By Steven Morris
Author
of Explosive Football Training
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Back in the dark ages (up to
the 1990's), weight training for sports was dominated by a
bodybuilding mentality.
While there were certainly innovators
out there pushing heavy, hard exercises, the majority of coaches
were having their athletes train like a pro-bodybuilder: tons
of reps, western-style periodization, and plenty of machines.
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While machines have their uses, they
should not ever be the base of an athlete's training program. Also,
high rep work has its place, but again, should not be the foundation.
Western Periodization…well, that's another story for another
article. But, the worst problem that came out of this old philosophy
was that athletes should train most movements sitting or lying down.
The major force behind this was the
old, dreaded "S" word: Safety. Lifting overhead, or doing
any kind of pulling was bad for the back! Forget that guys like
Grimek and Park were doing these exercises decades ago with no ill-effects,
these coaches figured that their big, tough athletes would be hurt
doing a Push Press.
Remember that many of these guys
were training football and hockey players, wrestlers, and other
rough-and-tumble athletes. You know, athletes who are slamming into
each other at extremely high speeds with the intent of decapitating
each other. So, of course it's easy to see why one would assume
some weightlifting would cripple these guys.
Fast forward a few years and the functional
craze hit the scene, hardcore. Now the idea was to forget training
hard and instead to focus on balancing yourself on a giant beach
ball. Why do Front Squats when you can fall off of a wobble board
while holding a 5-lb medicine ball?
Thankfully, that fad has, for the
most part, faded into existence. But, the most troubling aspect
of both of these horrible training philosophies was that athletes
were taught to:
1. Train on machines or while seated
2. Forget building strength and work on their "balance"
This set athletic training back about
50 years.
Stand Up!
Frankly, all athletes should do most,
i.e. 90%, of their training standing up. This includes abdominal
training! As Louie Simmons says, "We do a great deal of abdominal
work standing up, and why not? When you fight, wrestle, play ball,
and of course, lift weights, you are standing up, not sitting."
This is a pretty good quote for all exercises, not just ab work.
Dan John's philosophy is to build
strength from the ground up and this is what we are after.
Ab Training
When most think of training the abs,
they stick to the old standbys: sit-ups, crunches, and leg raises.
But, we play most sports on our feet and weak abs will absolutely
kill your athletic ability. I talk about this often with lineman
who think that training abs is best left for the vanity-driven Wide
Receivers. If you have strong legs and a strong upper body but your
abs are weak, you will leak power and get crushed.
You must train the abs while standing!
This can be accomplished with a few simple exercises:
- Standing Band Crunches
- Suitcase Deadlifts - Simply stand
to the side of a loaded bar and do a deadlift with one arm, similar
to picking up a suitcase. You must keep your abs very tight during
the entire movement.
- Full Contact Twists
- Standing Ab Wheel - Just like the
regular ab-wheel, but do it while standing. Don't jackknife the
hips. Ab wheels take a bad rap, but they're the best thing to
come out of the 80's since Herbie Hancock's Rockit.
- Saxon Side Bends - Side Bends while
holding two dumbbells overhead.
These exercises should be worked hard,
with added weight. This is not the time for endless sets of high
reps. Shoot for 4 - 8 sets of 4 - 8 reps, 3-times per week.
Clean and Jerks
The Olympic Lifts have fallen out
of favor in some strength coaching circles, but this is a huge mistake.
The truth is that the O-lifts are still extremely helpful for athletes,
and the undisputed king of the O-lifts for athletics is the Clean
and Jerk. It's a lift that builds toughness, identifies weaknesses,
and requires strength, power and determination. All the traits an
athlete needs!
The C&J is similar to the Deadlift
in its ability to point out weaknesses. Lifting a heavy bar from
the ground to overhead requires strength in the entire posterior
chain, plus the abs, shoulders and triceps. If any one of those
areas are weak, you will miss the lift.
The C&J is the perfect example
of what we are after: strength from the ground up! It is a weak-link
fixer and exposer. If you are strong enough to pop a heavy Clean
and Jerk overhead, you can bet you won't have many lower back injuries
on the field!
Don't fall for the old "they're
just too hard to teach" mantra. I can get just about any athlete
doing cleans in one session. Plus, you don't have to use a bar for
C&Js; you can use Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Logs, Sandbags, Barrels,
Rocks, and thick bars.
Stick to low reps and multiple sets
for the Clean and Jerk. 8 - 10 sets of 2 is a favorite of mine.
Overhead Work
No where in the training world is
a standing exercise more maligned than with Overhead Pressing (the
Deadlift is a close second). If you have a genuine shoulder impingement,
then avoid pressing, but for the rest of the world, more overhead
work should be done.
Bill Starr wrote about this in MILO
several years back. He said that back in the 70's, overhead pressing
was the dominant form of pressing and, while people did bench press
back then, the majority of pressing was done will standing. As a
result, rotator cuff injuries were, as Starr puts it, "rarer
than finding hen's teeth."
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The whole "doing
overhead pressing will give you a bad back" theory is
insane. Doing Militaries or Push Press with bad from can lead
to injury, but that's true for all exercises.
You can use Pressing
(Push Press, Jerks, Push Jerks, Military Press) in two ways:
1. In place of
your normal Bench work on a heavy day.
2. As a higher
rep accessory exercise. This is especially useful if you use
dumbbells.
If you are going
heavy, stick to low (under 3) reps for 8 - 10 sets. If you'd
rather use Pressing as an accessory movement, you can go with
a traditional 3 - 4 sets of 6 - 10 reps.
By adding Standing
Ab work, Overhead Presses and Clean and Jerks to your training,
you'll quickly notice huge jumps in strength, speed and athletic
ability. Plus, you won't have to look like a jadrool standing
on a stability ball waving pink dumbbells around!
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About
The Author
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Steven Morris is a Personal
Trainer and Strength Coach in the Philadelphia and South
Jersey areas and the owner of UWA Fitness. He has been lifting
weights for over 15 years and has been helping people achieve
their fitness and strength goals for over a decade. Steven
is currently pursuing an M.S. in Psychology.
You can learn more about his
methods and services at, www.explosivefootballtraining.com
and his new Training Guide www.explosivefootballmanual.com
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