Work Capacity: The Final Frontier

Editors Note: My new site is now at www.just-fly-sports.com Check it out for a wealth of information on jumping higher and running faster, all backed by research and practical experience!

Here is an older article I noticed I never posted, so going through my old articles, here goes!

As long as I am on this space kick with my titles, I would like to briefly discuss probably the number one key to becoming an elite athlete and fulfilling your genetic potential. This key factor is work capacity, and in particular, specific work capacity. It seems like the focus of so many programs out today, and especially beginner programs really focus on regulating fatigue in order to achieve the optimal results, at least in the short term. Now restoration is an extremely important facet of training, and in some cases, more important than the training itself, after all, any idiot can beat the crap out of themselves with plyometrics and heavy weightlifting.

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?

The Internet Age of Training

Editors Note: My new site is now at www.just-fly-sports.com Check it out for a wealth of information on jumping higher and running faster, all backed by research and practical experience!

I have been in the iron/plyometric game for quite a while, I first started reading about training when I was 12 years old, and was always fascinated with anything having to do with lifting or jumping higher, it was all new and fresh material to me. I dunked for the first time at age 14 at 5'11" without reading a single bit of internet training advice. My primary training method at the time was wall sits, leg extensions and playing basketball, very archaic according to todays standards. When I was about 16 years old (year 2000) I started searching the internet for training information. Of course, back then there weren't the forums that there are today, or hardly any of the information that you can find on some internet resources such as T-nation (was just getting started then) Now days, I see high-schoolers on these forums who are light-years ahead of where I was at the same age (knowledge wise), but here is something that I also see............their gains are similar or less than mine when I was their age. I think that maybe I just got lucky with the science of jumping program that I did, but I really improved a lot, without knowing an awful lot.

These days, I learn a lot off the internet, I have some great text books and reference guides here at home, but I probably get most of my knowledge off the internet. (I guess I had a few master's classes here and there as well......but who really cares about action potentials and cell membranes anyways?) Here is a fact though, that very few of us internet training junkies are willing to accept........how much have you improved since you found all this great training info on the net? I am not talking about how much have you put on your squat or clean or single leg BOSU squat while simultaneously playing ping pong.. How much has your vertical jump or sprint speed improved.?? Now I am sure for some, yes, it has increased, but I would make a fair bet that, for a lot of people out there, NO, I have not improved much at all in the last 2-3 years, even though I am learning all these new training programs/ideas on the web. (I am talking for the most part about people who have stopped developing physically, because you will gain speed no matter what if you are still physically maturing, From what I have seen I think that physical abilities (speed strength) no longer on their own develop due to physical growth around age 15-19, however, this does not account for "old man strength" which I am starting to develop.)

So what is the point of this entry? It is just this........practical experience in training trumps anything you hear on the internet regarding training, EVEN MY ENTRIES, hahaha.

Here is my recommendation for evaluating your training program and what you read online....

1. NEVER build a training program around 1 article that you read. Read many articles by different authors, and find the good things they have to say about certain methods and what the authors agree on as sound training methods.

2. STICK to your training program. Don't go for a month and say, oh, well this program really isn't working, I think I'll check (insert website here) to look for another program and see how that works for me. An exception can be made here if you made a terrible mistake in your program selection, but if you follow step 1, you shouldn't come across this. (note: of course, you are supposed to make changes in your program every 2-4 weeks if you are intermediate/adv, but I am talking about the basic structure of the program in regards to long term goals)

3. DESIGN your program with the long term goal in mind. If you have been training for 5 years, your goal should not be to put 4 inches on your vertical in a month. This is probably not going to happen, and if it does, it will be the most unstable 4 inches you ever put on your vertical (quickly gained/quickly lost principle). Try and find resources regarding long term training methods. www.athleticscoaching.ca has loads of GREAT free sport science articles, especially regarding periodization.

4. REMEMBER what has worked for you in the past, and try not to get far away from it in your own training. It is important to vary training procedures from year to year, but you need to know what works for you and what doesn't.


I hope these simple tips can help you in your quest for your athletic goal

Joel

A Tale of Two Years

Editors Note: My new site is now at www.just-fly-sports.com Check it out for a wealth of information on jumping higher and running faster, all backed by research and practical experience!

