Athletic Performance Toolbox

Stop Working on Dumb Stuff

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This article as provided by Busy.Coach

By Mandy Greene

The Pareto principle states that 20% of a person’s effort generates 80% of the person’s results. The corollary to this is that 20% of one’s results absorb 80% of one’s resources or efforts. For the effective use of resources, the coach’s challenge is to distinguish the right 20% from the trivial many.

Identify the high-payoff activities within your program.  High-payoff activities are the things you do that bring the greatest value to your program, team, or staff.  They are the three to five activities that lie in your “sweet spot.”  You do them with excellence.  These activities could be building relationships with recruits, making phone calls to parents, sending emails to recruits, managing your current team, etc.  They are your unique discipline or distinctive skills and abilities that distinguish you from other staff members.

Being able to prioritize your personnel, time, and energy will allow you the freedom to produce more efficient results.

Here are a few exercises taken from John Maxwell’s book Developing the Leader within Youthat should get you started:

Task Priorities

Determine what 20% of the work gives 80% of the return. These activities could be building relationships with recruits, making phone calls to parents, sending emails to recruits, managing your current team, etc.  They are your unique discipline or distinctive skills and abilities that distinguish you from other staff members.

Make a list of the tasks that you are working on today, this week, and in the near future.

Place each task next to the appropriate category below.

  • List of things to do now (High Importance/High Urgency). Tackle these tasks first;
  • List of things to do (High Importance/Low Urgency). Set deadlines for completion and get these tasks worked into your daily routine
  • List of things to delegate (Low Importance/High Urgency). Find quick, efficient ways to get this work done without much personal involvement. Delegate it.
  • Low Importance/Low Urgency: Busy or repetitious work. Delegate it.

Staff/Team Oversight and Leadership Development

  • Determine which people are the top 20% producers. Start by making a list of everyone on your team.
  • For each individual, ask yourself, if this person takes a negative action against me or withdraws his or her support from me, how big will the impact be?”
  • If their absence would hinder your ability to function, put a check mark next to that name.
  • When you finish making the check marks, you will have marked between 15 and 20 percent of the names. These are the vital relationships that need to be developed and given the proper amount of resources to grow your program.
  • Meet one-on-one with the people you checked above.
  • Spend 80 percent of your “people time” with the top 20%
  • Spend 80 percent of your personal development dollars on the 20%

Sit down and spend the time to find out how this principle applies within almost every aspect of your program, and you have the power to set the vital priorities which will mean the difference between failure, survival, and success. This principle will save you time, effort, money and resources, and take you further down the road to success.

Knowing what your high-payoff activities are and actually doing them, however, are two very different things.  Many surveys that I have read over the past several years have shown that the average American worker spends only 50-60 percent of the workday on activities specified in her or her job description.  That means that workers waste 40-50 percent of their time on low-payoff activities, tackling things that others with less skill or training should be doing.  Are you in this category coach?

By disciplining yourself to clearly identify your high-payoff activities, and then by filling your calendar with those things and appropriately delegating, delaying, or dropping the low-payoff activities, you can and will get more productive things done everyday, reduce your stress, and increase your happiness.

The more time you spend doing the high-payoff activities, the more value you will bring to your team, program, and staff.  By disciplining yourself to clearly identify your high-payoff activities, and then by filling your calendar with those things and appropriately delegating, delaying, or dropping the low-payoff activities, you can and will get more high-payoff activities done everyday, reduce your stress, and increase your happiness.

Have a great week.

Body Composition

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This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

Analyzing athletes’ body composition can lay the groundwork for diet and lifestyle interventions that boost lean mass, reduce fat, and ultimately improve both performance and health.
By Amy BraggAmy Bragg, RD, CSSD, LD, is in her sixth year as Director of Performance Nutrition at Texas A&M University. She can be reached at: braggamy@hotmail.com.Whether they’re on the field, court, or track, coaches use a mix of art and science to measure their team’s gains. They combine observations with game statistics to figure out where the team needs to improve.Strength coaches often do the same thing in the weightroom. By watching athletes work out and periodically testing them, we can determine how they are progressing.Recently, many athletic programs have added another tool for assessing athletes: systematic body composition testing. Here at Texas A&M University, we regard individual and aggregate team body composition data as essential in evaluating nutrition outcomes and their impact on performance.In some ways, body composition analysis seems simple. Decreases in body fat and increases in lean mass mean the athlete’s conditioning has improved, and thus he or she is making progress. But the numbers themselves don’t tell the whole story. Analyzing the scores correctly and providing the right advice is what makes the testing worthwhile.

