Program design and exercise selection are simple concepts that we make much more complex than necessary. You don’t need to be trendy or cute in your exercise selection. In fact in my thirty years of training and coaching the basics have not changed much. What has changed is that we now have a better understanding of why exercises have stood the test of time. Concepts like closed kinetic chain exercise and functional training only serve to validate what some of the early geniuses of strength and conditioning like Bill Starr, Fred Hatfield and Ken Leistner, already knew.
One of the funniest things I encounter as I travel and write are people who assume things about the way I coach (we know what they say about assuming). Because of the success of Functional Training for Sports many people expect to find my athletes doing all sorts of outlandish exercises. Most coaches who actually take the time to visit are shocked to see our athletes performing front squats, hang cleans, and bench presses. The reality is that our athletes don’t stray far from the basics and usually when they do it is for good reason. We will always make changes that we think will result in improvement. Our job as strength and conditioning
coaches is to reduce the incidence of injury and to enhance
performance. Without some element of change, you simply accept the status quo. Remember the old cliché, “ If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got”.
In the simplest terms, utilize the lifts that teach (or force) your athletes or clients to do what you want them to do. Personal trainers and coaches need to look at what they feel are the
common errors of his clients or athletes and then design a program that includes exercises that will correct those errors. Much of this has been alluded to previously but bears repeating.
For example, consider this list of exercises:
1) Bodyweight lower body exercises 2) Front squats
3) “Box” front squats- not the “sit down” variety 4) Pause or slow eccentric bench
Why are these exercises important? Because they all represent an exercise variation that corrects a critical flaw.
• Body-weight lower-body exercises get people on their feet.
That’s where life is.
• Front squats virtually eliminate the back stress and technique flaws of squatting.
• Box squats force depth and create hip mobility and actually reduce the load on the spine in terms of compression and torque ( forward lean).
• Pause bench presses or eccentric emphasis bench presses eliminates bouncing and arching.
Good exercise selection is purposeful and is designed to eliminate mistakes and correct errors. Obviously there are other criteria for exercise selection. I like Coach Mike Burgener’s ( Rancho Buena Vista HS, CA) Yes to the 4th Power idea:
• Is it done standing?
• Is it multi-joint?
• Is it done with free weights?
• Is it characteristic of explosive sports
You can’t always adhere to Coach Burgener’s philosophy but, it’s a great place to start.
Program Design Basics
It is amazing how often coaches and trainers violate what I consider to be the most basic rules of program design. The information that follows is not just my opinion: it represents a consensus of most successful strength coaches. In program design, certain rules must be followed to achieve success.
Explosive Movements First. If you are using Olympic lifts they should always be done first in the program. I will discuss Olympic lifting in greater detail in chapter 5, but I must emphasize here that exercises with high technical and neural demand must be done at the beginning of a strength training session. I generally judge programs initially based on this one point. If an athlete asks me to look at a program and I see that the program calls for them to perform an Olympic lift after they bench or squat I automatically disregard the rest of the program and usually the writer. This may be an overreaction on my part, but I feel strongly about the basics.
Exercises that stress the nervous system, like the Olympic lifts, must be done when both the muscular and nervous systems are fresh. This not only insures the effectiveness of the lifts but makes them much safer. The Olympic lifts require a high degree of skill and coordination and athletes must be as fresh as possible prior to performing these types of exercises.
Multi-joint exercises second. This concept has been stated over and over and will be stated one more time for emphasis. Most coaches get this part right. Very rarely will you see a program that prioritizes single joint exercise over multi-joint exercise.
Forget single-joint exercise. Most single-joint exercise is a waste of time! I am shocked when I see programs that are still performing single joint exercise. There are some exceptions, like hip abduction
and adduction and scapulo-thoracic work. However, exercises like leg extensions, leg curls and tricep pressdowns have little value to athletes. The time spent, or wasted, on these exercises can be utilized to add exercises that have the same goal but, far greater benefit.
Single joint exercise for hinge joints like the knee and the elbow are a waste of time. Don’t let anyone sell you on the “injury prevention”
angle. A good single leg progression and some bridging will prevent or reduce injury incidence far better than single joint machines.
