ADVANCED TRAINING STUDY GUIDE

Complex training is a workout system that combines strength work and speed work for an optimal training effect. The athlete must train the as well. Complex training allows athletes to work the muscles, in conjunction with the nervous system, in such a way that the slow muscle fibers behave like the fast fibers. Muscle fiber types cannot be changed; they can only be trained to act in a different way. With complex training the athlete combines and into the same workout session. The athlete will perform plyometrics between sets or even as part of a weight training set. Complex training consists of four components: resistance training, plyometrics training, training, and -specific training.

Resistance Training: Weight training is one form of resistance training; however, anything that makes a muscle work harder can be classified as resistance training. Using your own body weight for resistance in , surgical tubing, medicine balls, etc are all forms of resistance training. Using free weights over machines is a better choice, because machines do not involve the stability required of free weight training, hence there is less strength transfer to athletics. accomplishes the first half of the complex training equation, with plyo, sprint, and sport-specific training completing it. Strength training will produce results, but not to the same level as complex training. Quality is always more important than quantity. Low repetitions of moderate to heavy loads will be used, as they produce the greatest amount of motoneuron firing and preparation for plyometrics. Example: do three sets of chest press followed by a medicine ball chest pass .

Plyometrics: Plyometrics follows the theory that the body has an arousal mechanism that enables an athlete to take advantage of the body’s capacity for physical output. Performing various hopping, skipping, jumping, and throwing designed to stimulate this arousal mechanism is most effective for taking athletes to a higher level of performance. You must train at maximum speeds: sub maximal efforts will only produce submaximal results. This is the law of specificity. If you want to compete at higher speeds, you must train at higher speeds. If you train at slower velocities, you will teach your muscles to perform at these slower velocities. Going from slow muscles to fast muscles requires performing quick, explosive movements. These activities must allow for minimal contact with the ground (lower body) or the hand contact surface (upper body). Plyometrics is the best answer for these types of exercise needs.

Sprint Training: Speed of movement in running depends on two factors: stride length and stride frequency. Stride frequency is generally considered to be largely dependent on the type of muscle fiber the athlete has. Fast-twitch fibers give an athlete an advantage in the quality and speed of (anaerobic). Slow-twitch fibers provide an advantage in maintaining work over prolonged periods (aerobic). If improving stride frequency by pushing harder and faster off the ground cannot make significant improvements, the athlete looks toward improving stride length. It is estimated that you can increase a muscle’s strength by 300 percent; you can only increase its speed by approximately 10 percent. Increasing stride length allows athletes to cover the same distance as athletes with greater stride frequency in the same amount of time. Quality, not quantity is the key. Short workouts with long rest periods are used, as these workouts are stressful on the nervous system. Sport-Specific Training: The idea is to stimulate the fibers you want with resistance training, and then perform sport-specific movements. Example: a player could do a heavy set of leg presses followed by repeated rim jumps. The essence of complex training is that the athlete must do more than just build muscle to increase strength. They need to train the nervous system as well.

COMPLEX TRAINING

The Muscular System: The body has both fast and slow-twitch muscle fiber types. Slow-twitch are capable of producing submaximal force over extended periods. They are used in aerobic or activities. Slow-twitch fibers are responsible for the stabilization and posture the athlete needs when performing any movement. Fast-twitch fibers are capable of producing maximal force for brief periods. They are used in anaerobic activities where power and speed are characteristics. Fast-twitch fibers give the athlete the ability to move quickly and explosively. Training Muscle Fibers: While you cannot change the muscle fiber type, the athlete can train a fast-twitch fiber to behave like a slow-twitch fiber and vice versa. This is called motor learning. The muscular system works like a computer system in that whatever an athlete puts into it is what the athlete gets out of it. If an athlete only teaches the muscles to complete the task slowly, that’s what the athlete will get back. If an athlete needs to compete at higher speeds they need to train the muscles to function optimally at these higher speeds. Training at lower speeds will not be effective for developing power. Example: A tennis player would not make a six-mile run a regular part of their workout; it serves little purpose in a sport with such a large anaerobic demand.

