🥇 The Athlete Development Journal

Developing speed, strength, power, health, and character, so athletes get the most out of their athletic career.

Listen to this episode on your way to practice. ⬇️

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Mind. My favorite superhero story

My absolute favorite superhero story is that one where he went through life without facing any problems, battling any enemies, or suffering through any struggle.

What? You don’t remember that one?

Yeah, neither does anyone else.

Your struggle is a unique opportunity to reveal your greatness. Or to fold and complain.

You choose.

Body. What you should actually train in-season

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of in-season training. Now, I want to get a little more specific and talk about what you should actually do.

I can’t give you specific exercises, sets, and reps, because I don’t know your unique situation.

Instead, I want to talk about the different buckets that you need to fill.

1) Compound strength bucket

When you’re young and developing, strength is the rising tide that lifts all ships.

Most physical abilities are a byproduct of force expression. The more force you can produce (especially when compared to your bodyweight), the better.

Compound strength training is the sharpest tool in the toolbox to increase global force capacity.

Hit your squats, hinges, presses, and rows two days per week through the season.

2) Maximal speed bucket

This one is counterintuitive, because you’re likely running a lot during the season.

However, it’s quite rare to have the opportunity to open up into an unabated, maximal effort sprint. You’re almost always stopping, starting, changing direction, reacting to another person, or running sub-maximally.

Maximal effort sprinting is one of the highest neural stimuli and the most “plyometric plyometric” we have at our disposal.

Experts believe that max speed is one of the first physical abilities to get worse after detraining. The general thought for elite athletes is they have approximately 3-7 days before they start to get slower.

So, hitting 3-4 reps of max speed per week is an absolute must.

3) Maximal jumping bucket

In a similar vein to how we just talked about speed; jumping is common in-season, but maximal jumping is uncommon. Essentially all of your jumps are going to involve reacting to something or be constrained by short time windows.

Rarely do you have the ability (or the need) to simply jump as high as you can.

Like speed, again, maximal power output is thought to be one of the first physical abilities to deteriorate when training stops. So, we have to dose it.

It doesn’t take much, 3-4 maximal effort jumps per week should be enough to do the trick.

4) Isolated strength bucket

Compound strength training is the axe that takes care of the vast majority of your strength needs. However, you also need to pull out the scalpel to fine tune specific muscles based off of your sport, position, and injury history.

If you’re an explosive jumping athlete, you’re likely prone to patellar tendinopathy. To combat this, you need to double down on quadriceps isolation exercises 1-2 times per week.

Throwing athletes need to fortify their shoulder by isolating the posterior cuff, low trap, and serratus anterior about 3 times per week.

If you have a history of hamstring strains, you should be dosing in some hamstring isolation exercises in hip flexion and knee extension to get strong in that late swing/early stance phase where hamstrings are vulnerable.

Identify your vulnerable links and address them regularly.

5) Proprioception and vestibular bucket

I remain more bullish on this than most others in the world of athlete development, and in-season is no different.

Having a well-calibrated proprioceptive and vestibular systems allows you to better orient yourself and control your body in space. The more control you have, the better you can avoid getting into dangerous positions. The more you avoid dangerous positions, the less likely you are to get hurt. The less you get hurt, the more reps you get. The more reps you get, the better athlete you become.

6) Mobility and soft tissue bucket

For some of you, targeted mobility and soft tissue work (like foam rolling) is going to be essential to making sure you have enough room to stay healthy and effective through the season.

For others, mobility and soft tissue work is simply a means to help you feel a little bit better.

Either way, it’s quick and easy to take 5-10 minutes 5 days per week to dose in 2-3 stretches and a few minutes of foam rolling.

Soul. Jealous, much?

“If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.” – Naval Ravikant

I, like most people, would like to have Elon Musk’s money. But, I can’t be jealous of him. I don’t want his disaster of a personal life (he has 14 kids, 4 baby mamas, 3 divorces, and approximately 0 relationship with any of them).

That’s an extreme example, but it holds true in many more use cases.

I would love to have a massive 15,000 square foot facility with a full 100 yard turf field like some places, but I don’t want the overhead and type of work that comes with that. If I own a facility that big, then I have to hire a bunch of coaches and play HR all day instead of being a craftsman on the floor developing athletes.

Don’t envy the reward if you aren’t willing to carry the burden that comes with it.

Let’s wrap it up with a couple important things…

1. This newsletter and podcast is completely free. I spend many hours each week researching, writing, illustrating, recording, editing, and uploading. The best way you can support it and allow it to continue is to share it with people you know. You can just send them to ​gtperformance.co/newsletter​ and they can subscribe there!
2. Everything in these newsletters, podcasts, social media, and on our website is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice for you or your athlete. Consult directly with a healthcare professional.

Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about athlete development!

Be >,

Zach

Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS