Viewer Questions

A few weeks ago I asked you to send me your questions. Here are just a few questions I received.

Q: I run a volleyball club in Hawaii. Many of the clubs in Hawaii are beginning to develop speed and agility and core development training programs to assist in the training of our volleyball programs. Off-season we do alot of beach training but during the season our program mainly consist of ladders, cones, plyo boxes, reaction balls, and balance disc. Is there a way to incorporate all of these activities during the season without putting to much stress on the lower half of the body. We do so much jumping in our volleyball training that I feel that we may be overworking the girls.

Jon T
Ho'okino Volleyball Club

A: Jon, my dream vacation is to spend some time in Hawaii. Do you have a spare bedroom? This is a common question and issue in volleyball. What I am about to say is important to understand. If your volleyball practice is organized where the athletes are getting good metabolic conditioning and jump training due to the nature of the practice, then you need to add short highly focused sessions on skill development. What this means is; you need to choose one or two of the exercises you mentioned above (ladders, cones, reaction balls…) and create a 2-5 minute block of time per practice where you only focus on one or two of those exercises. For example; On Monday, you may put into your practice plan that after the warm up and defensive passing skills you are going to have the players perform lateral and angular first step quickness cone drills for 3 sets of 8 seconds to the right and left with a 20-30 second rest. Once this is done you take a water break and move on in the practice. You can also schedule another small session block later in the practice to focus on a different skill like balance training.

Your focus has to be on skill development and movement economy not conditioning or high volume- your normal practice should be covering this. Remember, this is your in season focus. You off season is different- your volume will be higher and you can do more exercises.

I always use this rule of thumb, if there is even a slight chance that I might cause an injury by doing a particular exercise or training approach I don’t do it. The ultimate goal is for the players to be better at volleyball and the training is to supplement that.

Q: You are correct about the amount of youth training information out there. Constantly I search for information, classes and programs that will help in training young athletes. Having three sons under the age of eight, teaching 6th grade in an urban public school and coaching basketball, I realize the importance of continuing education. Also, I am a Speed Insider and Basketball Speed is great! What would be the misconceptions/problems that you see in training young athletes? I ask this because the idea of starting sport camps has come up. Constantly I am asked about having a basketball camp or coaching. So that leads me to another question. How do you set up and run a camp? This is just a start.

Mike W.

A: I absolutely love basketball as well. To answer the first question about the misconceptions/problems I see in training young athletes. Many programs are based off the newest drill or contraption that is going to revolutionize the sports training industry. Get rid of that “stuff”, teach skills, have fun, and support the athletes’ development as they grow.

I have always said this my job as a strength and conditioning coach is to support what the athletes really wants and that is to be better at their chosen sport(s). It is not my job to dominate the athlete time and energy with my training program. I am there to keep them healthy, safe and improve their performance without causing mental or physical burnout.

I love the idea of having a sports camp- basketball or any other. The reason I like sports camps so much is, if they are structured properly with the correct motives, you can help athlete at so many levels (skills development, self-confidence, learning to work as a team, meeting new friends, athlete learn different philosophies from different coaches, they get a sense of belonging….).

Sports camps for young athlete should be designed with the following in mind.
1. Always be organized with the structure but allow spontaneity within the day. In other words the kids need to have structure so they can be organized and have boundaries, but at some points the kids should be able to be decision makers as well. Let them work how details of how their team is going to play or work through a fun team game- get the idea?

2. Always teach a skill and then relate it to the sport. So if I am going to teach lateral shuffles for defense in basketball I am going to teach the kids the skill of how to move, but then I will put them in a 2-on-2 situations and have them use the skill live. This helps learning and retention because they understand the skills application.

3. Have lots of fun competitive games that teach the kids to compete with each other yet handle how to win and lose (let’s face it, if we don’t teach kids how to handle being defeated we are doing them a disservice). There are many other things that go into the actual running of a camp but I always make sure these 3 things are include with young athletes.

