This video is why we need more strength coaches sharing what to do and less PTs giving us insight on power. This is not real power. Power is measured and what is being shared (single arm exercises with light loads) can’t do anything for increasing power with athletes unless they are truly untrained. I can’t imagine a running back at a D1 program going through the hole explosively from the traini
Real Power
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Participant
Carl
Interesting post, again. You and Vern have posted a lot of theory-type posts about seeing things a certain way, capturing movement, and sometimes I think to myself, “what can I take away from this?” Usually it is a great mental stimulator, but I often get confused, maybe its just me. But when you put specific examples such as this post, I definitely benefit immediately…please keep em coming. A couple of thoughts I would love your opinion on-
1. Charles Poliquin versus Vern Gambetta- CP says isolate muscles (ex hamstring curls) in order to integrate them. VG- never isolate, train movements (ex. hamstring curls and knee flexion training is evil) – one strength coach friend of mine working at the D1 level ( i know that means nothing) said, “well who has had more success with their athletes, look at where VG is coaching now” -this type of contrasting philosophies from two top coaches can be very consfusing to young coaches.
2. Relative strength- is it really that magical for vertical jump and acceleration. When tested for correlation, it doesnt always correlate that the strongest pound for pound jump the highest and accelerate 10-20 yards the fastest. But to get an individual better, it seems that in the real world, getting someone stronger for their bw is the best way to improve standing vert and accel ability. In other words, dont worry about structural differences that cause the lack of correlation in tests, look at what makes most individuals improve. – is relative strength that important, or relative power, of course its power. But a lot of people just arent that strong to worry about power yet beacause they arent strong. Ben johnson= 3xbw squat. Mo Greene 2.5 at least bw squat. Reggie Bush, 2.5 at least bw squat. Seems like most people just need to get much stronger before worrying about their dynamic squats and olympic lift numbers. Taking it a step further, med ball throws and sand bag tosses (or along the lines of your blog post, one arm push jerks) becoming an even bigger waste of time. Thoughts? -
Participant
Just a thought on your recent blogs . . .
I think it is great and I am learning a lot of insight from you, but endlessly picking apart other people’s training only shows us whats wrong. My suggestion would be to find us some great videos of things that you find outstanding and point out the positives. Tell us how you would train a D1 running back or how you progress strengthening the post-chain instead of tire flips. The list of what not to do has certainly grown, but as a coach, I usually am cue-ing my athletes what to do.
I think you have a wealth of knowledge to share with everyone here and I would love to see more applicable stuff with your thoughts on training. I enjoyed your blog on your tempo progression and of the hurdles.
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Participant
Carl
Interesting post, again. You and Vern have posted a lot of theory-type posts about seeing things a certain way, capturing movement, and sometimes I think to myself, “what can I take away from this?” Usually it is a great mental stimulator, but I often get confused, maybe its just me. But when you put specific examples such as this post, I definitely benefit immediately…please keep em coming. A couple of thoughts I would love your opinion on-
1. Charles Poliquin versus Vern Gambetta- CP says isolate muscles (ex hamstring curls) in order to integrate them. VG- never isolate, train movements (ex. hamstring curls and knee flexion training is evil) – one strength coach friend of mine working at the D1 level ( i know that means nothing) said, “well who has had more success with their athletes, look at where VG is coaching now” -this type of contrasting philosophies from two top coaches can be very consfusing to young coaches.
2. Relative strength- is it really that magical for vertical jump and acceleration. When tested for correlation, it doesnt always correlate that the strongest pound for pound jump the highest and accelerate 10-20 yards the fastest. But to get an individual better, it seems that in the real world, getting someone stronger for their bw is the best way to improve standing vert and accel ability. In other words, dont worry about structural differences that cause the lack of correlation in tests, look at what makes most individuals improve. – is relative strength that important, or relative power, of course its power. But a lot of people just arent that strong to worry about power yet beacause they arent strong. Ben johnson= 3xbw squat. Mo Greene 2.5 at least bw squat. Reggie Bush, 2.5 at least bw squat. Seems like most people just need to get much stronger before worrying about their dynamic squats and olympic lift numbers. Taking it a step further, med ball throws and sand bag tosses (or along the lines of your blog post, one arm push jerks) becoming an even bigger waste of time. Thoughts?Although I have issues with this particular blog post about power (power is developed best at 15-30% many sources on this subject which I will get to later) I think you are wrong on both points.
1. Vern’s White Sox teams were top notch until the steriod era began. Vern’s also has greater breadth of knowledge and has helped more coaches and therefore affected more athletes directly in a positive way. It’s not even close. Charles Poliquin’s notable clients were already world class before they came to him. Vern has helped develop more WC athletes in the last 10 years than Charles Poliquin would ever sniff at if he coached at the levels of development Vern works with.
2. The relative strength you are pointing out took years of development (the point of Carl’s blog BTW) or was the result performance enhancing drugs. The most important thing these athletes had before that was higher relative power numbers and their strength and power was more specific to their sport. The biggest waste of time is spending more time in the weight room than do more sport specific movements.
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Participant
dbandre- I have no problem ever being wrong, but I was posing those points as questions, not my beliefs. I took things I have heard, and put them into thoughts and then ultimately questions for discussion. I am just trying to learn.
“The biggest waste of time is spending more time in the weight room than do more sport specific movements.”
I think you are trying to say that its not enough just to lift heavy weights and run and that athletes need to do specifc power work (15-30%)… but i am not clear because you are missing a word or two in that sentence. Please explain.
I appreciate your reply and I agree with you about Vern, great mind, great coach. You still didnt answer the specific question about isolate to integrate or not. Charles Poliquin is extremely smart, and he has gotten world class athletes better. I dont think its the number of athletes that someone trains that makes them great.
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Participant
dbandre- I have no problem ever being wrong, but I was posing those points as questions, not my beliefs. I took things I have heard, and put them into thoughts and then ultimately questions for discussion. I am just trying to learn.
“The biggest waste of time is spending more time in the weight room than do more sport specific movements.”
I think you are trying to say that its not enough just to lift heavy weights and run and that athletes need to do specifc power work (15-30%)… but i am not clear because you are missing a word or two in that sentence. Please explain.
I appreciate your reply and I agree with you about Vern, great mind, great coach. You still didnt answer the specific question about isolate to integrate or not. Charles Poliquin is extremely smart, and he has gotten world class athletes better. I dont think its the number of athletes that someone trains that makes them great.
As questions then they would be false or rather more false than true.
Replace “do” with “doing”.
Not really, I think lifting weights has importance, but I think if you are looking long term and your athlete is at or near the body composition they need to be to handle training loads and be competitively successful at their position/events within their level of competition then I don’t think heavy lifting is going to cut it. I think you have to work the full spectrum on loading (velocity, mass, and volume). The 15-30% numbers are from studies, although OL’s require a higher load to be more powerful (60-85% max). Some claim there is no transfer in power, I don’t believe in that claim. In fact the theory on bodyweight activities is that reducing mass (making yourself lighter without doing so by about 10%) would elicit the greatest power numbers.
Integrated motion is how we learn to move. It’s how infants learn to move and this follows through adulthood, it’s how previous catastrophically injured people learn to move in therapy. You build specific strength for the activity by doing the activity. Strength builds over time, but with strength you need the coordinative structures to move.
I really don’t want to get too involved on the subject of Poliquin. I think he’s more of a guru. Of course, he like many others disagrees with my approach to using the powerlifts before olympic lifts, I use the powerlifts to activate the musculature for better olympic lifts, especially the deadlift. My personal belief is I don’t think isolation is what makes people better. I think progressive and specific training is how we get better. Maybe, isolation works well for Elite athletes, but isolation insists on working on weaknesses while the rest of the system suffers from a lack of stimulus. In my opinion and experience this does not work well with developmental athletes.
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Participant
[quote author="tothetop" date="1228954401"]Carl
Interesting post, again. You and Vern have posted a lot of theory-type posts about seeing things a certain way, capturing movement, and sometimes I think to myself, “what can I take away from this?” Usually it is a great mental stimulator, but I often get confused, maybe its just me. But when you put specific examples such as this post, I definitely benefit immediately…please keep em coming. A couple of thoughts I would love your opinion on-
1. Charles Poliquin versus Vern Gambetta- CP says isolate muscles (ex hamstring curls) in order to integrate them. VG- never isolate, train movements (ex. hamstring curls and knee flexion training is evil) – one strength coach friend of mine working at the D1 level ( i know that means nothing) said, “well who has had more success with their athletes, look at where VG is coaching now” -this type of contrasting philosophies from two top coaches can be very consfusing to young coaches.
