Explosive Trianing for the Everyday Athlete

The past few weeks I have a made it a priority to put more explosive training in my everyday athletes' sessions. Too often I find myself sticking to weights and other strength-based exercises with this demographic. Depending on their goals, this may or may not be appropriate. A lot of my everyday athletes are less worried about hitting actual numbers in the weight room and more concerned with feeling and looking healthy.

Recently I have been using medicine balls a lot more with my everyday athletes, doing different throw, carry, and slam variations. I have also added in a lot more jumping, which means a lot more landing; cone drills; jump rope; and tactical-style exercises. Not only can these exercises be used as conditioning tools, but, when they are applied with power development in mind, they are also great for tuning up the Central Nervous System (CNS). This is important for a couple of reasons. First, when your CNS has been trained to function at a high level, you can execute movements with a greater level of precision. Basically, your body is able to move better. This is important for all athletes, but it carries a unique importance for everyday athletes because if they have the physical ability to move better then exercise will seem less like a chore and more like a game.

Secondly, if the CNS is functioning at a high level then the body functions better as a whole. Should injury occur, we are better-able to compensate through that with a highly-functioning CNS. While compensating patterns will eventually lead to further injury in the long run, in the short run they allow us to function in our daily lives while healing occurs. By implementing proper recovery techniques, such as MAT, compensating movement patterns can be limited as much as possible. However, when compensation is needed, such as if a client sleeps in a funny position and wakes up with a stiff shoulder, the ability to function throughout the day will be there if the CNS is able to recruit other muscles to produce the same movements.

The injury prevention role doesn't just stop with the CNS when it comes to explosive movements, either. There is also the fact that clients learn how to stop, land, and change direction. The vast majority of injuries occur during a deceleration phase of a movement. If clients can learn how to control their bodies well enough such that they can stop, land, and change direction without having to think about it, their chances of incurring a non-contact injury will decrease dramatically.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates is a human performance specialist and the owner of Self Made (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He is a Certified Personal Trainer and Performance Enhancement Specialist through NASM and has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP's. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

How Coordinated Are Your Clients?

One thing I have recently noticed with a few of my clients is they lack coordination. Not hand-eye coordination, per say, but total-body, rhythmic coordination. For example, I have been implementing a lot of jump rope into my clients' training sessions, and all of them have gotten significantly better at theskill of jumping rope. However, when I first introduced them to it, I was amazed at how many of my clients had no idea how to jump rope. In fact, some of them even told me that they used to try jumping rope as kids but stopped because they couldn't get the hang of it.

Another example is skipping. Have you ever seen a grown man who spends 40-80 hours a week in a cubicle try to skip? It is a sight to behold, my friends. First, he'll look at you like you're crazy when you tell him he's about to skip. Then he'll say, "Ha. I haven't done this since I was five." Exactly. That's the fundamental issue.

The problem with this lack of coordination and rhythm is that without these skills, movement becomes a lot more difficult. And when something is difficult, it is a lot less likely that people will find enjoyment in it and will often times not continue to perform these activities.

Think back to your days on the playground as a kid. Think about what you did during recess and why you chose to do those things. Very rarely will you find a case of uncoordinated kids running around trying to sports or other ball games at recess. Why? Because if they're not coordinated, they probably aren't very good at the games; and if they aren't very good then the games probably aren't much fun to them.

Exercise should be seen as playtime for adults, except here you have to do things that you aren't very good at because you are mature enough to understand that if you put in a little work you will get better at these skills and they will become easier and more fun. Here are some exercises you can do with your clients to improve their coordination:

• Jumping Rope
• Skipping (forwards, backwards, laterally)
• Ladder drills
• Footwork drills through cones
• Carioca
• Dance Dance Revolution (Joking. Kind of.)

If you want to add another layer of difficulty onto these drills you can toss tennis balls to them as they go through the drill and makes them catch them and toss them back.

The point of all this is to question whether our clients are in the physical condition that they are because they are lazy or because we, as trainers, are unable to provide an exciting environment for them to train. If we can improve our clients' coordination, then perhaps we will also improve how they view exerciseand it's relative difficulty and, in turn, allow them to get more out of their training.

Get big or die tryin'.

Strongman Training for the Everyday Athlete

One thing I have started doing with my personal training clients is strongman training. I'll have them do a variety of exercises including farmer walks, landing-mat flips (instead of tire flips), and heavy rope pulls. I'll work it in with the exercises they have become more accustomed too, and they are really enjoying it. Not only does it force them to do things they have never done before, but these exercises are often seen as more fun, or at least more entertaining. Instead of trying to hit a predetermined number of reps, going for a certain distance or time brings out a competitive spirit in them. These exercises are also often very taxing cardiovascularly for them, so they are able to get their conditioning in at the same time as their strength training.

These exercises don't take up the entire session, but rather are implemented once or twice over the course of two or three sessions. Examples of exercises I have done with clients are

• Farmer walks with dumbbells and kettle bells
  
• Battling rope pulls
• Heavy bag pushes
• Heavy bag carries
• Heavy bag flips
• Plate flips
• Landing-mat flips

The one common denominator between all of these exercises is that they all require a tremendous amount of grip strength. As I have said in previous posts, grip strength is something that is very much lacking in every day society, so this is another bonus.

If you are bored with your current training regimen or want to mix up your client's training, consider throwing in some strongman training.

Get big or die tryin'.