Core Misconception

Almost every time an athlete moves their “core” muscles are being worked and stressed. If the athlete is done an event specific task or skill then they are working their “core” muscles with related event specific demands. So why is it coaches and athletes set aside time to specifically train the “core” muscles on non event related tasks? The “core” is the foundation on which we move and thus is highly important to athletic success. This presents a major problem in most training programs for several reasons, the “core” tends to be overworked and fatigued more so than the rest of body, loss of valuable practice time that can be done working on event specific training, and most “core” work is done either isometrically in a static hold and/or concentrically in a dynamic, but slow and controlled manner. However, “core” strength and power in sporting activities also comes from fast, dynamic, and very forceful movement all 3 types of muscular contractions are used, eccentric, concentric, and isometric.

For the sake of brevity, I will only focus on a couple of movement patterns, jumping, running, and throwing to illustrate my point. When an athlete jumps, either from a static position or a dynamic movement such as a run up, the “core” muscles perform a stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) to take-off. The stretch-shortening cycle involves both eccentric and concentric contractions to produce the necessary force required to take-off. When the athlete lands some the athlete utilizes eccentric contraction to absorb impact forces as well as initiate a SSC to produce a concentric contraction and they also utilize isometric contractions to stabilize the posture. When athlete runs, the “core” muscles prepare for landing and take off in the same manner as jumping and when an athlete throws with all twisting of the torso and the hips in opposite directions and back towards each other which creates the corkscrew effect we again have eccentric and concentric contractions to make this happen. So why in the world are we setting aside 15-30 minutes 3-5 days a week doing static stabilization holds, crunches, swiss ball activities, russian twists, etc… ? To be honest I don’t have a clue, except Coach A does it so Coach B does it and so on and so forth. I didn’t come to this conclusion as if I never set aside training time for “core” training. I came to this conclusion because I did set aside time to do “core” training and then about 2-2.5 years ago I started questioning the benefits and it wasn’t till last summer I decided I was through specifically working the “core” muscles.

About 3 years ago at this time of the year I had an epiphany. I asked myself how do I make my sprinters and jumpers run faster and jump farther? I always question my training plans and philosophies at this time of year and relate them to my goals so this was nothing new. However, I came to the realization that I need more specific training of higher quality. I couldn’t lengthen the season allotted training date range and I couldn’t alter the training time in a day so things had to be removed from my training sessions. Low and behold about 6 months later “core” training segments within training sessions were going to be eliminated at all cost. “Core” Exercises were going to remain in the form of general strength activities and circuit training either as replacement for tempo endurance, part of general conditioning, or as part of warm up and cool down routines. Emphasis was no longer placed on body parts, but on movements and energy system training. As a coach such an epiphany instantly made me a better coach as I became more aware of the capabilities of my athletes and how to fix deficiencies while still building a better all-around athlete with respect to event demands. I was no longer causing a new deficiency or two while trying to correct an old one.

In this time I also came to the conclusion that the “core” doesn’t just consist of the muscles in the mid torso, but it also consists of the hip flexors, extensors, adductors, and abductors as well. This is another key area of “core” muscular development many coaches and athletes miss out on. 20 years ago, if an athlete did situps they were working their “core” nowadays, most would argue you are not working your core, because the situp requires greater use of the muscles which cross the hip. Situps are probably the best non specific “core” exercise an athlete can do, because it’s a cyclical ballistic movement pattern which requires a large range of motion and has a SSC (Eccentric followed Concentric contraction). So I decided what should sprinters and jumpers do to work on core strength through situps and I decided sprinters and jumpers needed to perform situps and work on doing as many situps as possible in a specified time frame which ranged from 10-40s in duration. What I get out of doing situps this way, is better hip mobility and dynamic flexibility about the hip, energy systems training, and eccentric work done on the “core” muscles. Do I make athletes do situps every day? Not even close, but on a day when weather dictates we cannot run outside I know I can still stress the “core” muscles with eccentric contractions it’s likely to face in an event specific setting. Nowadays, my “core” training consists of a balance of eccentric, concentric, and isometric contractions in non event specific work, to push the “core” muscles beyond the constrained stress allowed by event specific work.

The Circuit - Something besides general strength work.

