I didn't get around to publishing this weekly feature last week, so I've got a bit of content stockpiled. Here was the best of the bunch:
Ace in the Hole: Corey Kluber at Cressey - New England Baseball Journal just ran this cover feature and article about Corey Kluber's training at Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts in their February edition.
7 Ways to Maintain Strength During Baseball Season - With baseball season rapidly approaching, it seemed like a good idea to reincarnate this guest article from CSP-MA Director of Performance, John O'Neil.
Top Tweet of the Week
This yr, for complex training, we are doing more heavy axial loaded single-leg work before unilateral plyos. Here’s anterior-loaded split squats from pins for 3/side, rest 30s, then heidens for 3/side. Do 4-5 rounds of this pairing as 1st exercise on lower body day. @RyanFelt26pic.twitter.com/lh9ZEDl6ln
In light of the busy baseball offseason, I'm long overdue for an update to this series. So, here goes!
1. Have a long-term plan, but not necessarily a long-term program.
The other day, an observational visitor to CSP-FL asked me if I had a big, overarching goal for all our professional baseball players. My response was simple: "Minor league guys need to get through five 4-week programs, and big leaguers need to get through four."
The MLB regular season always ends on a Sunday, so the math is actually easy to do. We know most MLB guys report around February 14, which gives us 19.5 weeks for the offseason. That 3.5 week "buffer" accounts for some time off, some vacation, a few days over the holidays, and travel to Spring Training. We "give" a little bit on guys who played well into the postseason in the previous year.
Over this 16 weeks of training, we transition from active recovery, improving mobility and building work capacity, to building strength and power, to transitioning into more specific skill development. It's all something we've become comfortable handling as long as we can get in those four program blocks. However, while we have a long-term plan, we don't write all the programs up in advance. Why? Very simply, what you put on paper for a January program when you write it three months in advance almost always needs to be modified prior to the time when it's actually being executed. Even the best players on the planet who've established really good offseason routines have to call audibles on the fly as various things come up throughout the offseason.
Have a general framework in place, but don't be so rigidly adherent to it that you can't pivot on the fly over the course of several months. It'll save you time and make your programming more effective if you write the specific components of your offseason progressions when the time is at hand.
2. Good coaching always comes back to relative stiffness.
Give this video of a back-to-wall shoulder flexion a watch:
Now, think about what's happening from a stiffness standpoint. When the arms go overhead, we're asking good stiffness of the anterior core (rectus abdominus, external obliques), glutes, and scapular upward rotators (upper trap, lower trap, and serratus anterior) to overpower bad stiffness of the lumbar extensors, lats, and scapular downward rotators (levator scapulae, pec minor, and rhomboids).
This good vs. bad stiffness interaction is taking place in every single movement we prescribe and coach. If we don't appreciate functional anatomy and understand how to tone down the bad and tone up the good, we simply can't be efficient coaches.
Last week, I hit a personal record (PR) with five reps at 600lbs on my conventional deadlift.
PRs aside, though, it was actually a pretty good example of how off the predicted max charts really are.
After this set, I plugged 600 pounds and 5 reps into four separate predicted max calculators I found on the internet. The projections for my 1RM were anywhere from 675 pounds all the way up to 705 pounds. That 675 might be a possibility, but taking that to a 705 might very well be two years worth of specialized deadlift training.
Predicted max calculators have their place, but don't think for a second that they're perfectly accurate. And, they're even less accurate with a) more experienced lifters and b) lifters with a heavy fast twitch profile.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
I hope you've had a great week. To kick off the weekend, here's a little recommended reading and listening from around the strength and conditioning world.
9 Ways to Survive Off Days - This audio blog from Mike Robertson shares some good strategies for making the most of non-training days.
Cleaning Up Thoracic Rotation - Dean Somerset offers some great insights on optimizing thoracic spine mobility training.
Top Tweet of the Week
A mistake you’ll see in stiff-leg deadlift technique is slamming the knees into hyperextension on the lowering portion. This limits hip hinging and instead put stress on passive restraints of the knee. The kneecap shouldn’t be behind the heel; it’s a stiff (not straight) leg DL. pic.twitter.com/rWnhVxt2tt
The 1-leg dumbbell pullover is a nice variation on a classic. It’ll add a rotary stability challenge to what is normally considered an upper body and anterior core drill. I’m using this variation a bit more this time of year (with throwing volume and intensity ramping up), as you can get a good training effect with less external loading.
We'll usually program this for 3-4 sets of 4-5 reps per side. It pairs well with exercises that aren't concrete push or pull exercises: Turkish Get-ups, kettlebell windmills, and bottoms-up kettlebell carries. I even like pairing it up with TRX Ys, as it's effectively the opposite pattern. Enjoy!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
With my last post, I kicked off the "Best of 2018" series with my top articles of the year. Today, we'll highlight the top five videos of the year.