BEST USES
A decade ago, body composition was usually measured using calipers. Today, we can also choose from a Bod Pod, underwater weighing, bioelectrical impedance analysis, or dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), which is what we use at Texas A&M. The x-ray provides bone mineral density (BMD in g/cm_ along with T-scores and Z-scores) plus quantified total mass, lean mass, body fat, and bone mass expressed as bone mineral content. Regardless of the method, there are many ways to use the results.

A major benefit of body comp testing is that it builds confidence in the training and nutrition plans we provide for our athletes. When hard work results in increases in lean mass, athletes buy into our expertise and the program as a whole. Your school’s nutrition expert should be responsible for testing and communicating results to student-athletes, as this helps reinforce the significance of nutrition for athletic success.

The results also provide a form of motivation. We know proper strength and conditioning requires intensity in the weightroom. The variables with collegiate athletes are often nutritional consistency, timing, and food choice. Working toward a specific body comp goal can keep the competitive fires stoked through grueling workouts and challenging eating plans.

Body comp testing can be especially helpful when athletes are not on campus. “We can track changes in lean mass over training breaks and hold athletes accountable while they’re away,” says Raychelle Ellsworth, MSCC, CSCS, Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning for Olympic Sports at Texas A&M. “It gives an accurate picture of each athlete’s training intensity and frequency when we are not there with them.”

For those student-athletes who require extra motivation to ensure success, frequent body composition measurement can keep them on track toward their goals. The incremental feedback reinforces the importance of good decisions and demonstrates that poor nutritional choices carry a heavy price. If an athlete is getting off track or losing steam, an extra body comp test can help push them back on the path to success.

We often use body comp analysis in different ways for different athletes. For those with very poor eating habits who need large improvements in body comp, we’ll focus on the basics. We provide nutrition education and counseling and they are able to see their numbers change fairly quickly.

For the athlete who has naturally ideal composition, we’ll take a more detailed approach. We talk about improving lean mass and how small, incremental changes can make a difference. We’ll coach for a positive change in lean mass, explaining how this will help him or her be more explosive, more agile, and stronger.

Jeff Fuller, a freshman wide receiver on the Aggies football team, fell into this last category. “I came in at the weight I wanted to play, but the nutrition program helped me lose fat, gain muscle, and maintain my weight,” he told Aggie Websider, an online sports news outlet. “My body scans were a lot different. In the first one, I weighed 210 and I had six or seven percent body fat, which was decent. The second time I weighed 205 and my muscle went up and my body fat went down a whole percentage point.”

Fuller said he learned a lot through A&M’s focus on body composition. “There were a lot of things I thought were good to eat, but really weren’t,” he continued. “When you go to Subway you think you’re eating healthy, but that’s not necessarily true because of all the condiments and bacon and cheese and stuff you can get.” Jeff’s results at the end of the 2009 off-season showed an all-time high in lean mass, along with well-maintained body fat and overall weight.

For weight-sensitive athletes, especially those in aesthetic sports, testing results can show positive trends not apparent on a bathroom scale, which is integral to building and sustaining healthy training and eating habits. “The success story I see most often is the athlete who has been asked to lose weight for performance benefits,” says Ruth Taylor, MS, RD, CSSD, Sports Nutritionist at the University of Georgia.

“The athlete has been following a healthy performance meal plan and training hard, but is not seeing a change in weight measured on the scale, so both the athlete and coach are frustrated,” she continues. “When the body composition results from baseline and eight weeks out show us a loss of fat and gain in muscle, they can plainly see that they are reaching their goals.”

At the same time, it’s critical to red flag any athletes who treat body fat measurements as a point of obsession, which can indicate or lead to an eating disorder. In these instances, we stress that body composition is great feedback, but not the only measure of performance. For their own health and safety, results may be withheld from these athletes on occasion.

A great way to begin the discussion with an at-risk athlete is to ask something like, “Based on your training and eating, what are you expecting from today’s body scan?” Obsessive athletes never give themselves credit for good eating patterns–they only think about their indulgences. Sharing positive results reinforces moderation and a constructive outlook on nutrition and training.

