Our world is rife with polarity. From the fundamental building blocks of our physical world to the abstract opinions dominating our political landscape, and the foundations of morality; polarity is woven into the fabric of life. When looking at language, we can look at the words we use and quickly identify which of them hold negative and positive connotations. Where does addiction fall within our connotative spectrum?

Addiction on Our Connotative Spectrum

Of course, connotations are a subjective concept, and are interpreted through the individual’s lens; a lens composed of their life’s experience. Generally, I’d venture to state the track record of addiction as largely a negative one, with sparse positive outcomes sprinkled throughout each individual’s struggle with their addictions. I, too, have struggled with addiction during my life, and I would say the current tally of negative versus positive outcomes leans in favor of the negative.

This article is going to lay out some of the profoundly negative consequences of addiction, as well as point out the occasional positive nuances that addiction can provide (depending on the type of addiction). I lay out my struggle with exercise addiction, where it has taken me, and the many positive outcomes I’ve gleaned from it.

From this experience, I’d like to posit: The positive ramifications of exercise addiction can balance the negatives when the individual is astute in his/her search for opportunity. First, let’s take a look at a substance that has created profoundly negative outcomes for millions of people in the United States: opioids.

I would argue that most of the time, maximizing your modes of wellness such as exercise, nutrition, sleep, and mental health is the best way to avoid chronic illness. Of course, sometimes people are simply dealt a bad hand. An accident occurs and prescription medication is deemed the best option for pain relief. A lot of the time, the patient takes their medication until they’ve healed, and they’re done with it. For chronic pain patients, this is often not the case.

Doctors Prescribe Opioids at Record Rates

The opioid epidemic has been all over the news for the past several years, gaining more coverage as of late. The epidemic killed 630,000 people¹ between 1999 and 2016. In that time, there were three waves, in particular, that have spurred the issue forward.

The first was in 1999 when prescription opioids gained popularity in the medical community. The second started in 2010 and manifested through a five-fold rise in heroin overdoses until 2016. The third wave came to crest in 2013 when synthetic opioid medications, such as fentanyl,² were being prescribed at record rates. As of 2016, 66% of overdose deaths involved an opioid.

The CDC offers an overdose prevention program for all 50 states, which provides clinicians with tools and information on how not to get their clients addicted to their medications.

Step one to avoiding prescription opioid addiction is, of course, to avoid ever needing to use one.

When the Cure Becomes the Addiction

Three of the most important factors for living well are:

1. Exercise
2. Nutrition
3. Sleep

What happens when preventative measures like exercise and nutrition cross the border between healthy habit and detrimental disorder? Can the ramifications be as serious as opioid addictions? Yes. Yes, they can.

Let’s face it: Exercise is an incredibly engaging activity. There are unlimited levels of skill and development, across dozens of disciplines. The traditional iron sports are:

• Bodybuilding
• Powerlifting
• Weightlifting (Olympic weightlifting)
• CrossFit

Martial arts are also a common form of exercise, discipline, and lifestyle. Running, biking, and swimming compose the triathlete’s three modes of exercise/competition. Each one of these sports contains endless opportunities to have fun and achieve personal goals.

“Research on highly engaging behavior shows that it shares three common features with addiction: frequent thoughts about the behavior, positive feelings in response to the behavior, and tolerance.” (Freimuth, M., et al, 2011).

Setting aside the feeling of goal achievement, getting stronger, and watching yourself become more physically attractive, what makes us feel so acutely euphoric during a great workout? On the hormonal scale, we can boil it down to one thing: endorphins.

What Is an Endorphin?

Well, what is an endorphin? A quick search in the ole’ Google machine reveals quickly,

“any of a group of hormones secreted within the brain and nervous system and having a number of physiological functions. They are peptides that activate the body’s opiate receptors, causing an analgesic effect.”

What’s the origin of the literal word endorphin? It is a combination of the words endogenous and morphine. Endogenous means to have an internal cause or origin. Morphine is a common and powerful opiate used to reduce pain in medical patients. Basically, endorphins are internally caused opiates that reduce pain during intense physical activity.

