Mitch Greaves

Whatever your feeling about utilising the Olympic Lifts and their derivatives in training athletes, you can’t deny the reward on investment and the satisfaction and joy that comes with achieving a personal best or even hitting a clean rep on a weight you previously struggled with. Especially on a complex lift that has required patience with purposeful practice to get to that point where you can’t just rely on natural talent or physical prowess performance

DECELERATION - THE FORWARD LUNGE

The forward lunge is a variation I slept on for too long, offering a unique opportunity to train & strengthen the deceleration pattern.

* Teaches full foot contact, heel dominant pattern (heels are our breaks)
* Teaches to weight shift backwards & vertical shin

I like to utilise this during deceleration/change of direction focussed blocks on the field to reinforce the work we’re doing in our speed development.

CALF-ACHILLES COMPLEX LOADING

Standing & Seated Calf Raises are important, but here are some alternative exercises & loading strategies for the Calf-Achilles complex:

* IsoBar Ankle IsoPush
* Smith Machine Ankle March
* Prowler March
* Spring Ankle Position 5
* Smith Machine Ankle IsoHold
* Prisoner Deficit Box Taps

A few bits & pieces from Tay’s current rehab program, session in the last photo.

The devil is in the details 👹

RATE OF FORCE DEVELOPMENT

Taking away the ability to use a countermovement strategy or load & explode during an exercise will forge the athlete to produce force in a short amount of time, known as rate of force development (RFD).

RFD is more important than peak force, or the most amount of force you can produce in any given period of time - this is due to The fast paced nature of sport where there’s not a lot of time to make an action or react to stimulus.

An example we might use for a tennis athlete is to compare a countermovement exercise that will improve peak power/force would be a the serving action - long loading phase to do maximum damage.

Compare this to having to react quickly to a volley opportunity at the net which is more related to rate of force development biased exercises.

Either way putting these things in context for athletes I’ve found helps buy in, particularly for athletes who have a “more weight” or “I need to grind to feel like I’m improving/working” focussed approach.

Throwback

CHANGE OF DIRECTION SESSION

* See last image for Change Of Direction themed portion of the field session
* Jumps & Plyometrics support/aid what we are trying to teach the athletes with COD work e.g. inside/outside edge of feet, weight shift
* Teaching different strategies with N Drill & Y Drill - speed maintenance approaches vs. re-direction approaches

Throwback 😂

PRE SEASON POWER

With athletes going back to pre season training and high volume running, change of direction loads & technical-skill work, we need to back off on how much plyometric volume we are doing and search for power improvements elsewhere:

* Movement Efficiency Exercises e.g. Cross Body Med Ball Hip Lock
* Low Impact Ballistic Power Options e.g. Kettlebell Swing
* Velocity Based Training Strength Lifts e.g. Barbell Back Squat To Box (no video)

Then when we attack our High Intensity-Intensive Plyometrics we want to push the limits now that we’ve built a solid foundation throughout the off season e.g. Continuous Hurdle Hops