Youths Need Better Coaches

Youth athletes need better coaches in my opinion. What you often see is that these are the roles filled with volunteers but I think it is backwards and money should be invested in coaches for these younger age groups. It is much easier to start out the right way then it is to correct problems and injuries later on down the track.

The problem is that many clubs aren’t willing to invest money into professionals for these levels. They tend to hope that the kids will develop naturally, physically, and hope that they get by skill wise with their natural ability until later ages when they do get some more specialised coaching.

So, what I see happen a lot is that the gym is overseen by someone who has the most basic of requirements and is looking to post a few things on social media to try and use the role to build their business. The sad thing is they have no idea about program design or even correct technique for that matter, and the kids tend to either get injured or miss out on key development years, from both a technical stand point, and a physical one.

It would not take a lot of money to fix this problem. In doing so, you could also offer much more to the athletes. Programs would be individualised, they could have nutrition plans, they could be trained in smaller groups, which would mean they are coached through each rep, everything being monitored and updated regularly. By doing this, results would improve, injuries would be reduced, there would be accountability, the club would be looked at more professionally, and they would build a much better culture.

It is an investment, not a cost.

We have young kids on contracts but I think the money spent should be re-invested into their development. For example, you have a kid on a $5,000 contract. That amount of money is a lot for a 14-year-old who hasn’t proven himself yet, but it isn’t going to change his life. Why not use that money to pay a coach to train him privately, look after his nutrition, conditioning, rehab/prehab etc.? That way you can see exactly how they are progressing, they are accountable, and they have some buy in to the relationship. At the moment, most kids get a contract, do the minimum with the club, and then are back to park footy two years later. I feel more can be done to guide them through the process.

We do this privately and it has worked very well over the years with great success. If clubs invested more into the development of the athletes, we would see a much better game. Some clubs do it pretty well and are well ahead of the ones who don’t.

Regular Soft Tissue Work

This week I was reminded of the importance of regular soft tissue work.

I have had a bit of a tight back and hips, nothing bad, just stiff. It was starting to hamper my performance though as my technique just felt off slightly. Not enough to call a session off but I just didn’t feel like I was hitting my groove very well and not as consistently as usual. After doing a couple of T-Spine drills on the foam roller and using a massage gun around the hips and quads, I immediately felt much better. I could bend down fine and most of the stiffness I had been feeling was gone.

The next day I did some more of this soft tissue work and when I went to bench in my workout that day, I increased my loads by 5kg. I had been struggling the previous week so to make an increase like that I knew I had been neglecting my soft tissue work. My next squat session was also a lot better than the previous one, and I added 10kg to my rack pulls from the previous workout.

So, spending about 5-10 mins a day really pays off. I know this, but like a lot of people, I got lazy and neglected it.

Charles Poliquin always used to say that if you didn’t address adhesions you develop from lifting and training in general, it would bring your progress to a dead stop. He said that too many adhesions make it hard to grow and that many of the top lifters in the world would get soft tissue work done all the time when they were setting world records.

This was highlighted to me once again this week.

Rack Pull 185kg x 7

Two Years Post Pec Surgery - Andrew Thornton

Andrew Thornton has been training with me for about 18 months now after coming to see me following pec surgery. He has made great progress, losing over 30kg, and also getting back into lifting pain, and injury free.

Andrew Post Pec Surgery

He wrote a nice post on Facebook the other day, so I thought I would share it as it is good to show that you are never done until you decide you are. He could have made excuses and decided to take it easy, but he chose to get back into training and improve his health.

"It’s been 2 years to the day that I had surgery repairing my ruptured pec tendon.

I had been weight training for quite a few years and not seeing the results I wanted and still putting on weight gradually each year. I decided it was time to seek some expert advice with the rehab on my pec and also to start trying to get the results I was after in the gym.

I had a chat with Nathan from THP (and after chatting and finding out he had suffered a similar injury and was still lifting weights) I was keen to learn more about there training program.

Since beginning with THP 18 months ago I have realised there is so much I didn’t know about weight training and diet (that I thought I knew). The variety in the training programs and the accountability that comes with weighing in and the skin folds each fortnight keeps you focused on your goals.The varying programs and the constant guidance and correction in technique and making the required changes in eating have been crucial.

