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NIFS Healthy Living Blog

Conjugate Training: What It Is and How to Implement It

GettyImages-1448297445Conjugate training is a term coined and expanded upon by the late, great Louie Simmons, a well-known strength coach at Westside Barbell. Conjugate means to bring together, so conjugate training is literally joining together different training styles into one micro or meso training cycle. Conjugate training is bringing together training styles such as power, strength, agility, and hypertrophy into one training cycle.

Balancing Across Different Days

The key to conjugate training is to balance the volume across the different days. It’s common to have a setup as follows (but this is only an example):

  • Day 1: Upper-body pull—hypertrophy
  • Day 2: lower-body push—strength
  • Day 3: Upper-body push—power
  • Day 4: lower-body pull—speed

With these days an athlete or coach will need to make sure to balance out the loads and not have too much volume across the days. So if the hypertrophy day has a high level of volume, the power day needs to be lower to not apply too much load to the upper body, which can increase the risk of injury. The athlete or coach will also need to know the recommended rep ranges, set ranges, and percentages of max for each of the different training styles in order to find that necessary balance to push the body but not hurt it.

Pushing the Body to Adapt to Change

This approach is a great way to keep the body guessing what your next move is and pushing the body to adapt and change to reach your goals. So, if you find yourself plateauing and your maxes are not moving, maybe the conjugate method is for you.

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This blog was written by Grant Lamkin, Health Fitness Specialist. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Topics: strength power speed lower body hypertrophy upper body plateaus adaptations agility conjugate training

Pre-heat the Oven: Your Warm-up Guide to Maximizing Your Workout

GettyImages-629588986The “perfect” workout rarely happens. Every so often, you may have one of those training sessions where every block flows smoothly and programmed repetitions and sets are executed flawlessly. But for most days, there will be missed reps, you may feel more fatigued than you think you should, or the workout may not come together as you hoped it would. That is fine. Your goal should be to strive to be as close to perfect as possible, with the understanding that it may not always happen.

Prepare for the “Perfect” Workout

A ”perfect” workout cannot happen without preparing your body to perform in the correct way. Preparation in this instance is in reference to your warm-up and what you are doing to get your body ready to do what is on your program. Always remember the 5 P’s:

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Without a good warm-up, you can’t strive for the perfect workout and you are further set up for underachieving in the movements you will do for the day.

What Should Your Warm-up Look Like?

About five years ago as a younger strength coach, the dynamic warm-up was always my go-to. Plyometric day? Dynamic warm-up. Squat day? Dynamic warm-up. Bench day? Dynamic warm-up. Speed/agility day? You guessed it, dynamic warm-up. The dynamic warm-up has its place, obviously, when you are going to sports practices or training sessions that will require multidirectional movement, but as I grew in my knowledge base I asked myself one question: Shouldn’t your warm-up get you ready for what you or your athletes are actually going to do for their workout?

A Guide to Common Training Sessions

Below is a quick guide on some points to think about for common training sessions as you approach and build what might be one of the most important aspects of your workout day.

Plyometric Day

Mobility: Ankle and Hip (could add T-Spine if doing upper-body plyometrics)

Warm-up: Core, Jump Rope, Line Skaters, Lateral Line Hops, Small Box Jumps

Speed and Agility Day

Mobility: Ankle and Hip

Warm-up: Core, Dynamic Warm-up (Hi, old friend!), low-intensity plyometrics (i.e. skips, hops, bounds), agility ladders

Upper-body Day

Mobility: Thoracic Spine

Warm-up: Core, Rotator Cuff/Shoulders, lower-intensity exercises that mimic the bigger lifts for the day

Lower-body Day

Mobility: Full Body (ankles, hips, t-spine)

Warm-up: Hips (band/monster walks), Goblet Squats (squat/quad dominant day), Hinge Work (good mornings, hip thrusts, etc.) for deadlift day

The Staples of an Efficient Warm-up

As you can see, an efficient warm-up really consists of three staples: mobility of the joints you will be using that day, core (you are always stabilizing), and smaller, low-intensity movements that will mirror the bigger movements you are going to perform. An old coach from my college football days used to preach at us on the regular that, “You practice how you want to play.” Well, Coach Alex is offering the same sentiment: “You warm up with the same intent as how you want your training session to go.”