According to WebMD, endorphins are not physically addictive, however, people who exhibit compulsive behavior do not need an addictive substance to feel compelled to do something. How about psychological addiction?

Psychological Addiction Defined

According to Rehab.com,³ a psychological addiction is defined as “…a compulsion or perceived need to use.” The article continues to use marijuana as an example, saying that a user may perceive the need to use before bed. If they do not do so, they will not experience withdrawal symptoms because weed is not physically addictive, however, they may allow the substance to hold dominion over their life.

Exercise addiction in a psychological sense is an absolutely real phenomenon that alters the lives of those who suffer from it. While it may not be physically addictive, those with compulsive behavior patterns are susceptible to it.

Ironically, exercise is often used as a medium to improve discipline in individuals who seek such a virtue. For some, exercise can become the bad habit in need of discipline. Below, I’ve outlined what led to my unhealthy compulsive behavior and where the addiction led me over the last eight years.

Good Athletes Adapt to Competitive Conditions

From when I started playing football at ten years old, it became my dream to play football in college. My dad knew about this dream, so he got me into football camps and strength and conditioning. At 13 years old, I began exercising three or more days per week, year-round, with the occasional week off. It was a healthy amount of training and I loved doing it.

By the time I was in high school, I could barely contain my excitement for bringing my skills to the big stage: Friday night football. At 5’9” 165 lbs going into my junior year, I didn’t have a typical quarterback build. I could throw the ball well from the pocket and on the move. I could avoid pressure, scramble, and deliver accurate passes. My junior year we had two running backs who would be recruited by Division I universities and the biggest offensive line in the state, so the head coach decided to run a Wing T offense.

For my entire football career, we ran a pro-style offense and mixed-in the shotgun spread. This kind of offense was more balanced between running and passing. The quarterback would throw 10-20 passes per game depending on what was working against the defense. The Wing T and the Pro-Spread are very different from one another.

That being said, a good athlete adapts to whatever competitive conditions he’s presented with and overcomes them. A good quarterback does the same while using the team’s needs to motivate his actions. I had the physical skills to rise to the occasion, but I did not have the mental skills to adjust to what my team needed at that point.

I choked during my junior year. I couldn’t take care of the ball, fumbled too many times. My coach was big on negative reinforcement, which didn’t work for me because I’m very hard on myself naturally. I lost the starting quarterback position halfway through the season.

The dream of playing college football was gone after six years of training. Our team, despite so much talent, fell apart early in the playoffs. I had never felt such shame and disappointment in myself before. Thus began my downward spiral of mental insecurity, and a compulsive addiction to exercise.

More Physical Activity

My senior year of high school I engaged in a BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training) preparation program that I pulled from the Navy’s website. It had been my dream to become a Navy SEAL since I was old enough to understand what a SEAL was. It was clear to me that a college football career was now out of the question, so this became my focus. During the program:

• I ran 3-4 miles – for time – every other day
• Performed calisthenics 6-7 days/week
• Lifted weights 3 days/week to prepare for SEAL training.

I performed this program during football season, where I was the backup quarterback and utility player on both sides of the ball. If that wasn’t enough physical activity, I started training at a local boxing gym twice a week. This was all done on a restricted diet of fewer than 2,000 calories per day. I should’ve been consuming north of 3,500 calories per day based on the amount of physical activity I was doing.

*I’d like to add a note here that when I mention my preparation for BUD/s, I realize it may come across as seeking an association with that group. I’m not trying to do that. I never enlisted in the Navy. What I was preparing for was the first 13 weeks of BUD/s training which includes indoctrination (pre-training) and basic conditioning. The first phase includes the infamous Hell Week, which pushes trainees to their absolute limits. Whenever I trained, I kept Hell Week in mind. To be clear, I’m not associated with these men and I have the utmost respect for them.

I lost about 20 lbs in less than six months. Periodically, I would test my body fat, which ranged from 3-5%. This is about the threshold when your body will start to consume internal organ fat tissue for energy. It’s dangerously low.

Occasional stress fractures popped up in my feet from all the running, but mentally I couldn’t stop, so I reduced my mileage to 1-2 miles every other day until my injuries healed. It got to the point where if I wasn’t sore or in physical discomfort, I would get anxious and irritable.

Fitness Photography by Bev Childress

After a lot of thought, I decided I should give college a one-year try before deciding on joining the Navy. I carried on with this training regimen until I finished my first year of college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, minus the team sports training.

Slowly, I started eating more but continued counting calories every day. I never exceeded 3,000 calories in a day without feeling extremely guilty. In fact, I can’t remember even one day during that time where I consciously ate that many calories and did not subsequently train my ass off to balance it out.

• I loved the pride that came with training that hard.
• I loved having my friends ask me for tips and secrets as to how I stayed in such great shape.
• I loved having girls notice me when my shirt was off.
• I loved watching myself transform and learning about the body.
• Most of all, I loved the competition against my own mental fortitude.

Identify Unhealthy Behaviors

Luckily, I was studying health and sports science for my undergraduate degree, so I gradually began to identify how unhealthy my behavior was. On one particular day, my professor lectured about eating disorders. Anorexia Athletica⁴ and body dysmorphia were part of the list.

Anorexia Athletica: “…over-exercising, obsession with calories, fat, and weight, especially as compared to elite athletes, self-worth being determined by physical performance, and a lack of pleasure from exercising.”⁵

It was clear to me that I fit the description for Anorexia Athletica a little too closely, so I gradually allowed myself to eat larger portions of food, although I continued to avoid any unhealthy foods like the plague (burgers and fried foods).

I Felt Morally Superior for Exercising

Looking back, I missed out on so many opportunities to make memories with those friends because I felt I needed to work out on Friday and Saturday nights while the guys were out living it up. In fact, those nights were false points of pride for myself, because I felt I was somehow morally superior for exercising rather than having fun. What a distorted viewpoint that was. Definitely a big regret of mine in hindsight.

Weightlifting, Olympic style weightlifting, came into my life during my sophomore year in college. I had transferred to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and was still dealing with obsessive-compulsive feeling toward training.

The problem was that I wasn’t training for anything specifically. I was dabbling in boxing after having one bout in Lincoln (I lost and broke my nose). I needed something to focus all that attention on.

After getting certified in the USA Weightlifting Level 1 Coaching course, I realized weightlifting fit the bill. I trained myself for 10 months until a weightlifting club popped up at my university, which I joined immediately.

A New Feeding Ground for My Compulsions

From then forward, I was encouraged to put on body weight for the sake of improving my total (1RM snatch + 1RM clean and jerk). The sport isn’t physique based, it’s performance-based. In fact, most guys at competitions that looked like bodybuilders were all show no go, so I was incentivized to look less bulky for the sake of having the “weightlifter look” (big quads, big butt, thick six-pack, thick back, and broad shoulders).

Naturally, I obsessed over my performance. I ate tons of food and put on very little body fat because I was training five days a week at a high intensity and high volume. I mimed the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, and deadlift movements whenever I was away from the weight room. I gained muscle, strength, confidence, friends, and a new feeding ground for my compulsions.

I met my most influential mentor, who showed me the endless and fascinating depth of strength and conditioning. I fell in love with learning. I met and fell in love with a girl from the club. I was legitimately happy, as long as my training was going well.

Bumps in the Road to Self-Actualization

Somewhere in the mix, I realized that I had tons of experience in physical preparation for competition. Competition results are almost completely unbiased in weightlifting. You either lifted the weight or you didn’t.

Judging whether or not someone made the lift is pretty straightforward. There’s nowhere else to look for blame other than your own preparation. Weightlifters are constantly monitoring their physical status, which acts as a chisel for what does and doesn’t work, I honed my craft of coaching and performing in the sport of weightlifting.

What I still hadn’t realized, was how hard I should be training to achieve optimal performance gains. Inevitably, my lack of understanding in this realm reared its head when bumps appeared on my road to self-actualization.