I developed a circuit a couple of years ago that was successful in keeping my sprint athletes conditioned during the winter time when they could not run outside do to weather and I did not want them pounding around indoors in the hallways.  “The Circuit” as it is called mixes a few different training modalities into one big circuit.   It’s part general strength, plyometrics, core, and explosive power.  Some would say this is a no-no to mix such training modalities, but isn’t sprinting and jumping a mixture of general strength, plyometrics, core strength, and explosive power.   Exercises can be substituted in and out the routine to add variety.   I would suggest even occaisonally substituting in an exercise which is a ballistic general strength exercise like a jumping jack or burpee or something similar as a core, plyo, or general strength exercise since they do overlap onto all 3 of those.   I like substituting both ankle hop exercises for drop landings and tuck jumps.   It all depends on the mobility and stress you want to get from the circuit.  I would take a 5-10 minute break between sets and do 2 or 3 sets.  Try it out and comment please.

THE CIRCUIT
1. 10 Pushups
2. 20s Prone Stability
3. 20 Sit-Ups
4. 10 Lateral Ankle Hops
5. 20 Mountain Climbers
6. 20s Left Lateral Stability
7. 15 Leg Lifts
8. 10 Split Squat Jumps
9. 10 Good Mornings w/ medball
10. 20s Right Lateral Stability
11. 15 Russian Twist Sit-ups w/ medball
12. 10 Burpees w/pushup
13. 15 Medball overhead Presses
14. 20s Medball Overhead hold
15. 15 Reverse Crunches w/ Medball
16. 2x Ankle Hop Dot Pattern (Form a square in one direction, then the opposite direction)
17. 10 Lunges
18. 20s Pushup stability
19. 15s Superman stability
20. 5-5-5 Squats

Power Endurance: An Alternative Approach to Standard Periodization? (Part 2)

As stated in part 1 of this theme on power endurance, power endurance is simply work-capacity.

So lets look at how we measure it. We can measure Power with lifting 1RM with as fast as movement possible with something like an olympic lift, the distance of a standing long jump, vertical jump, or medicine ball throw, or the time to complete a short distance in runningsuch as 30m or 40yd dash while an athlete is still accelerating at the time they cross 30m or 40yd mark. All these measurements give a coach a standard from which to work with. So what about the endurance part? Well that’s the kicker, you don’t need to measure the endurance or volume. You train your power-endurance by doing more work in less time, by working at intensities appropriate for your event or events by paying attention to duration of a set of work. To boost your power-endurance you simply do more work in the same time as other sessions by adding sets or repetitions of work or increasing the power involved in those sets.

The goal of power-endurance training should be to increase the power output in a given workout without sacrificing work completed for a set time. It also provide a coach a new means with which to structure periodization in their training programs.  As the competitive season approaches the power output to a repetition of competition specific work should become similar to the power output of expected in competition.  This is hardly a new concept as it has been practiced by the best coaches in track and field for many years.

In track and field, Clyde Hart’s Baylor 400m sprint program progresses from longer distance/duration repetitions to shorter distance/duration repetitions.  Hart’s program is a classic long to short program.   Numerous coaches have used short to long programs or ends to middle where endurance for event specific work is the culmination of all physical activity performed throughout the season.   All 3 types of programs have been used effectively in building great runners.   What none of the successful implementations of these programs seem to have is a maximum strength or bodybuilding phase in them.    Hart’s “strength building” phase is really a muscular endurance phase based on hitting certain times exactly over certain distances making it power-endurance.

The preparatory phase of standard periodization is about building power-endurance for event specific work. There is no need to go from Body Building to Max Strength to Power work, they should be part of training process throughout the preparatory and competitive phases.   It does a coach no good to build an athlete who can squat 400 lbs and clean 200 lbs in the preparatory phase and come the end of the competitive phase the same athlete can barely squat 300 lbs or clean 185 lbs.   Just like it would be counterproductive for the same athlete to run 100m in 11.3s at the end preparatory phase and then at the end of competitive phase for this athlete to run 11.5s for 100m.   A coach can work maximum strength but still focus on power, just as he can work on endurance and focus on power.   Improving power output relative to specific events is how an athlete improves performance.   Stressing the biological systems during training which are stressed in a competitive event allows the body to adapt those systems to demands of the event based on the abilities of the athlete.

