As of today I'll have trained 57 out of the last 71 days and here's what I have done and am currently doing, how I'm doing it and why doing it.
LOWER BODY ACCESSORY/PREP WARM UP
Every lower body session I have a little warm up I go through that has 5 categories with ever changing exercises for the most part.
Big Toe Function now moved to Ankle Rocker Function
- mobility of the toes is great for foot health which can have huge implications up the chain (knee/hip/lower back and even shoulder)
Posterior Tibialis Exercise
- this muscle connects the foot and ankle, essentially locking them together and enabling them to work as a unit
Hip Lock Exercise
- is an attractor of high speed running where the pelvis of the swing leg rises up higher then the pelvis of the stance leg
Boom Progression
- is the practice of foot strike efficiency
Foot/Ankle Stiffness Exercise
- when you run and contact the ground, the less deformity you have through the foot and ankle, the faster you'll be (think a flat footy bouncing off the ground vs a fully pumped up footy)
I have over 20 variations for each category and am simply working through them for 1 set per session and I'll repeat some exercises twice but that's it.
LOWER BODY STRENGTH
Early off-season is THE time to train for strength as it takes more out of you than almost anything else (muscle fatigue and CNS fatigue) and you also don't have any other training battling for training and recovery resources either.
My yearly strength block, which I did again this year was Triphaisic Training which is 3 sessions of eccentric loading at 80 - 85% then 3 sessions of isometric loading at 87 - 92%.
I didn't do much strength work last year as I did a boatload of sprinting but I seem to have lost some distance on my kicking and with plenty of time to spare I added an extra supra-maximal Triphasic Training block where I did 3 sessions of eccentric loading at 105 - 110% and then 3 sessions of isometric loading also at 105 - 110%.
This didn't go exactly as planned as I got a lot stronger in the initial Triphasic block and the supra-maximal wasn't supra-maximal at all, I could do it on my own and complete each lift where if it was truly supra-maximal, I'd have had to do the lift sown to some pins and then lift it back to the start each time.
Not to worry.
I actually placed squats in a potentiation cluster where each exercise potentiates the next one doing:
* Triphasic Squats x 1 + 20secs rest
* Medicine Ball 3 Step Projection Accelerations x 1 + 20secs rest
* 3 Step Acceleration x 1 + 20secs rest
* Band Assisted Jump Squats x 1
* 3 rounds in total
I hadn't actually squatted heavy with a bar on my back for a few years opting for trap bar deadlifts last year as my strength movement and hip belt squats the year before that.
I've had a history of lower back blow outs not directly from squats but possibly from the accumulated fatigue in the lower back from doing them in the past so I've opted to play it safe but I used a slightly different technique this year (what I coined the Performance Squat) and it all went very well.
SPRINTING
I've done a fraction of the sprinting to this point, hitting the track every 4th lower body session only so far this off-season (ecc/ecc/ecc/sprint + iso/iso/iso/sprint etc).
I'm nowhere near as fast as I was this stage last year but I'm hoping the indirect speed training I'm doing (force production etc) will mean I'll be prime meat when my sprinting frequency increases (now til about late Jan).
OTHER LOWER ACCESSORY STUFF
I've also been following progressions for:
* Hip External Rotation/Glute Medius Function (never do too much glute work)
* Hamstrings-At-Length Function (max velocity sprinting)
* Lateral Plyometrics (get out of the sagittal plane!)
RIGHT NOW
I've just started block 2 this week and here's the schedule:
Monday x Band Resisted/Bodyweight Jumps for vertical force and acceleration, overspeed eccentric training to build on the eccentric/isometric stiff from earlier for greater transfer to high speed athletic movements.
Tuesday x Elasticity for max velocity where yes I'm backing up lower body power sessions which doesn't seem like a good idea but I want to fully exhaust the muscle fibres/muscle use from yesterday with the aim of the reactive drills on this day being performed more elastically with the muscles too fatigued to chip in.
Thursday x Sprint day covering mostly acceleration still with a sprinkle of max velocity.
* I'm still continuing with the warm up and accessory progressions as well.
UPPER BODY
Unlike most of you I don't really enjoy upper body training but I can't train lower body so it serves me well for "off lower days."
I started with a hypertrophy block for something different (I usually stay in the strength/power range for upper body) and am now moving into a strength focus right now.
For both goals I have been and am still using the rest-pause technique which is one of the greatest training methods ever for mine, as it allows you to do more reps at the same load then you normally would and there's no way that won't result in excellent strength and hypertrophy goals.
I did 9 sessions of rest-pause hypertrophy and will do 6 sessions of rest-pause max strength before hitting Triphasic Training for this as well.
Right now I have 2 sessions per week of low volume, high intensity.
WHAT'S COMING UP?
Footy training starts on November 30th that I'm hoping to attend if it falls on the days I can get there so that will put a slight spanner in my schedule but it will all still fit.
This block should finish up just before Xmas and then it will be speed training time with some sled work and a 3/week track sessions (and hopefully some pb's).
Late Jan/Early February I'll start my energy systems work which I pretty much need to touch up on from the power of work I have completed in last couple of years.
I'll be back playing deep, deep forward this year so I won't need a huge tank but I still like to be prepared anyway in case I need to go into the midfield or simply play a high forward role where I need to run and back for 4 quarters.
I'll do my anaerobic threshold program and some max aerobic speed work after that totally probably 8 - 10 dedicated running sessions with the rest coming from skill drills at footy training (I'll run on my own so I can run the running stuff at training when I'm there).
No comments:
Post a Comment