Author: Jessie DeThomasis

by: Bobby DeThomasis

Throughout my career as a strength and conditioning coach I have had the opportunity to spend time with many other coaches.  I have learned a lot from some great coaches and it has made a huge impact on my abilities to design effective and efficient programs for my athletes.  Although each coach that I have learned from has their own unique style and methodology, the one thing that I have found to be consistent amongst great strength and conditioning coaches is the principle of individualization.  It is no secrete that every athlete (in fact every person) has unique physiological characteristics that makes him or her different from all other athletes.  Despite the fact that there are many athletes that play the same sport and even the same position, no two athletes are exactly alike.  It is due to that fact that I completely disagree with the concept of group training for athletes.  Personally, I believe that any coach that designs his or her program around grouping athletes together is both misguided and off base with their approach towards athletic development.  I understand that this may be a bit controversial in that most of the well known training centers around the country follow the method of group training but if you break down what it takes to appropriately develop athletes to their fullest potential you will see that group training is an ineffective way to train athletes.

To start, I am a full believer that ever single rep counts.  I know that sounds a bit cliche however being in the industry for over 12 years and having trained hundreds of athletes from all ages I can say with full confidence that it is the truth.  Most athletes, regardless of what level they compete at, do not have an in-depth understanding of anatomy and physiology (nor should they as this is the obligation of a strength and conditioning coach and the reason that we have jobs).  With that in mind, most athletes will go about an exercise and under most circumstances go through a faulty motor pattern or try and compensate their movements to get more reps or move more weight.  It is the job of the strength coach to make sure that every one of their athletes is performing reps with as close to perfect form, every time.  If the coach does not implement the concept of proper form, the athlete will likely start to develop compensation patterns which over time could considerably increase his or her potential for injury.  It is difficult enough to get one athlete to perform perfect reps however if a coach is training more than one athlete at a time the likely hood of being able to stay on top of all the athletes in the group is very low (most likely not possible at all).

Secondly, as I mentioned before, no two athletes are exactly alike.  Even if the coach is working with athletes from the same sport that play the same position there are still many physiological factors to take into account when designing a training program.  Several of these factors (although there are many more to consider) are muscle fiber make up, previous injury history, training age and musculoskeletal imbalances.  When I design a training program for an athlete these are just some of the factors that I take into account.  With all these things to consider it is easy to see how there are many ways that athletes can differ from one another.  For example, I was training two professional hockey players that were the same age, played the same position and were very similar in size and weight however one of them had a previous ACL reconstruction surgery and was lacking full knee range of motion and the other had subluxated his glenohumeral (shoulder) joint causing joint laxity and muscle imbalances.  Despite the fact that both these athletes appeared to be physiologically similar they had very different needs.  As such the program that was appropriate for one was completely inappropriate for the other and vice versa.

One more point to be made about program design for athletes is the lack of use of an evaluative process.  Here at PTS, every new athlete goes through a very specific evaluation.  The eval gives us the information that we need to design the athletes training regimen.  Coaches that design programs prior to evaluating their athletes (or that don’t use an eval at all) are doing their athletes a major disservice.  I have seen coaches that develop their programs months before their athletes start training.  Although I appreciate their lack of procrastination it always baffles me that a coach can develop a program for an athlete without actually knowing what physiological qualities the athlete needs to improve.  This would fall under the ‘one size fits all’ approach to training that would be similar to what you can expect with group training.

With all that being said, I have found one exception to the rule.  When we put our athletes through conditioning programs (or what we like to call sport specific energy systems development) I believe that it is appropriate to group several athletes together.  Typically conditioning sessions consist of pushing/pulling sleds, and other “modified strongman” exercises that usually have less of a technical component then other exercises (like a hang clean).  The purpose of the conditioning session is to improve the functionality of the specific energy system that the athletes will be using while they are in a game or competition (for example hockey would fall into the anaerobic lactic energy system).  Fortunately, for most sports, this is a static factor in that it does not change.  For the most part a “shift” in hockey will last about 40-50 seconds and the athlete will typically have about 2 minutes in between “shifts”.  As long as you are staying within the specific parameters of the sport I believe that you can group athletes together (pending they play the same sport) while doing energy system development training.