Limit machine use. This is another statement that I didn’t think I would have to make. Sometimes you can overestimate how far the field has come. The only machines that are necessary in an athletic strength and conditioning program are adjustable cable columns or the new functional trainers. Adjustable cable columns allow rotary training ( chopping and lifting actions) as well as standing row movements. Every other exercise can be done better with a weight than with a machine. The silliest trend in machines is machines that now mimic conventional free weight exercises. There is a reason that most machine companies have begun to manufacture benches and squat racks in addition to their machines. The machine
companies see the handwriting on the wall. The best thing to have for a great program is space. Machines rob you of space.
Whenever I look at a machine I ask myself how much use I could get out of that square footage.
Never more than 10 reps unless you want endurance. Eight reps may even be better. One mistake I have made over my career is probably spending too much time on foundational, hypertrophy type exercise. I think, in reality, athletes need to lift heavy weights and have great variety in programming. However if the objective is strength they need to lift heavy. My proposed solution is to do hypertrophy type work, but in a 5-10-20 type format to get some low rep emphasis (This is a variation of Charles Poliquin’s 6-12-24
program). This means that even in the high rep phases the athlete
These sets are done in descending order. This means that the heavy set is done first. Do I break my own rule in this phase? Yes.
The twenty rep set is for endurance and targets a different type of muscle fiber. The important part of this sequence is that it hits all ends of the spectrum. Strength is maintained with the five rep set and endurance and hypertrophy addressed with the ten and twenty.
Do this for one multi-joint exercise per day or you will overtrain your clients or athletes. How can you select the weights? Simply
subtract 12% from the five set for the ten and again for the 20.
Ex Bench 200 x5 (- 24) = 175x10 ( -21 lbs) = 155x20 ( weights rounded to the lower number)
Perform low reps with heavier weights if you do not want to develop size. This is not a misprint. The idea of light weights and lots of reps for athletes that don’t want to build size is one of the biggest lies in the training and coaching world. Just do less weight and more reps so you won’t get big? Bodybuilders have been doing the exact opposite for years with great success. Volume builds hypertrophy. Remember volume not weight builds size.
Know how long the workout takes! Be realistic. I can’t tell you the number of programs that I have read that don’t add up. Look at the time that each set will take and look at the rest time allotted. Do the math. I’ve seen programs that if done as indicated would have taken three hours. 20 sets is a good guideline for an hour workout.
When you design a program, take the time to do the math and then to try out the program to make sure that your estimates are
accurate. Allot 1 minute for each set and at least one minute between sets. Even this is fast. At this pace you could get in 20 sets in forty minutes.
Understand and use tempo. Tempo is often talked about but, rarely used. Jay Schroeder has begun to re-popularize isometric exercise with his “holds” and the excellent work of Canadian strength coach Christian Thibedeau has really made eccentric training much easier to implement. Both of these systems rely heavily on tempo. Tempo is simply a measure of the time that a repetition takes. Tempo is usually described with three numbers, the first indicating the eccentric portion of the lift, the second indicating the time to pause at the midpoint (zero indicates a touch and go rep) and the last number is the concentric phase. In other words, if I did a normal rep I would exhibit a 1-0-1 tempo. I have a few opinions on tempo:
• Normal tempo is 1-0-1. I have watched and timed lots of lifters recently and was surprised that even a normal controlled rep was clearly 1-0-1.
• I don’t love pauses because most athletes have difficulty holding a tight position during the pause.
• I don’t like slow concentric movements.
• I guess this means that for me tempo variation would mean lengthening the eccentric contraction
•
Christian Thibedeau has come up with some excellent guidelines for eccentric training. I will confess that I tried eccentric training in the past with little success and the primary reason was that I believed what I read. Research tells us that a lifter should be able to handle more weight eccentrically, than concentrically. Some estimates have run up to 120% of concentric max. If you believe this, you are doomed to failure. If you can bench 300 pounds try lowering 360 pounds under control. I don’t believe that most athletes could do an actual controlled eccentric with even 100 percent of their max. What you would actually see is a yielding
isometric where the athlete just attempts to control the descent. An athlete may eventually be able to lower more weight than they can raise but, the athletes that I coach are not even close. I don’t know where the studies were done that imply that athletes can lower more weight than they can raise but, it doesn’t appear to be true.
