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Here is an older article I noticed I never posted, so going through my old articles, here goes!
Let me start with saying, there is a time to rest, and then there is a time to concentrate the heck out of your program. I used to look at some track coaches reccommendations of doing lifting three days a week and plyos on the other two days of a 5-day week and laugh. "They are going to drive their athletes into the ground", I thought. And of course, if you did a program like this with a beginner, yeah, you certainly would annihilate them. The point of a high-volume program like this, however, is to create a high work capacity in the athlete. High-level track coaches would probably not prescribe programs like this if they didn't work, or pay off later in the season. The best way to look at this would be to understand the concept of what is referred to by Dr. Yuri Verkhoshanski as "concentrated" strength loading. Here is a chart with an example of what happens in concentrated loading.
The easiest way to think of this type of unit is as a week in a standard program, but extended. Here is why. In your average "program", what is the goal? To fatigue yourself enough to be sore for a day or two, but then come back and be stonger the next time you lift or jump. This setup is like that..........but instead of three days, it is three weeks you are sore, or three months. Numerous studies have confirmed the effectiveness of this type of set-up, and it is especially useful for sports which have a demanding competitive season either physically, or technically.
Now, I will say that I am afraid of this system, because of the patience that it requires, as well as the trust in the program. That is why I typically like to work in 2-3 week variations of this system. There are a few key ingredients that are needed to make concentrated loading work.
(Above: The Glory Days for me)1. Pump up the volume! OK, that was a really lame title, but yeah, you want to really increase the volume of your loading during this time period. This could mean 3-4 strength training days per week, or 2-3 repetitive jump days.
2. Keep the training means CNS friendly, don't do depth jumps or 100% effort repeated sprints or anything like that. With the high volume, you want to really keep an eye on the intensity.
3. The decrement in performance should be linear. You don't want to have a spike in your performance drop. It should be smooth from week to week. You should have pre-set indicators such as vertical jump, standing 3-hops, or another type of explosive indicator to measure your condition.
4. During the "Recovery" period, your body will not tolerate volume well, but will respond wonderfully to intense training means. Think of the frequency and fatigue types of cycles for those of you familiar with inno-sport.
5. During the recovery period, you don't just stop training (obviously), you just turn the volume way down and start to gradually implement more intense means.
I will end with the statement that different coaches will tolerate different levels of drop-off in their jumpers. Some coaches will only allow 3% decrement at the maximum, which means their concentrated blocks are extremely short, while others will allow up to 20%, which is massive. I typically hover around 5-10% in my blocks, and losses further than this make me slightly uncomfortable, although maybe someday, I will trust myself with higher loads.
Any questions: email me at smith.joel@students.uwlax.edu
or
read articles about it here: www.athleticscoaching.ca
or here: www.verkhoshansky.com
On a final note with work capacity, a quick reminder from "Science and Practice of Strength Training". Elite athletes have work capacities that are up to 10x what a beginner can tolerate, pretty amazing huh?
1 comment:
Obviously you really have to trust what you are doing for this to work. I honestly can't see a self-trained athlete trusting himself enough to push himself down 5-10% for a return 2-3 months down the road.
I know I would be depressed as all hell and then if I didn't get the returns I was expecting I would feel like I wasted 3-4 months. That is a lot to ask a guy to give up out of himself.
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When I first went through Bagget's training regimine I had this happen, even at two days a week, my work capacity was so crappy that I constantly stayed sore and "lost" week in, week out. At the end of each month there was a planned test. I never made great gains.
Actually as I think about it, about 2-3weeks after I stopped his training I retested before starting a new program and found taht I had added 5 inches to my running vertical. Man, sometimes, you just have to BIY.
Believe in yourself Joel.
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