Athletic Performance Toolbox

Mobility Exercises

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If your athletes are stiff, they are leaking performance.  Mobility exercises are an important component of a strength and conditioning program that can be addressed with these three exercises.

In the video clip below Reid Hall, a highly regarded volleyball strength and conditioning coach, demonstrates three mobility exercises that you could easily work in to your warm-up routine for your training sessions.

Coach Reid states, ” Stiff moving athletes are leaking performance. If you want to get closer to your genetic potential then you need to be fluid moving. Performing some high quality mobility exercises in your warm up before practice and workouts can often help save you from long list of potential injuries”

Each of the mobility exercises detailed in the clip below works multiple muscle groups. The fist exercise is called Inch Worm and should be performed for approximately 10-15 yards. The Inch Worm is a simple exercise that most are familiar with and may already utilize.  Coach Reid calls his second the Spiderman Lunge + Thoracic Opener and should be performed 5-8x per side. This is a great exercise as its many components provide mutltiple benefits for the athlete. The final multi-functional mobility exercise is the the Quad Stretch-Side Lunge-Overhead Reach which should be completed 6x per side.

Coach Reid has many great training ideas for volleyball players. To see more great training tips and to learn more about how Coach Reid can help improve your players check out his YouTube Channel or visit his site Reids Workouts

The YouTube video below has audio so please make sure your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site. . Click the arrow to play the video. Please note that some schools block access to YouTube. If you are having trouble viewing the clip from school, please contact your network administrator.

Methods to Improve Explosiveness

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

By Matt Grimm

Explosiveness is the key to athletic development. The ability to start and stop at high speeds is what makes an athlete “explosive.” How can coaches make their athletes explosive? Below are three methods.

Plyometrics: to improve neural capacity and the stretch reflex

Plyometrics are anything that requires jumping and change of direction. In reality, this happens constantly during a game. Therefore, we must train our athletes’ bodies and nervous system to maximize the plyometric qualities and produce the most force development possible.

Plyometric exercises include box jumps, broad jumps, lateral jumping, multi-jumps, and other similar exercises. The key to training plyometrics is to keep the volume of the jumps low, yet the intensity incredibly high. In a single workout our athletes will never go over 32 jumps. So our sets will be 4 sets of 4 each side if we’re doing single leg jumping. This puts the total volume at 32. If we are doing box jumps, we would do 5 sets of 4 making the total volume 20 reps.

There are many ways to integrate plyometrics into your workouts. One idea I use a lot is to pair med ball throws with jumps to save time.

Power & Strength Training:  to build horsepower and make the body stronger

Strength is the base for every athlete and will dictate the ceiling for power development. Strength and power are directly correlated to each other. When evaluating strength training, we are looking at weight room strength. Total body strength is the most valuable, which can be quantified with squatting, deadlifting, pull-ups, bench press, and rows.

To develop power, use explosive lifts. The most valuable and safest are auxiliary Olympic lifts such as the hang clean, single arm dumbbell snatch, or a dumbbell push-press. Training the total body three days a week during the off-season will provide the best results for your athletes.

Mobility: to increase range of motion

Mobility is by far the most disregarded part of training by coaches worldwide. It is vital to having full range of motion through movement. If an athlete doesn’t have mobility they will not be able to develop strength or power to the highest degree. If our athletes have mobility issues and we train them through their issue, it typically will cause injury.

Strategies for increasing range of motion are done before workouts and practice: foam rolling or any soft tissue work, such as massage and mobility drills. Getting some kind of mobility and foam rolling completed before activity will make your athletes less injury prone.

 

Matt Grimm is Head Strength and Conditioning coach at Trevecca Nazarene University and owner of Matt Grimm Performance, LLC, in Nashville, Tenn., where he trains athletes of all ages. He can be reached through his website: MattGrimmPerformance.com.

Stretching for Hypertrophy

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By Chris Beardsley

Chris Beardsley  graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. He is also a Director at Strength and Conditioning Research Limited 

For more great information regarding strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram

Surprising new research has shown that static stretching can increase muscle size (if not strength), even when the stretch is totally passive and involves no muscle activation at all. The key seems to be a fairly intense stretch, with progressively greater loading each workout.

Even though this comes as a surprise to many, there were already clues in the research, as rodent models had found that passive stretching could produce increases in p70S6K phosphorylation, which is part of the mTOR anabolic signaling pathway.

Such studies tend to show that active contractions and passive stretch can both cause increases in anabolic signaling activity, but that combined active and passive mechanical loading together are additive, and can produce the greatest changes.

This is probably why studies comparing strength training at long and short muscle lengths (such as full and partial squats) have typically reported greater hypertrophy in the groups training at long muscle lengths.

After all, the muscle contractions at the longer muscle lengths combine the active and passive mechanical loading to produce a greater hypertrophic stimulus.

Even so, this does not indicate that static stretching is always valuable for hypertrophy when performed at any time.

Although many bodybuilders use intense static stretching between sets of strength training, this may actually reduce hypertrophy by decreasing workout volume.

After all, strength training will always be the primary stimulus for hypertrophy, and if the static stretching has an adverse effect on the number of reps that can be performed in a workout, then it will be unhelpful overall.

This suggests that if static stretching is to be used in addition to strength training to increase muscle growth, then it should be performed at the end of a workout and not either beforehand or in between sets of strength training.

Game Approach to Warm-ups

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This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

Before an athlete can perform and compete at a high level, they need to warm up their muscles and mind. High knees, lunges, jogging, and stretching are all common ways to prepare the body for a training session or game, but when these exercises become routine they can often fail to get an athlete in a focused state of mind. That is why Boston Celtics Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Bryan Doo is always changing things up.

