No 4 - Work Smart and Hard, Find People Who Have the Answers
Welcome to post No 4 and thank you to everyone who signed up, shared the post and sent me your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading them.
Most people’s thought could be summarised as “it depends” and “every athlete and coach are different”. Which is sort of what I expected and in some ways, takes the pressure off new coaches an athletes because you don’t have to live up to the pressure of doing things “the right way”.
On the other hand, it also leaves me feeling a bit disastisfied that there aren’t a few simple golden rules that can be used to progress athletes more efficicently.
So, I decided to go back to my roots and do what doctors do best, find a book and read it, in the hope that wisdom can be found within!
For those who haven’t seen the monstrous list of questions from last week, here is the link for a quick refresh:
So, to help get my head around all 22 questions from last week, I hit the books. These are ones suggested to me by Paul and other athletes and friends:
Practical Approach to Strength Training 2012 by Matt Brzycki
Elbadry N, Hamza A, Pietraszewski P, Alexe DI, Lupu G. Effect of the French Contrast Method on Explosive Strength and Kinematic Parameters of the Triple Jump Among Female College Athletes. J Hum Kinet. 2019 Oct 18;69:225-230. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2019-0047. PMID: 31666904; PMCID: PMC6815088.
So, why have I picked these 5 books, 1 paper and 1 podcast?
I picked the first 3 because they are “classic” texts in their fields, one of the first books on plyometric training, a classic introduction to strength training and one of the first books on “practical sports psychology”.
Tools of Titans and The Fittest Book are newer and fadier but might give some secrets on how to train more efficiently.
The paper on French Complex training was one of the first I could find that clearly explained what it is and how it works. It also demonstrated that the method works.
Lastly, this brand new podcast/youtube discussion is a fantastic overview of how to train for powerlifting, olympic lifting, strongman, crossfit and the centenerian olympics. It has loads of good tips and breaks down training really simply.
As a brief introduction, I am going to list only one thing I took from each of these resources and then in later posts, I will try to circle back and answer some of the questions posed in the previous post.
Jumping into Plyometrics 1998 by Donald Chu
My main take home from this book was how to design a simple 30 minute plyometrics session. I have been doing this every week for the last 2 or 3 months and it seems to be helping. Essentially, dynamic warm up then box jumps, then depth jumps, and finished with bounds into max box jumps. It is quick simple and burns about 300 calories.
I am hoping this will cross over into a dynamic triple extension during the power position of the throw.
Practical Approach to Strength Training 2012 by Matt Brzycki
There is so much in this book that it is hard to pick one thing, but it made me realise that maybe I was over training trying to do 5 or 6 heavy gym sessions a week and only 1 throws session with hardly any rest days. So, since reading this I have tried to cut back to 3 or 4 gym sessions and 2 throws sessions. Plus I have switched from intermittent fasting to try trying to eat 30g of protein every 3h because I think I was limiting my recovery with too little food.
This book is quite unique and wide ranging. But it does have some interesting ideas about how to relax before a lift or an event. I have started to use some of his methods while doing a heavy sessions. He explains in detail how to quickly relax using breathing techniques and how this can relieve tense and stress. I have started lying down flat in the squat rack, closing my eyes and doing deep belly breaths and focusing my inner mind on trying to relax any areas that feel tight or in pain between sets. It sounds odd, but it has really helped me train through a shoulder niggle and after about a minute the pain can go away which was amazing the first time I tried it.
The World's Fittest Book by Ross Edgley
Again, this book has too many good ideas to list them all but I have taken the work outs he recommends and converted it into an excel sheet. I have adapted some of these workouts into my sessions. I particularly like his 8 sets of 2 reps method, his banded bench plyometrics session and some of the basic stuff like 1RM equation tables.
The first third of this book is all about unique and impressive people explaining how they became world famous athletes and their top tips. Its a treasure trove. The main points I have taken away from this are some gymnastics techniques using rings and the idea of performing full range of motion exercises and using locked elbows. So, I have included cossack squats for squat flexibility, Jefferson curl for posterior change ROM and strength and full ROM fly machine reps with dead straight arms to stretch out my arms and shoulders to help with the discus throw.
From this paper, I have started to include pogo jumps and vertical jumps before and after heavy squats or heavy deadlifts. If you do 1 heavy squat then take a few breaths and then do 4 pogo/vertical jumps as high as you can. Hopefully over the course of 12 weeks this will hugely increase your leg power.
I hope this has been an interesting introduction, and subscribe below to get the next installment of training tips, answers and further interesting ideas.