PERSONAL TRAINERS: Correcting the Front Rack

PERSONAL TRAINERS: Do you know how to get your client from photo A to photo B? Would you just keep saying ‘elbows up’ or would you prescribe a series of mobility exercises and coaching cues to help correct the positioning?

 The front squat is a critical movement to your client’s mobility, stability and gross motor control; if you can’t get a client in to a front squat then how can you prescribe any other myriad of movements that require a structural organization of the hips, spine and shoulders? Such examples include: polymeric movements like jumps or sprints and Olympic lifts such as the clean and jerk or snatch.

In this case; the client already has a considerable volume of training behind her, she had demonstrated her ability to back and overhead squat so from an ankle, hip, lumber point of view there was nothing to worry about. However, clearly there are issues with shoulder and thoracic mobility that need to be corrected before she can move on to heavy front squats or cleans.

We went through a basic 3 stage process: 

• 1: Passive stretches, where we overloaded the bar and let her get in to position and stretch the shoulder 

• 2: myofascial release of the Triceps and Lat insertion to allow the humerus bone a greater ROM. 

• 3: PNF stretch in the front rack position.

You can see here; working from the least aggressive, to the most aggressive modality of muscular release and checking the position after each stage resulted in a considerable improvement to the front rack position.

PERSONAL TRAINERS: Jack-of-all-Trades, Master-of-None Mentality.

PERSONAL TRAINERS: There is this vibe at the moment that PT’s MUST have a massive encyclopaedia of exercises and movements for their clients, the motivation for this is pretty obvious; to create an interesting and fun environment for your clients. However, the down side to this is the industry has developed a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none mentality. 

Ask yourself this: If you have a client that cannot perform a correct body weight squat, do you attempt to identify and correct the movement dysfunctions or do you ‘train around the problem’ by prescribing quarter squats or leg press? Are you mind-numbingly placing your client on a treadmill in the hope of ‘results’ or are you assessing their gait mechanics and looking at improving their running efficacy?

Ask yourself another question: Have you ever REALLY maxed out your squats and cleans? And by ‘really’, I don’t mean walking in to the gym one day and going full retard ‘till you miss, I mean taking 8 weeks to develop your own progression and thus develop your own knowledge of the basics.

Consider this: do you feel you have a solid foundation of knowledge of core motor patterns? If a client walks up to you and can’t squat, do you feel you have the knowledge and tools to correct this? What if they are massively heel striking while running, do you think you can get them back on to the forefoot? 

If not, start doing some research; look to guys like DeFranco, Starrett or Cook. 

 

We as an industry have copped enough crap already; the movements you prescribe need to represent a piece in the puzzle – the puzzle of posture and movement. Every time you prescribe a quarter squat, Push-Up on the knees, or bizarre chicken dance on a Bosu you further drive a nail in to the coffin of credibility. It’s time for change!

Applied Post Activation Potentiation (PAP) for Improved Agility and Strength

The basic principle is to incorporate PAP and decision making in to a strength and agility drill.  This will be of benefit to game or match play athletes such as; tennis, football, basketball or martial arts.

Required equipment:

• -          Squat rack

• -          Box or bench approximately 30cm in height 

• -          Training partner or coach

Protocol

• -          Squat 1 rep at 90% of your 1 rep max  

• -          Immediately stand on a box, step off and land on both feet

• -          Training partner is to move to one side

• -          Athlete must make a decision and accelerate to the opposing side  (simulating a play in basketball or football etc)

• -          Repeat 5-8 times with a minimum 2 minute interval 

Please feel free to share this with your friends. However; the normal legal flaptrap applies: this is a GENERIC PROGRAM do not attempted this without first consulting your doctor and cease all activity if you feel pain or any form of medical unrest.

You get the picture

Go train.

Ben

 PDF Download link HERE

S&C Coaching for State Lacrosse Players

I have been privileged enough to coach some of SA’s best Lacrosse players the last few weeks. Lacrosse requires a broad ranges of performance characteristics including play skill, agility, repeat sprint ability (RSA) and the overall ability to take a solid hit, after all, everyone out there has a big stick! 

In understanding the sport; a study published by Hall et al., (2013) investigated the occurrence and severity of injuries and reported 50% of respondents had suffered some form of injury with ankles, knees and concussion found to be the most prevalent.

In further developing an understanding of the performance characteristics required by the sport a recent article in the Australian Journal of Strength and Conditioning aimed to investigate agility training and found that agility application is not just the generation of a gross motor program but includes a ‘decision making’ process where the required motor pattern must be generated.

Finally; as lacrosse is a game play sport, the notion of ‘peaking’ in the way a mixed martial artist might is not suitable, players need to remain in a constant state of general physical preparedness week to week. 