My junior year of college could be called a breakout year for any athlete. I increased my high jump PR from 6'8.75 to 7'.25", and my triple jump improved from 42'2 to 45'11.75". All this came after 8 years of training and competition in track and field and stagnant sophmore and freshman years of training. I look over my training log from my junior year quite frequently and can pick out several key aspects that made this a successful season. Here are the ones I find most important:

• Year-long management of volume and intensity. I started the year with circuit training and ended with depth jumps. The progress between these two was not linear, but always had the end goal in mind.
  
• A focus on squats as the primary weightroom method instead of cleans...if you don't have a good squat base, your strength from your cleans and snatches are going to come from places that aren't helpful as a jumper.
  
• A focus on SPEED in the weightroom. Just about everything I did in the weightroom was pretty fast, even squats. I usually hovered in the 60-80% range for my training in the fall.
• Gradual improvement of work capacity and special strength fitness. I did a lot of tempo and general work early this training year, as well as a few longer runs a few times a week, just for the purpose of recovery and fitness.
• Concentrated Strength Block Work: I can give at least two times during the course of this training year where I hit the weights hard for three week cycles and although my performance might have decreased a little during that time, it improved a LOT afterwards and led to PR's.
  
• Focus on RECOVERY. I did a lot of hydrotherapy, foam rolling, and stretching this year and it really paid off.
  
• Focus on the primary sport movement from October on. My primary workout of each week in October and after (except for the strength blocks) was high jumping and triple jumping.
  
• Consistant recovery weeks (every 4th week)
• I had a relatively lower workload in my sophmore year season, I think this allowed me to experience greater benefits my Junior year.

• 

I would like to compare this season to my Senior year. My senior season was very disappointing to say the least, I hovered around the 6'6 mark in high jump for most of indoor, until I finally pulled out 6'8 and 6'10 at the end of indoor season. I triple jumped in the 44 range fairly consistantly, until I got 45'5 at the NCCAA indoor meet (which was really more like 45'10 but they marked off because of my shorts) Regardless, this season was very disappointing. I sprained my ankle at the national meet going for 7' and couldn't really high jump at all for outdoors. I also tore ligaments in my elbow which took away my javelin ability. Here are some reasons that I feel I did not perform quite as well my senior year.

• Too much plyometric intensity early on in the fall. I was doing a lot of plyo work and very little tempo or solid weightlifting work in the early fall. I felt that my strength levels were fine at about a 290lb backsquat (could do more last year!) and that I needed to work on speed. This may have been a good idea, but my special fitness level was terrible, and although I had some good high jump practices early in the fall, I eventually hit a big plateu and burnout mark in late October.
  
• Too little weightlifting in the early season. (I had read a book by Marv Marinovich and it was good, but kind of led me down the wrong path) I did mostly bodyweight exercises in the early season.....pistol squats and the like. Pistol squats are actually a great exercise for acute increases in vertical, but they wont really provide enough overload to the CNS because of the balance issue.
• Too little general strength/elastic work. Once I hit my wall so to speak and started really hitting the weights again, I virtually eliminated elastic work from my regime (Aside from some sprint work). Although I gained MASSIVE amounts on my 2 leg vertical (and even my single leg), I was increasing my ground contact time by training my body to rely on frictional elements for the takeoff and thus my full approach high jump was in trouble. My first high jump practice after some very well planned strength work resulted in almost scissoring 5'10 after not being able to make 5'8 for the majority of the year and at the time would have been a practice record. I couldn't really jump off a full run however, because I hadn't really been practicing it, as well as not working on elastic exercises.
  
• Loss of high jumping progression throughout the SPP period.
  
• Loss of ability to maintain strength gains (possibly because of 'erratic' training cycles)
• X-Factors, Honestly sometimes I think that I also did poorly this season because I have been training hard for so long, sometimes the wall just creeps up on you. I know legendary sprint coach Charlie Francis reccommends a year of lowered volume after so many years of consistant training (I think 7 years). I did manage to take off 2 months of training altogether last year, and it really helped for this past summer's work.
  

With all that written, I would have to say the moral of the story is this.......traditional methods are typically where it is at with training. Make sure you are doing mostly low intensity work in the earlier portion of the year, and get stronger in the weightroom while keeping the speed of your lifts up. Make sure you get to your primary movement work early in the year, and then strive to improve thoughout the fall. Work a few concentrated strength blocks in here and there, and make sure your recovery and diet are good, and you will have a great season.

Joel