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AFM Magazine


Strength Report – A Year Round Strength and Conditioning Program, Part I

by: James Frazier
Strength and Conditioning Coach, Harvard University
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As strength coaches, it is our job to maximize the performance of our athletes and to minimize their risk of injury. Proper programming and organization go a long way in ensuring our athletes are prepared for each season. Periodization, in its simplest terms, refers to the organization of training phases to maximize performance for the competitive season. The year is broken down into different cycles. The cycle traditionally goes:

Off-Season, Spring Season, Pre-Season, In-Season, Post Season

FIRST THINGS FIRST

There are two things that should be a part of all programs, no matter the time of year - mobility and stability. These two principles work together to create movement. Mobility is the ability to move through a range of motion, and stability is the ability to control movement. For movement to occur, the deep muscles have to contract to stabilize the joint, while the superficial, or outer muscles contract to move the muscle. So, these two areas are both extremely important to movement.

As Olympic wrestling champion and coach Dan Gable once said, “If it’s important, do it every day.” Mobility and stability are two things that should be addressed daily. Each athlete is different, so they will have different needs in these areas. Some athletes may have shoulder instability and great mobility, but others might have extremely strong shoulders, but not great mobility.

One way to figure the needs of your athletes is to do a functional evaluation. Gray Cook’s functional movement screen is a great way to watch how your athletes move, and to locate any “energy leaks” in movement, or other areas that are causing a lack of efficiency in movement. A few other tests that we use to evaluate stability are:  inverted rack row (8 reps), glute ham raises (3 perfect reps), SL jumps (locate power discrepancies between legs) and a 60-second bridge march (posterior chain endurance and torso stability). Once your athletes are evaluated, a program can be put in place that will allow them  to improve in areas that are weakest. But there are times that it isn’t possible to perform these evaluations, due to either a lack of coaches, time, or abundance of athletes. In these situations, an organized warm-up can be implemented to work on these areas in a time-efficient manner.

We sometimes see up to 120 athletes at one time, so separating a group that large into their areas of weakness isn’t always possible. Instead, we use a systematic warm-up to address mobility and stability. The two mobility warm-ups we use are an in-place dynamic series and a hurdle mobility series. Both focus on different areas of the functional movement screen patterns such as the overhead squat step, active straight leg raise, and upper body mobility test. After mobility, we will use an activation series, using either a mini band or a 1” super band. Once we finish with the bands, we will look to create stability, especially through the torso (abs, hip, posterior chain) area. This torso training area is going to be important because the ability to stabilize the spine during movement will allow for more transference of force throughout the body for running, jumping, cutting, etc. 

Since we should be aiming to focus on them daily, each workout should begin with mobility and stability. They are vital to our goals of maximizing performance and reducing the risk of injuries.

POST-SEASON TRAINING

This is a transition phase from the in-season practices to the off-season program.  The objective during this time is to restore lean-body mass, facilitate recovery from the season, and build work capacity for the off-season phase.

This is the time of year where the volume of lifting will be high, but the intensity will be lower. During this phase, we typically will use higher reps with moderate weight as a way to improve technique on the key lifts, develop hypertrophy, and improve movement patterns. Through an 12-18 week season, the body can break down from the volume of running and contact. These high-rep workouts can help with restoring range of motion through the large number of quality reps. Finally, it is our goal to finish these workouts in 40-50 minutes. This means that we are asking our athletes to increase the overall amount of work they are doing in a short amount of time. This is where we are looking to build work capacity for the off-season program they are about to endure.

OFF-SEASON TRAINING

Everything we do as strength and conditioning coaches is designed to get our athletes ready to compete at the highest level during the season. This means working to make our players stronger, faster, bigger and more athletic. We are, in essence, trying to increase the amount of tools in the tool bag that can be used to get the job done. The winter off-season training phase is one of the most important times of the year for setting the tone for the upcoming season. There aren’t any formal practices and all of the hours allowed are used in the area of strength and conditioning.  Winter is a prime time to increase strength levels and acceleration for our athletes. This is also the time to incorporate general conditioning methods into the program.

Strength development should be a major part of winter training programming. Without the large quantities of conditioning that are typically seen during the season and pre-season periods, the winter is one time where strength can be achieved at high levels. Overall volume of each training session can be increased which will lead to increases in lean body mass.

Additional lean body mass will help make athletes bigger, stronger, and leaner. We will typically lift three or four times a week during this cycle. Our three-day-a-week lifting schedule will consist of an acceleration and agility session followed by a lift on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Tuesday and Thursday used as days for general conditioning and team building. Our four-day-a-week lifting schedule typically consists of a acceleration and agility session Monday and Thursday, with a lift and general conditioning/team building session Tuesday and Friday.  No matter how the schedule is set, there are obviously a lot of days that can be dedicated to training for strength.

Speed training is another area of great importance during the winter. The two main components of our speed training are acceleration and agility which are great indicators of performance on the field. Acceleration is the ability to achieve top speed in a short amount of time, and agility is the ability to change direction without decelerating. Acceleration is the king in sports, especially football. Whether it’s a running back making a cut, or a defensive lineman coming off the ball, acceleration makes their success possible. Agility training is also going to be important in ensuring athletes can start-stop-start again as quickly as possible. These two qualities must be addressed, and the winter is a great time to increase an athlete’s ability to accelerate and change directions faster.

General conditioning is the last part of the off-season training cycle that should be incorporated into the overall program. We look at general conditioning as a way to generate great team chemistry and bonding. A lot of this time of conditioning is going to be weight based, and is going to be geared toward power-endurance, or the ability to generate force even in a fatigued state. Sled pushes, tire flips, barbell complexes and team competitions all would go in this category. The idea is to build an athlete’s ability to do a large amount of work in a short amount of time and to put the athletes in a tough position that will cause them to have to cheer for each other and support one another.

 SPRING SEASON TRAINING

Now that we have put in a great deal of work during winter, spring becomes a great time to put those new skills and strength into use. During this phase, strength can continue to improve, but through less volume and more intense workouts. This is also a time where speed and conditioning in the weight room can be paused due to the large quantities of both during practice, but resumed once the practices are done.

During spring football, we typically like to lift twice a week. Most schools will practice three times a week during this phase. This results in five-six hours of running, cutting, jumping, and hitting that they weren’t doing in the winter. This means that the athletes are getting plenty of speed and agility work through actually playing the game. Now is the time to lower the overall time and volume of work in the weight room. During this time we normally spend 15-20 minutes on our mobility and stability work, followed by 40 minutes of lifting. The lifting sessions are shorter, and we will use less sets, but we will still use fairly high percentages during this phase. Without competitions every weekend, there is more energy for the athletes to expend in continuing with strength gains.

After spring football season, there are few weeks left in the school year. This is a great time for what we call a peak speed phase. Our goal for this phase is to train for and test a 40-yard sprint. We will resume our three-or-four-day-a-week lifting program, but now we will add the additional focus of top speed training. This way we get the full amount of speed training possible. The lifting portion for this phase will be almost exclusively training for speed with a focus on compensatory acceleration and bar speed. This will help us transition into the upcoming summer workout, or pre-season phase where this can be used with more conditioning. s

(Part II will include a strength and conditioning program for both the pre-season and an in-season training schedule).

About the Author: James Frazier became Harvard’s Strength and Conditioning Coach in February of 2009. He previously served with the Iowa football program for two years. A 2006 graduate of Brown, Frazier was a four-year letterman playing defensive end and linebacker.






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