In fact, to prevent overvaluing body comps, we do not share results with student-athletes until we have two scans to compare. The body composition or body fat percentage “magic number” doesn’t matter nearly as much as the trend, or the change over time. Handling results in this manner is consistent with our educational message and frames the results in a realistic, healthy way.

To best manage those who overvalue the tests, we continually monitor body comp to ensure body fat does not trend dangerously low, and reinforce the message that zero body fat is not the goal. If athletes don’t receive education and reasonable goals from professionals, they turn to less credible sources of information.

We do, however, use the initial body composition scan as a screening tool for disordered eating. Nothing illustrates compromised nutritional intake quite like bone density. Using the volume of scans we have collected since early 2006, we’ve compiled bone density standards for each team and even some specific positions (see “Sport by Sport” below for some examples). When an athlete’s initial scan results are significantly lower than our team index, we follow up with a full nutritional assessment and appropriate calcium and vitamin D supplementation. Scans may be repeated to assess progress and changes in bone density and overall body composition.

Another reason we do body comps is to develop a rapport between the sports nutritionist and student-athletes. Every Texas A&M athlete undergoes a body comp test, followed by a meeting with a nutritionist. This frames nutrition as a factor in performance and eliminates the “punitive” perception that may arise from referring athletes to the nutritionist. Too often, athletes perceive a referral for nutrition consultation as something for the “problem” athletes, the “big guys,” or eating-disordered athletes. When everyone meets with the nutritionist, nutrition becomes a coaching point for all athletes and another element in optimizing sport performance.

Team reporting also fosters collaboration among support staff and coaches. “Helping with our team body composition assessments quickly integrated me into our athletic population,” says Jonathan Tanguay, MS, RD, LD, Assistant Director of Performance Nutrition at Texas A&M. “That introduction to our athletes created familiarity and fostered success as I took over more nutritional coaching responsibility with Aggie athletes.”

COACHING POINTS
Regardless of how you use body comp testing, the key is to provide clear nutrition advice along with the numbers. The most disconcerting situation for a student-athlete is body composition assessment without personal feedback and actionable tasks. This feedback should include perspective on the individual’s development, nutrition coaching, and practical strategies.

Here are four common body comp test results, and our typical responses:

On the right track. When an athlete shows increases in lean mass and decreases in body fat, they are likely doing everything right–making quality food choices and eating the right quantity. In this case, we reinforce the positive outcome and use the momentum to build an even greater investment in optimal nutrition, using the following steps:

• Probe current nutrition habits and find small places for improvement.

• Assess micronutrients for performance optimization and injury prevention.

• Begin to lay the groundwork for in-season priorities by assessing the athlete’s in-season body comp history.

Body fat increase. Freshmen will typically increase lean mass, but may also increase body fat. Away from home and working out harder than ever before, they may consume too many calories in all the wrong categories. The advice here is to reduce meal portions and possibly increase eating frequency. But we also talk to each athlete about his or her dietary choices and how to change them:

• Push early calories, with the goal of taking in 50 percent of daily calories by the completion of the lunch meal.

• Assess energy intake from beverages, condiments, and empty calories.

• Evaluate the frequency and quantity of fried food consumption, and encourage switching to grilled, baked, and roasted alternatives.

• Recommend eliminating junk food late at night and train the body to be hungry earlier in the day.

• Add high-fiber options to dinner, such as whole fruit, side salads, and vegetables to enhance satiety.

• Advise stocking the pantry with sensible snacks to satisfy late-night cravings.

Decreases everywhere. When an athlete has a decrease in both lean mass and body fat, an immediate response is needed to prevent negative performance repercussions. This test result can also be a red flag that the athlete is using stimulants.

Along with talking about the seriousness of the test result, we’ll evaluate their use of energy drinks and supplements, prioritize rest, and promote healthy eating. We’ll also monitor the athlete’s body image, emotional vulnerability, and diet. And we will counsel them on how to increase nutrient density:

• Add peanut butter, cheese, guacamole, and two-percent dairy products for weight support.

• Add 100-percent juice or two-percent milk to meals, and drink less water.

• Snack on trail mix and higher-calorie (300+ kcal) energy bars.

