Super belated happy new year my friends! Any of you that have been here for longer than 5 minutes know I was a amateur athlete for 20 years while playing rugby. As formerly one of those and now just concentrating on life being a dad, there’s a few things I want all my friends to keep in mind for their weekend activities.
Gotta Train- Whether you play pickup basketball, play 18 holes, run around playing 5 a side or are hitting a 10k, you need to train to keep at it. While you don’t need super serious training (more on that in a minute) you do need to train a bit so you don’t pick up any nagging injuries. Some strength training so the next kick isn’t your last and when the road hits back, you’re ready for it, your body will be thankful later. Don’t train like the pros- Don’t pretend you’re Caitlin Clarke on the court or Brooks Koepka off the tee and try to train like they do. Train to what suits you best, if you’ve got 45 minutes for 3 days a week, perfect. If you only have a couple sessions of 45-60 in you a week, crush them and stick to it. Remember, those athletes are PAID to be athletes and workout (essentially), they have all the time they want if they choose so. Recover- The day (really starting that night) after you’re done being a warrior on the weekend, get yourself into some sort of recovery routine. Hydrate, hydrate and hydrate again, get some gentle movement in and get some high quality eats in. You don’t want to be going into work feeling like you just got hit by a truck because you didn’t want to spend a bit of time respecting your body. Thanks for reading friends, hope you've all missed me as much as I missed you, back with more next week.
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Hello everyone and happy Friday eve (Thursday). Today I want to talk about something I've noted over the last 5-6 years, movements that proper Strength and Conditioning coaches should nail, but amateur coaches (sport coaches trying to be strength coaches mostly) should leave the hell alone. Usually, these types are movements that a strength coach (trainer) should be able to coach someone up on in a session, maybe two, no more. The top culprits are below, you’ll notice they all belong to one pattern of movement. KB Swings (snatches, cleans too)- Most want to have their athletes do swings because they know the benefits, BUT could not coach them with worse form though. I believe, when push comes to shove, a quality strength coach should be able to coach this movement up in a session at most. Me personally, I do like to progress and build them up over time, still, if you held my feet to the fire, I could get it done in a day, any of my colleagues as well. 1-Leg RDLs- These are problematic mostly because athletes, without the proper coaching, try to rush them, because they are too busy trying to not fall over. These are absolutely a necessity in an athlete’s program, however there are some variations, pregressions and so on, that are more appropriate for the super balance challenged out there. While I believe I can get most people to do a 1-Leg RDL without looking like Bambi, the go to movements to dial things back on are at my finger tips, simply because I've been doing it for a bit, as it should be for most strength coaches. Deadlifts- Super important lift for any athlete here, no denying it, and holy brain farts do I see them butchered with little to no correction from coaches (again not my colleagues that are proper coaches). Credit to them for knowing the value, an F for execution and not thinking about getting help. More often than not, the lift gets super squatty OR the proper variation for the athlete isn’t applied, ever. Too many coaches die on the hill of certain variations being trash over others. If it fits the person, it should be on the table. Kettlebell, trap bar, barbell, sumo stance, conventional stance, elevated, and on and on. Know the variations, know where people need to start, regardless of what they tell you, and know where to go should things start to get wonky. Easy for a strength coach, not so easy for the amateur (or sport coach). *Olympic Lifts- These aren’t quite in the same category, but they’re almost in the same category (so you don’t f**in hit em…anyone?) I see way too many amateur coaches thinking they can coach cleans and snatches, cleans mostly. To be honest, I’m probably only coaching cleans, if either of them, and I used to be much better with both. This poses the question, if I'm a bit gun shy with these, having 10+ years in the field, why the hell do rookies (or pseudo strength coaches) think it’s wise to unleash their athletes (or clients) with them? The solution to them all is ask someone to help coach. Honestly, I myself would jump at the chance if someone either reached out or walked up to me for help coaching. There’s no gate keeping here friends, everyone needs a bit a help so people don’t walk away in serious pain. Thanks for reading friends and if you know this type of stuff is happening to other athletes, I'd highly encourage a conversation between yourself and the sport coach...or just hire someone like me for your athlete. Happy Thursday fam! Hi again friends, back with more fun to end the week for you! After a couple of convos with my clients this week on this topic, I figured this would be a good bit to write about. I like rep ranges and here’s why.
First off, I like them for the big movers, usually the first or second block of a program (A’s or B’s to some of you). I usually start off by saying, with an 6-8 rep range for example, shoot for 6 reps, if you get to 8 and are feeling really strong still, go for 8. Keep in mind I’m still hoping for a 7-8 out of 10 on the effort scale so that plays a factor into what rep the trainee (client) is targeting. I also find rep ranges good because folks can feel like they’ve made progress on a movement without necessarily adding weight to the bar, because sometimes you’re just not ready for that yet. Example, someone was doing a front squat with 95 lbs for a set of 8 to 10. Maybe the first week they do all their sets for 8 reps. The next week they’re still not overly comfortable with even 105 on the bar, so they stick with 95, BUT they bang out 10 reps for all their sets. I’d still call that progress, even without the bar weight changing 1 ounce. An example that's good, sort of the yang to the yin above, perhaps someone comes in, 6-8 reps are prescribed that phase/week or whatever. They get up to 165 on the bar for their bench press having done that for one of their, we’ll say solid feeling sets, the previous week. Maybe they are not feeling so hot about grinding out that 7th and 8th rep as they’d done so easily the previous week, so they stick with 6 for the day. That is still progress, just not necessarily how we think of it. It gives people a bit of freedom to recognize, 'OK maybe I don’t have it to the same degree today. I’m going to stick with this weight, just back down the reps to that lower end of the rep range.' There you have my fairly short and sweet reasoning for liking and using rep ranges. Have good day fam, thanks for reading and see you next time! |
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AuthorJarrod Dyke, CSCS Archives
September 2024
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