- Snow Shoveling
- Snow Shoeing
- Skiing
- Snowboarding
- Cross Country Skiing
- Ice Skating
- Figure Skating
- Ice Hockey
- Basketball
The movement patterns of these sports, the energy systems use, the conditioning needed and the common injuries associated with them are all things I consider when designing your program. When it comes to our sports performance training, I like to take a proactive approach and treat the preceding 3-4 months prior to your season start date, as your off season training.
October, November and December is our busiest stretch of holidays with lots of fun to be had and participate in; and there's also uniqueness to each month. October and November, when compared to September, are significantly quieter, more manageable and with lower stress for many people. These "lower stress" months are a great opportunity to make significant progress with your self-care goals and we'll do that by getting you stronger. December tends to be a high stress month, similar to September, but maybe even more challenging, so I like to turn down training stress when life stress goes up. We'll aim to peak you for holiday hotness, which is looking your best in fun clothes, while having great energy from your workouts, not crushed.
October will be a strength & hypertrophy month.
November a strength month.
December is currently planned to be a peaking / power endurance phase, but at some point, I may try a peaking strength & power phase.
Phase 11
This is our strength + hypertrophy phase. Hypertrophy is the opposite of atrophy. If atrophy is soft, flat, loose muscles and a frail body, then hypertrophy is a strong body, with strong, firm and curvy muscles.
Hypertrophy training, helps the muscles grow, so if you're using the right DB Load (25-45%) this phase and the right exercise level for you, you'll feel your muscles growing after workouts. This fun feeling will cause your body to crave glucose, proteins and calories to keep up with the repair and regeneration. Listen to what your body needs and provide it. Don't be surprised that on some days, you may need more food than others. A cool feeling when you're training regularly is your metabolism speeds up, burning more calories at rest, and if you provide sufficient food, while eating to contentment and no more, you can decrease your body fat, thereby making you leaner.
A cool side benefit of hypertrophy training and strength training in general is muscles crave glucose to grow and the sugary treats associated with Halloween can help them grow if timed around workouts. If you feel the metabolism of your muscles racing, you're more likely to store the glucose from candy in your muscles than in spots you'd prefer to not store the glucose.
Timed Sprints & Agility Ladders
Workout A will feature 1 rep of a band sprint to produce a post activation potentiation effect, followed by a timed sprint. This phase I'm going to test having you do 1 timed sprint. I'll record the time and then track it as we go. I need you to go at the speed you feel good about on that particular day, to help manage injury risk. If you don't feel good or feel super stiff or don't want to sprint with 100% effort that day, then don't. Sprint at 75% or 50% or something else that you feel good about. If you feel great, the go 100%.
Workout B will be our agility ladder day in which we practice deceleration, breaking and change of direction. We'll do:
- Shuffle 1-2 Stick
- Cross In Front
- Lateral 1-2-1-2
Medicine Balls
We'll do Chest Passes for basketball and Hockey Scoop Throws for well hockey and also snow shoveling. Use the weight recommendations below as guidelines for Straight Ahead Throws (chest passes) and Rotational Throws (hockey scoop throws).
Straight Ahead Throws (Chest Passes)
>200lbs = 8lbs.
175-200lbs = 6lbs.
135-175lbs = 4lbs.
<135lbs = 2 lbs.
Rotational Throws (Hockey Scoop Throws)
>200lbs = 10lbs.
175-200lbs = 8lbs.
135-175lbs = 6lbs.
<135lbs = 4lbs.
*These weight recommendations are starting point guidelines. The key is to use the heaviest ball, you can throw fast! If it looks fast, it probably is. If it looks slow, it probably is. Somedays you could be stronger than others, so adjust accordingly.
Lower Body Plyometrics
Linear Hurdle Hops and 45 Degree Lateral Skaters
Hops will be helpful for any sport involving landing, decelerating, changing direction or hopping off of 1-leg. Basketball is a great example (layups, shot blocking), so we'll bring these back to practice. We'll follow our usual progression with these. Sticks, then double bounces, followed by continuous.
45 Degree Lateral Skaters
Skaters are a great compliment to movement in the frontal plane like push offs in ice skating, cross country skiing and basketball lateral shuffling. We'll also follow are usual progression of sticks, doubles and continuous.
Stability and Sprints
Body saws and Naked Get Ups are our 2 stability exercises and quick feet basketball shuffles and foot fires are our paired movement sprints.
Body saws are an anti-extension exercise which helps build up your anterior core strength to reduce anterior pelvic tilts, belly hanging, low back hyperextension, and low back injury risk. They're fun and they work best with towels in the non-humid months, so I've been them in Q4.