Don’t Stop Training.

The first major bump, that would become the source of most future bumps, was a snowboarding accident where I injured my sacrum and pelvis, yet continued to train a couple days later. I could barely walk after the injury, but I could lift without debilitating pain, so I did.

I didn’t see a doctor for fear of them not allowing me to train for an extended period of time. The pain gradually went away and I was back to normal for a short period, but I could tell I was moving differently.

A couple months later during a heavy squatting cycle, I began to have some serious pain near my left SI joint. I could barely bend over after waking up in the morning and had to perform extended warm-ups to prepare for training each day. After about four weeks, I took a week to squat less intensely and the pain subsided. Problem solved.

Training Through Injuries

Fast forward about two years, a couple subluxated ribs, pulled hamstring, strained levator, shoulder impingement, and maybe two total weeks off from training and I’m at the University of Notre Dame for a strength and conditioning internship.

I’m working 10-14 hour days and still training four days per week. I literally had a couple days in there where I fell ill immediately after training and had to go home. My legs would regularly go into spasm after training. I would hobble over to the Gatorade nutrition station for the athletes and down a packet of electrolytes to fend off the cramps.

On one occasion, I asked my training partner, the assistant football strength coach, if he’d ever experienced cramping legs as a result of heavy squat sessions. With a concerned look, he frankly told me he’d never come close. He had competed at weightlifting nationals and regularly front squatted in the 400s for doubles and singles as a 187 lb lifter (85kg).

For comparison, my best back squat at the time was a 3RM at 365 and the same bodyweight. A smart person would have taken that as a warning from an excellent athlete that I may have been overtraining. Foolishly, I saw it as a point of pride.

In hindsight, my perspective on what training should feel like was completely distorted. Training the way I was used to, which was established during my BUD/s preparation, was supposed to be as much agony as you can handle without getting hurt (I usually trained through injuries, which is not what they teach in SEAL training). In other words, it was training to survive, not training to thrive.

Sports, in general, are about competing while in peak physical form, not merely surviving the competition. My unconscious philosophy was, “If you’re able to move, you are able to train.” Pain and soreness had no input as to whether I was training that day or not.

The only kind of pain that kept me from training was the kind that was debilitating, which did come around on occasion. As a result, I became overreached from training very quickly. Every time you overreach in training, your risk for injury skyrockets, and that’s where I spent most of my time. Whether team sports athletes should train to overreach is up for debate.

Training to overreach is an important part of preparing for weightlifting meets. The one and two-factor theories for adaptation describe this process. If you’d like to understand those theories better, I suggest reading “Science and Practice of Strength Training” by Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kraemer.

Utilize Available Resources

I should’ve dropped it to 2-3 days per week and taken advantage of the resources available while I was at Notre Dame. Years of experience and so many bright minds between those coaches, but the only free time I had I would use to train or work on assignments. What a waste. I should’ve picked the brains of those coaches more than I did.

Fast forward again about three months after ND and I was in Los Angeles coaching for Takano Athletics and competing on Bob Takano’s team. Bob is in the USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame as a coach and is an all-around brilliant human being. I miss being around him and his assistant, Toby Skinner, on a daily basis. They’re both excellent coaches and people.

I was in heaven training and learning from Bob. We talked at least a couple hours every day about weightlifting and life. I trained for 2-3 hours per day, and I had a great community there to help me. I’ll never forget one meeting: I asked Bob if he thought I was talented enough to make something out of my weightlifting career. He told me he thought I could compete for a medal at nationals one day if I stayed consistent with my training.

That was all I needed to hear. When we finished the meeting I was still on break, so I went to my car to decompress and just lost it. The overwhelming feeling of validation as an athlete swept through me in a wave of goosebumps from my arms up to my head. I may as well have already won nationals.