Most athletes are not used to lowering the bar with control and actually lift via elasticity. As a result, they are not able to lower the bar with control. To develop eccentric strength ( which will enhance concentric strength), Thibedeau recommends the following:
75% 8 sec lowering 2 reps per set 80% 6 sec lowering 1 rep per set
85% 4 sec lowering 1 rep per set (2004,p40)
One way to look at eccentric training is to think that the number of seconds of controlled eccentric contraction should be roughly equal to the number of concentric reps you can do. In other words if you bench press 225 for 5 reps, you should be able to lower 225 for 5 seconds. Interestingly enough, Charles Poliquin another Canadian Strength coach recommends 30-70 seconds of time under tension for hypertrophy so the concept of tempo follows closely into the concept of time under tension.
Time under tension. Time under tension is simply the total amount of time that a set takes from start to finish. In other words 10 reps at a 1-0-1 tempo would yield 20 seconds of time under tension. The interesting thing about this is that most hypertrophy workouts don’t include enough time under tension to truly stimulate hypertrophy.
For hypertrophy, sets need to last at least 30 seconds so a ten rep set would need to be done at a 2-0-1 tempo at the bare minimum to produce significant hypertrophy. An 8 rep set would need to be done at 3-0-1.
The Essential Components of a Sound Program
In my mind, a sound strength program must contain all of the qualities that follow. Omission of any one component sets the athlete up for imbalances and may eventually lead to injury or to increased risk of injury.
• Pillar Strength. You can call it core strength or anything else you want but, understand it and do it.
• Power Exercises- this means Olympic lifts (Figure 3.1) if you are comfortable with them, but pieces like the
Vertimax, exercises like jump squats or medicine balls can also develop total body power
Figure 3.1 Two time Olympian Tricia Dunn performing a close grip snatch
• Knee Dominant Exercise- basically single and double-leg squats (Figure 3.2). These can also be classified as lower-body pushing exercises
Figure 3.2 Chris Drury of the Buffalo Sabres performing a front squat. This is the classic knee dominant exercise
• Hip Dominant Exercise- Straight leg deadlifts and single leg variations(Figure 3.3). Hip dominant also includes bridging type movements. The difference between hip dominant and knee dominant is best illustrated by the difference between the front squat and straight leg deadlift.
Darryl Eto and Craig Freidman of Athletes’ Performance would prefer to call these types of exercises lower body pulling exercises. Whatever we call them, we need to do them.
Figure 3.3 Olympic Gold and Si1ver Medalist Tricia Dunn performing a 1 leg straight leg deadlift.
Horizontal Pressing Movements – bench press and Variations ( figure 3.4)
Figure 3.4 Richard Park of the Minnesota Wild performing alternating dumbbell bench presses
• Vertical Pressing Movements- overhead presses
• Horizontal Pulling Movements- rowing motions (figure 3.5)
Figure 3.5 Reebok Master Trainer Rico Wesley performing a dumbbell row
• Vertical Pulling Movements- chin-ups (figure 3.6)
Figure 3.6 Chin-up ( pronated grip)
Ignoring the above information is one of the great failings of strength and conditioning coaches across the country.
To evaluate whether your current program is hitting all of these critical areas:
1) Take your first phase of training and write next to each exercise what category it would fall into.
2) See if you have covered all of the categories at least once during the week and preferably twice.
3) Look at the ratio of horizontal presses to vertical or horizontal pulls and the ratio of knee dominant exercises to hip dominant exercises. If these are not in a one to one ratio you have an unbalanced program that can potentially set your athletes up for injury. An imbalance of horizontal presses to horizontal/ vertical pulls will almost always lead to rotator cuff problems. An
imbalance of knee dominant exercises to hip dominant exercises will lead to hamstring problems. Try this evaluation and then compare it to your injury stats.
At the conclusion of every season I would do just what I am asking you to do. I would look at the number and type of injuries and ask myself if I did everything possible to reduce the incidence of injury.
This is how I came to many of the above conclusions. I can still remember a year in the early ‘90s when we had 20 football players with some level of rotator cuff tendonitis. When I looked at our program, I saw a typical strength program, lots of pushing, very little pulling. Most of my linemen could easily bench press their bodyweight, but few could do even one chin-up. It wasn’t hard to come to the obvious conclusion. After forcing our athletes to perform chin-ups and assisted chin-ups, our upper back strength increased and our rotator cuff problems disappeared.
Program design is simple if you follow the rules. Coaches get into trouble when they program to their own likes or bias. Remember the purpose of the program is to reduce injuries and improve
performance. As coaches we are not trying to create powerlifters, Olympic lifters, bodybuilders or strongmen. We are trying to create athletes. Strength training is simply a means to an end.