Last week the Assistant GM for the New Orleans Hornets called me about implementing a core strength and flexibility program for the team. My reply was not taken well by him because I laughed. After I regained my composure I explained that if you have a well thought out strength and conditioning program, core strength and flexibility components are built in and done on a daily basis. I felt it was a waste of the teams time for me to go in once a week for thirty minutes to train explicitly on core and flexibility work. Needless to say; he was not very happy with my reply.

This conversation did trigger a host of thoughts about past training concepts, present training concepts and future training concepts. I remember the days when strength coaches had a background in either power lifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding. Then high intensity training became the fad of the day. That was followed by sport specific training. Sport specific training gave way to core and stabilization training, which gave way to functional training. What do all these training methods have in common? A lot of books and videos have been sold. Yes, I am jaded and sarcastic by nature. I just want to know; what ever happened to a basic well thought out training cycle? I think coaches and athletes are so impressed by the latest line of training equipment and the latest training fad that they forget about the basics of performance: power, strength and speed. This is not an indictment of training philosophy, but an article to provoke thought.

I incorporate some faction of every training philosophy in my training cycles. I pride myself on being able to steal from the best and worst programs. If I can find one thing to make my training cycles better than my athletes are getting better. When it comes to training I do not dismiss anyone or any system. I will learn from anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Now if you employ this technique when writing a training cycle things still have to mesh and it has to be logical. I have seen training cycles thrown together that made absolutely know sense. There are facets of training programs that you can use to enhance your training cycles. For example:

Bodybuilding – a ridicules repertoire of exercises
that can be performed.

Power lifting – absolute strength lifts, max effort
lifts and dynamic effort lifts.

Olympic lifting – explosive power and speed lifts.

HIT – lifting for muscle hypertrophy, endurance
and volume.

Core/Stability – building your athletic foundation.

Functional Training – isolateral and balance training.

Rehab -joint stability work.

Sport Specific Training – there are few exercises that truly mimmick sport. This has always been a catch phrase that I have true distain for. If you’re an athlete who is getting stronger, more powerful and faster then your getting better athletically.

You can take bits and pieces of different training philosophies and mold them into a coherent and concise program. Do not pigeon whole your athletes into one training system. Let your guard down and absorb knowledge form non traditional sport training areas. Don’t be swayed by entire training systems that come around every two to three years. Stick to your basic philosophy and enhance it with sound practices of other philosophies.

Every coach knows that speed is the most dominate factor in sport. Coaches recruit fast athletes and design their offenses and defenses with that speed in mind. If these afore mentioned assumptions are correct, then, why are strength coaches training these same athletes to become slow and un-explosive.Training an athlete to become faster is not relegated to speed work on the field. You don’t take a highly recruited, gifted and genetically superior athlete into the weight room and do nothing to improve his speed and
explosive capabilities. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, strength coaches around the country are training their athletes in the weight room to become slower.

This is not an attack on training philosophy. It is an attack on the lack of common sense in the strength field. No matter what your training philosophy – Power lifting, Body-building, Olympic lifting or High intensity training, you can improve your program with a little common sense.

CST (Common Sense Training)

Rule #1
Train for strength not endurance. Remember your training for strength not a triathlon. Don’t spend an extreme amount of time in a hypertrophy phase or endurance training. Train at five reps and
below at eighty percent and above. Do this as soon as possible in your training cycle. You have to be strong to run fast, so why train above six reps? Your goal is to get strong – to run fast, not to lift long – to run slow and long.

Rule #2
Train explosively. Olympic lifts train the athlete to explode and use maximum possible force. Athletes will develop a high rate of force, a key point in sports training. Athletes who implement these lifts in their lifting program will train fast twitch muscle fibers, the fibers employed to give you speed, explosiveness and power. In essence performing an Olympic lift is performing a fast, explosive weighted jump. Sprinting in essence is a series of fast, explosive bounds. These lifts will directly help an athlete run faster Implement lifts such as: power clean, hang clean, power snatch, hang snatch, split jerk and jerk from the rack. The amount of weight does not matter as much as bar speed.

Rule #3
Train your VMO. Training the vastus medialis will help decrease ground contact time which is crucial to increase speed. Incorporate exercises such as: chain back squat, chain front squat, walking lunge and split squat into your program.

Rule #4
You need hamstring and low back strength. Because the back squat is one of the test for lower body strength in most programs, strength coaches sometimes over look the hamstrings and lower back. The hamstrings are connected to the glutes and back extensors. This is through the sarco-tuberal and dorso-sacral ligaments All lower body workouts should involve exercises for both the hip extension function and the knee flexor function Knee flexion exercises: leg curls and glute/ham raise. Hip extension exercises: Romanian deadlift, goodmorning reverse hyper and back extensions.

There are coaches with superior educations and impressive resumes who either over think while writing their cycle or under think while writing their cycle. When all else fails just use some common sense..