A
common mistake I see amongst sports’ coaches is using excessive conditioning or
conditioning that is inappropriate based on their athletes’ sport or age. Don’t
worry! I was there too. As a runner and running coach, I thought long-distance running
was the best conditioning method for everyone. Now that I’ve studied the
science and seen highly conditioned athletes who trained differently, I think
otherwise.
The field of strength and conditioning is rapidly evolving to the point where most sports’ coaches can’t keep up with the latest training methods. That’s okay though! The job of the sports’ coach is to develop the technical and tactical abilities of their athletes. Leave strength and conditioning to specialists in that area.
Let’s
look at the hierarchy of needs for the non-endurance sports (see pyramid
below). The top of the pyramid is represented by technical and tactical abilities.
Even if the athlete isn’t in the best shape, having a high level of skill and
decision-making abilities will help her perform well.
The
next level of the pyramid represents the most important physical qualities.
These qualities allow the athlete to sprint to the ball faster, get the
rebound, or outmaneuver an opponent. They’re best trained on the court, field,
or rink through short, intense efforts (less than 5-10 seconds) with long rests
(1-5 minutes). For developing athletes, strength training heavily influences
these qualities.
Speed work should be less than 5-10sec in length.
The
third level of the pyramid represents the ability to maintain speed throughout
the entire competition. To train this quality we want to mimic what happens in
sport. Team sports are a series of repeated sprints with changes of direction,
not continuous efforts like cross-country running. Efforts should be up to 10
seconds with less than a minute rest. Longer workouts can include 150y and 300y
shuttles. Workouts like these are tough and should be done no more than twice a
week. Over the off-season, athletes should work up to these workouts. In-season,
these workouts should be used occasionally for maintenance with competitions
and small-sided games taking their place.
The
final level of the pyramid is general conditioning. General conditioning allows
an athlete to recover faster between hard bouts and after competitions. However,
with all the technical, agility, speed, strength, and interval training there
isn’t a lot of time or energy left to perform a ton of this work. That’s not a
problem though as it’s the least specific ability.
If
you perform well in speed and agility tests, what inherent trait do you
possess? You’re sure to have a moderate to high percentage of fast twitch
muscle fibres. Fast twitch fibres are made for speed and agility, whereas slow
twitch fibres are made for endurance activities. Not only will some of your best
players score poorly on running tests but they will respond poorly to
traditional cardio training. Too much traditional cardio will make these
players slower and weaker.
What
should you do instead?
Team
sport athletes should use a conditioning method used by sprinters called
extensive tempo. An extensive tempo is neither a jog nor a sprint but something
in between and has enough rest to keep your heart rate elevated without gassing
you. An example might be running the length of a basketball court and back at 60-70%
maximum speed and resting for 30 seconds done 8-16 times. These can also be
done on stationary bikes but running and slide boards provide the option of a change of direction. Extensive tempos can be used to progress to higher
intensity workouts or used as recovery sessions.
Another
great option is mobility circuits. Check out this article by Eric Cressey for
more information. I had an injury prone runner use these once or twice a week
in place of a run one winter. She broke an area record.
A good dynamic warm-up is also a form of cardio.
Is
traditional cardio really that bad?
Researchers
call it the interference effect, because endurance training interferes with
speed, strength, and muscle-building. However, I think it depends on the
athlete. Athletes who enjoy endurance training will have moderate to high
percentages of slow twitch muscle fibres. In fact, I have several cross-country
runners who perform well in team sports. For these athletes the interference
effect is small. But if you decide to use cross-country as a means of
conditioning for a winter sport you can’t replace sprinting and lifting. Don’t
force it on athletes either. Athletes who hate cardio are usually the ones who
won’t respond to it anyway.
Minimum
Effective Dose
All
training variables must be carefully dosed to maximize performance while
reducing the risk of injury and illness. Conditioning is no different. More isn’t
always better. I was working with a hockey player who struggled to lift relatively
light training loads after only the first week of hockey season. An hour of
stairs will do that to an explosive athlete. Additionally, if your athlete
competes in another sport simultaneously, as a coach you must modify your
conditioning plans based on what your athlete did yesterday with the other
coach. An athlete can’t have two coaches who want to have the best-conditioned
team. My friend Ryan did an excellent job of this last summer with one of our
club runners who also played soccer. He modified the workouts accordingly and
asked if she could run easy for certain soccer practices. She ended up with a
medal at the Ontario Summer Games.
Age-Appropriate
Conditioning
My
final point concerns conditioning for young athletes. If they’re not in high
school yet, most of their conditioning should be through games like tag and
dodge ball and playing their sport. Keep it fun! Also, when you consider that many
young athletes are playing multiple sports simultaneously and joining the cross-country
team, do they really need more conditioning?
In summary,
sports conditioning needs to be sports-specific, age-appropriate, and provided
in proper doses. In this highly-evolving field of strength and conditioning, it’s
important to seek the help of a specialist.
If you have any questions about fitness, please contact me through my website here.
Stay fit,
Jonathan Pratt
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