1. Supine Banded Shoulder Flexion on Roller - I love this exercise for building thoracic spine mobility, shoulder flexion, and scapular posterior tilt.
2. Split-Stance Hip Abduction End-Range Lift-off - CSP coach Frank Duffy contributed this awesome hip mobility challenge as part of a guest post this year.
3. Landmine Lateral Lunges - This is an exercise I thought up on the fly while working with three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, and we liked it so much that it's become a mainstay in his offseason programming.
4. Rhomboids Functional Anatomy - this webinar is an excerpt from my popular new resource, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.
5. Knee-to-Knee Rollover Medicine Ball Stomp - this new medicine ball drill was a power training exercise thought up by my CSP-FL business partner, Shane Rye. The knee-to-knee approach encourages the athlete to stay in the back hip longer.
I'll be back soon with the top guest posts of 2018!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
We use yoga push-ups a lot in our training programs, but one challenge with incorporating them over the long-term with more advanced athletes is that they're hard to load up. You can't use bands or chains as external resistance because they slide over the course of the set. And, weight vests really can't provide enough external resistance without getting too bulky and cumbersome. Luckily, there are a few other ways to progress the drill:
1. Slideboard Yoga Push-ups
2. 1-leg Feet-Elevated Yoga Push-ups
3. Feet-Elevated Spiderman Yoga Push-ups
4. Yoga Push-up with Opposite Arm Reach
5. Controlled Tempo
Last, but not least, you can simply slow down the tempo at which the yoga push-up variations are performed. I like adding a full exhale at the top position, too.
Speaking of upper extremity progressions, if you're looking for some more information on how we assess, coach, and program for the shoulder girdle, be sure to check out my resource, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
It's been a while since I updated this series on program design, so I figured it'd be a good time to throw some new material at you on this front.
1. Ground-to-standing transitions are invaluable, but it's challenging to know where to put them in programming.
I'm a big fan of exercises like Turkish get-ups and kneeling overhead hold-to-stands, as they're awesome for "syncing up" the lower and upper body to teach force transfer through a stable core. Yesterday, I posted a video of one of my new favorites - half-kneeling offset kettlebell get-ups - and I got a question about how we'd incorporate this in a program.
The challenge is that these could be considered extended warm-up drills, core work, upper body work, and even lower body work (depending on what variation you're using) once the load gets heavy enough. A kettlebell windmill can even be viewed somewhat similarly.
With that said, I find myself programming these first thing in an upper body training session. My experience has been that they are a good "transition" from the medicine ball work into more conventional rows, presses, push-ups, etc. They also generally pair really well with most upper body pulling exercises, as they aren't super grip intensive (gravity helps to hold the KB in the hand).
Later in the offseason, when guys transition to three days per week strength training, we'll plug these in as part of a full-body session because...well...they're about as full-body as you can get.
2. Complex training won't ever be "perfect" when you're working on power development in the frontal and transverse planes.
We like to work in post-activation potentiation in our offseason programs around December/January. I covered this in a lengthy article, The Stage System, at T-Nation in the past, but a quick synopsis of one benefit is that when you do heavy stuff before lighter stuff, your lighter stuff feels much faster. As a result, complex training - using a heavy strength(high load, lower velocity) exercise right before a movement that's lower force, higher velocity (e.g., jumps, throws) can be helpful for eliciting greater power output.
Here's where it gets a bit challenging when dealing with rotational sport athletes. We know that power is relatively plane specific. In other words, just using sagittal plane power exercises like broad and vertical jumps won't necessarily have great carryover to power in the frontal and transverse planes. Instead, we need to do more things like Heidens (skaters) and rotational medicine ball work. Unfortunately, though, it's really hard to load people up on the first exercise in the frontal and transverse planes; you can only go so heavy with a lateral lunge.
With that in mind, we'll often use a more traditional heavy sagittal plane exercise - deadlift, squat, or axial-loaded single leg exercise - for lower reps, but then do the power exercise in the frontal/transverse plane. An example might be:
3. We use more direct forearm work with our pitchers than we have in the past.
For a long time, we really didn't use any direct forearm work with our baseball players. My feeling had always been that they got plenty of grip work in their regular strength training. Two things changed my mind on this.
First, I saw what a game-changer is it to strengthen throwers closer to end-range external rotation in the 90/90 position. In other words, rather than just expecting arm care work with the elbow at the sides to magically carry over to the positions where guys threw, we actually trained guys at those positions. Novel concept, huh?
Second, thanks to the higher quality slow-motion video we have at our fingertips these days, we can better appreciate that throwers' forearms get into considerably more supination and pronation throughout the throwing delivery than we were training in the weight room. While we were doing a lot to preserve those ranges-of-motion, we weren't doing anything to provide good strength throughout those ranges-of-motion.