Finally, to start the sports camp, you want to pound the pavement by getting in front of youth organizations, church groups for kids, schools, and recreation departments. You need to speak to the organizers of these groups and let them know that you are running a youth sports camp for basketball and would love to share some information about it to the kids. You should run a mini-clinc for the kids so they can see how much fun it will be and what they will gain from being in the camp.

There is lots of other stuff like getting insurance and facility usage but hopefully this gives you a start.

Q: What progressions on strength training are appropriate for the sub 9th grader?Should warm-up progressions change as age changes? What lateral speed progressions change as the athlete gets older?What games/activities are fun that can develop aerobic capacity in your young athletes given the window of opportunity around 12-13?...according to Balyi

Matt Candrl

A: Wow, lots of good stuff Matt- thanks.

1.When discussing strength training for younger kids here are some suggestions. First, make sure the kids are completely competent at performing the exercises. Hopefully, lots of good body wt stuff at first and then you can add free wts, bands, and others. To be quite honest with you, for the population you are asking about the progressions we use are totally based on the needs of the athlete. I don’t have a set periodized approach for young kids. They are just challenged in different ways when they are ready. For example; day one they might be asked to perform all exercise slowly, on day two they might be asked to perform each exercise quickly with power, and on another day they will be asked to do all the exercises in a circuit format. When exercises become easy then make it more challenging. The older the athletes becomes, the more the program becomes systematized.

2. Warm up progressions can change as the athletes get older but this is due to need. Older athlete will begin to have more specific issue due to sport participation as compared to young kids that are still developing and don’t have any sport specific issues. Warms ups for young kids should be as much about teaching them how to move and control their bodies as the actual purpose of warming and preparing the body.In most of my youngster program warm ups there is a seamless approach where the all the training gets mixed together. The older athlete will need time to deal with corrective issue during the warm up process.

3. Lateral movement is a skill. Regardless of if the athlete is young or old the skill must be programmed properly in the motor program of each athlete. The progression that changes is the approach of more specific application to a particular sport or sport position. I will progress older athlete into more sets (still keeping the reps low because it is a skill) and also periodic light resisted training laterally to prime the strength and power development and excite the nervous system (be careful with lateral resistance if you are still focusing on the proper execution of the skill. You don’t want to grove an incorrect pattern.

4. Fun games and conditioning- you can never go wrong with tag, relays, and obstacle courses. These games teach movement, enhance a fun competitive nature, and encourage creativity. Plus, if the games are structured properly you can get a nice conditioning effect.

There is a lot that could go into each question but these answers should help.

Q: Hi Lee, good to hear from you again. Hope that you are well with your family. I do need to work on our schools peoples strengh and power. How can I test them and what can I do to imporve it.

Cheers,
Marius
South Africa

A: Thanks for asking about my family Marius. They are great and growing up fast.

Some simple tests for power are: vertical jump and standing broad for lower body and seated or standing medicine chest pass for upper body. For strength you should be careful not to do any test that could cause injury- you want to make sure the athlete can perform the technique of what ever lift you are going to perform really well first before testing. On that note, I would use a 3-5 rep max for strength test unless you have older athletes that are experienced lifters- even then it is not bad to use 3-5 reps. Some tests you can use for strength are: squat, bench press, pull ups (might be more strength endurance for stronger athletes), and pull ups. To me it really doesn’t matter what kind of test you use. I always error on side of caution, but you want to make sure they are getting improvement.

Here is a simple design. Perform what ever tests you want that are safe and give you a starting point with each athlete. Let’s use the Pull ups for example. If the athlete can do 8 pull ups. I would use a formula like this. Train pull-ups 2-3 days per week. The athlete should do one day with assistance so he or she can perform 12-13 reps (4-5 more than tested). Then on the next day I would have them perform non-assisted regular pull ups. Then go back to the assisted pull ups on the following workout day. When the athlete can easily does 4-5 more than the original 8 pull ups start to reduce the assistance. Eventually you want the athlete performing 10-12 with no assistance.

When designing the program for squats, bench or any other strength lift you can use a similar approach of alternating between lesser intensity and more speed, and high wt with a more strength focus. You want to continually shock the nervous system so it has to adapt and increase force output.

This should give you a starting point Marius.

Yours in Speed,
Lee

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