A common misconception that a lot of athletes have about the weight room is that you have to get your lifts in, and you need to lift as heavy as you can all the time to build muscle. Well I’m here to say that this won’t help you build muscle in the most efficient way or make a huge change in how you are performing. The weight room should be looked at as more of a compliment to your sport. What do I mean by this?
There are a typical three phases of different training your body can make useful. These phases are Speed, Power, and Strength. The best way to maximize your efficiency and energy to benefit your actual athletic sport performance is too stick to a continuous cycle of these routines. Speed is a phase where every exercise you do is no more than 50% of your max, you do 8-12 reps, and you move FAST. Now just because were moving fast doesn’t mean we can throw our form out the window. Form is key to building strong, conditioned muscles and being able to stay healthy. The next phase is the power phase. In this block, the percentages raise to more in the range of 60% to 75% with reps ranging from 4-8 depending on the movement. The power phase is meant to be very explosive. The movements and weights should be controlled and explosive on the reps. The final phase is strength. This phase is just normal movements with percentages from 75% to 90% and reps ranging from 2-4. The strength phase should have controlled movements with no failed reps. The weight should challenge you but if you are failing a rep you are too heavy. Each phase should last 2 to 3 weeks, with a different lift 3 days a week, depending where you are at in the season. As you go through the weeks, your percentages should increase 5-10% each week to allow your muscles to keep growing.
What is nice about the different phases is that it trains different aspects of your muscles. The speed phase trains your fast twitch muscle fibers and essentially helps your muscles fire faster when need be. The power phase trains your muscles to fire faster with more force. And well the strength phase helps you strengthen your muscles. This covers most aspects of what makes a great athlete.
Now when should we do each of these phases depending on where we are in our season? The off-season is a great time to work in strength phases. Typically, in the off-season we will go 3 weeks of strength, followed by 2-3 weeks of power, followed by 2 weeks of speed, and then repeat. When we are in-season or approaching the season it’s nice to hit a 3-week speed phase followed by a 3-week power phase. Once we hit the season, we stay in the power phase and instead of lifting 3 days a week we go 2 days a week with an optional 3rd day. The optional 3rd day allows for you to have an extra day of rest if you had a busy week of games and practices. The goal for in-season lifts is not to preform new movements to make our bodies sore, but to maintain muscle and continue to get in the weight room to move in different ways than were doing every day at practice and in the game.
How does all this compliment my sport? Each of the three days in each phase has 2-3 main lifts followed by a circuit. The 2-3 main lifts consist of an upper body workout, a lower body workout, and a total body workout. Each workout, depending on the phase can involve 4 to 8 sets of the movement. The circuit is the same thing but is only three sets. So now instead of working just a couple muscle groups every day, once a week like a typical lifting program would have, you are working all your muscle groups but for only three days a week. This allows your body to recover every other day with two days on the weekend, all while still getting quality movements and workouts in. This format also allows you to put in sport specific exercises. Exercises such as med ball throws and band resisted work. Give it all a try. I think you see results that have you and/or your athletes feeling bigger, and faster, and stronger.
Sports Performance Training 