For the Speed School High School athletes, Mondays are Max Effort Upper Body Days and Tuesdays are Max Effort Lower Body Days. Every fourth week we replace the Max Effort Days with Repetitive Effort Days. With that being said, this past Monday, March 20, 2017 was the fourth week of the current mesocycle therefore the athletes' programmed workout was a Repetitive Effort Upper Body Day.

Now most people familiar with powerlifting will immediately recognize the terminology used just now and might assume that athletes at Overdrive Fitness are being trained to be powerlifters. If that is your assumption, then you are wrong. We apply powerlifting methodologies to enhance our athletes' strength. Over the past several years, we have found that our athletes perform better when utilizing a Conjugate Method because the vast majority of them are multi-sport athletes. Since they are multi-sport athletes, we do not see them on a regular basis year-round therefore a long term program with phasic structure isn't quite as effective although it is preferred. Also, with the intermittently programmed mesocycles, we feel that a deload every fourth week isn't necessary for our athletes which is why we substitute Repetitive Effort Days with Max Effort Days. In a sense it is a "deload" because we will increase the volume through programming for higher reps, but this will be less taxing on the central nervous system as the intensity (both absolute and relative) is much lower. 

The workout on this specific day was as followed:

Warmup
1. Wristband Extensions & Rotations x 30/hand
2. Band Forearm Pronations & Supinations x 30/hand
3a. YWTI: 2 x 15 sec each
3b. Blackburns: 2 x 10
3c. Scap Push-Ups: 2 x 10
3d. Yoga Push-Ups: 2 x 10
3e. Plyo Push-Ups: 2 x 5

Workout
1a. 2-Board Bench Press: 4 x 10
1b. Palms-Up Band Pull Aparts: 4 x 20
2a. Anterior Band Half-Kneeling Overhead Press: 3 x 10/arm
2b. Meadows Rows: 3 x 10/arm
2c. Pronated Dumbbell Rear Flyes: 3 x 10

Make Noise
1a. Wichlinski Press: 2 x 10
1b. Kneeling Pallof Press: 2 x A-Z (draw full alphabet in capital letters only)

Check out the video below to see this workout.

The official start to the high school spring sports season is just around the corner. Some teams have already started their "voluntary" pre-season "conditioning" programs while others are waiting until the first mandatory practice to run their athletes to the ground until they absolutely hate themselves. I quote the words voluntary and conditioning because 1) we all know that these workouts are really mandatory if you're serious about your sport and want playing time, and 2) plenty of conditioning workouts lack any sense of proper planning and scientific reasoning. Now I do believe that there is a time and a place to really push an athlete to make them mentally tough, however I am strongly against trying to kill your athletes every time you reach the conditioning portion of a practice. My stance isn't a blanket statement for all coaches as it is not fair to say they all do not have a clue about conditioning. However, I do believe that there is room for improvement as it seems that conditioning is often poorly executed. 

Why is conditioning so important? (WARNING: NERDY FACT BOMB FIELD OVER THE NEXT THREE PARAGRAPHS)