- Myth Debunking 101
“Excuses are no good. Your friends don't need them and your enemies won't believe them. So why make them?" -Jake Gaither, Legendary Florida A&M Football Coach Myth Debunking 101 As...
- Muscle Fiber Recruitment-Again
The topic of Muscle-Fiber Recruitment is an important element of why we train our athletes the way we do. However, this topic, like others in the strength training world can be confusing and misleading for many coaches. With the help of these coaches, who are considered experts in the field, we will make a further attempt to clear up this issue
- Do Olympic Lifts Enhance Athletic Ability? (Specificity I)
Proponents of Olympic movements claim that exercises in the weight room such as the power clean transfers to skills on the field. One example, given by M. Arthur and B. Bailey in "Complete Training For Football," is the similarities in body position between the acceleration phase...
- Specificity II
Specificity, to StongerAthlete.com, refers to the following: In order for the athlete to improve a skill such as tackling, he must practice tackling. In order to improve at the skill in volleyball, he/she must practice those skills. This definition of "specificity" is clearly...
- Efficiency
Occasionally we still here coaches brag about their athletes training 4 days per week 2-3 hours per session. These coaches assume that time spent in the weight room is time well spent. Now, a coach can make the argument that an athlete is...
- Ballistic Training
Olympic weight-training is often referred to Ballistic Training. strongerathletes.com would like to site more quotes from strength coaches who believe that the quick lifts develop power. It is still believed by ballistic training advocates that the only exercises
- The Squat
In order to implement an effecient program we would like to train as many muscles as possible in one exercise, (multi-joint movements), and the squat is one of them. We believe that this exercise also
- Power Training
research that we have found that is not misleading, does not indicate that fast movements in the weight room develop powerful and explosive athletes. In fact it says
- Frequency of Training
Continuing the topics related to helping coaches run a safe, sound and efficient strength program we address the issue of how often an athlete should lift weights. Our experience in strength training indicates
- Attention: Risk is Real!
We received an e-mail this week that we feel stamps an exclamation point on the issue of weight room safety. As we have said before, risk in strength training is inherent, however we feel that a coach can reduce the risk by installing a fundamentally safe program. In the past
- Plyometrics: Yes or No?
Plyometrics is a topic that we are finally going to address. Many of our readers have asked about the use of plyometric jumps as part of their strength and conditioning program. The use of plyometrics ranges from activities such as running, box jumps, jump rope and all its varieties.
- Fiber Recruitment and Bias
Dr. Wilmore states this about the Henneman principle--That the motor unit with the smallest motor neuron is recruited first, the motor unit with the next largest goes second, etc-all the way to maximal force production-but that this happens during EACH REP--not after a series of reps...
