Today we are introducing our final speaker for the 2012 Seminar, Val Nasedkin.  Val will be translating for Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky and also presenting at the seminar.  We are truly lucky and excited to have Val on board and cannot wait to hear what he has to say.

J: Val, thanks again for being part of the seminar and taking the time to answer a few questions about yourself to our readers/attendees.  Could you please give us a little background of your coaching/athletic career?

VN:I was a professional track athlete in the former Soviet Union where I competed on the national level. My career was over due to injury by the time I was 19 years old at which time I started to work as a coach. At first my job was coach selector- recruiting young talented children for the State School of Olympic Development.  After a few years I was coaching athletes for the Ukrainian and USSR National Teams. In 1988 I was selected as a coach of the Ukrainian Team that would compete in the USA. That was my first introduction to American training philosophy. I relocated to the US in 1990 where I worked as a coach in collegiate (UO) and post collegiate systems. My education is from Kiev State University of Physical Culture with a specialty in Track and Field.

J: You have been instrumental in our knowledge of the Omegawave and its features. Could you please give a brief description of what the technology is, why it is so important, and what it can provide for coaches?

VN:Omegawave technology provides coaches information about the ways their athletes adapt to training by analyzing the state of multiple biological systems. It identifies athletes’ physiological limiting factors and provides guidelines for training and recovery protocols to eliminate them.

J: Let’s talk coaching for a bit, Val.  Many coaches have been influenced by you and those you have learned under.  Could you please give an overview of your philosophy in developing athletes?

VN:My philosophy is very simple: every decision you make as a coach should be made based on facts rather than assumptions. The more facts you have the better decisions you’ll make.  The best training programs are based on individual biological markers and not on general empirical approaches.

J: To piggy back off of your philosophy, and since you have spent such a great amount of time in the states working with coaches, where do you see the key areas coaches are missing?  In other words, do you see some changes that would improve the way we handle our athletes and thus the sporting results we produce?

VN:There is a great gap between sport science as taught in US and applying the methodology in training. Very often I see coaches concentrate on details and completely miss the big picture. In my opinion there is a unifying philosophy of training that should be taken in consideration when the training program is built. But it does not mean that everybody should do the same thing. I believe there are many ways to reach an optimal performance and every coach should try to find their own way. Nevertheless certain things cannot be changed and should be followed to achieve the best possible outcomes.

J: Many of our readers are always looking for resources to help provide them with factual information that will improve how they train their athletes.  Could you provide any educational materials that you would say are “musts” for a coach of physical preparation?

VN: Every coach should be familiar with a work of Dr. Hans Selye on the principles of adaptation to stress.

J: Val, we’re really excited that you’ll be coming back to Richmond in April, and are sure that our readers and attendees are as well.  Thanks for taking the time to do this!

In today’s podcast Mike Robertson discusses his latest article “What is Corrective Exercise?”  Mike dives into his definition of corrective exercise and how he came up with it.  He also discusses the role of corrective exercise in programming, assessment, utilizing assessment and corrective exercise in a group setting along with reviewing some different methods of corrective work.  We can’t thank Mike enough for taking the time to talk with us and really hope you enjoy.

Mike Robertson Podcast

Following up on his latest article Yosef talks with us about what precision is to him and how important it truly is in the program. He also gives his insite on some of my idea’s about it and gives us a sneak peak as to what’s to come from Ultimate Athlete Concepts in 2012.

Yosef Johnson 1-12

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In today’s podcast Danny Raimondi talks with us about his article review on Post-Activation Potentation.  Danny discusses why he selected the topic, where he see’s it’s relevance and how we can incorporate it in the physical preparation of our athlete’s.  A special thanks to Danny for taking the time to do this.  Enjoy.

Danny Raimondi 1-15

Coach Dietz was kind enough to sit down and discuss his latest article “Single Leg vs Double Leg Training: Addressing the Controversy” with me this week.  In this discussion Coach Dietz talks about why he decided on this topic, how his oscillatory method fits in and how using Track and Field and Swimming athletes help show the validity of methods you use in training.  You can find more on the oscillatory method and video examples at his page www.XLAthlete.com Enjoy.

Cal Dietz 12-7

In today’s post 2012 Seminar presenter Cal Dietz brings the great debate of single leg vs double leg lower body exercises to the forefront.  To squat or not to squat has been a polarizing question of late.  Coach Dietz gives his take on both tools, how he utilized both and his reasoning behind it.

In the past several years many controversial articles have been written about whether double leg training is superior to single leg training and even if bilateral exercises (i.e. heavy squats or leg presses) are necessary to achieve the same results. Keep in mind that results are relative to your particular sport that you are training for. Some sports don’t need very intensive measures to get these types of results. For example, I find that golf is a sport that if an athlete seems to be strong enough, he or she can reach their intended goals by doing mainly single leg work and those types of exercises to get the desired results. Please keep in mind that the following are my, as well as many other unnamed strength coaches, opinions.