According to espn.com, dodgeball, capture the flag, and other modified versions of playground classics have become a hit among the Celtics players who are happy to embrace a fun and exciting way to warm up. Now entering his 14th season with the team, Doo’s drills on the court and in the weightroom have been praised by former stars like Kevin Garnet and continue to thrive under the leadership of Head Coach Brad Stevens and President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge.

One purpose of this unorthodox approach is to keep players from getting bored. But like any strength and conditioning coach, Doo also wants to make sure that his athletes are both mentally and physically ready to perform.

“What I try to do is get the players so they’re ready to practice, so Coach doesn’t have to deal with them not being focused,” Doo said. “I might have a plan in my head, but then I might be like, ‘You know what, they’re not listening, let’s do something different.’”

For Doo, keeping things fresh also means being able to improvise. As a father of five who often works with youth athletes, he has become a master of creating new activities on the spot. This not only helps his athletes stay engaged, but makes his job more enjoyable.

“Look at it this way: There’s probably a minimum of like 100 warm-ups per season, right? So you’ve got to keep it fresh. I get bored myself,” said Doo.

The Celtics were recently filmed during one of Doo’s warm-up activities. The starters and reserves faced off in a game where each player tried to snatch a towel out of the waistbands of players on the opposing team. This mixture of capture the flag and flag football is one of many pre-practice activities that have become a hit with the players.

“We go into play mode,” said small forward Jae Crowder. “But we’re still getting after it, just playing a little bit. It’s cool to switch it up because it’s a long season. It’s good to smile a little bit.”

Throughout the course of a long season, changing up routines and keeping things fresh can contribute to sustained success. Not only does playing a game like dodgeball provide a way for players to warm up their muscles while having fun, it also gets them into a competitive mindset.

“I like to get them to compete because I don’t think these guys compete enough before practice,” Doo said. “They have to get into that mindset. It’s hard though, sometimes on certain days, I know I have to talk to some of the [veteran] guys and be like, ‘Are you guys up to this?’”

With so many fun games and activities up his sleeve, it’s no wonder the Celtics players enjoy practicing with Coach Doo.

“It’s nice to change things up, and make guys laugh a little bit,” Crowder said.

The Right Range of Motion

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

By Rich Zawack

Athletes are asked to perform. They are supposed to be able to explode at a moment’s notice. Quick movement is required but in order to be able to jump up and dunk or make a hard cut on the field, their body needs to be primed.

The truly athletic body is highly toned. It is an athletic, muscular structure that is totally strong and tight.

For example, a sprinter’s hamstrings and glutes are tight, and they should be. When they are used, they stretch and snap back. Simply, this is how explosive force is generated.

There is a high degree of tension in the muscles of a well-trained athlete. That is what makes them explosive.

Power, the ability to move a mass quickly, is the exemplification of a taught, reactive muscular system.

Because this is the make-up of well-trained athletes, they often are in danger of “pulling a muscle.” I don’t like that term but it is what people call it when an athlete creates a major tear in the belly of a muscle.

During regular training, athletes are constantly subject to micro tears of their muscles. It is normal; it is what we refer to as soreness.

Occasionally what happens is more than a micro tear. Major fibers can rip. There can be swelling. A bad tear can exhibit bleeding.

Ligaments, the connection between muscle and bone, can also tear if the muscle becomes stronger than the connection, which can happen as a result of training.

The question is, how do you prevent this from happening? There are a number of ways to ensure that your athlete does not run into this type of trouble.

First, you have to establish a safe range of motion (ROM). ROM refers to the ability of the athlete to reach full extension of a joint and its supporting musculature.

As an example, hamstrings attach at the pelvis and the knee. When the leg is driven forward as in a sprint, that muscle reaches full and rapid extension followed by a shortening that is equally quick. If the muscle is not prepared for that situation, it will tear.

One of the ways to prepare for that type of situation is to do long holds — long, slow stretches, where the muscle is allowed to slowly lengthen. These are called static stretches.

A muscle takes about eight seconds to release after a stretch is initiated. But it will continue to release in length for three minutes or more. By doing long holds when you start your stretching programs the muscle learns to release. The longer the hold, the longer the release length. This is a form of muscle memory.

This type of stretching is important for every athlete. It programs the body for extreme and rapid change in position.

What you are doing is increasing range of motion by doing a long hold. In this case, we are talking about the hamstring, but it could be any muscle group. Programmed range of motion is important if you want to prevent injuries.

This type of stretching should be done when the body is very warm. When the heart is really pumping and circulation is optimal the muscular system is most flexible.

The best time to do long hold stretches is at the end of practice for a number of reasons.

Body heat and viscosity is elevated, which makes the muscle more pliable. Kids don’t like to do this because when practice is over, it’s over. But this is the way to set up the next day’s work or competition. This is how you must sell it.

It’s a good way to remove fluid in the body that can cause stiffness. It is the optimal time to develop range of motion.

There is one other reason to do this type of stretching at the end of practice rather than before it. This type of static stretching has an effect on the nervous system. The Golgi tendons are a neurological component of the muscular system. They react to static stretches. Once the stretch has begun, they relax the muscles. That is their primary purpose.

Golgi tendons exist to release the muscle so it won’t tear. If you go through a series of static stretches before a competition or practice you will reduce the ability of the muscle to react with maximum force.

If you are a competitor, you want your muscles to have as much explosive potential as possible. Therefore, static stretches before practice or competition are not optimal for the athlete if they are looking to maximize their neuromuscular system’s ability to react.

You can prevent a lot of injuries by statically stretching your athletes after practice. You will also make the next day’s workout more productive.