Back to basics

26/02/14:

I have recently started a ‘Strength and Conditioning’, after school class with a mixture of year 9 and 10 pupils from Harrogate Grammar School. The long term aim of these types of sessions is to develop physical competency in movement, strength, speed and agility. These are essential qualities in almost all sports and the best athletes in the World excel in these areas. Aside from sport, the exercises used to develop the qualities are a healthy form of activity which increases bone density, lean muscle mass, as well as improving overall health and well-being.

Back to the first ‘S & C’ class…after a ‘light’ warm up in which we prepared the appropriate muscles for the main part of the session, the pupils were introduced to several different exercises to develop the aforementioned essential qualities.

Station 1: my personal favourite and I have tried this quite a few times now…great fun! It involved hopping over a set of mini hurdles which were initially evenly spaced in a straight line, but then adjusted to create a random maze that was solved as they hopped their way through. This required the ability to produced force, absorb force and with the added ‘random maze’ component, an element of decision making was used.

Here’s a similar example of this type of training drill…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n1z62AKZgY

Station 2: a basic lateral shuffle exercise which developed side-to-side movement at speed and change of direction (COD). An absolutely crucial skill to have in many sports whether it’s shuffling on the tennis baseline to receive a serve, defending a corner in football, side stepping an opponent in rugby or any other lateral shuffle/COD in sport.

Station 3: the broad jumps involved a powerful horizontal jump followed by a solid landing in a good half squat position. This was an exercise the pupils were particularly good at and I was definitely impressed with how they automatically landed in a strong half squat position! The single leg hop version we did is a great way to develop single leg power, force absorption and overall balance. Again, the qualities developed here are crucial in sport but more importantly, they can really help to prevent lower body injuries.

Station 4: another great agility/COD exercise which pupils excelled at! This time, multi-direction shuffles and COD was developed, maintaining a low ‘athletic position’. An example of this would be when a goal keeper is preparing for a penalty shot or a tennis player preparing for a counter shot. Their hips are low and they are preparing for an unpredictable movement towards the cue (i.e. the football or tennis ball hit to the left/right, high/low, long/short etc.). Another great skill to develop with application in many sports.

Station 5: the final set of exercises was another simple but effective method, the medicine ball slam! This is a great stress busting exercise by the way! A great upper body, pulling power exercise that also challenges stability due to the fact it was performed from a kneeling position initially. Another favourite of mine and I often prescribe this exercise for various athletes.

The final component of the session before the cool down was an introduction to interval training which is a great tool for improving the conditioning of an athlete, whether that’s aimed at preparing for the multiple sprints required in team sports or an increased aerobic base for long distance events. The pupils already seemed to have a good level of conditioning so I might have to increase the difficulty next time!!! 🙂

I’ve included lots of variety in the session to target a number of key physical qualities. This first session is a great starting point for a mixed ability class that could be progressed/regressed based on the ability of the group being trained.

A great bunch of students at Harrogate Grammar and I hope they enjoyed the session as much as I did! I look forward to training them all in the coming weeks!!

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