5 Things Your Program is Missing

8/12/2019 5 Things Your Program is Missing

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Five Things the Average Athlete Program is Lacking

I have seen hundreds of high school and college lif ting programs over the last 10 years. Ninety

percent of them seem to consist o f the usual blend of speed, strength, and power exercises. That

same 90% also seem to lack some concepts that I f eel are very necessary for the team sport athlete.

Below are f ive things the average program is lacking.

1. Ankle Mobility

If you lack mobility in the ankle joint, t hen you are leaving yourself open to non-contact knee injuries. This is

exactly why I am not a big fan of healthy athletes bracing and taping their ankles. In addition, improving your

ankle mobility will make you a bet ter s quatter and deadlif ter. At Soar, we start every warm-up with ankle

mobilizations over the middle toe, big to e, and litt le toe. Keep your heel on the ground and push your knee

towards the wall. It is so simple, but very f ew athletes do it.

2. Lateral Plyometrics

If you play any team sport , you are going to be moving in all directions, no t just st raight f orward. Yet, the

average high schoo l lif ting program consist s only of vertical and horizontal power exercises s uch as broad

umps, box jumps, and power cleans. These are all great exercises, but what about creating power in the

f rontal plane? Aside from the benefits to your speed and power on the f ield, lateral plyometrics will help keep

the ankles, knees, and hips healthy.

Here are a f ew examples of two- and one- leg lateral plyometrics that we of ten use at Soar:

Lateral quick feet plyos within an agility ladder

Lateral boundsLateral hurdle jump and hops

Lateral broad jumps

3. Bent Leg Hip Extension Exercises

The glute is the king muscle when it comes to speed, but very f ew programs ut ilize exercises t hat specif ically

target it. Glute ham raises and RDL variations are great f or t he hamstrings, but they do not recruit the glutes i

the same manner that a lo t o f bent leg hip extension exercises do . The best thing about them: all you need is

bench or a box to do them.

Here are a few examples of Bent Leg Hip Extension exercises we use at Soar:

Back on Bench (BOB) one- and two-leg hip extensions. We weight single-leg ones with chains and two-

leg ones with a barbell.

Forward sled marches

Half get-ups with a hip lif t

BOB glute bridges

In addition to the speed benefits you will get f rom adding these into your program, they will also go a long wa

towards reventin na in hamstrin in uries, back ain, and knee ain. The avera e hi h school kid who has
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knee pain or glute amnesia will benef it greatly f rom a f ew sets per week of these exercises. (Consult Bret

Contreras, aka The Glute Guy, for an in-depth look at glute t raining).

4. Weighted carries

A st rong athlete has a strong grip, and weighted carries are one o f the bes t ways to improve your grip

st rength. Dont have f armers walking handles? Kettlebells, dumbbells, or anything heavy will work. The key is to

mix up the kind of carries t hat you have your athletes do . At Soar, we have a Weighted Carry of the Week. W

rotate through a variety of carries with heavy handles or kett lebells. Here is a list of carries we rotate through

Heavy carry:same weight in each arm

Off set carry:load is heavier in one arm

Suitcase carry:weight is only in one arm

Heartbeat carry:hold a kett lebell at chest height and press is out as you walk (Credit f or this goes to

Dan John!)

Bottoms up carry:hold the kett lebell upside down and keep elbows bent at 90 degrees

Suicide walks:any of the above carries but changing directions (like a basketball suicide)

5. Rotat ional Training

The term functional training has become a f ire starter f or many arguments in online f orums. Some trainers

have taken it way too f ar by having their clients do everything with a wobble board. On the o ther hand, there

are also those coaches who think that anything that doesnt involve a bar is f or pussies. I would say I f all

somewhere in between. This is where diagonal chops come in. A lot of sports are played in the transverse
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plane, and this is why rotational training is functional fo r mos t team sport athletes. The problem is that most

coaches f ail to understand that rot ational training is NOTexplos ive twist ing of the lumbar spine. It is learning

how to rotate the hips and upper back while the center of the body stays relatively stable.

A so und rotat ional training progression begins with learning how to resist rotat ion. We start all of our athletes

with chops in a half kneeling position, where the goal is to brace the core and resist the f orces that the cable

is putt ing on them. We then progress to ro tat ional med ball throws and standing chops, where the hips and

upper back produce the power. Two sets of 10 reps in each direction one t o two t imes a week serves as

suf f icient rotat ional training in my experience.

Related Articles:

New Training Plan for Athlet es

Isomet ric Training for Athlete s

Looking Back on What Worked This Summer
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5 Things Your Program is Missing