The Nervous System: If the muscular system is the computer, the nervous system is the software. The nervous system triggers a muscle’s response to a stimulus, telling it what to do. The neurons also tell a muscle fiber whether it could behave like a fast or slow-twitch fiber. Physically training an area of the body calls on that area’s . A motor unit consist of three elements: motoneuron which tells the muscles to contract; its motor axon, which takes the information from the central nervous system and gives it to the muscle fiber; and the muscles that are told to contract. To capitalize on a muscle’s potential to gain strength and speed, an athlete must raise the level of excitement in the muscle fibers and challenge them when they reach their highest levels. Once the motoneurons are fired up (through resistance training), it’s time to teach the muscles to function at their highest possible speeds. The second half of the workout will be a plyometrics exercise, matched to stimulate the muscles awakened during the resistance training exercise by performing a related or specific explosive movement similar to the resistance exercise.

The Neuromuscular Connection: Complex training matches pairs of exercises from two sources: a resistance training pool and a plyometrics pool. The more varied the workout the less chance the body has to adapt to any one way of training. This is the key in building speed and thus power.

The Cardiovascular System: Aerobic training may help an athlete recover from high- intensity exercise, but it does so at the expense of speed and power and increases the risk of overuse and overtraining. is important but do only as much as absolutely necessary and be sure that the type of endurance developed is specific to the sport.

Supercompensation: Supercompensation is the body’s ability to take on stress, recover, and then proceed to a higher level. If the athlete is challenged at the end of the recovery phase, they will respond with a level of performance even greater than previously possible. It is at this time, after the body recovers past the zero level, that the plyometrics portion of the coupling becomes crucial. In complex training, an athlete can make the greatest gains within the window of supercompensation. For that short period, the athlete can take advantage of a system that is maximally aroused and able to face greater challenges. Because the complex training workout is so intense, appropriate rest interval between pairs of exercises and sets are essential.

Periodization: The training schedule is divided into as many as four or more periods with the workouts changing in each period so that the athlete is prepared to give peak performance when they need it most. The four phases of periodization are: Preparation: To prepare the body for the more rigorous training to follow; this period ranges from two to six weeks. High-volume and low-intensity workouts are used. Plyometrics are in simple forms. Resistance training is 60-70% of 1RM doing 2-4 sets of 10-15 reps, and plyometrics level 1 doing 2-3 sets of 10-12 reps. Precompetition: This is the longest cycle in the player’s schedule. It last from 8- 12 weeks. Early phase resistance training at 70-80% of 1RM doing 3sets of 6-10 reps. Early phase plyometrics (level 1) 3 sets of 10-15 reps. Late phase resistance training at 70-85% of 1RM doing 4 sets of 4-6 reps. Late phase plyometrics (level 2) doing 4 sets of 5-10 reps. Competition: Resistance training at 80-100% of 1RM doing 3-5 sets of 1-3 reps. Plyometrics (level 2) doing 3-5 sets of 5-6 reps. The emphasis during the competition stage is toward peaking during a championship season, which is generally a time widow of about four weeks. Transition: As athletes enter the active rest phase, they return to activities in other , leaving the intensities of complex training behind. The transition phase is also a time for cross training.

FUNCTIONAL TRAINING

Functional training is more accurately represented as sports-general training. It is training with a purpose. How many sports are played sitting down? Not many, hence training muscles in a seated position is not functional for most sports. Second, how many sports are played in a rigid environment where stability is provided by outside sources? None. Most sports are contested on fields or courts. The athlete provides the stability, not some outside source. Reasoning again tells us that most machine-based training systems are not by definition functional, because the load is stabilized for the lifter by the machine. Although machine-based training may result in fewer injuries in training, the lack of proprioceptive input (internal sensory feedback about position and movement) and the lack of stabilization, will more than likely lead to a greater number of injuries during competition. How many sport skills are performed by one acting in isolation? Again, the answer is zero. Functional training attempts to focus on multi-joint movements as much as possible. In it’s simplest form, functional training teaches athletes how to handle their own body weight. It incorporates balance and proprioception (body awareness) into training. Functional training programs need to introduce controlled amounts of instability so that the athlete must react in order to regain their own stability. It is a system that encourages the training of balance and the balancing of training. It is best described as a continuum of exercises that teach athletes to handle their own body weight in all planes of movements. Functional training trains movement, not muscles. The Functional Continuum: You must always combine some basic strength exercises that are less functional with exercises that are higher on the functional continuum. The program is never an either/or program, but rather an integrated approach of developing strength and making that strength more relevant to sport.