None of this is new, in fact it’s all old, it’s just that we have been enamored by the guru’s who are selling fool’s gold based on faulty/deceptive interpretations of scientific literature, inventive exercise routines, and short term adaptations that produce improvements because they have never been used before, but the long term development of the athlete slumps after diminishing returns of the new guru program doesn’t help the athlete attain/maintain event specific proficiency as previous long term adaptations have diminished in favor of the newer short term adaptations.

Power Endurance: A new approach to Work Capacity training? (Part 1)

Work Capacity is often used in coaching circles. However, there seem to be many definitions of what Work Capacity means.

Vern Gambetta wrote on his blog in article title Train for Work Capacity Not Endurance

Work Capacity is the ability to tolerate a high workload and to recover sufficiently for the next workout or competition.

Here’s an example of an interesting definition.

Amy Deem, Head Track and Field coach at the University of Miami, in a presentation for the USTFCCCA described work capacity training for sprinters as.

• Circuit Training
• Extensive Tempo
• Intensive Tempo
• Special Endurance

So what is work capacity? well if a coach is from the old exercise physiology school, it is likely their definitions are closely related to Astrand and Saltin and to the etiology of the words involved. Work is just force x distance and capacity is volume, therefore it is the limit to the amount of work one can perform. Generally this is known as endurance. Work capacity is mathematically expressed as:

W_max = F_avg x d_max

Force (F) is technically strength and Distance (d) roughly translates to endurance therefore work capacity is a measure strength endurance. If we are focused on accomplishing getting an X amount work done without regard for time then Strength Endurance training is the way to go. However, athletes, firefighters, military personnel, freight loaders, field workers, etc… all have certain time requirements involved in their activities. In the case of the athlete, if any two athletes have the same work capacity the produces the higher average power output will win.

Power is Work divided by Time (P=W/t). So lets introduce a new concept it’s called power endurance, the ability to produce a certain amount work over a given period of time. No matter which you cut it, time and distance are both values which measure endurance. Power on the other hand which is both time and distance dependent is a rate which provides a measure of intensity. Intensity together with Volume gives Load and training Load in this instance along with rest gives us adaptations. Remember Coach Gambetta’s quote about high workload.

Given the definition provided earlier Power Endurance is simply Power x Time which reduces back to Work completed. This is where many coaches get lead astray, they focus on work completed without regard for time when stressing work capacity. How many distance coaches do you know whose focus is solely on mileage? How many football or throws coaches are stressing 1RM squat, deadlift, or bench numbers? How many jumps coaches stress # of ground contacts each day? How many sprint coaches are stressing # of reps or intervals each day? If you are a coach think about the feedback and cues you are giving your athletes do they involve only a distance, only a certain number of reps, or only a certain time from start to finish? Athletes take heed of the same things. If you are only focus on distance, or repetition, or time then you are training wrong. Sometimes there is a need to focus only one parameter those are active rest days.

Power-Endurance is built through paying to attention all the parameters involved (# of Repetitions, Force required/involved, Distance covered, and Time). In essence we want to build the amount of work output by changing the power output involved. Each event has a different amount power and endurance required to complete the event task. Sometimes those events are very short in nature like the jumps and throws, but require high power and long warm up times and consist of multiple efforts while others such as long distance running require lower constant power-outputs with generally shorter warmup and cool down periods.

Power Endurance Durations:

1. Very-Short Duration (1-6s), for Sprinters, Jumpers, Throwers, and Multis with training that consists of sets of 1-3 reps with weights, medicine balls, jumps, bounds, throws, and acceleration and max Velocity sprint work.

2. Short Duration (6-15s), for Sprinters, Jumpers, Throwers, Mid-distance and Multis with training that consists of 3-8 reps with weights, medicine balls, jumps, bounds, hops, skips, throws, max Velocity sprint work, speed-endurance.

3. Short-Medium Duration (15-40s), for Sprinters, Multis, and Mid-distance with training consisting of
speed endurance, special endurance I, extensive, and intensive tempo running and lower intensity throws, jumps, hops, and skips.