When you bake a cake, you don’t mix the batter, put it in the oven, and then turn it on. That gets you crappy cake. You pre-heat the oven. Always preheat the oven.

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This blog was written by Alex Soller, Athletic Performance Coach and NIFS trainer. To find out more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Topics: workouts plyometric speed warming up lower body upper body movement agility warm-up

Testing Progress Toward Your Athletic Performance Goals

GettyImages-1067160268In a world where people want results in an instant and take drastic measures to achieve those results as fast as possible, developing strength, power and athleticism in a long-term aspect is often overlooked. For any fitness-related result or outcome, improvements take time. Fat loss, overall strength and/or power in any particular lift, speed, and agility are all seeds that needed to be watered for a while before noticeable and permanent changes are evident.

In an athletic realm, this leads to the importance of the “testing” process and the use of that process over the course of months, semesters, and years. As a young athlete or athlete fresh out of high school entering the college world of sports and strength and conditioning, this is how you monitor your success and validate that the training and improvements you are making are the things that are actually working. Numbers do not lie. If your times in specific agility drills or weights have increased in certain lifts, obviously you have made improvements. If those numbers have not changed or have decreased, you need to address methods of training or overall compliance/intensity with the program.

Below are five performance tests that measure multiple aspects of your overall athletic profile.

40-Yard Dash

The 40-yard dash, or “40,” is one of the most common drills we use to measure straight-line speed. Sure, many sports are played in a multidirectional way, but overall top speed is an important puzzle piece. Setting up and performing this drill is relatively simple; however, you may need two people to help with the timing.

First, set up two cones exactly 40 yards apart. From here, go to the starting line and sprint from start to finish. The clock or stopwatch should start on your very first movement from the starting line and stop when your body crosses the finish line.

5-10-5 Shuttle

The shuttle run is one of my personal favorites. It allows you to see an athlete’s explosiveness and change-of-direction skills. With lateral movements being so important in many sports, this gives you a good idea of where an athlete stands. To set up the 5-10-5 Shuttle, you need three cones spaced out evenly at 5 yards apart. The athlete starts at the middle cone with their hand on the ground. They run to the right or left cone and touch the ground (5 yards), across the whole setup and touch the ground (10 yards), and sprint through the middle cone (5 yards). Timing of this test starts when the athlete’s hand raises up from the ground and finishes when they cross the middle cone.

Vertical/Broad Jump

Jumping ability is another “power” aspect that translates very well into success on the field or court. The vertical jump test is generally performed with a Vertec, or a piece of equipment where you stand underneath and jump to touch as many of the rings overhead as you can. Other than obtaining the Vertec, the test is fairly simple. First, you want to measure your standing reach, or simply the height that you can reach with your arm outstretched overhead. As I mentioned before, you jump and hit as many of the rings on the Vertec as you can. When the maximal height has been reached, you subtract the standing reach number to get the vertical jump height.

Another great way to measure power would be with the standing broad jump. For this, all you need is a tape measure that is on the floor with a starting line for the athlete. To perform, the athlete starts behind the starting line and jumps out as far as possible and lands under control. The length of the broad jump is measured wherever the back of the athlete’s shoe lands.

Bench/Squat/Trap Bar Deadlift

In the preceding sections we looked at sprint and jump measurements, but we can’t leave out our strength numbers. Like the great Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell said, “Weak things break.” Truer words have never been spoken. Because of this, we want to measure those strength gains with every opportunity that we have. For me, my main three strength lifts that I measure are the bench press, the squat (front squat or back squat, depending on the athlete), and trap bar deadlift. These are three main staples in my programming and I always want to see if the way that I’m implementing them in workouts is yielding the best results.

