Stronger Athletes

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Efficiency in the Weigthroom

February 4 "Forget yourself and start to work." -Gordon B. Hinckley

Efficiency

StongerAthletes.com believes in short intense training sessions. Many coaches are adopting a similar philosophy of time spent on training due to class period restrictions or efficiency issues.

The beginner level should train no more than 3 hours per week split into 3 one-hour sessions. The intermediate level athlete should train a little less and the advanced level even less than that. The more advanced an athlete is the more recovery time that is needed.

Occasionally we still hear coaches brag about their athletes training 4 days per week 2-3 hours per session. These coaches assume that time spent in the weight room is time well spent. Now, a coach can make the argument that an athlete is expressing some effort of commitment to the program and developing good work habits. However, this certainly is not a very efficient approach when we consider strength development.

An article written by Richard Borden "Building Stronger, Faster Players In The Off season" in American Football Coach Magazine explains of work-out sessions, "The total time should be no more than 40-60 minutes in the weight room or on the field (referring to speed and conditioning drills on the field)." This is a pretty good rule for the athlete that requires the use of type II muscle fiber. [See Fiber Recruitment].

We promote training at a high level of intensity. Athletes cannot train very long if they are truly training hard. Athletes in the weight room for more than an hour are flat out not train hard. Jane Musgrave in American Football Coach discusses this issue with Boyd Eply, Nebraska's strength coach. Eply describes his program, "A lot of people think Nebraska is a lifting factory-that we mass produce athletes. We probably lift less than any school you can think of. We pride ourselves on being efficient. We try to get more out of the workout, not just make it longer."

Like these collegiate strength programs, StrongerAthletes.com believes efficient program as well. The high school and college athlete has a very busy schedule that includes, training, practice, film sessions, classes, study time etc… We owe it to our athletes to provide an efficient strength training program.