Based upon the above mention requirements of the sport, my strength and conditioning protocols have been developed in to: 

• -          Base motor program and skills acquisition – to simplify this; teaching the athletes all the required skills need to partake in S&C (mobility, squats deadlift etc).

• -          Mobility and flexibility – as I always promote, if you can’t get in to an ‘organized’ position in a controlled environment, you have no hope of finding your strongest positions dynamically in game play or while under a bar.

• -          Base conditioning cycle – here I introduce the basics, 5RM Squats and Deadlifts, Overhead press, sled work and we also aim to seek out a general idea of where the athletes true 1RM is. Furthermore; I strongly encourage the athlete to partake in HIIT training when outside of the gym, this obviously includes sled and hill sprints, shuttle runs and tire flips.

• -         Peak Conditioning phase – This is the real-talk phase, where I prescribe Post Activation Potentiation protocols as first developed by Verkhoshansky (1959) using either a heavy squat or Deadlift immediately followed by depth jumps. Furthermore; dynamic high-pulls have become the go-to movement for developing explosive power and increase CNS capacity. Finally; agility training is prescribed by a simple reaction drill where the athlete needs to make a decision and formulate a response in a rapid time. 

Holding et al., 2013

It has been a real honor to work with this small but super talented group of athletes, there have been a number of unique challenges that have pushed my limits as a S&C coach and have resulted in massive improvements in their game plays. The state Lacrosse season is still young and im really looking forward to what the future holds

Pre-Exercise Warm Up - A Generic Template

Much like a race car on the formation lap, your warm-up procedure is critical to both your session performance but also your long term training sustainability.  As such; I have posted a generic warm-up template for free download HERE.

Please feel free to share this with your friends. However; the normal legal flaptrap applies: this is a GENERIC PROGRAM do not attempted this without first consulting your doctor and cease all activity if you feel pain or any form of medical unrest.

You get the picture

Go train.

Ben

Top 5 Tips for First Time Gym N00bs!

Daylight savings starts this weekend, which typically denotes the start of festival training season. If you have never stepped foot inside a gym before then please read on; here is my top five tips for gym n00bies 

Number 5: Don't be a afraid

Sally Fitzgibbons

When you first walk in to the gym, you will be greeted by a bunch of insanely good looking girls wearing pants that would not pass as G-strings and painted on shirts with lame motivational statements plastered across their chest. Walk further and you will find a guy with denim shorts and his nipples on display for all to see grunting like he is laying underneath Sally Fitzgibbons spread legs while performing some kind of circus stunt with dumbbells. Much like an aggressive driver on the road; don’t be intimidated by this, you pay the same membership; you have the same rights, if these said people stare at you, stare back. While you’re out of your comfort zone you should use this chance to develop your own self-worth.

Number 4: Be aware of Bro-Science

Bro-Science is the study of meat heads in your gym where results are reported on the outcomes of one person, in one circumstance asking one question. Bro-Science is pretty easy to pick, it is often spread by a guy wearing a stringer singlet and supplement store hat on backwards who uses the word 'bro' in every sentence. This is often coupled with statements like “Fuck science” and “Do you even lift....Bro....”

Not only is Bro-Science often –wrong- but in some cases it can be downright dangerous to your health. Such examples include speculation about diets, supplements and various exercises in the gym.  As I will go in to later; you don’t need to be inert in reading scientific papers, just use some common sense, you wouldn’t trust Tony Abbott on running an economy so why would you trust the meat heads in your gym? 

Number 3: Quality, not quantity

You will undoubtedly assume that if you’re not spending a hour on the treadmill or two hours ‘pumping iron’ that results will not come. I bring you back to a metaphor the fitness industry has held for a long time now; do you want to look like a sprinter or a marathon runner? Sprint for 30 seconds, walk for a minute, sprint again until you’re stuffed, again, you don’t need your head around scientific articles to understand this.

Number 2: KISS... Keep It Simple Stupid! 

From the moment you walk in to the gym you will be accosted by personal trainers offering you the latest exercise ideal for targeting your biceps or abdominals, you will have that big guy Joey tell you about his crazy calf training program and that’s before a fat woman begins to speak about diet tips for the lazy. Don’t get lured in by the shiny machines your gym manager told you were the greatest thing since Viagra, stand back and you might observed the ugliest people in the gym are sweating all over them. Humans have performed exercise in some way or another long before these things were marketed to the meat market culture that is commercial fitness. Have a think about basic exercises you can perform; push-ups, chin-ups, Squats, Jumps, skipping, running. If that’s not enough, then do moar push-ups....

Number 1: Squat, like you did when you were a baby. 

Squats are the most fundamental coordination pattern humans have (sometimes referred to as gross motor patterns). Squats develop joint flexibility, stability; they protect us from injury and various joint pains and are used in every aspect of life. The more your squat, the more all your other training will improve. Ignore the naysayers of over-training and squat every day if you like, Squats will make you strong! 

Good Luck <3