I would recommend anyone that has had an injury or is having issues with weight loss or if they are not seeing the results they are after in the gym, come and speak to Nathan and Gemma and they will get you on the right track. #TotalHealthPerformaceCentre #THP #TeamTHP #TotalHealthPerformance"

Andrew before starting with THP

Andrew getting back into lifting post pec tear

Breathing and Bracing

December 16, 2019

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Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

You will often hear me in the gym saying “breathe into the belly”, “chest up”, “shoulder blades back and down”, “lats on”, “squeeze butt”, “stay tight”. The better you are at staying tight and creating tension in a given lift the stronger you will be and the safer you will be able to perform that lift.

Ed Coan said in a seminar, that the more muscles you can use in a lift, the better you will perform. “You need to use as much of your body as possible. Be tight. Create tension”. For example, Ed explains how he pulls his shoulder blades back, turn his lats on, and feels like he is squeezing everything towards the centre of his spine when he is getting ready to squat. Most people may brace their core a little but don’t create much tension anywhere else.

“Tension = force. The tenser your muscles are, the more strength you will display and build”. – Pavel

When setting up for lifts I like to grip the bar as tight as possible, breathe into the belly, brace the core, turn the lats on/pull shoulder blades back and down, squeeze the butt, screw feet into the floor/grip the floor. This doesn’t matter if it is a squat, deadlift, or bench, that is pretty much the checklist I run through.

I find it more important for people to be able to breathe into their belly and brace effectively, and to create as much tension throughout their body as possible, then it is to do endless amounts of “core/ab” work. This is what I find people struggle with most.

The Valsalva maneuver has been spoken about in a lot of texts on strength training over the years. In Science and Practice of Strength Training, they explain that “if maximal force is to be exerted while inhaling, exhaling, or making an expiratory effort with the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords) closed (Valsalva maneuver), the amount of force increases from inspiration to expiration to Valsalva maneuver.” The reason for this is due to a “pneumomuscluar reflex in which increased intra-lung pressure serves as a stimulus for the potentiation of muscle excitability.”

As well as increasing lifting ability, creating high intra-abdominal pressure helps protect the spine, as it reduces compressive forces acting on the discs.

When performing an exercise, the exhale should match the force phase of the movement, what they have termed biomechanical match. Most people do this naturally but I have seen people breathe in reverse. An example of proper breathing is to breathe in, lower the bar on say the bench press, and exhale slightly at the sticking point, or just above, on the way up.

A simple progression to help with your breathing and bracing

To practice breathing into your belly, you can simply lie on the floor on your back. Place one hand flat on your chest and the other flat on your belly button. Practice breathing into your belly, through your nose, by feeling like you are pushing the air down towards your pubic bone. You should see the hand on the belly button rise, not the one on your chest.

Once you get this down pat, you can then place your hands around your hips, kind of cupping the hip bone, with your fingers facing towards your belly button and your thumbs around toward your back. Now, you still want to drive the air into the belly, but to make sure you aren’t just sticking your gut out, you want to try and breathe so that you expand all the way around your trunk. Your fingers and thumb are there as a guide so you can feel if you are expanding in the front, sides, and back. This can take a while to perfect.

When this becomes natural, you then breathe into your belly and create that expansion all the way around your trunk, and then contract your abs. You will feel your lower back flatten into the floor. You aren’t crunching, you are bracing the abs. Like if you were about to be punched in the stomach. You can put your hands in the arch of your lower back to feel this flatten out and give you some feedback if you like.

The important thing is to create the tension all the way around your mid-section.  

You then start practicing this when standing and add in a contraction of the glutes. From there you can put your arms out in front of you, breathe into the belly, contract the glutes, and pull your shoulder blades back and down. Don’t let your lower back arch excessively.

At this point you can start using an empty bar and practicing your set up for each lift, basically following the above sequence BEFORE you un-rack the bar. Too many people lazily un-rack the weight and then try to get tight. It doesn’t work. Create the tension first.

You will work creating tension for a very long time, if not forever.

When you breathe and brace correctly, you will see an increase in performance, feel like you are in much more control of the weight, and you will decrease the chances of injury.

Tags:

Breathing

Breathe work

Bracing

back extension

technique

Injury prevention