End of week 2

Overview of Week 2:

Monday: Brush up on technical skills and conduct Repetition Maximum (RM) equation.

Wednesday: Low intensity Plyometric.

Friday: Start Strength training.

Review of week 2:

Monday:

The team was back in the gymnasium and trying to re-master the technical aspect of the squat, lunge, deadlift, lat pull down and bench press. Once the skills were adequate I used a RM predictor equation:

The Baechle (2000) equation is as follows:

• Weight × ( 1 + ( 0.033 × Number of repetitions ) )

This equation will give me the 1 RM of each exercise (squat, lunge, deadlift, lat pull down and bench press) and then by using the conversion table below I, and the athlete, can determine what weight is required in order to train the said % RM. Fleck and Kraemer (1998) explained it is important to understand what components of fitness (strength, hypertrophy, endurance) you are training in order to prevent over exhaustion and evaluate progress.

I needed to implement this RM equation into the program to allow accurate calculations of current intensity and further more to monitor progress. Not only that but this gives myself and the athlete a guide to work from and we are not using perceived rate of exhaustion, which contains many variables.

Wednesday:

My second plyometric session and again I used variants of the SJ and CMJ as my exercises in order to keep the intensity relevant, with a total of 100 contacts per athlete (Patel 2014). The main problem with this session was when the athletes were getting bored their technical form would drop off. It would go from a rigid eccentric loading, utilising the stretch reflex properties, to a lethargic eccentric that would dissipated any stretch reflex into heat (Markovic 2007). On a number of occasions I had to stop the entire class and reiterate the importance of the stretch shortening cycle and without a fast amortisation phase the potential benefits would be wasted. Even though I explained after another 10 minutes the class would revert to poor technique, for my next lesson I am not going to use a circuit based plyometric session but in order to control the class better I will use a straight line circuit where I control each move and rest period.

Friday:

This was the first strength training day and based on the athletes previous experience I have reduced the intended intensity of 80% RM to an intensity that is more suitable to my team which will be between 60 - 70% RM. The session format will consist of 3 sets and 8-10 repetitions with a 2-3 min refractory period and I will only progress my athletes on an individual basis if they are comfortably executing the load by more than 2 repetitions on 2 consecutive days (Fisher, Steele, Bruce-Low and Smith 2011). Thankfully once the lesson started the team commented that they were enjoying the new approach to their training, I used the video camera to help a few individuals with their technique and if I'm honest this worked very well, I will definitely use this teaching aid in the future.

Summary:

This week again I have slightly over estimated the ability of my team. My expectations were that the athletes would be able to perform the plyometric exercises in the correct manner when not being supervised was incorrect and still some athletes were performing incorrect strength training exercises, the video camera feedback was helpful with most athletes however, there are still some who are struggling to perform the correct technique.  I was trying to correct an athletes form and he said to me that he got injuired during the game at the weekend and the head coach and the physio both knew about this.

My action plan:

I will amend the layout of the plyometric lesson in order to give me a better command and control and with regards to the poor technique I am going to speak to graham (head coach) and see if he has anything to offer. In addition, I will search the internet to see if this will help. Furthermore, after the comment the athlete made on monday about his injury I am going to speak to graham to see if this is true and found out the reason why I was not informed.

Reference list:

• Baechle, T.R., Earle, R.W. and Wathen, D. (2000) Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. 2nd ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, p. 395-425
• Fisher, J., Steele, J., Bruce-Low, S, and Smith, D. (2011) Evidence-Based Resistance Training Recommendations – Review article. Med Sport 15 (3): 147-162.
• Fleck, S. J., & Kraemer, W. J. (1998). Repetition maximum methods for monitoring your weight training intensity. Strength and Health Report, 2, 1,2.
• Markovic. G., 2007. Does plyometric training improve vertical jump height? A meta-analytical review. Br J Sports Med, 41, 349- 355.