Working with a younger baseball/ football athlete today got me thinking a little about an old topic that I've dealt with quite a bit and wanted to discuss some.
Balance. Stability. Control.
It you look at many workouts (mostly generic ones) you will see that these aspects are, for the most part, completely forgotten and avoided. Its a bit of a tragedy, really. Fixing some simple aspects that allow the body to become more efficient can lead to some great results. You're eliminating weaknesses AND building on strengths.
First, before I start, let me throw some counter arguments Ive heard in the past. That doing stability work is a waste of time. Performing standard exercises under heavy loads will still build stability and control. Also, it will not help develop strength and power.
Both arguments are partially true. Going back to what I mentioned earlier performing stability exercises can help to increase EFFICIENCY. Like putting a better transmission in a sports car. Sure you did nothing to increase horsepower but if more available horsepower gets to the tires isn't that, in a sense, the same thing? Sure I can just put a bigger engine in under the hood but typically it takes a lot longer to add pounds on the squat bar then to develop a bit of fine tuning to the suspension.
So first off let me go at the "Heavy loads argument". I've seen this argument a bit more and usually its accepted because, in all honesty, it makes the most sense. If you can squat 500lbs you likely have some strong stability and core strength to hold that sort of weight to begin with and the power and coordination to squat it. Same to assume that if someone benches 350 then they should have strong shoulder stability and upper body power. Once again, usually.
What's interesting is how many of these strong athletes can do a 1-legged squat? Speaking from experience only, however consult some of Mike Boyle's works and you will see the same, I have yet to see many of these heavyweights able to handle just their body weight on 1 leg. So this leads to a problem- How often are we playing a sport and are on 1-leg? Yes, we teach that we are stronger on 2 legs and thats where we should be in a perfect world but how often is that? Watch a football game, soccer, basketball, ANY game and you will see that time spent on 1 leg is quite often. Sprinting, lateral movement, lunging, jumping, etc. all are dominated by 1 leg at a time movements.
Now thats not to say the heavy back squat is useless- Im all for it. However, there needs to be at least a minute or two to evaluate single leg control and function. This is where the argument "Its a waste of time" can be valid or not. I see it a bit where workouts during season or at odd times have an entire team performing planks, single leg stands, bosu squats (which I think are dumb as hell), etc. when realistically only a few athletes actually need to work on those aspects of their physical game. If you have a 6' athlete that can stand on one foot and touch his nose chances are he doesn't need to spend much time balancing on one foot. Now that 6'10" lanky bastard that can't walk straight much less stand on one foot is a different story. There is progression you can throw in there. Instead of just standing on one foot have the more experienced athlete add some movement- cone touches, med ball squats or rdl's, or even multi-direction jumps (think start at 0-degress, jump to 90, back to 0, etc.)
Point with that last statement is if you're absolutely bent on putting stability work into a team workout make sure that adjustments can be made for more advanced or less advanced athletes. Otherwise the more developed individuals are wasting time while the underdeveloped are struggling to keep up. I've done this for upper work as well with my baseball athletes through pushup progressions and shoulder stability work. Looked something like this:
Group A (beginner) Group B (intermediate) Group C (adapted) Group D (advanced)
Assisted bar pushup Standard pushup Hand on ball pushup Divebomber
Chest to ball pushup Band resisted pushup T-Position Pushup 3-position pushup or plyo
With those mentioned each athlete is given the option to challenge themselves. All athletes are getting similar work done but can progress at their own rate or, if I deem fit, at my rate. Sometimes they just need a boot in the hind quarters to give them that extra push.
So whats the take away here? Each athlete is different and workouts should be treated as such. That last example is my favorite way of still training similar muscle groups but at a steady rate of progression for the individual. That way you're not only working stability, function, and core strength but also developing strength and power through continued resistance. Also, note that this type of training is done on our hypertrophy or dynamic days. NOT on max effort workouts.
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