So, in regards to the single vs. double leg debate, my thoughts immediately jump to getting results in testing. The testing results are not necessarily getting strong in the back squat. These are based on 10’s, 20’s, pro agility, vertical jump, and mainly the explosive sports and sports tests. In review of my records over the last decade and different transitions that have happened for athletes from the double leg training to the single leg training, I researched and thought about as many instances as possible within our own system of training and this is what I found: I was unable to find any records, testing results, or performance results based upon an athlete that had trained in our system over one year and as much as three years with the double leg back squat or front squat methods that were able to reproduce results in testing and/or performance based sports such as track and field.

I will give one example and one example only. I had a very athletic female athlete who I considered late to mature physically and was biomechanically gifted strength wise to start when she walked into the weight room. Her first test was a pro agility. These numbers were a 4.91, no hand touch, pro agility. She simply ran a pro agility by getting her foot beyond the line. After 15-16 months of training, including in season training protocols, she was able to run a 4.32 in the pro agility without a hand touch. After a couple of years of severe wrist and shoulder injuries, we were unable to load the body with a double leg approach. The best results she could get in a pro agility after an entire summer of training extremely hard was a 4.65 pro agility.

This is an obvious and simple example of how I am unable to reproduce efforts when single leg work is the main focus of a program. Trust me, I believe in single leg work, I use it in many of my programming methods, but I truly believe and have seen that I cannot get the results with these particular methods by only using single leg work. Here is something to we must think of when addressing single vs. double legwork. It would almost be impossible to do, but if an Olympic lifting athlete removed all double legwork except in the clean and snatch movements, would they be able to hit maximal effort lifts? I believe we know the answer to this without answering it. So then we get back to addressing why particular double leg exercises produce superior results?

I truly believe the main reason is a systemic effect over the whole body with a very intense response to heavy loads( instability via single leg lifts decrease motor unit recruitment). Essentially, in my system, back squats rarely go over 10 seconds in duration with a complete set and it is a very intense 3-10 seconds of squatting. It is more efficient to work the alactic system using bilateral lifts; when doing a single leg exercise, most people will raise the repetitions of it thereby stressing certain energy systems more than others due to the fact that both legs need to be exercised. For my system, which deals with many alactic and alactic-aerobic sports, I have found that single leg lifts cannot compare in intensity as their double leg counterparts. Please keep in mind, however, that one way to offset the exercise becoming so anaerobic-lactic would be to do the left leg, rest 30-40 seconds, and do the right leg. This will keep the emphasis alactic, though still the intensity will be reduced due to the inherent loading limitations of single leg exercised.

I have various methods of programming for the back squat and single leg work. Some of my programs have only squatting with minimal single legwork, whereas other programs have minimal back squatting and mainly with single legwork. Some of my methods use only single leg work. Some of the most beneficial programs I truly believe are the beginner variations where we’ll back squat and do single leg work initially, then transfer to single leg work based upon loads and speed of the movement. I truly believe that one can pull back squats 4-6 weeks out of the main competition and time of performance and still keep relative strength to the sports performance extremely high. Even if they lose strength in the squatting motor skill, it does not mean they lose performance; it can actually mean the opposite if you are doing the right exercises in the latter part of the program to peak for performance.

In today’s “Friday with the Doc’s” 2012 Seminar presenter Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky brings up some key points to look at prior to implementing special strength training means into your athlete’s programs.  “Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches” is one of the best texts ever published for coaches of physical preparation.  The manual gives not just the whys and the hows but also the whats to special strength training and this article is a great accompaniment to this great work.  Dr. Verkhoshanksy dives into even more depth answering many of the questions I’m sure coaches have about SST training.  In the 11 page PDF she divulges the objective of SST means, analyzing the competitive exercises you are trying to improve, improving force production and biodynamic structure in said movements, qualifying exercises, implementing SST in team settings, and dives into the age old question “is Olympic lifting the best SST means for athletes?”  Of everything we’ve put on the page, this is a MUST READ for any coach of physical preparation.  Enjoy.

Key Points to Keep in Mind Before Applying SST Means in the Training Process

In the first part of this series I discussed the idea of using corrective methods to enhance the performance of general and specific training means.  In part two I plan on diving deeper into the idea and looking at the general exercises selected, or more importantly the General Physical Preparation phase of training.  GPP is a term that gets thrown out there in many different ways but first, let’s talk about what it actually is.  GPP is exactly what it says: it is general physical preparation that is setting the foundation for more intensive and more specific work to be performed.  The athlete needs to be trained GENERALLY in this phase.  Take a step back and think about it.  People come up with all these “cute” general training exercises, but what are we doing with them?  Shouldn’t we just be looking to improve the qualities of the athlete?  Wouldn’t training to improve strength of the connective tissue and muscles in a broad sense allow us to build more specific qualities in the later stages?  With that being said, we need to look at each and every joint action and train it accordingly.

