Back to basics (Part 2)
12/03/14:
OK, so we are now 3 weeks into the Strength and Conditioning, after school classes with a mixture of year 9 and 10 pupils from Harrogate Grammar School. Plenty of progress since we started and there are new faces joining the group every week!
For the first few sessions, we’ve been working on basic fundamental movements in the classes in order to build a solid foundation before progressing the exercises further. Here are examples of the types of exercises I’ve been using with the group…
Station 1: Mirroring drills with a partner are a great way to progress the side-to-side/lateral shuffle skills and speed required in so many sports. The aim was for one person to use lateral movement as they tried to ‘lose’ their partner with rapid movement and change of direction (COD). This brought a very sport specific, random movement into the training and was similar to marking a player in team sports or the lateral speed and COD needed in tennis etc.
Station 2: following on from the hopping and bounding exercises used in previous sessions, we now progressed onto some reactive hopping/bounding drills to develop some lower body power (single and double leg). These exercises are a great way to improve essential physical qualities including sprint speed, jump height, agility and help to prevent lower body injuries in sport.
Station 3: the ability to maintain good balance and posture with exercise has been emphasised throughout the sessions. We have also incorporated core stability exercises throughout the sessions, including the use of hand step-ups, whilst maintaining a stable core. Another great partner exercise that we’ve tried out is where one person starts in the plank position and the other person takes hold of their ankles and moves their lower body in random and multiple directions. A really fun, simple and fun exercise that challenges core stability from a range of angles!
These stabilisation skills are very important in sport (e.g. force absorption, transfer of force from lower- to upper-body and vice versa etc.) and form a key part of training sessions.
Station 4: force absorption continues to play a big part in training sessions and basic hop and hold drills are regularly used. I like to use both linear and multi-plane/multi-direction single leg, hop and holds to really improve that knee stabilisation and force absorption. Here’s a great example of a top netball player performing the drill…
Station 5: We’ve kept the final set of exercises using the medicine ball to develop upper body power and rotational power. As I’ve said previously, this is a great stress relieving exercise and one which does in fact, incorporate the whole body to transfer force to the upper body!
We’ve added to the previous set of pulling power exercises by using horizontal/vertical pushing power drills and rotational wall slams. Pushing, pulling, rotating are all key movements in sport, including holding back an opponent, throwing a netball, hitting a hockey ball, throwing a rugby ball, hitting a tennis ball, throwing a punch in boxing and many other actions!
Using the whole body to generate force in these movements is helping the students to develop some really good power that can be transferred into sport performance.
Now I’ve got to admit, the lads seem to enjoy slamming the ball on the floor and wall more so than the girls, but it is still a crucial exercise for all the students! Large differences in strength between males and females has been observed in previous studies (Catley and Tomkinson, 2012) and I think upper body strength/power can often be neglected by some female athletes. This is why I’m really keen to continually promote the benefits of doing these types of exercises with the girls and explain the benefits when it comes to their sport performance. I think I’m starting to convince some of them! J
The conditioning component at the end of the session has changed from week to week in order to add some variety but the most recent session used boxing pad work and whole body exercises to create a short, high intensity interval training session. A fantastic way to increase work capacity and it is very similar to the way I train other clients looking to improve their ability to repeat sprint efforts in football or repeat powerful kicks and punches in combat sport.
The sessions are progressing nicely and I’m excited to start incorporating sprinting technique and more advance agility drills in the near future!!
If you have any questions about training or would like to find out more about training, please follow the below link or email me at [email protected].
Thanks for reading!!
Rob