4. Medium Duration (40-90s) for Long sprinters, Multi’s, and Mid-distance with training consisting of special endurance II and intensive tempo runs and lower intensity throws, jumps, hops, and skips.

5. Medium-Long Duration (90s-4 min) for Mid-distance and long distance athletes with training consisting of repetition or interval running to boost VO₂Max, generally 400m-1000m.

6. Long Duration (4-30 min) for Mid-Distance and long distance athletes with training consisting of longer intervals of 1K-1mile or repetitions of 1 mile to 3 miles or continuous tempo runs.

7. Very Long Duration (30+ min) for Long distance athletes with training consisting of extended continuous tempo runs.

If a coach is monitoring the change in power output in his “work capacity” training and those athletes are producing high power outputs then those athletes are adapting, but if those power numbers are not geared towards the event durations at which the athlete competes then progress will be slow in turning those adaptations into better performances.

In the next part, how to effectively measure power endurance or “work capacity” will be covered with some applications of how to apply this type of training specifically to a group of athletes. Please take the time to go over each of the links provided and start to figure out how and when to apply this training.

Bluetooth, Nintendo Wii, and the Need to measure speed.

For about 2 weeks off and on, I have been working on making my own computerized timing system for testing purposes.  What may seem strange about this timing system is it uses the controller to a video game console.  The Wii Remot e(TM) now forever known as the Wiimote is a special little device that potentially has several uses for coaches and even sport scientists.   The Wiimote has an infared red camera and 3-axis accelerometer within it’s white casing.

Why is this important?  Well for less than $100 (2 Wiimotes, 1 bluetooth adapter and license) and if you know a little about computer programming, at least some threading and event handling are necessary, you can build your own timing and testing system.  Currently, I am building a system for myself and will release the source code and any binary files associated with development free of charge.  Currently, the software I am using is from the WiimoteLib of Brian Peek and I was inspired by Johnny Lee Chung.

As of now, I am focusing on reaction time, flying sprint times, and power and rate of general strength and medicine ball exercises.  The possibility of using the accelerometer to measure VJ height is limited by the accelerometers inability to accurately record above +/- 3g’s.  It still can be done by using time between peaks and valleys of acceleration.

If you are interested in sport science research and it’s application to coaching please contact me sprenten@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Wariner’s Olympic 400m races

Much has been made of Jeremy Wariner’s Olympic Final’s race in which he lost to LaShawn Merritt.  Assessments of Wariner’s race have varied from getting out too fast to He choked because of Merritt’s presence.  Also, much has been said of Wariner’s split with his long time coach Clyde Hart.  Prior to the Olympic Final, Wariner has lost to Merritt twice this season.  To Merritt’s credit he has developed into a consistent 400m winner over the course of last 4 seasons and he’s been narrowing the huge gap in PR’s Wariner put on him since 2004.  This has fueled the speculation that Merritt maturation as 400m runner has somehow affected Wariner’s race day psychology.  Prior to Wariner’s 43.93s in 2005 Wariner was dominate by winning in 2004 and 2005, but his margin to the rest of the field was smaller than it was coming into this season and he had many more runners to worry about.  However, because of the coaching split, there is also speculation this coaching change has affected Wariner.  Wariner denies these claims, but never before has race distribution in significant meets (IAAF Grand Prix’s, Golden League Meets, or Championship Finals) been so poor.

My initial personal assessment of the 400m Final after watching the race on TV (including replays) and on the Web after viewing what I saw him do in the Semifinals was as follows:

“Wariner went out too hard, relaxed too much to recover, and then worked to hard to maintain his velocity in the turn.”

In his semifinals post race interview what he said can be summed like this, he just wanted to come out strong out of the blocks, relax, work the turn, then relax all the way home to ensure a good lane for final in 2 days.  I believed him when he said this and did not bother analyzing the video for any discrepancies in what he was saying.

Remembering what Wariner said after his Semifinals and realizing he did the same exact thing at the Olympic Trials after watching him get trashed in the finals, I decide to do a little investigative work.  In the OT and OG finals I believed Wariner went out too hard, he made the stagger up on Rooney by 50m it seemded in the OG finals.  So I first went looking for splits, the information I received intially was counter to what I saw.  The first information I recieved on his splits were 20.9s @ 200m in the final and 20.7s @ 200m in the semis.  This was unexpected, I knew Wariner or Neville was leading through 200m they passed the numbers first.  So I decide to sort through the visual evidence myself courtesy of NBC at nbcolympics.com.   The visual evidence of this investigation and it’s analysis is posted in the below link.