I truly believe that program individualization is the key factor for athletes to get the most out of their training regimen.  Although group training might seem like a more “fun” way to workout, remember that activities are fun, training is designed to produce results.  Do not confuse the two.

If you are an athlete and would like to get started on a specific training program that will be individualized to your needs email us at info@performancetrainingsystems.com to set up your initial evaluation.

It seems as though every time you turn on ESPN you hear a report about some athlete in a contact sport having to miss games due to a concussion or other head injury.  I am unsure as to whether head injuries are more prevalent these days or if they are just more publicized.  Regardless, head injuries are a major issue at all levels of sports.  Due to the potential long term ramifications head injuries are of special concern for youth level athletes.  This article will look at some of the recent data on the subject of head injuries in sports and the proven methods to decrease the potential of their occurrence amongst athletes in contact sports like hockey and football.

According to the Center For Disease Control there are anywhere between 1.6 to 3.8 million concussions that occur in sports every year.  The discrepancy between the two numbers is due mostly to the facts that many athletes do not let anyone know about their possible concussions or do not even know that they have one.  Due to the high level of contact, hockey and football are amongst the sports with the highest prevalence of concussions and other head injuries.  A concussion is defined as a complex pathophysiological process they affects the brain and is typically induced by trauma to the head.  Concussions often occur after a direct blow to the head however that is not necessarily always the case.  Sometimes a hit to the torso of an athlete could also cause a concussion due to the violent reverberation effect of the brain in the skull.  Regardless of the mechanism of injury, the results are the same.  The brain starts to swell and begins to lose some of its functional capabilities.  Symptoms could include, but are not limited to, headaches, nausea, irritability, sadness, difficulty concentrating and sleep disturbances.

Recent research has demonstrated that the age of the athlete may very well play a major impact on his or her potential for head injuries and the severity of the injury if they sustain one.  Typically the younger the athlete the higher potential for head injuries.  According to Dr. Tad Seifert, Director of Norton Healthcare Sports Concussion Program in Louisville, KY, one of the reasons for younger athletes being more susceptible to concussions could be due to their lack of strength and development of the muscles that surround the neck and lower skull region.  There are over 20 muscles that impact the movement and stability of the neck and head.  Due to younger athletes still being in the physical developmental stage of their lives it is common to see them with under developed neck musculature.  When an athlete with weak neck muscles sustains a hit to the head and/or torso there is significant movement to the head and they will experience that reverberation of the brain in the skull causing a concussion.

OK, so now that we know what a concussion is, the anatomical structures that are associated with concussions and what makes an athlete susceptible to concussions it is time to discuss the ways that we can decrease an athletes susceptibility to them.  As I mentioned earlier, there is a direct connection between the strength of the neck muscles and the potential for a concussion.  So it would stand to reason that training and strengthening the musculature around the neck will help decrease concussion potential.  The ability to withstand and absorb forces transmitted through the torso and head is of the utmost importance.  Therefore it is important to use a multitude of exercises that train as many different ranges of motion and angle of the neck muscles as possible.  Special focus should be spent on the development of the muscles on the back part of the neck, cervical spinal extensor muscles, as they have the tendency to be especially weak particularly amongst athletes with structural abnormalities like forward head posture.  At PTS we like to use a combination of isometric (contractions without movement) and isotonic (contractions with movement) exercises.   As with anything periodization of your neck training is important to make sure that you are strengthening as much of musculature as possible.

Head injuries are a serious problem amongst athletes of all ages but are of particular concern for younger athletes.  A well rounded and personalized strength and conditioning program focusing on the strengthening of the neck musculature is extremely important.  For a properly structured program for yourself or your young athlete call or email us today at info@performancetrainingsytsems.com  to set up an evaluation.