• Never go to bed on empty. Have a snack of cereal and milk, peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese on a bagel, or other breakfast food.

Complete overhaul needed. Sometimes, an athlete will be heading in exactly the wrong direction, showing an increase in body fat and a decrease in lean mass. This may be due to an injury or a training break. The main direction here is to reduce food quantity and provide advice on quality choices:

• Reinforce a minimum of four meals per day plus customized recovery.

• Maintain structure in the day and review sleeping habits.

• Encourage adequate energy and protein intake to fuel recovery.

• Present the athlete with cost-effective shopping lists and meal ideas.

• Give realistic goals and a timeline for returning to the previous fitness level.

• When dealing with vulnerable athletes, remind them of previous success and reinforce healthy training and eating patterns. Without downplaying data, remind athletes not to overvalue their baseline.

CASE STUDIES
We use the above guidelines as a basis for more specific plans for an athlete or team. The strength coach, athletic trainer, and I typically analyze the individual and aggregate data to form practical recommendations. Here are some examples:

Softball Success. Team data can be profoundly influential for a coaching staff when it comes to eating during the season and on the road. The information drives home the importance of in-season nutrition and the cumulative effect of poorly chosen food patterns. One team we’ve worked closely with is softball.

Following a productive off-season, the team entered a new season primed for success. The Aggies advanced to the super regional, but ended the season in disappointing fashion, having not achieved the goal of advancing to the Women’s College World Series (WCWS).

After completing postseason body comps, the performance nutrition staff reviewed them with the strength and conditioning coach. We found that players struggled with weight fluctuation during the season, as some lost lean mass and others gained body fat. In short, team speed and power seemed compromised at the height of competition. We shared the results with the coaching staff and athletes, and gave the athletes a survey, asking what they felt their needs were. We asked them:

• What are you interested in knowing more about in nutrition?
• What do you struggle with most in-season that pertains to nutritional intake?
• When do you feel most fatigued?
• What did you like and dislike about travel nutrition last season?
• What can the nutrition staff do to help improve your performance?

From the survey, we found that the athletes were very interested in knowing how to lose fat mass (see a sample of our findings in “Survey Results” below). We then focused team talks on defining healthy body composition, and presented options on how to manage body comp throughout the season. The captains led the discussion to determine our final course of action. The team decided to focus on these points:

• Improve nutrition on road trips by following optimal menu choices provided by the nutrition staff and foregoing all soft drinks. Tables were pre-set with water at each place setting.

• Prioritize recovery nutrition. Athletes were charged with doing this individually after workouts, while postgame meals were pre-ordered by the operations staff. We also tweaked in-season conditioning to promote preservation of ideal body composition.

When body comps were completed before the following season, 71 percent of team members had preserved or increased lean mass while controlling body fat (the percentage would have been higher, but some players were injured and did not follow a normal training and eating schedule). It showed on the scoreboard, too, as the team advanced to the WCWS for the first time in nearly 20 seasons. Before the tournament, we shared these results to bolster the confidence of our team and coaching staff.

Following that season, the athletes wanted to further their body comp success by learning more about how to make good nutrition choices on an everyday basis. Each player met with the nutrition staff for one-on-one sessions and the team enjoyed a grocery store tour focused on their areas of interest. At the end of the off-season, the team’s body comp report card showed a gain of 62 pounds of lean mass spread across the 17 players on the roster. Body fat percentage remained in an optimal range and several athletes smashed individual goals. All their hard work paid off, as the team advanced to the championship game in the WCWS the following year and won the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles.

Their Own Culture. Baseball players are a unique breed when it comes to nutrition. They range from the very vain, highly developed power athlete to those with a Babe Ruth-like physique. Supplements and stimulants are a part of the culture.

In addition, superstitions and rituals often take precedence over nutrition. Pregame meals are tracked alongside wins and losses. No matter how popular a menu is, if it doesn’t lead to wins, it will be replaced.

We work with our baseball team in the off-season in several targeted sessions, which we map out in collaboration with the coaching staff. We go over sports nutrition basics, hydration, carbohydrates, protein, fat, maximizing recovery, and gaining lean mass (see “Baseball Sessions” below). We bundle these educational efforts with team meals to make the meetings more social and interactive and less like lectures. What better time to talk about the benefits of good nutrition than when a team is making food choices?

