Why we train

       We train for physical improvement 
      Courtesy of Bryan Christie Design

I’m going to expand a bit on something I wrote about a while back because I think it’s important to break away from absolutes and norms that may not be as beneficial as everyone believes. The previous post I’m referring to is the “check your vision” post where I discussed the need to remember why we train in first place.

Since that time I’ve had a number of teen athletes come through my gym and have found a less than desirable trend emerging. Now this includes both male and female athletes and isn’t confined to one sport. I’ve had athletes from a range of sports including football, softball, volleyball, soccer and basketball. Most of these adolescents were of decent athletic ability, though, none possessed what I would consider amazing strength or stability. The trend I began to see was basically a lack of programming knowledge by their coaches or trainers and the use of Olympic lifts in athletes that were far from ready for them. 

A little too much weight maybe?

The use of Olympic lifts was more common than I expected and was not confined to just the football players. One 12 year old female volleyball player who was tall, thin and relatively weak, especially in the core, was told to use power cleans to train explosiveness. Needless to say her form was atrocious because she had nowhere near the core stability nor the hip, wrist, or ankle flexibility to come close to doing it right. Apparently no one seemed to notice these blatantly obvious deficiencies. She wasn’t alone, however, none of the athletes I saw that were using Olympic lifts did them right and all were being allowed to continue on this way. This is a major problem especially in physically developing youth.

Olympic lifting is technically challenging and even Olympians who train primarily for this make mistakes.

This is where I revisit my confusion over the seemingly incessant push for young athletes, and many adults as well, to use Olympic lifts to train explosiveness. There are many other ways to improve ones vertical jump and explosiveness. Olympic lifts are great if you can do them right, but so many just aren’t ready for this level of training. I realize that basic strength and stability exercises may not be as “sexy” as more advanced ones, but until one masters the basics it makes no sense to progress to more complicated exercises. If one can’t efficiently control their body weight in space why push for externally loaded exercises? Injury prevention should be our foremost concern because if an athlete is injured it doesn’t matter how explosive they are. Therefore, strength coaches need to be focusing on getting their athletes stronger and more stable first. 

Box Jump

Medicine ball throw

Using a variety of jumps and hops along with medicine ball work can be great for improving explosiveness without exposing younger athletes to unnecessary injury risk. At some point, if you favor investing the time, it’s fine to introduce Olympic lifts, but it’s very important clients are physically ready.

The second thing I noticed, while not as troubling as the first, is still bothersome because individuals are being paid to perform a job they’re failing at. When a football player comes in and describes a practice environment that includes a bunch of running I question why. Why have athletes run a mile when even their big gain plays will take something like 10 – 15 seconds? This isn’t nearly enough time to get around a track once let alone four times. 

Do any of these athletes look like football players? Then why train this way for football?

Next to this is having these players spend a lot of time/energy bench pressing. Now, before anyone gets up in arms, I always include some sort of pushing exercise, bench press included, but I put much more stock in dead lifting, squatting, and sled work. Most athletes are going to gain much more from these types of compound exercises than benching and it’s simply a matter of using your time wisely since most people don’t have unlimited gym time. 

A much better use of your time.

So again, check your vision and remember why it is that we train. It’s to improve our physical abilities be it for sport or just life, to improve body composition, to improve health, etc. This means do what gets you the best results while taking the least amount of risk. 

-KO