DESIGNING A PROGRAM

1. Know what you want from your program, and know how far you are from your goals. 2. Determine the periodization schedule for your training. Do this by counting backwards from the date you wish to peak. 3. Create complex training workouts for each phase of your program. For each body part trained, the athlete should choose one exercise from the resistance portion and one to match it from the plyometrics portion. As power improves, progress from level 1 to level 2 exercises. 4. Work, work, work

THE COMPLEX TRAINING COUPLING SYSTEM

RESISTANCE EXERCISES

Shoulders Chest Upper back Lower back high pull seated cable pull dead lift incline bench press bent-over good morning alt. dumbbell press lateral chest single-arm row back machine pullover lat pulldown incline row lateral raise shrug pull

PLYOMETRICS: LEVEL 1

Shoulders Chest Upper back Lower back overhead throw chest pass underhand throw seated back- underhand throw pullover pass seated backward throw ward throw vertical toss incline chest pass overhead pass glut-ham pulse reverse hyper PLYOMETRICS: LEVEL 2

Shoulders Chest Upper back Lower back incline push-up drop & catch push-up standing backward throw backward depth jump power drop superman toss throw with handstand depth plyo push-up power drop jump to box jump push-up depth jump standing back- power drop neider press ward throw neider press glut-ham medicine ball throw

RESISTANCE EXERCISES

Lower Extremities Trunk Total Body back abdominal curl with pulley overhead squat front squat straight-arm lat pull power clean split squat power hip rotator toe raise side bend inverted glute-ham machine

PLYOMETRICS: LEVEL 1

Lower Extremities Trunk Total Body standing side throw cone hop with barrier jump trunk rotator 180-degree turn lateral barrier jump sit-up pass front tuck jump jump from box pullover pass depth jump jump to box incline chest pass vertical jump

PLYOMETRICS: LEVEL 2

Lower Extremities Trunk Total Body standing triple jump throw downs depth jump with depth jump V-ups 180-degree turn hurdle hop chinnies multiple box-to- multiple jumps box squat jumps multidirectional barrier pike jump hop depth jump with bounding barriers single-leg hop

UNDERSTANDING THE WORKOUTS

In power training, you will want to train multi-joint exercises as much as possible. Examples will be shown for a full body sequence and a push pull sequence. You will note that you should train a bilateral exercise one day and a unilateral one the next workout. It is important to regularly change exercises, not only to fight boredom and plateaus, but also to improve muscle balance and strength. Don’t get stuck in a particular routine. FULL BODY: Workout A Workout B 1. Explosive movement 1. Explosive movement 2. dominant (bi) 2. Knee dominant (uni) 3. Hip dominant (uni) 3. Hip dominant (bi) 4. Horizontal push (bi) 4. Horizontal push (uni) 5. Horizontal pull (uni) 5. Horizontal pull (bi) 6. Vertical push (bi) 6. Vertical push (uni) 7. Vertical pull (uni) 7. Vertical pull (bi) 8. Rotational/ core 8. Rotational/bridge core

PUSH-PULL: Workout A1 (push) Workout B1 (pull) 1. Explosive movements 1. Explosive movements 2. Knee dominant (bi) 2. Hip dominant (uni) 3. Horizontal push (uni) 3. Horizontal pull (bi) 4. Vertical push (bi) 4. Vertical pull (uni) 5. Rotational/bridge core 5. Rotational/bridge core Workout A2 (Push) Workout B2 (pull) 1. Explosive movement 1. Explosive movement 2. Knee dominant (uni) 2. Hip dominant (bi) 3. Horizontal push (bi) 3. Horizontal pull (uni) 4. Vertical push (uni) 4. Vertical pull (bi) 5. Rotational/bridge core 5. Rotational/bridge core