Standout achievements in body composition are recognized by the coaching staff. Our outstanding student-athlete in 2007 was a catcher who needed to lean out to improve performance. Baseline DXA showed a total mass around 186 pounds and lean mass of 129 pounds, with a higher-end body fat percentage and healthy bone mass. Specific strategies centered on prioritizing quality rest, incorporating more lean proteins, and pushing early calories while tapering intake downward after dinner. Following off-season conditioning, off-season nutrition programming, and a couple of individual nutrition sessions, this athlete added more than eight pounds of muscle and dropped nine and a half pounds of fat (more than five percent of his total body fat). Nothing reiterates the value of good nutrition choices like results.

Hidden Problem. Working with our track team the last few years, we had grown accustomed to seeing amazing body composition and fitness levels among freshmen. For one athlete, however, our initial body composition baseline screening showed significantly low bone mass and density. The athlete was invited in for an appointment, and screening continued as we inquired about body image and diet, looking for evidence of disordered eating. After finding nothing, I talked to the athletic trainer and coach to learn more about the athlete in question.

From them, I found the missing piece of the puzzle. This athlete’s home environment was fraught with food insecurity. There was a family history of obesity, and the athlete initially began running to control her weight. She lacked confidence in her food choices and had no previous nutrition education.

We started a personalized supplement regimen of calcium and vitamin D, coached her on adequate nutrition, and continued to monitor her bone density. Now, this athlete thrives in the competitive environment and is a role model for nutrition among her teammates. With encouragement, she’s become a more adventurous eater and appreciates the care given to her bone health. A simple screening and aggressive response set this athlete up for success, and prevented the development of disordered habits.

As these stories show, investing time and resources in body composition testing and extracting every performance-enhancing detail from both individual and team reports can yield great results. The keys are to position your nutrition expert as a performance coach who reaches every athlete on the team, make use of the data along with athlete feedback to establish feeding guidelines, prioritize nutrition education, and deliver appealing, dynamic nutrition sessions. Optimal nutrition benefits student-athletes’ health and wellness and, ultimately, fuels your win column.

Sidebar: SPORT BY SPORT
Over the past few years, we have compiled numbers on average bone density (in g/cm_) in various sports for comparison purposes:
Sport — Bone Density 
Basketball — 1.31
Cross Country — 1.171
Diving — 1.21
Soccer — 1.289
Softball — 1.27
Swimming — 1.166
Tennis — 1.174
Track (Sprinters) — 1.31
Volleyball — 1.27

Sidebar: SURVEY RESULTS
We gave our softball players a survey to discover what they felt were their greatest nutritional needs. Here are some of the results:

I am interested in knowing more about:

How to lose weight or fat mass — 86%
How to stock my pantry at home — 86%
Preparing quick and easy meals at home — 71%
Supplements, vitamins, and minerals — 43%
Nutrition to enhance immune function — 29%
How to increase lean mass — 14%
Hydration strategies — 14%
How to gain weight — 0%
Recovery nutrition — 0%

During the season I struggle with:

Weight gain — 57%
Fatigue — 43%
Frequent illness — 14%
Muscle cramps during games — 14%
Running out of energy during practice — 14%

I feel most fatigued:

Near the end of the season — 71%
During final exams — 43%
During off-season training — 29%
During preseason practice — 14%

Sidebar: BASEBALL SESSIONS
Here are the educational sessions we presented to the Texas A&M baseball team:

Sports Nutrition Basics
• Breakfast
• Meal Frequency
• Fast Food
• Applications for Individual Athletes

Hydration: Choose Your Beverage
• Signs of Dehydration
• General Guidelines for Fluids
• Alcohol Calories
• Sugar/Abdominal Fat Connection
• Effects of Hydration on Performance and Body Composition

Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats
• Targeting Carbs, Protein, and Fat Needs via Diet
• Shopping For and Preparing Easy Meals

Nutritional Strategies for Maximizing Recovery
• Recovery/Rest
• Glycogen/Endurance
• Staying Healthy Throughout the Season
• Individual Recovery Prescriptions

Gaining Lean Mass: Optimizing Body Composition
• Caloric Needs
• Carbohydrate and Protein Needs
• Lean Mass vs. Weight Gain

Dumbbells for Strength and Power

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This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

There are many weightlifting options for coaches who are helping an athlete develop strength and power. But one piece of equipment that is often overlooked could be the best tool for the job—the dumbbell. There are a plethora of advantages that come with using the dumbbell, including core strength, building sport specific movements, and even safely re-entering the weight room after injury.

