Charles Poliquin and Vern Gambetta integrated some of the work by Lois Klatt into assessing. Vern pointed out in his plyometric article that you can use plyometrics as more than training, but to show the competence of what the athlete could do. Poliquin shared many ways of gaging the weak points of an athlete using Klatt's work. Note two very different coaches came up with similar conclusions wit [...]

Sometimes we get too wrapped up in the mode of strength training and lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish. Select a mode of strength training that is appropriate to the sport are training for. Do not lock yourself in to one mode. For example, pulling movements can be accomplished in a variety of ways using a variety of implements. It all depends on the ultimate goal. If you accept that s [...]

In this series on returning injured athletes to sport readiness I want to look at 3 case scenarios. The first is a professional soccer player who is returning from a broken fibula that required the insertion of hardware to stabilize the bone. The surgery went ok but the athlete lost about 50% mobility in the ankle, especially in dorsiflexion. This prevents him from even walking without a limp. Thi [...]

I have a couple things that might be of benefit for professional development for some of our members.SOLD OUT Dynamic Warmup Considerations for Speed-Power Athletes DVD for only $14.95My DVD publisher misprinted several of one of my DVDs such that the DVD has the content of Dynamic Warmup Considerations for Speed-Power Athletes but the label of Maximal Velocity Sprint Mechanics is on the cover. Th [...]

Over the course of my career I have used various forms of assessment to determine the athletes readiness to train and compete. Sometimes they looked more like something you would see in physical therapy clinic and other times it was just pure end range jumping, throwing and running tests. I kept searching for an assessment tool that would give then information I was looking for. A few years ago s [...]

If you're using the olympic lifts in your program which variation(s) do you choose and why? I'm not going to get into different initiations (floor, box, hip, hang, static, dynamic, complex, etc..), but will focus on the quality and the carry over of the snatch and the clean. Often I see athletes with PRs and work weights in the power clean that are almost double what they work with if they do [...]

My biggest issue with the corrective exercise stuff, as all the bright folks who responded to the post also stated, is that any movement/exercise can be corrective. I think too many of the "experts" have been spewing too much pseudo rehabilitation stuff and now everyone is over-thinking/over-correcting symptoms and playing the role of therapist. I thought exercise in general was theraputic and p [...]

Perform these workouts five days apart. On your first sprint session, work your way up to four 100-meter sprints at 80% max-speed. On your second sprint session, work your way up to two 100-meter sprints at 90% max-speed. On your third sprinting session, work your way up to one 100-meter sprint at 100% max-speed. Have a buddy bring a stop-watch and see if you can set a personal record- Brett Contr [...]

Is the "Boylegarian" leg exercise the new front squat? We are back full circle with spinal loading with a split squat but that is another argument. Now I have nothing against Mike Boyle advocating single leg biased exercises but the math is not adding up. The RFESS (rear foot elevated split squat) is not a single leg exercise but more like a 1.5 leg exercise. I would bet that none of his freshma [...]

One leg is better than two? Noted author Frans Bosch in his presentation at the USATF III school in Chicago left many of us wondering why lift at all if conventional training is so poor for sprinting. We do know that various research papers will agree and disagree with the squat and clean but we know that some combination of training methods will be the answer. Frans believes that lifting with one [...]