Long before I entered the strength and conditioning field, steady state training seemed to be the go to way to ensure that an athlete was "in shape". Still to this day, coaches during practice administer miles and miles of jogging with hopes that their athletes will be game ready. Even worse, athletes are still tested using these archaic aerobic tests...such as the two mile run or a 12 minute run. If they perform poorly, they obviously need more running, correct?
Allow me to be tongue and cheek for a moment...
Has a high school football player even been recruited because he can jog well? Have they been recruited because they have a stellar mile time? The answer is no...what if one of your offensive linemen cant jog that well? Are you going to tell them that they are out of shape? When is a linemen's ability to run a mile tested during a football game? All of these questions have perplexed me for years...
We need to be more specific to understand the demands of sport.
Firstly, being in shape for sport and being in general shape are two completely different things. What do most people do when they try to get back into shape? They go for a jog. What do these people who happen coach then tell their out of shape kids? Go for a jog...
The bioenergetic of sport is a pretty cool topic to look in to. It will give you a lot of information...but more specifically, it will tell you how you should be conditioning your athletes.
Let's look at the work-to-rest patterns of a couple sports.
Hockey shifts last on average 45 seconds and you can be off the ice for up to 135 seconds.
An average football play can last 5 seconds and then you will have rest for up to 45 seconds.
See where I am going?
But yet, athletes are told they are out of shape when they are being trained counterintuitive to their sport.
I have been in the strength and conditioning field for 11 years. Almost always, my biggest and strongest kids are the fastest and most powerful.
Does everyone need to be bigger, faster, stronger? Based on my experiences I am on the side of yes.
The secret is to look at the kids you have available. Most kids spend their time in a low intensity practice with minimal maximal effort...plus there tends to be little to no weight training involved. And this is year round. Kids play without regular breaks in their seasons and wonder why injury rates are through the roof...
We get regular low intensity bouts every day in the gym. We strap heart rate monitors on our athletes and during a well programmed warm-up, heart rates will reach into the 130 to 140 for 10 minutes.
A vast majority of athletes need more high intense work. Not only will this cause the necessary specific adaptations that we need, but it will teach them to push themselves.
Remember, if you want to get faster, jogging does not cut it. If you want to be more conditioned for your sport again, jogging is not the answer.
At the end of the day strength and speed rule the day which is an anerobic quality.
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