This versatility allows coaches to choose exercises that are easier on injured athletes. As Hedrick explains, both arms do not need to be utilized when using dumbbells, as opposed to a barbell. This means that even if an athlete has a shoulder or other arm injury, they do not need to completely discontinue their weight room workouts. They can simply work on their uninjured side. And the same type of thinking can be applied to lower-body injuries.

“Similarly, a lower-body injury would prevent athletes from performing Olympic lifts with a barbell,” writes Hedrick. “However, by using just one dumbbell, stabilizing the body by holding onto something stable with the opposite hand, and lifting the injured leg off the floor, athletes can adapt the Olympic lifts to accommodate one leg.”

Being able to utilize one dumbbell at a time is also useful for helping new athletes learn sport specific movements, while also helping veteran athletes to strengthen them. Hedrick explains that with dumbbells, you can utilize exercises with alternating movements or single-arm movements, helping to teach and strengthen sport specific activities, such as spiking a volleyball, throwing a baseball, or swinging a racket.

With so many different types of exercises available for athletes, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to progress when it comes to dumbbell weight. In an article for Livestrong, trainer Mike Samuels states that using heavy weights too soon can cause poor form, which can then lead to injury. But knowing which weights to use depends a lot on the type of exercise an athlete is doing and the level of training they have already achieved.

No matter the type of exercise, Samuels suggests athletes start off at a weight with which they are able to do at least 15 perfect repetitions without too much strain. From here, athletes should move up in increments of no more than 5 pounds for each subsequent workout. While increasing weight, it is important to keep an eye on the athlete’s form. If form begins to fail, chances are that the athlete is using a weight that is too heavy. If this happens, they should move back down to the previous weight until they have built up enough strength to move up without losing form.

For athletes that have already been integrating dumbbells into their workouts, Samuels explains increasing weight can be harder, but that it can be done through cyclical progression.

“Most intermediate trainees will follow a linear microcycle, which could be three sets of 12 reps for four weeks, three sets of 10 with a slightly heavier weight in weeks five to eight and four sets of eight with a heavier weight again in weeks nine to 12,” he writes. “You would then go back to week one, but use a heavier weight [than the] first time round. This means you’ll be increasing your dumbbell strength every 12 weeks.”

In an article for Muscle & Strength, Eric Bach, CSCS, describes multiple dumbbell exercises and the benefits that they offer to the athlete. Here are two of those exercises:

Dumbbell Farmers Walk

The Farmer’s Walk improves both power and safety as it reinforces stability to the core. This will help decrease the chances of flexing your spine when doing other exercises, and increase your power when taking off in a sprint during game time.

  1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your arms at your sides and palms facing in.
  2. Stand as tall as possible with your shoulders retracted and slightly shrugged.
  3. Walk slowly forward. With each step, the heel of the moving foot should line up with the toe of the stationary foot.
  4. Continue standing tall throughout the movement. Do not allow your body to sway or move laterally.

Watch this video from Bach Performance to see the Farmer’s Walk in motion.

Dumbbell Push Press

The Push Press uses the athlete’s ability to move the weight as fast as possible. This utilizes more muscle fibers and stimulates muscle growth, helping increase upper body power.

  1. Hold the dumbbells at shoulder height.
  2. In a quick motion, dip into a quarter squat and immediately push upwards so your arms are straight and the weights are above your head.
  3. Lock the weights overhead, then lower them back to your shoulders.

To see the Push Press in motion, check out this video from Bach Performance.

Agility Wheel

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In the video clip below highly regarded strength and conditioning expert Alan Stein demonstrates a great agility drill that can be used with your athletes. In the clip Coach Stein shows three variations to his Agility Wheel Drill.  You could obviously create other variations using your imagination.

The Agility Wheel is simply 8 cones placed in a circle with a diameter of approx 10-12 ft. A ninth cone is placed in the center of the circle.  The circle can be made bigger or smaller depending on what you want to get out of the drill.

The first drill begins with a player at the center cone. He then sprints to one of the cones and touches it with his hand and sprints back to the center cone and touches it. Next he will sprint to the next cone in the circle, touch it and return to the center cone. He continues until he has touched all 8 cones in the circle.