KNEE DOMINANT EXERCISES (PUSH) Bilateral Unilateral Front squat Forward lunge Reverse lunge Back squat Side lunge Drop lunge Overhead squat Step-up Lateral step-up Split squat Bulgarian split squat Side squat Bulgarian split Clean-grip deadlift Single-leg bench get-up Crouching single-leg squat Partial single-leg squat using a bench or box Partial single-leg squat standing on a bench Single-leg squat standing on a bench Single-leg squat (lateral) Full pistol squat Knee dominant exercises work: quads, , and gluteals

HIP DOMINANT EXERCISES (PULL) Bilateral Unilateral Good morning Single-leg good morning Seated good morning Split good morning Zercher good morning Single-leg Romanian deadlift Romanian deadlift Single-leg Romanian deadlift (dumbbell) Supine hip extension Single-leg supine hip extension Swiss ball glute- Single-leg supine hip extension Reverse hyperextension Single-leg swiss ball glute-hamstring

Hip dominant exercises work: hamstrings, glutes, lower back

VERTICAL PUSH EXERCISES Bilateral Unilateral press Dumbbell shoulder press Dumbbell push press Push press Dumbbell push jerk Dumbbell split jerk Push jerk Dumbbell one-arm press and bend Split jerk Dumbbell alternating press Jackknife push-up Supported dumbbell one-arm press Side to side jackknife push-up

Vertical push exercises work: deltoids and

VERTICAL PULL EXERCISES Bilateral Unilateral Chin-up Single-arm pull-up Pull-up Single-arm pull down Mixed-grip pull-up Side-to-side pull-up Lat pull down

Vertical pull exercises work: lats, rear deltoids, , rhomboids,

HORIZONTAL PUSH EXERCISES Bilateral Unilateral Bench press Dumbbell bench press Incline bench press Dumbbell incline bench press Close grip bench-press Alternating bench-press Close grip incline press One- arm dumbbell bench press Reverse-grip bench press One- arm dumbbell incline bench press Push-up (floor, ball, chair) Side-to-side push-up Standing cable chest press

Horizontal push exercises work: pectorals, anterior deltoids, and triceps

HORZONTAL PULL EXERCISES Bilateral Unilateral Bent-over rows Bent-over dumbbell alternating row Modified T-bar row Bent-over two-point dumbbell row Horizontal pull-up Two-point dumbbell row with twist Standing cable row to ribcage One-arm standing cable row Standing cable row to neck Horizontal side to side pull-up Cable One-arm horizontal pull-up

Horizontal pull exercises work: lats, rear deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius, biceps

ROTATIONAL CORE EXERCISES Seated Corkscrew Swiss ball weight ball torque Windshield wiper Cable rotation Cable rotation Cable wood chop Cable reverse wood chop Cable rotating crunch Cable rotating extension Cable push-pull rotation Medicine ball standing wall throw Medicine ball over the shoulder throw and catch Medicine ball 1-2-3 throw

Rotational core exercises work: rectus abdomis, internal and external obliques, transverse abdominis, and spinal erectors

BRIDGING AND CORE STABILIZATION EXERCISES Four point plank Three point plank Two point plank Side bridge Dynamic plank Plank walk-up Four point supine bridge Core row T-push and hold Three point supine bridge Barbell rollout Side bridge and reach Plank with to knee Plank with weight transfer

Bridging and core stabilization exercises work: transverse abdominis

Sources: Boyle, Michael, Functional Training for Sports. Champaign, IL; Human Kinetics, 2004. Chu, Donald A,, Explosive Power & Strength. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1996. McFarlane, Brent, The Sciences of Speed Agility Conditioning. Remedios, Robert dos, Power Training. New York: Rodale Inc, 2007.