Fundamentals or Advanced Training? I don't think drills are bad but they tend to fail to prove that they transfer as much as we think to believe. Some drills may have different effects on various athletes and various times of development. A drill at an early stage may teach a part but at advance levels may hinder change. Some drills are just physical tools to stretch or strengthen parts of the event and allow athletes to display their natural CPGs (central pattern generators). I am not of the belief that their must be accountability with drills as athletes like doing them as they are easier to find success in. Not running well? Do drills and work on technique. Coaching is not just plugging in a few cues or drills. I hope we should use the term derivative exercises more than drills to ensure we are not over drilling. I think banana hurdles are useful for athletes that are trying to work on running off the hurdles. Based on the research of top hurdling, the steps off the hurdles can be drain by parasitic errors such as departure angles and upper body mechanics.

Running over the small hurdles allows a gradual increase of frequency to be infused into the step patterns of 42 inches so when the trail leg is fixed via take off angle it can meet the ground without the common error dropping of the center of mass or slow step down. Drills can't replicate this very much but they ...Keep Reading

All training is about improving movement. Training movements not muscles is not my idea that comes from the literature, neurologically the brain does not recognize individual muscles, it recognizes patterns of movement. I think the mistake we make is thinking that training is an end unto itself; training is ALWAYS a means to an end. We have to focus on the fact that we are preparing the athlete to thrive in the competitive arena, to be highly adaptable and efficient in all aspects of performance. That demands a multifaceted training program that challenges the athlete to solve increasingly complex movement problems. There is nothing wrong with measuring strength, or jump performance or any other physical quality that can be measured, but those measure must be put in context. Just because you bench press X amount or jump Y height does not necessarily mean you will be a better player. The problem is that it is easy to get caught up chasing numbers like this and be fooled. Essentially these are random numbers unless placed in context. We must also remember that most of our classical performance tests measure one part of the performance paradigm - force production. We know from biomechanical analysis and experience that force reduction is a bigger limiting factor and proprioception lends quality to the movement. Both are more difficult to measure, so they are often ignored. ...Keep Reading

Is it just my imagination or are we seeing an increase of hip labral tears? Is this another case of more sophisticated diagnostic techniques finding something that was always there? I know this was a big topic at a sports medicine conference I spoke at last year. The surgeons were all discussing arthroscopic procedures used for the surgery. I just have to be a bit skeptical. I would appreciated any comments; perhaps I am missing something here. It just reminds of the time our team physician with the White Sox had gone to a conference and heard a talk on slap lesions in the shoulder. In spring training physical with the minor leaguers he started look for slap lesions. Guest what, he started finding them.

Approach with 8 Steps



Approach with 7 Steps

When looking at speed over the hurdle is to look at the hips as they are the center of mass. We are going to use 8 steps to keep him consistent this year but from a long term approach I don't want to limit his college coach if a few years from now 7 is the new 8. I will review a more advanced hurdler and share what we plan to address in detail later.

I was sent an article written by Ken Mannie, Strength and Conditioning coach at Michigan State entitled Traditional vs. Functional: Balancing the Scales. What is the difference between traditional training and functional training or traditional strength training and functional strength training? Is there a difference? What scales are we trying to balance? Let start with a definition - Functional training incorporates a full spectrum of training methods, designed to elicit optimum adaptive response appropriate for the sport or activity being trained for. It is not a choice between traditional and functional, nor is it a balance. For some reason people love to categorize and pigeonhole ideas and concepts to either justify of refute certain ideas.

All training is functional; it is just a matter of how functional in relation to preparation for the sport or activity trained for. There are very simple steps to follow 1) Determine the demands of the sport you are preparing for 2) Determine the demands of the position or event in the sport 3) Determine the qualities of the individual athlete 4) Address injury prevention by understanding the pattern of injuries that occur in that sport. Using this simple algorithm as a starting point not much is left to chance. Then apply these criteria to your strength training in selecting the exercises and movements: 1) Multiple joint, 2) ...Keep Reading