In the second drill the athlete will start in the center and sprint to a cone on the circle and touch it with his hand. This time he will shuffle back to the center cone, then sprint to the next cone on the circle and shuffle back. he will continue until each cone has been touched.

The third variation has the athlete sprinting from the center out to a cone on the circle and back pedaling to the center cone. He will continue until he has sprinted out to each cone.

This agility drill is just one of many drills that can be found in Coach Stein’s training DVD. For more information about that DVD click the link:  130 “Pro Power” Speed, Quickness and Reaction Drills

 

The YouTube video below has audio, so please make sure that your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site. Note that some schools block access to YouTube. Click the arrow to play the video

Recovery Drills

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This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

By Cass Barrett
Cass Barrett, BA, CFSC, CPT, FMS, FRCmS, began his coaching journey teaching body position and breathing as a U.S. Marine Corps Primary Marksmanship Instructor (P.M.I.), and for the last 17 years has coached everyone from the weekend warrior to professional & international level competitors. Most recently, Cass was a corrective exercise technician in a physical therapy clinic, and the assistant strength and conditioning coach for the 2016 PRO-Rugby North America Champion Denver Stampede. He now owns and operates his own private training studio.
As strength and conditioning coaches and performance enhancement specialists, we have cornered the market on high threshold programming. We know full well how to rev our athletes up. But amidst all the 1RM testing, vertical jumps, 40-yard sprints, and other tests of intensity, have we forgotten a variable?

That variable can be loosely referred to as “recovery,” and is perhaps more appropriately called “resilience or rejuvenation training.” Without it, there is no fitness, no performance, and ultimately, no reason to train.

The goal of dedicated resilience training is to merge activities that promote down-throttling of the central nervous system (CNS) and facilitate long-term habit development. This means using modalities that are not too complicated and that don’t invoke a negative emotional response.

A good example of this type of practice is approximately two to three minutes of foam rolling before (or after) lifting. Although it is often times a point of conjecture, the value of checking the body for inordinately sore or tight muscles is hard to argue against. And while we understand that the effect on physical structure of the tissue is minimal, the other valuable aspects of foam rolling, such as dampening neural tone and aiding the flow of blood into the tissue, create reason enough to devote a few minutes to this practice.

Breathing drills offer another low level, high impact ritual for resilience and rejuvenation. Breath training is becoming a much more mainstream practice in elite level strength and conditioning as more and more coaches are educated on its impact on performance. Take legendary NFL strength coach Joe Kenn, for instance. One of the first activities on his Block Zero programming itinerary is breathing drills.

The relevance of this practice is easy to recognize once we start to consider the impact of a more efficient oxygen exchange in the lungs. An easy way to move forward with breath training is to have your athletes begin with simple nasal inhalation and emphasize the inflation of the stomach. Of course, the air isn’t actually filling the stomach, but the lower portion of the lungs, and this is where the alveolar concentration is located.

Additionally, breath work is another route to down-throttle the CNS in order that stiff muscles might be more compliant, presenting a window of opportunity for mobility and dynamic warm-up exercises to have the greatest impact. Finally, breathing drills allow for a moment to declutter the brain before undertaking a very challenging order of work, and it’s fair to assume that all coaches would like just a little more focus in training.

Quite often, timing is everything when it comes to performance based outcomes, and in an ideal world, we would be able to schedule separate sessions dedicated to resilience training. Olympic track coach Charlie Francis always reserved training days specifically for resilience and recovery. However, in the real world, this might be a challenge, depending upon timing of classes or sessions, the mix of athletes, and their competitive schedules. Instead, it might be more effective to integrate this practice directly into the daily routine.

Intuitively, many would schedule this for the end of the workout, but that is also the easiest place for it to fall off the schedule. Therefore, I prefer using many of these methods specifically during the warm-up. Then, if time allows, I return to them to close the workout. I simply start with a two- or three-minute window of exploratory foam rolling followed by another two minutes of “crocodile breathing” (flat on stomach with forehead resting on forearms) where deep nasal breaths are the focus.

With everything a strength and conditioning coach needs to focus on, devoting time to resilience and recovery can be a challenge. But this component can be the key to the success of all of the other hard work you and your athletes do.