With only a day to spare, here’s the April edition of Random Thoughts on Sports Performance Training.

1. Don’t forget pauses can be beneficial with single-leg training, too.

Working pauses into your lifting can yield tremendous benefits, as they reduce contribution of the stretch-shortening cycle and force a lifter to work much harder to produce force from a dead-stop. For some reason, though, they usually only get applied to “big bang” bilateral exercises like squats, bench presses, and (obviously) deadlifts. I actually really like to program pauses into single-leg work to improve carryover to what athletes really encounter in athletics and the real world. Here’s an example:

2. Try the 1-arm cable rotational row from a low setting.

I love incorporating rotational rows in our athletes’ programming. Many coaches only program this as an upright variation where the cable is set at chest height. I think this overlooks the importance of athletes learning how to “accept” force on that front hip. Hip rotation rarely occurs in isolation in athletics; rather, it is generally concurrent with flexion/extension and abduction/adduction. By lowering the cable a bit, you challenge things in a bit more of a sport-specific manner – and, in the process, add some variety to your athletes’ programs.

3. Make sure put your intensive rotator cuff work after your overhead work.

I recently reviewed a program that paired Turkish get-ups with cable external rotations. While both are great exercises, the last thing you want to do is fatigue the rotator cuff before you go overhead, where it needs to work really hard to keep the humeral head depressed relative to the glenoid fossa. Likewise, be careful about doing all your cuff stuff early in the session, then progressing to overhead carries later. My feeling is that you just do enough to turn the cuff on during the warm-up, then train your highest stabilization demands (e.g., overhead supporting/carrying), and then head to the more direct (fatigue producing) stuff.

4. Different strength qualities make different athletes successful.

We have two athletes – both left-handed pitchers – make Major League Baseball debuts this week. The first, Jack Leathersich, is a relief pitcher for the New York Mets, and he just has one of those insanely “quick arms.” In other words, it’s almost as if he doesn’t know how to throw a ball softly; it really jumps out of his hand. I think it’s a function of his natural “reactive ability.”

The second, Tim Cooney, is getting a start in his big league debut today for the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s not as naturally reactive as Jack is, but you could make the case that Tim is the strongest pound-for-pound professional pitcher we train. I’ve seen him do Turkish get-ups with a 100-pound kettlebell, and walking lunges with the heaviest dumbbells in the gym. He can make up for less reactive proficiency by falling back more on pure strength. I think this “strength reserve” also helps Tim as a starter, whereas reactive capabilities tend to fall off as fatigue sets in, which is probably why Jack has thrived as a reliever.

This static-spring relationship closely parallels the absolute strength to absolute speed one I shared in the past.

The more “static” guys are strong and need more reactive training, which largely takes place on the speed end of the continuum. The more “spring” guys need to keep prioritizing strength as a foundation for effective stretch-shortening cycle function, as you can’t display force quickly if you don’t have enough force in the first place.

I’ll be back soon with another installment during the month of May!