Analysis of Wariner’s 2008 Olympic 400m Final and Semifinal

After reviewing the splits between the 2 races and from what I saw at the Olympic Trials.  I have come to the conclusion that Wariner’s problems do not stem from having a rival who can match him in Merritt, but from an ill guided attempt at Michael Johnson’s 400m record and a new coach with whom he doesn’t have the same chemistry with.  What I mean by this is Wariner ran the final like he was either chasing Neville or a ghost (Michael Johnson).    Wariner never saw Merrit until after 300m into the race and at that point he was losing his momentum at a far greater rate than Merritt was.  There was nothing he could do at that point in the race. In fact, Merritt is the reason Wariner almost didn’t medal at all, by trying to accelerate to catch him when he spent up all his energy on the turn like I suspected originally.

This brings up an important point about coaching and error corrections.  When an error becomes visible (symptom) it’s often just a manifestation of prior errors and leads to more and more visible and exaggerated symptoms.   When Wariner lost his lead, I knew he didn’t have the same momentum coming out of the turn as Merritt did, this was confirmed when he lost his legs at 40s into race and almost didn’t medal.  It also lead me to believe that he didn’t have his usual speed coming into to the turn and the only way he’s going to that is by relaxing too much from a start that was entirely too fast. Young coaches should start noticing visible errors as symptoms and work backwards to find the cause, don’t give feedback and correction cues to symptoms, give feedback and correction cues on causes.  Wariner ran a near perfect semifinal race, in fact, it should have felt like a 350m event run he does in practices so often and that should have been the model race he ran for the final except the last 50m where he would have to run through the line.

After backtracking you can easily come to following critical analysis of his OG 400m Final.  It all started with an initial error (the start), followed by an over correction of the error by the athlete (relaxing too much, he catches Rooney, but then runs Rooney’s pace in the straight), this gives the athlete the idea the error was fixed and the race should continue in it’s normal pattern (ie.. work the turn), he’s trailing Neville by about a 1-2m at 200m.  While slowing to Rooney’s pace puts his instantaneous speed below what he used to coming into the turn he has to work the turn harder than he’s used to working it (now he’s used up any CP reserves).  At 300m he believes he’s in control as only Neville is in his peripheral vision at this point, but he knows he has more momentum than Neville so beating him shouldn’t be a problem and Merritt hasn’t shown up on his radar.  At 308-315m Merritt draws even with Wariner and about 10m later Merritt has a small but visible gap (about 35-36s into the race)  at this point Wariner tries to accelerate again and just doesn’t have the energy left to do it and 5s later he blows his fuses.

In 5 seasons under coach Hart he never showed this type of poor energy distribution in any race. It has now happened 2x in the same season at Championship races.  Regardless it’s hard to say if Wariner would have won running like he did for 350m in the semifinals, but for certain it would not have been this poor of a race or this poor of an energy distribution.   However, this is something coach Ford and Wariner have to work through and learn from.  They need better feedback communication with each other and a bettering cueing system to ensure proper execution.  I would start by modeling the semifinal race as the race you want to run everytime out and stop with inconsistent pre-race cues that Wariner talks about after each race.  The feedback and cues have to progress towards the athletes goal’s just like the physiological stresses in training.

What’s the most important thing to an athlete or coach?

The most important thing an athlete expects is trust from their coach and it’s also imperative the athlete trusts their coach!  Let us examine why trust is so important.  Trust, is the foundation to setting a training plan and executing such a plan.  If it were faith, the athlete and coach would begin to raise questions about each other when the expected results are not produced.  Such an occurrence could and most likely will cause problems in terms of feedback and communication.  Feedback and communication allow for adaptations to training plans.  If something is not working, it may need be changed, if something is working better than expected, it may need to stay in the training plan a little longer.  Coaches and athletes both have to evolve to become better by adapting with the athletes skills and abilities.  The only way this works is through trust, without it the coach and athlete are just following a rigid system with unchanging parameters which may ultimately lead to failure.