Naked Get Ups or DB Get Ups or Turkish Get Ups are a fun, challenging, full body movement that teaches you how to easily get off the ground, so when you're old one day, you can still make it look easy for your audience. This exercise will also help the snowboarders out there get off the ground after attaching their boards to their boots. Or anyone else who happens to find their self on the ground and in need to get up (martial arts?).
Shuffles and Foot Fires are common quick feet movements needed in all sports and especially to play basketball defense. I loved playing defense, first because my dad started out as a defender in soccer. Second because I loved Lyman Depriest, a defensive specialist for Uconn Men's Basketball, back in the day, who got substituted in and out situationally during crunch time, to shut down the opposing teams best player, and because I loved being physically aggressive and shutting people down.
When I learned how to dribble and shoot, I loved going 1-on-1, but this came later, so defense has always been a favorite part of basketball for me and why I admire the games of Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and anyone else who loves to play D.
So, we'll do quick feet movement (squat jacks), a shuffle and then a burpee, on 1 workout day this quarter (Workout A) and foot fire progressions on the other day (workout B, in phase 11). This should make your legs burn and help condition them for basketball, skiing and any other sports where there are long time under tensions.
Power & Shoulders
The DB Complexes are gone until next summer, but we've kept the Hang Power Clean and added DB Squat Jumps. Both should help with vertical jumping in basketball for rebounds, shot blocking and jump shots. The Clean is more hinge patterns and the squat jump more squat pattern, so we've covered both 2-leg and 1-leg hinge and squat explosive patterns.
To keep the reps low and build in automatic rest periods, we'll use 15:10 tempo sets. You'll have 15 seconds to do squat jumps or the shoulder exercise, and then a full minute of rest before you do the same exercise again. That breaks down to a 1:4 work to rest ratio, and is pretty good.
One day we'll do a vertical push exercise (either supine 1-arm shoulder flexion or tall kneeling 1-arm arnold shoulder presses) and the other day (workout b), a 1-DB bent-over high pull to external rotation. These 2, isolated movements will help you address mobility, stability, strength and aesthetics of the upper body / shoulder region.
Strength & Conditioning
We'll build up to 4.5 minutes of 1 exercise pair, followed by a 30sec rest, then 2 minutes of conditioning, followed by 75sec rest, and then another 4.5 minutes of strength training. I already think 2 minutes is too little for our conditioning, so I'll be looking for ways to get you an extra 2 minutes. Ironically, you'll feel like 2 minutes is pretty sufficient, once you do it, based on the exercises, but another 2 minutes would be nice too. :-)
Strength Exercises
- DB Rows & Alternate Grip Pull Ups for Pulling
- Push Up with Alternate Leg Marches and DB Bench Presses for pushing.
- 2-DB SLDL's and DB 1-Leg Hockey Squats for 1-leg hinge and squat patterns.
- TRX Half Kneel T-Raise and Band Facing Wall Slides for upper back yang to life's ying.
- DB Farmer Carry Progressions so you realize how cool it is to carry your DB's to and from your car or the closet every workout. This trains grip strength, hip stability, core stability, pelvic stability and the integration of all of those, to address postural stability. So many good things. If you have the right weight, you'll love it, especially when you feel like you're about to drop the weights and you have to focus super hard to finish.
*Look at the sets and reps recommendations for each exercise and subsequent weeks as there is a lot of detail to help you progress
Example #1: body saws progress from 8 reps in week 1, to 10 reps in week 2 and 12 reps in week 3.
Example #2: Hockey Squats are to be done with 5 reps in week 1, 6 reps in week 2 and 7 reps in week 3, whereas DB Split Squats or DB Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats are 8 reps each.
Example #3: Push Ups are 8, 8, 10 for weeks 1, 2 & 3 respectively and both push ups and pull ups, suggest you do at least 4 sets and a PR before you leave!
Example #4: 1-2sets, 1-2sets, 2 sets, 2-3 sets, 3sets and 3-4 sets per exercise are the recommendations to aim for as you progress from your 1st workout up to your 6th workout on your cards.
Conditioning
Basketball Shuttle Runs, done full court (day 1) and sideline to sideline (day 3) are back. These are a favorite and based on Monday's experience, everyone's a bit de-conditioned with these.
Band relays with a hockey grip is our day 2 conditioning. We'll do shuffles (Right & Left), forward runs, backward runs and diagonal runs (R&L) this quarter. All patterns you might find in basketball or hockey.
That's all folks.
Happy training!
Holiday hot and winter sport ready, here we come!
Coach Mike
p.s. this week as in all first weeks of a phase are guest weeks. If you know someone who'd love what we do, invite them.
p.p.s. happy birthday to Emily and Anne Marie.
p.p.p.s. Saturday, Pete and I are going to run Harvard Stadium. If you're interested, reply and let me know.