By: Bobby DeThomasis

I often get asked the question “what type of conditioning do you do with your athletes?” and my answer is always the same……”it depends on the sport, position and individual.”  No two sports are exactly alike and no two positions in a given sport are exactly alike either.  This article will give a brief overview of the different physiological energy systems and how each one is impacted by activity, exercise and sports.

To begin, it would be worthwhile to clearly define what energy is and the different types of systems that the body utilizes to produce and maintain energy.  The body maintains a continuous energy supply through the use of adenosine triphosphate or ATP.  You all may remember ATP from high school biology as the special carrier for free energy.  Ultimately the food that you eat will go through many processes to eventually produce ATP.  When your talking about producing energy for work (albeit for normal daily activities like grocery shopping or sporting events like sprinting a 100 meter dash) your body has three methods of producing that energy.  The three methods are known as the phosphagen system, glycolosis and the aerobic system.  Depending on the intensity and duration of your sport/activity you may use one, two or all three of these systems.

The phosphogen system (aka ATP-CP system) is the primary energy system that is used in bouts of physical work under about 10 seconds (depending on the individual the phosphogen system may be slightly shorter or longer than 10 sec).  In this systems you muscle basically uses its stored ATP for energy.  A working muscle can re-synthesize ATP from creatine phosphate or CP and between the two (stored ATP and re-synthesized ATP from CP) you can produce physical work for about 10 seconds.  After that, your body needs to start producing energy through the breakdown of carbohydrates by the process of glycolosis.

Glycolosis is the primary systems that produces ATP between 10 seconds and 2 minutes of work.  Carbohydrates in the form of either blood glucose or stored muscle glycogen are broken down in the muscle cell through a series of chemical reactions that ultimately form pyruvate.  Through this process two ATP will be produced.  If the production of pyruvate is greater then the supply of oxygen then the pyruvate gets converted to lactate (which will drop the PH level in your muscles and give that all too familiar burning feeling).  Neither the phosphogen system or glycolosis are oxygen dependent meaning they do not need oxygen to produce energy.  Therefore they are both considered anaerobic energy systems.

The aerobic energy system is basically used to produce energy after 2 minutes of work.  This is the primary energy systems used in longer endurance events like 5K races, triathlons and other endurance events.  During this process a molecule of either glucose, glycogen or fat gets transported into the cell’s mitochondria and goes through several processes to ultimately produce high levels of ATP (36 for glucose and glycogen and up to 129 for fat).

OK, so what does all this mean?  Well, depending on your sport’s energy demands you may need to emphasize the development of one or more of the these energy systems.  Common misconceptions amongst coaches is to have hockey players ride a stationary bike for 45-60 minutes claiming that it improves aerobic capacity.  Although that may be true, hockey shifts typically last no longer then 45 seconds.  So by the rules of physiology you are not even coming close to using the aerobic system for the production of energy.  In large part most of a hockey player’s energy is produced through the phosphogen and glycolitic systems.  Therefore it would be unwise to have a hockey player perform long duration/low intensity training training when the demands of his/her sport are obviously much different.  When designing a strength and conditioning program for any sport you should look at the energy demands of that sport and try to mimic your ‘conditioning’ program around those energy systems.  For instance, since a typical shift in hockey is 45 seconds and there is about 2 minutes in between shifts, you may want to have your hockey players push a sled at a high intensity for 45 seconds then rest for 2 minutes and repeat 3-4 times (depending on the line that a player is on he or she may be on the ice for 4-5 shifts per period.  You may then want to give the athlete about 8-10 minutes off depending on the level of hockey that they play, pick another exercise and repeat the process 2 more times (since there are 3 periods in a hockey game).

This principle of ‘sport specific’ energy systems development can be applied to athletes from all disciplines.  The main characteristics of a good conditioning program is to analyze the energy demands of the sport (i.e. work:rest ratio) and mimic them as close as possible in the weight room.

At PTS, our coaches are skilled at analyzing the energy demands of all sports and appropriately designing training programs around each athlete’s needs.  For more information on how specific energy system training could improve your athletic performance email us at info@performancetrainingsystems.com and set up an evaluation with one of our coaches.

By: Bobby DeThomasis