Hierarchy of Athletic Development: Part 2
This week’s blog post is the second of a 4-part series examining the hierarchy of athletic development. With this being the start of Week 2 of RISE’s first block of off-season training camps for softball and baseball players, this week’s blog will work to not only promote this and future RISE camps, but will most importantly explain the rationales behind the structure of the training periods and why we do the things we do in the RISE Lab.
Stamina is the ability for the body to work over a long period of time. And being to exercise for a long time is a combination of having good muscular endurance and cardiorespiratory endurance. It’s one thing to be able to run for a long period of time, but can you run FAST for a long period of time. And if someone can run FAST for a long period of time, they must be moving with good efficiency and effectiveness to fight off fatigue.
You probably saw over the weekend how Eliud Kipghoge broke the 2-hour barrier in the marathon. To give you perspective, he averaged a 4:34-mile pace for TWENTY-SIX miles! This is a perfect example of sport-specific stamina in that Eliud was able to run FAST for a LONG period of time. #efficiency
In terms of sports and coaching, stamina is replaced with the terms “work capacity” or “conditioning.” Physiologically, “conditioning” is defined as the body’s physical ability to create enough energy to meet the demands of the sport they play. So when a football player reports back to the team in August after the summer “out of shape” or “not conditioned,” it just means they didn’t do the work to prepare their body to handle the stress and training associated with their sport. Conditioning can be broken down into two major categories: how your body creates energy through metabolism and bioenergetics and how your body utilizes that created energy. So you can run for miles to get conditioned for your sport, but simply running for miles on end won’t be the most efficient way of using the energy your body created specific to basketball, football, tennis, etc.
Strength and conditioning coach and sport scientist, Patrick Ward uses the term “Physiological Buffer Zone.” See his figure to the left. The three main points of the PBZ triangle are resistance (strength), fitness (stamina), and movement (how well you move; see Part 1 of this blog series). The better you are at all three points the bigger your PBZ triangle. And the bigger your PBZ triangle, the more resilient your body will be to sustaining an injury. In other words, you create such a robust body physiologically that it’s harder for you to get hurt.
I talked about the importance of movement quality and suppleness here. Parts 3 and 4 will examine the other point of the triangle in resistance (strength) in future blogs.
Specific to this first RISE off-season camp, the kids involved with this camp will be starting up their baseball/softball winter practices in 3-6 weeks. When that starts up, they will be taking endless repetitions fielding, hitting, and throwing, pretty much until July. Much like the football example earlier of an athlete reporting to camp “out of shape,” if these kids start their winter practices with no stamina reserve, they’ll tire quickly and when that happens, their form, technique, and ability to execute the complex movements of baseball/softball will be compromised. And if those complex movements are compromised, injury risk increases, as well as the development of bad habits. And as I work to create their RISE softball off-season curriculum, if one of my players gets tired quickly, I won’t be able to run the specific drills I have for them to maximize their game. And they start falling behind their teammates that DID do the work in October and November.
Tempo bench press performed by RISE athletes and Oregon Blaze softball players Audrey and Riley. #rhythm #stamina #teammates
During this first period of camp, the kids are moving constantly throughout the 50-55 minutes they’re in the Lab, from the warm-up to the final repetition of the session. It is constructed in a “circuit-style fashion” where they are working for an extended period of time, then resting for a short time, then repeating the process several rounds through. The movements are total-body, multi-joint movements, specific to sport. The movements are diverse in order to diversify their movement library: jumping, throwing, pushing, pulling, hip hinging, squatting, bridging, crawling, sideways, front-back, etc. Weights lifted are low in order to allow them to last the entire circuit. Several repetitions are performed, between 20-50 repetitions per 30-60-second rounds, multiplied by 3-4 rounds. And before you ask, NO THIS IS NOT CROSS-FIT FOR KIDS!
Also included are tempo lifts, where the youth athlete moves to a certain cadence of a metronome. The tempo lifting forces the kid to focus on good technique, let their muscles work for a long time, and establishes rhythm for the athlete, an important aspect of athleticism. For example, they have to slowly squat down for 3 seconds, pause at the bottom for 1 second, then stand up in 1 second, then repeat. Five-seconds of work for 1 repetition, times 10 repetitions is 50-seconds of stamina and rhythm work per set!
Looking at my specific 12U softball team that I coach:
4 are playing a Fall sport outside of softball (yay to multiple sports! Soccer and volleyball).
1 is doing American Ninja Warrior classes (absolutely love this! Relative body strength, coordination, suppleness!).
6 are involved in some capacity with this RISE camp (these 6 don’t include 2 of the multi-sport kids doing the camp too, one is doing work at home through online RISE training).
So as a coach, when 11 of the 12 rostered kids are working on athleticism in some way, shape, or form, kudos to those parents for appreciating and wanting better movement skills and stamina for their kids. I want this RISE camp to create Energizer Bunnies for December so we can work on high-quality reps for softball, repeatedly without reaching fatigue and injury!