It was as if the time I’d spent training since failing as a quarterback had paid off. The pride I felt from the past medals won at local competitions paled in comparison to the compliment that Bob gave me that day. From that day on I kicked my training into a higher gear. Nothing was going to stand in my way of achieving my championship dream, but as training intensified, my lack of maturity as an athlete showed.

A Willingness to Suffer

Slowly but surely, my SI joint injury gradually came back. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning, which turned into trouble bending over, which became trouble walking. All the while, I continued to train.

I would get myself moving through foam rolling and stretching during my warm up, but the root of the problem was that I didn’t have a ceiling for how hard I was willing to train. How foolish that was. I was always willing to crawl out of the gym if that’s what it took to achieve the goal. I didn’t care if I was in agony. My rationale was that what I lacked in talent, I could make up in willingness to suffer. That blind ambition and venomous naivety would be my undoing.

My goal had legitimately taken over my life. If I wasn’t making food, driving, or training, I was resting and recovering. Any amount of expended energy that was not directed toward lifting more weight was wasted energy. In my reality, all systems needed to function toward obtaining the goal.

Eventually, the pain was inescapable. I had to get a second job to support myself, but moving around was constantly painful. My physical activity outside of training increased, which reduced my ability to handle the typical loads I trained with. When those loads became more difficult, my stubbornness refused to yield. Depression crept into my psyche, and the only thing I looked forward to each day was training.

“Practice What You Preach”

The odd thing about all of this is that I’ve always been able to separate coaching mindset from training mindset. I don’t tell my athletes to train through pain, nor will I. For some reason, perhaps arrogance, I was not practicing what I was preaching.

An opinion I’ve held from the beginning about people who try to compete and coach simultaneously is that they should not hold the same philosophical approach in each role. Ideally, the athlete knows enough about training strategy to make informed decisions but ultimately focuses on training and competition performance.

• Their confidence should carefully walk the line of cockiness.
• The coach is the thinker in the relationship and acts as a conservative advisor to the athlete. She assists the athlete in avoiding pitfalls on the road to success.
• The athlete should operate more on the risk-taking side of the spectrum while the coach operates as the risk manager.
• Coaches will be less effective as the risk takers because a conservatively minded athlete being told to accept risk by the coach cannot rid themselves completely of their inhibitions.
• Inhibitive thought processes reduce performance results.
• It is the athlete who must be held back from too much risk, not the coach.
• The proper balance for optimal performance is established when this relationship is such.

Not long after getting my second job as a personal trainer, I was offered a new job back in Wisconsin with the gym I started at when I was 13. My unhappiness was reaching a dangerous peak, and I felt it was a smart career move to take the position. Less than a week after training at my new facility I either bulged or herniated a disc in my lower back (I recently got an MRI that shows it’s herniated, we just don’t know exactly when it occurred).

I finally went to physical therapy. It was the source of my sciatic nerve pain, which I was associating with my SI joint. My physical condition declined drastically over the next seven months. I went from 195-200 lbs at 10-15% body fat to 170 lbs at 10-15% body fat. Severe depression kicked in

Since my normal coping mechanism could no longer be accessed, I started to drink. I felt trapped. Sleep and alcohol were the only escapes from the pain. I continued to train four days per week, but it wasn’t fun training. Physical therapy exercises on their own don’t exactly scratch the itch for someone used to lifting hundreds of pounds over their head on a daily basis.

In the 8th month of physical therapy, my pain began to subside. I could finally do some lifting and run, which was a totally different style of training than what I was used to. My mood drastically improved, and so did my career as a coach. I could focus on a healthy social life without the need to binge drink. Going home from work happily was a regular occurrence. Pain-free mornings were a wonderful way to start every day. Life was good all the way through Christmas 2017.

Just When Training Became Fun Again…

January 2, 2018, new year, new me mentality. I had been almost pain-free for four months. Front squatting twice a week, one high volume day and one high intensity (regularly doing singles at 110kg). Training was fun again, and the remnants of my old psyche gradually crept back into my mind. What if I could start competing again? Wouldn’t that be such a triumph?