With that in mind, we attack our direct forearm work in two particular ways: supination/pronation and ulnar deviation. Here are some Instagram posts that'll walk you through the why:
Frank Duffy on the Robby Row Show - Cressey Sports Performance coach Frank Duffy was a guest on Robby Rowland's podcast to discuss Functional Range Conditioning concepts and how we apply them with our baseball players.
Top Tweet of the Week
This is the point in the offseason when some players realize that "Just rest it" turned out to be bad advice. Rest might help to resolve the medical diagnosis (pathology), but it won't do anything to resolve the underlying movement diagnosis that actually caused the pathology.
My business partner, Shane Rye, once dropped an amazing one liner with respect to injuries that has stuck with me for years now:
[bctt tweet="You have to listen when it whispers instead of waiting for it to yell."]
The concept is simple: if you ignore minor aches and pains, they rarely just magically go away. Rather, they usually get magnified by volume and intensity and eventually reach a painful threshold where are more extensive intervention is required. The research actually supports this concept - but only if you know how to dig a bit deeper.
As an example, consider this Scandinavian study of patellar tendinopathy in junior basketball players. Researchers looked at 134 teenagers (268 total patellar tendons) and found that only 19 tendons presented clinically with symptoms. However, under ultrasound examination, 22% of the remainder of the group (who'd said they've never had patellar tendon pain) could be diagnosed with tendinopathy. In other words, "ultrasonographic tendon abnormality is 3 times as common as clinical symptoms."
Now, keep in mind that this study looked at teenagers, who are markedly less likely to have tendinopathy than older individuals. Just imagine if they'd done this study on a cohort of middle-aged men playing hoops at the local YMCA. The point is that whether you have symptoms or not, you likely have some changes in your tissues.
To be clear, this isn't particularly shocking to anyone who's looked at MRIs of asymptomatic individuals. We see loads of asymptomatic rotator cuff tears, spondylolysis (stress fractures), and torn labrums. And, I don't think we should just treat MRI findings when they aren't aligned with clinical symptoms. However, they do provide a reminder that we often have several issues that might just be waiting to reach a painful threshold if we aren't cognizant of our training volume and intensity - and our movement quality.
I call these potential problems "whispers." Maybe it's that Achilles tendon that's cranky first thing in the morning, but feels good after you warm it up. Or, it's that stiff neck you get after a few hours of working at the computer, but feels better after your spouse massages your upper trap. It could be the shoulder that bugs you only when you barbell bench press, but feels pretty good when you use dumbbells instead. These whispers are all premonitions of an imminent training disaster - so listen to them.
Maybe it's seeking out some extra manual therapy in a specific area. The solution could be looking at a more individualized warm-up to address these issues. It might even be that you strategically drop particular exercises from your program at various points during the year.
Above all else, though, it's about understanding that good training teaches your body how to spread stress over multiple joints. Instead of that cranky patellar tendon taking on 90% of the load on each landing, we work on hip and ankle mobility and strength so that it might only have to be 30%. Spreading out the stress ensures that one area won't ever hit the point of pain.
Understanding how to distribute stress mandates that you understand what quality movement actually looks like, though - and that's unfortunately where a lot of fitness professionals fall short. With that in mind, many of my products focus on the topics of assessment and corrective exercise, so they're good options for bringing these knowledge gaps up to speed. In particular, I'd recommend the following ones.
Sturdy Shoulder Solutions - this is my most up-to-date upper extremity resource, and it delves into everything from the neck, to thoracic spine, to scapular control. I discuss functional anatomy and key competencies you need for upper extremity health and high performance.
Functional Stability Training - this four-part series is a collaborative effort with physical therapist Mike Reinold, and we cover core, upper body, lower body, and optimizing movement. The components can be purchased individually or as the entire package (at a big discount).
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
Most of the anti-rotation core stability exercises out there take place in a more static environment: half-kneeling or tall-kneeling. These set-ups are awesome for teaching appropriate core positioning against destabilizing forces into extension, rotation, or lateral flexion. However, their functional carryover is limited if we aren’t finding ways to transition that movement awareness into exercises in the standing position. Enter the standing low-to-high cable lift.
Important coaching points:
1. Push the ground away from you; don’t just lean away from the weight stack.
2. Think both up (anti-extension) and out (anti-rotation).
3. Lock the rib cage to the pelvis; the motion should come from the hips and upper back, not the lower back.
4. Feel the trailing leg glute firing at the top position.
5. To prevent early deceleration, imagine throwing your hands through the ceiling.
In case you haven't heard, my big Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is ongoing. You can get 25% off on a bunhc of my resources; just head HERE to learn more.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