2. Relative strength- is it really that magical for vertical jump and acceleration. When tested for correlation, it doesnt always correlate that the strongest pound for pound jump the highest and accelerate 10-20 yards the fastest. But to get an individual better, it seems that in the real world, getting someone stronger for their bw is the best way to improve standing vert and accel ability. In other words, dont worry about structural differences that cause the lack of correlation in tests, look at what makes most individuals improve. – is relative strength that important, or relative power, of course its power. But a lot of people just arent that strong to worry about power yet beacause they arent strong. Ben johnson= 3xbw squat. Mo Greene 2.5 at least bw squat. Reggie Bush, 2.5 at least bw squat. Seems like most people just need to get much stronger before worrying about their dynamic squats and olympic lift numbers. Taking it a step further, med ball throws and sand bag tosses (or along the lines of your blog post, one arm push jerks) becoming an even bigger waste of time. Thoughts?Although I have issues with this particular blog post about power (power is developed best at 15-30% many sources on this subject which I will get to later) I think you are wrong on both points.
1. Vern’s White Sox teams were top notch until the steriod era began. Vern’s also has greater breadth of knowledge and has helped more coaches and therefore affected more athletes directly in a positive way. It’s not even close. Charles Poliquin’s notable clients were already world class before they came to him. Vern has helped develop more WC athletes in the last 10 years than Charles Poliquin would ever sniff at if he coached at the levels of development Vern works with.
2. The relative strength you are pointing out took years of development (the point of Carl’s blog BTW) or was the result performance enhancing drugs. The most important thing these athletes had before that was higher relative power numbers and their strength and power was more specific to their sport. The biggest waste of time is spending more time in the weight room than do more sport specific movements.[/quote]
This is ridiculous! How much time have you spent with Charles?
My main coaching period was from 1990-97 and during that time I did Level I and Level II ( Seagrave ), Jr Elite Camp ( Wells ), many seminars, and even had a former athlete’s training log from U of Illinois ( Winckler ). So, for that time period, I was exposed to some guys who were at the top.
From 1997-2001, I spent a good deal of time with Charles at both public and private seminars. I learned infinitely more about the training process ( not just strength! ) from him than all the others combined. Not even close!
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Participant
[quote author="tothetop" date="1228957969"]dbandre- I have no problem ever being wrong, but I was posing those points as questions, not my beliefs. I took things I have heard, and put them into thoughts and then ultimately questions for discussion. I am just trying to learn.
“The biggest waste of time is spending more time in the weight room than do more sport specific movements.”
I think you are trying to say that its not enough just to lift heavy weights and run and that athletes need to do specifc power work (15-30%)… but i am not clear because you are missing a word or two in that sentence. Please explain.
I appreciate your reply and I agree with you about Vern, great mind, great coach. You still didnt answer the specific question about isolate to integrate or not. Charles Poliquin is extremely smart, and he has gotten world class athletes better. I dont think its the number of athletes that someone trains that makes them great.
As questions then they would be false or rather more false than true.
Replace “do” with “doing”.
Not really, I think lifting weights has importance, but I think if you are looking long term and your athlete is at or near the body composition they need to be to handle training loads and be competitively successful at their position/events within their level of competition then I don’t think heavy lifting is going to cut it. I think you have to work the full spectrum on loading (velocity, mass, and volume). The 15-30% numbers are from studies, although OL’s require a higher load to be more powerful (60-85% max). Some claim there is no transfer in power, I don’t believe in that claim. In fact the theory on bodyweight activities is that reducing mass (making yourself lighter without doing so by about 10%) would elicit the greatest power numbers.
Integrated motion is how we learn to move. It’s how infants learn to move and this follows through adulthood, it’s how previous catastrophically injured people learn to move in therapy. You build specific strength for the activity by doing the activity. Strength builds over time, but with strength you need the coordinative structures to move.
I really don’t want to get too involved on the subject of Poliquin. I think he’s more of a guru. Of course, he like many others disagrees with my approach to using the powerlifts before olympic lifts, I use the powerlifts to activate the musculature for better olympic lifts, especially the deadlift. My personal belief is I don’t think isolation is what makes people better. I think progressive and specific training is how we get better. Maybe, isolation works well for Elite athletes, but isolation insists on working on weaknesses while the rest of the system suffers from a lack of stimulus. In my opinion and experience this does not work well with developmental athletes.[/quote]
Also, don’t know where you got your info, but the approach of using powerlifts, not only before, but even at the exclusion of olympic lifts, is one that is fully embraced by Charles.
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