These may look a little different for you. You may choose DB Bench Press, Pull-Ups, Farmer’s Carries, or something similar. My recommendation is to be sure that whatever you are testing are things that you are continually working on. It’s tough to test a back squat if you haven’t back squatted in 8–10 weeks.

Overall, the moral of the story is testing to see whether what you are doing is helping you achieve your goals is vital. Without testing you are just guessing. Remember, numbers do not lie!

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his blog was written by Alex Soller, Athletic Performance Coach and NIFS trainer. To find out more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Topics: strength goals speed athletic performance fitness goals fitness assessment agility testing fat loss

Three Drills to Develop Athletic Agility

GettyImages-871413050Agility drills basically represent an obstacle. Athletes who can respond faster to starts, stops, and change of direction earlier than the obstacle will have a practical advantage on the playing field. This blog highlights three of my favorite agility drills that can be built into your team’s conditioning routines. The benefits of these runs, jumps, and cuts include increases in reactionary speed, coordination, footwork, and body awareness. Athletes need to be able to change direction rapidly under control without decreases in speed.

You will need a good strength base before doing any high-intensity agility drills. These three drills are great for giving athletes the ability to keep their eyes on the play while knowing what is around them. Adding teammates to the mix always makes it fun and competitive.

Enjoy the drills!

Screen Shot 2020-03-03 at 2.54.12 PMDrill 1: Offense/Defense—Partner Reaction Acceleration Tag

Setup: Cones are spaced 10 yards apart with a middle cone at the halfway point.

Number of Athletes: 2
Athlete 1: Offense (starts the drill); Athlete 2: Defense (reacts and chases)

Execution: Both athletes start on the ground head to head on the baseline. Athlete 1 starts the drill and is allowed two fakes before they must stand, turn, and sprint 10 yards. Athlete 2 reacts and chases Athlete 1 once they stand and turn and has 10 yards to catch and tag Athlete 1 in a sprint fashion.

Screen Shot 2020-03-03 at 2.54.22 PMDrill 2: Cat & Mouse—5-5 Shuttle Reaction Tag

Setup: Cones are spaced 10 yards apart with a middle cone at the halfway point.

Number of Athletes: 2
Athlete 1: Offense; Athlete 2: Defense
Athletes will face each on opposite sides 10 yards apart.

Execution: At the start of a whistle or cue, both athletes sprint a 5-yard shuttle 5–5.

Athlete 1 then tries to sprint past the midline as fast as possible before Athlete 2 tags him before passing the midline after they both do a 5-yard shuttle.

After the 5-yard shuttle, Athlete 1 can juke/cut, etc. to get to the midline to fake out Athlete 2 before being tagged. Athletes switch between offense and defense.

Screen Shot 2020-03-03 at 2.54.44 PMDrill 3: Shuttle Runs—Reaction 5-5-10 Shuttle

Setup: Cones are spaced 0, 5, and 10 yards apart.
Another set of cones is 5 yards apart on the baseline.

Number of Athletes: 3–4
Athlete 1: Shuttles (drill start); Athletes 2–4: Reactionary

Execution: At start of a whistle or cue, Athlete 1, facing the baseline, begins shuffling between the 5-yard cones. Athletes 2–4 stand facing the other way on the baseline waiting to react to Athlete 1. Athlete 1 can shuffle back and forth for a total of two times. However, within the two shuffle attempts, Athlete 1 can turn and sprint whenever. Athletes 2–4 must respond to Athlete 1 and turn and sprint. After Athlete 1 initiates the sprint shuttle, all athletes are now in a race to sprint a 5–5–10-yard shuttle.

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This blog was written by Michael Blume, MS, SCCC; Athletic Performance Coach. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Topics: team training sports speed athletic performance drills agility coordination proprioception footwork