Tag Archive: strength training

1. Train the way you play: Jim Radcliffe

   21st January 2014 9:28 am 3 Comments

   “Go hard, Go Fast, Finish it, Go Again”

   

   Coach Radcliffe demonstrating

   This sums up Jim Radcliffe’s approach to training teams at Oregon University. His lecture at GAIN V on his training system was a masterclass in how to organise and plan. The Jim Radcliffe workouts are efficient from beginning to end.

   This was not some periodisation lecture, instead it showed the different aspects that need training, and how they connect with each other. Radcliffe showed the different roots and branches of what is needed and why.

   His lecture last year looked more at the weekly and monthly cycles. This looked at more of the progressions that fit into those cycles.

   Musculo skeletal health 101

   Radcliffe started by linking the different aspects of fitness that are interconnected using Frank Dick’s model (1984 Pictured below)

   

   He has changed this slightly and replaced mobility with movement efficiency, and uses a pyramid analogy instead of a triangle. Radcliffe wants his players to be around as long as the pyramids have been!

   He then gave his view of what physical state his college players are when they arrive. As we all find, they have:

   • poor mechanics
   • poor understanding of their own body
   • poor hip mobility (too much time in seated postures)
   • weak torsos
   • poor knee, hip and ankle integrity.

   (Posture coming up time and time again).

   These areas must be addressed before anything else. “We must be prepared to teach, train and develop not from scratch, but from behind zero.”

   Radcliffe used a clock diagram on several of his slides asking “what percentage of time is spent..?”

   On this first part, it was how much time should be spent on sitting or lying exercises that work on 1or 2 joints or muscles in isolation compared to standing exercises that are multiple joint and require synchronisation?

   “Running is a skill..”

   ..”in fact, it should be the main skill, and it needs to be taught”. Poor postures, lifestyles and inadequate teaching have left the players unable to run.

   The exercises and progressions in the gym should be able to assist and enhance this, rather than inhibit it. Radcliffe uses a small battery of tests/ screening exercises to assess what the players can do, rather than what they can’t do.

   He then leads into a progression of hip actions:

   Hip Hinge- Hip projection- Whip from the hip

   This is done in the gym and on the field. Everything must work together.

   Acceleration, Acceleration, Acceleration.

   “Did I mention we do a lot of acceleration?” Radcliffe keeps working on this “until we get better and more efficient. Otherwise we are just running for running’s sake. Get better, then repeat it.”

   This was really the central thrust of the Oregon system. Instead of doing drills for drills sake, the coaches are asked to train skills and get them working well. This sounds a lot more like “Coaching” rather than “instructing”.

   (For those of you not familiar with College Football, Oregon have been notorious for playing fast and furious football. Other teams struggle to keep up).

   Warm Up is a chance to rehearse skill

   Radcliffe espoused the use of the warm up as a chance to rehearse skill. It should not only do the physiological things that are necessary, but also be enabling skill.

   What you do 6 minutes before the game should build on what you did 6 hours, 6 days, 6 weeks and 6 months before.

   Do you Stretch/ Manipulate or do you Move before matches? (Static stretching is still common place in team warm ups at College football.)

   He then showed some great data on different warm up protocols and their effect on performance. Total synchronised body lifts that moved load at speed (The snatch) helped prepare the body better than just dynamic warm ups.

   (For the younger readers, you might think “we know this” but who do you think has led the field in questioning previous practices? More on dynamic warm ups here)

   Mass- Specific Force

   

   Ex Excelsior athlete Elliot Hoyte

   Are you moving mass just to move mass? Or does it have an application on the field? (We know where the UKSCA paradigm is on this! Jack Blatherwick on application of power in sport)

   Force ends up displaying itself on the field on 1 small spot like the ball of the foot (See Elliot Hoyte getting past the lineman right) so it must be applicable strength.

   Great force is exerted over a small base of support and rapidly. Training must replicate this and also work on the righting/ tilting reflexes that happen when the athlete is in the air or lands.

   • Get ’em strong
   • Train Rate of Force Development
   • Dynamic Strength

   My understanding from this year and last year is that Radcliffe incorporates application into every session, but to varying degrees. If maximal strength is being developed, at least 1-2 exercises at the end are used to help the body apply it.

    Gassers vs Get Offs

   

   Coach Radcliffe

   “How much time is spent on Biomechanical Performance Technique vs Mental Toughness Training?” In other words is your training designed to replicate and encourage great technique and efficiency, or is it just making your players tired?

   (For Non US readers a gasser is a Football conditioning drill that requires players to run 2 widths of the pitch, rest and repeat. A Get off is working the first 2-3 steps of a start, so a 5-10 metre acceleration drill).

   Radcliffe gave examples of wrestling coaches who insisted on their players doing a 13 mile run once a fortnight for “mental toughness”. When you step onto the mat you want to be sure you are technically, tactically superior, not that you can last longer on a 13 mile run (Or we may as well get Mo Farah to wrestle!).

   This applies across all sports, because someone has analysed the total distance covered in soccer/ basketball matches as 10km (roughly) coaches think you have to go out and jog for 10km!

   What this means is that poor running mechanics are rehearsed, the overstriders over stride and then hamstrings are torn when sprinting.

   Instead, work on the quality of the movement, then increase the reps, or sets or frequency of the training. This allows the players to repeatedly produce quality work.

   

   The same applies in the gym: Radcliffe knows the stuff works because if you ask an athlete to do their own training it consists of a lot of steady state running, bench press and bicep curls.

   Because they are easy to do!

   Programme Objectives (Jim Radcliffe workouts in action)

   The Oregon long term objectives are to develop:

   • Explosive Power
   • Functional Strength
   • Directional Speed
   • Transitional Agility

   In the Short Term they work on:

   • Power Reliability (used to call it power endurance)
   • Work Capacity (The ability to do more intense work, or more load, finish it, recover, go again)
   • Recoverability
   • Stamina

   Radcliffe broke the Programme components down and showed how they inter relate with Preparational Work- Technical Work- Developmental Work and then Transitional Work and their various sub divisions.

   This was quite enlightening and showed the system behind the various exercises.

   The Programme emphasis is to put the players in situations where the drill forces the body to learn and adapt. This is a key coaching point and shows the importance of what we do.

   (As an aside, if, as an S&C coach, you just get your players to do lifts for lifts sake and do not work with the coaches, you will get isolated and not be aiding the players get better for where it counts. You must coach.)

   Summary

   Once again this session highlighted why Radcliffe is at the top of his game. He has created a system over the last 26 years that is very thorough and specific.

   He understands the importance of application in the game situation and knows how to get his players there.

   He has researched the different aspects of power, strength, speed and agility and is continually looking to evolve his programme. This has been done with real athletes across different sports over many years.

   In combination with his superb practical demonstrations, Radcliffe makes me want to improve my delivery, my planning and my thinking. I have incorporated many of his ideas into our pre-season training plans

   Inspirational.

   Further reading:

   • Jim Radcliffe strength and power concepts
   • Jim Radcliffe agility with a purpose
   • Jim Radcliffe pliometric progressions

   See our Get Stronger programme.

2. Jack Lalanne – R.I.P.

   24th January 2011 10:39 am Leave a Comment

   I am sorry to hear that Jack Lalanne has died. For those of you that don’t know Jack, he was a legend in the 1950s and 1960s, producing a series of TV slots that still resonate today.

   Here is an example of Jack talking about unhappy people. Please spare 3 minutes of your time to see what he has to offer.

   I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack on his 93rd birthday.  He was generous with his time and advice, and had just finished his 2 hour training session.

   He most recently gave a quote for last year’s blog festival. and has been featured regularly on this blog.

   In the day and age of quick fixes and gimmicks, and where young athletes want rewards for simply turning up and doing 10 press ups, Jack was a welcome link to simple, honest advice and some impressive feats of strength.

   1000 press ups and 1000 pull ups in an hour and 20 minutes is good going.

   Our thoughts go to his family.

3. Power Training Research and its Practical Application: Dan Baker, UKSCA conference

   18th June 2010 8:31 am 2 Comments

   Dan Baker has been training the Brisbane Broncos for 15 years, and has had many research articles published. The JSCR isn’t that interesting nowadays, the quality of research is poor, but Baker’s articles are always worth reading- innovative, practical and done with really good athletes- not students.

   This seminar looked at some of that research, and explained how Baker decided on which aspects of strength and power to work on and develop.  This was good for me to see how he had come to his conclusions, and I got an insight into his decision making process.

   There was a lot of information in this lecture, but here are some of the key points that I took away:

   • Testing and measuring explosive power gives information to the coach that can then be tailored to the athlete, even within a squad environment. A continuum of speed power (0-20% 1RM) ballistic power (20-40%1RM), maximal power (40-60% 1RM), explosive power (60-80%1RM) and max strength (80-100% 1RM) is used.
   • Organisation is key in training squads. An example of one session is a 6 minute warm up followed by:  bench press 10×10 @60%1RM, incline dumbbell row 10×10 (each db 33% 1RM of bench press) then 10×10 crunches. As a complex, and it starts every 3 minutes. So you can get 10 sets done in 30 minutes.   Such high rep activity has an immediate negative effect on power output which is more pronounced in stronger athletes.
   • In contrast training, one form is to use 65%1RM @6 reps (after which power declines)  followed by a lighter weight explosive action of 30-40% 1RM. Another is to use agonist\ antagonist complex training which helps increase power output. For example using pulls or cleans followed by jerks or bench throws.
   • To create a within repetition difference, chains are useful, try 10-20% of the total load, this works well for experienced athletes. Baker uses a chain bench press, followed by bench throws complex with 75 seconds rest between exercises.
   • 

     Start with body weight

     Baker doesn’t chuck people in at the deep end- there is a progression within the Broncos, getting the athletes young and early. From 13-15 years they develop the body structures with various exercises. Then from 15-17 they introduce barbell exercises at 6-15 reps, and then from 17-18 look at heavier strength training. Most of the changes occur in the first 4 years of the heavy strength training, after that the fatigue induced by playing means it is a case of not getting weaker.

   • Baker trains hypertrophy just short of fatigue (a common theme of this conference) so a couple of reps short of failure for the first 2 sets, followed by a 3rd set hard. He includes some isometric strengthening exercises around sticking points within the sessions.

   Someone asked a question at the end – “If you had one thing that came up as a result of your training and experience what would it be?”

   Dan Baker replied “hard work”.  Funny how it comes back to that a lot of the time.

   This lecture was informative and entertaining, I recommend you read Baker’s research, but more importantly have some kind of thought process and structure to your training philosophy.  This was probably the only lecture in the whole conference given by a true Coach (that I saw anyway) and more emphasis on Coaching should be given.

   I had a quick chat with Dan after the lecture, and he was good enough to talk about some other ideas and experiences including wrestling\ grappling and conditioning drills.

   See our Get Stronger programme

4. Jack Lalanne Guest Blog

   7th March 2010 10:40 am 1 Comment

   To finish off the blog festival, Jack Lalanne has kindly sent this quote:

   “Anything in Life is Possible, if YOU Make it Happen!”Jack is now 95 years old and still training regularly see the interview I did with him on his 93rd birthday here