Now, without going on a rant about how the use of the exercise is just as important, if not more so, than the actual means selected, let’s look at the FMS compared to the joint actions of the body.  The ASLR looks at hip mobility, the Shoulder Mobility looks at the shoulder, T-Spine, and scapular functions.  Stability is examined in the push up and the antirotory stability test.  Putting actions “together”, meaning stability and mobility in a movement, shows up in the step over, lunge, and squat.  Looking back at the first article, I’ll say it again: proper mobility brings proper stability.  If the right parts are moving the right amount to get into the positions required then there isn’t compensation by a “stable” part of the body performing the movement.  Lumbar flexion occurring in the shadow of poor hip mobility is one example that many of us in this field would agree on.

So my question now is this: how can these “screens” help us with our programming?  Here’s how.  Let’s look, in a general sense, at what you can expect out of a basketball player.  For the most part, the ASLR will score poorly (2 at best, but many athletes will score below this) while they’ll score well on the Shoulder Mob. It seems odd since they’re so tall, but if they couldn’t extend their T-Spine, these kids couldn’t jump.  You may see some imbalances based on shooting preference in the Shoulder Mob, but more often than not they’re scoring a 3 here.  Ok, so now let’s look at exercise selection.  What exercises would limited hip mobility cause an issue with?  Squats, good mornings, and any variation thereof for that manner would be limited because of this “limiting factor”.  So let’s look at the warm up for these exercises along with other general ideas about these athletes and find a way to “grease the gears” so they can perform them better.

I like to use a 4 warm up set approach (sometimes we’ll only use 3) to get to a “training weight”.   In these warm ups we will hit 4-6 exercises before/after the set to help them move better.  Again, looking at the 1^st article, we can say that basketball players, for the most part, have very tight hip flexors and locked up ankles.  You can probably assume that for just about everyone really, but the warm up will look like this:

Wall Ankle Mob                                             Warm Up Set 1

½ Kneeling Ankle Mob/Hip Flexor Mob        Warm Up Set 2

Leg Lowering/ASLR Work                            Warm Up Set 3

Squat To Stand w/ Reach                               Warm up Set 4

Hip Flexor Stretch                                          Working Sets

I like to give the kids a stretch before so they can focus on what the job at hand is.  They should be “ready to go” at this point; now it’s time to get their minds right and zone in on what they’re doing here.  It’s time to squat, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an “everyone must squat” or an “only single leg squatting” kind of coach.  I honestly don’t care.  This is pertinent for everyone.  It can be changed a bit based on the exercise, but this would be the general guideline. 

So what next? What about simple hip hinging?  Exercises like Good Mornings, RDL, single leg variations, could look like this:

Toe Touch Progression 2 Legs                        Warm Up Set 1

Toe Touch Progression 1 Leg                         Warm Up Set 2

Leg Lowering/ASLR Work                            Warm Up Set 3

SL RDL Rotation Stretch                               Warm up Set 4

Down Dog                                                      Working Sets

With the ankle playing such a limited role here, there isn’t much need to go there, which is why we spend more time on it before.  If this is not the 1^st “lift” we’ll only use 2 or 3 warm up sets so I would group the toe touches together.

The next question I’m sure many will ask is, “Where’s the work for the stability exercises?”  I think we can all agree that “stressing” the core probably isn’t want we want to do prior to any sort of heavy squat or good morning variation, so where would it make sense to throw it in?  Maybe when you’re doing some heavy upper body work?  So an upper body warm up could look like this.

T-Spine Mob (Bench or roller)                        Warm Up Set 1

Multi Planar Scap Work                                  Warm Up Set 2

Rolling                                                            Warm Up Set 3

Bird Dog Holds or SL Push Ups                    Warm up Set 4

Band Shoulder Rotations/Lat Stretch                        Working Sets

There are just a few examples of how I approach this in our general exercise phase to help our athletes be “more ready” to perform well.  Listen, if you’re picking an exercise to use with an athlete it better matter, and it needs to help improve performance, even in the GPP phase.  It has to have a purpose to prepare them for later, more intensive training.  If it has that goal in mind, they have to be put in the best situation to perform it to top quality.  Better gains in the general exercises result in better gains later on in the ones later that really transfer- specific exercises.

2012 Seminar Presenter Mike Robertson has a new product out this week called Complete Core Fitness.  I’d like to give you some input on the product, but honestly I think Mike said it best in the article linked below.  To understand why Mike did this will give you all you need to know.

As with all of Mike’s products, I’m sure this is going to be a huge tool in my trianing tool box.  I can’t wait to see it Mike!  For those of you who’d like to order, click the icon below.

In today’s “Friday with the Doc’s” Dr. Yessis and I discuss his latest article “Is it athleticism or just excellent play?”.  In the conversation we discuss the reasons behind the article, general training strategies and specific training strategies to help develop athlete’s “athleticism” and skills.  Click the link below to listen.

Friday with the Doc’s Dr Yessis 9 30 11

 As always please leave any questions below or on our Facebook page.  I hope you enjoy!