I was going to back squat again for the first time since my injury a year earlier (to the day). My first three sets of pause squats went off without a hitch. The weights felt light and my technique felt great. All systems go

I tried the fourth set at 100kg (220lbs) after an 80kg triple. Descended with the weight on my back feeling light as a feather. When I stood up and locked out my legs, it felt like someone stabbed me in the sacrum with a hot knife. Luckily, I didn’t drop the weight, so I racked it and laid on the floor.

I knew what happened, and I was hopeful that I wouldn’t go all the way back to square one. We had a couple physical therapists on staff, so I went in to talk to them. They called it a pinched nerve, massaged me, and gave me some exercises to do. Off I went feeling optimistic.

The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed. I was so weak, the muscles in my abdomen wouldn’t engage to pull me out of bed. My psoas muscles were completely shut off, so flexing my hips was nearly impossible. Once I got to the edge of my bed, I couldn’t stand up. My legs felt useless.

Somehow, I managed my way down the stairs and broke down. I couldn’t take it anymore. I just cried to my dad (I was living at my parent’s house at the time) about how I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t go through another year of daily pain. How was I going to fix myself again?

A Shadow of My Former Self

Physical therapy seemed to be my way out, so I went to the appointments twice a week for a while. Work got busy, I let myself get distracted and stopped doing my PT exercises. Standing for longer than 10 minutes became nearly impossible. For the first time since I was 13, I was not on a training regimen. I sporadically trained 1-3 times per week, which involved basic exercises like pull-ups, pushups, and planks. Physically, I was a shadow of my former self.

I’m now almost done with the third round of physical therapy. I’ve enlisted the help of an orthopedic MD. I got an MRI a few weeks ago, showing a herniated disc between S1 and L5. My next step is to undergo steroid injections and continue non-axial loaded exercises. Staying out of surgery is the number one priority.

Cognitive behavioral therapy was also something I had to begin because I didn’t know who I was or how to function when my life wasn’t revolving around athletics, as it had been for 12 years. A large part of that therapy was understanding my relationship to exercise, and realizing that it cannot be my entire life.

Obsessed With Training

I felt daily compulsions to train. I loved the feeling of competing on stage in front of a crowd, and the satisfaction of undergoing immense discomfort for a big pay off on competition day. Working out and competing as an athlete was my entire life for 12 years.

I sacrificed academic success, social well-being, and personal happiness with the goal of becoming a champion. It started as an escape from reality during my formative high school years and ended with a severe spinal injury. The injury now permeates my daily life, affecting my lifestyle and reminding me of my young-adult naive stupidity. I’m not sure that I ever would have left the path I was on had I not contracted the injury.

The Criteria for Substance Abuse

“Exercise addiction” is not listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), however, the symptoms of exercise addiction easily fit the criteria for substance abuse:⁶

• Tolerance: increasing the amount of exercise in order to feel the desired effect, be it a buzz or a sense of accomplishment;
• Withdrawal: in the absence of exercise the person experiences negative effects such as anxiety, irritability, restlessness, and sleep problems;
• Lack of control: unsuccessful at attempts to reduce exercise level or cease exercising for a certain period of time;
• Intention effects: unable to stick to one’s intended routine as evidenced by exceeding the amount of time devoted to exercise or consistently going beyond the intended amount;
• Time: a great deal of time is spent preparing for, engaging in, and recovering from exercise;
• Reduction in other activities: as a direct result of exercise social, occupational, and/or recreational activities occur less often or are stopped;
• Continuance: continuing to exercise despite knowing that this activity is creating or exacerbating physical, psychological, and/or interpersonal problems.

A Precedent for Future Behavioral Addictions

The DSM-5 has also included gambling as a behavioral addiction, setting a precedent for future behavioral addictions, such as exercise addiction, to be included as well.

“The disorder can also be called exercise dependence, exercise addiction or compulsive athleticism. Not all compulsive exercisers, however, have eating disorders, leading experts to believe some sufferers are addicted to the act of exercising itself.” (Addiction A-Z 2018)

When you Google “exercise addiction” you will find two main kinds of articles:

1. Articles describing exercise as an addiction
2. Articles describing exercise as a technique to recover from addiction.

