two muscles that I want to focus on are the Gastrocnemius and the Soleus. Both muscles insert in to the Calcaneus via the Achilles tendon however what is interesting to highlight that the Soleus (mono-articular), unlike the Gastrocnemius (bi-articular), does not cross the knee joint.

The Soleus explored further

Whereas the gastrocnemius plays more of a propulsive role the Soleus (coming from the latin word “Solea”) plays an important role in stability during running.

The Soleus will work hard to keep the tibia over the Calcaneus to prevent you from falling forwards, during this time forces up to eight times bodyweight can be tolerated. The Soleus is predominately made up of Type 1 Slow twitch fibres.

Due to the higher proportion of type one fibres the Soleus is known as the “Workhorse” due to its high endurance capability and high importance in stabilisation.

The Gastrocnemius explored further

Whereas the Soleus plays more of a supportive role in Explosive activity the Gastrocnemius are able to provide a significant source of power in propulsion due to the higher proportion of type two fibres.

“Our simulation reveals that the ankle plantarflexors are the primary contributors to both propulsion and support of the body mass center during late stance” – (Hamner et al, 2010)

The Achilles tendon explored further

Also known as the biological springs, tendons play a vital role in assisting muscle work by storing energy known as elastic strain energy. This allows the human movement system to go beyond its intrinsic muscle properties, once this energy is released. As a result this amplifies power output. It is important to note that “Amplification” does not necessarily mean adding energy to the system but rather its rapid release.

I have always been fascinated by the “spring” in the Masai warrior, a real display if athleticism, the reader is encouraged to have a look at this on YouTube.

What role does the high strength & stiffness in the calf complex in injury prevention?

“Strengthen your calves, save your hips”

With the lockdown upon us and many more people participating in running based activity it is useful to incorporate some exercises to help keep you robust. During running the Soleus works eccentrically to slow the forward movement of the shin, with the aim of reducing knee load. Additionally, having strong calves will help you move with biomechanical efficiency preventing problems further up the body particularly in the hip region.

Give this a try

Rather than perpetually stretching your calf muscles, have you ever thought they might be weak?

If you haven’t got access to fancy force plate testing systems, try finding a bench or a step. Perform a straight legged, single leg calf raise till voluntary failure, how many repetitions did you get? Does your technique begin to breakdown before 20-25 repetitions? Then it may be time to add some calf strengthening to your routines.

OK my Calves are weak what can I do about it?

• Bodyweight to loaded progressions

• Aim for 2-3 sessions a week

• Aim for 3 sets of 12-15 repetitions

Mastered this? Now let’s look at loaded progressions?

The muscles of the calf complex are strong and to train them effectively, once they reach a certain level, will require significant amounts of load, to put this into perspective elite athletes will use 20% of their bodyweight of each leg for three sets of 20 repetitions. In some cases athletes will handle loads of 200% of bodyweight in an isometric contraction (3-5 second holds). Additionally, performing exercises, e.g calf raises, with a bent knee will bias the Soleus.

What about plyometrics?

You have performed a knee to wall test and you’ve determined you have ample range of movement. Does this mean you have bullet proof lower limbs? What if I told you that having too much flexibility without pre-requisite strength and stiffness could create joint instability? Thus risk of injury.

When broken down into its parts. Running is a series of hops from one leg to another, therefore musculo-tendinous units need sufficient “spring” and pre-activation for propulsion and injury prevention.

Once you have determined that your lower limb has suitable levels of strength and endurance it will be a great time to add in some plyometrics into your program. A good approach I like to use is extensive to intensive exercises. E.g pogo jumps progressing to activities that place greater demands on musculo-tendinous structures.

Ultimately, nothing will eliminate the risk of injury entirely unless you stop playing sports entirely, but we can give our bodies the ability to at least tolerate the demands placed on the body by sporting activities. The lower limbs are often overlooked but once we understand a bit about their role and function in sports, their importance becomes apparent.

Although simplified, as the human body is more complicated than we think, I hope this blog has been insightful and given you some things to think about and explore in further detail. I want to leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler”

Thanks for reading guys,

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

Liked This Blog?

You might like other blogs on this topic from APA:

APA review of the Middlesex Students S&C conference 2014

The Dubious Rise of the Corrective Exercise ”Pseudo-Physio” Posing as a Trainer- My thoughts

as well as two recommended articles:

This article on weak Glutes during Squatting

And this one on Exercise Modifications 

Do you feel that this would be a perfect time to work on the weak links that you have been avoiding? The things that you know you should be doing that you keep putting off? Would you like us to help you with movement screening and an injury prevention program? Then click on the link below and let us help you!

? TRAIN WITH APA ?

Aspiring Pro Training Support Packages

Follow me on instagram @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz on instagram @apacoachdaz