Exercise as a remedy for addiction is interesting because people with addictive personalities tend to get addicted to things that make them feel good (see criteria for substance abuse). In this case, exercise can become a substitute for the previous addiction.

This emphasizes the importance of coaches, trainers, and doctors being keen on identifying people that show signs of addictive behavior. Those who seem to have an unhealthy relationship to exercise need to hear from people they respect when they’re going too far.

Many of us have compulsive feelings. How those feelings manifest in our daily actions depends on what we like to spend our time on. Our ability to manage these feelings and deny their indulgence can be the crux of our functionality in society.

When we master the management of these feelings, we become valuable resources in the marketplace for people who struggle to do the same. This is a hugely positive component of losing my addiction, and why I now act as a warning to my athletes of what too far looks like.

Learning Gets Interesting

The addiction pushed me to learn as much as I could in a short amount of time about strength and conditioning and human performance. I still love these subjects and maintain my curiosity for more knowledge. As an athlete, I pushed my body to its limits, which may provide me with an uncommon perspective.

Now, my creativity is challenged even more because I have to create exercises that fit the description of what my doctor allows me to do (limit spinal compression as much as possible is the overarching rule). Who knows what wealth of insights lie beyond the border of what I currently know, and what is unknown. That’s where this stuff gets interesting.

If you want to get involved in strength and conditioning training for a sport, I advise hiring a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Naturally, the more years of experience and/or higher density of experience is preferable. If you want to get in shape safely, I would also advise hiring a certified and skilled personal trainer or group training coach.

Recognize the Symptoms and Take Action

Clearly, exercise is a favorable alternative to drugs and alcohol. It is absolutely not a cure for addictive and compulsive behavior, and may only feed those aspects of your personality. When left unchecked, any compulsive behavior can become unhealthy.

To learn to manage that kind of behavior, a qualified cognitive behavioral therapist may be necessary, along with an honest and caring group of people around you. Bottom line: Any addiction can be life-altering, the amount of alteration it creates depends on your ability to recognize and take action to balance it.

References:

1. “Opioid Overdose: Understanding the Epidemic.” CDC (2017, August 30). Retrieved June 6, 2018.

2. “U.S. drug overdose deaths continue to rise; increase fueled by synthetic opioids.” (2018, March 28). Retrieved June 6, 2018

3. McCarton Ackerman, “Just the Facts: Psychological vs Physical Addiction,” Behavioral Health, Detox, Drug Abuse, Mental Health, Science and Nature, Posted April 30, 2015.

4. Addiction A-Z. (n.d.). Retrieved June 8, 2018.

5. Anorexia Athletica. (2018). Retrieved June 8, 2018.

6. Freimuth, M., Kim, S. R., & Moniz, S. “Clarifying Exercise Addiction: Differential Diagnosis, Co-occurring Disorders, and Phases of Addiction.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2011.

The post Endorphins Feel Acutely Euphoric, Just Like Opioids appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

For the full program, you will need to download the spreadsheet attached to this article. As for equipment, you need a lifting platform or area where you can set up for a weightlifting sesssion. A barbell, some bumper plates, a rack, and a pull up bar.

As the trainee, you need to enter your 1RM values in the black box at the top. which will punch out your percentages in the blue boxes to the right. That table can then be used as a reference for what load to put on the bar. It is very important that your 1RM values are accurate because the program does not allow much room for error.

As for the clean and jerks, there are different patterns like 2+1, 2+2, 3+2, etc. The rule for this exercise is that the athlete should never do 2 jerks in a row. In other words, the bar should fall to the ground after every jerk. So a 2+1 should be two cleans in a row then a jerk. 2+2 is 1 clean and 1 jerk, drop the bar, 1 clean 1 jerk. 3+2 looks like 2 cleans, a jerk, drop the bar, then 1 clean and 1 jerk with as little rest as possible.

An example of the exercises in this program.

Also, whenever there are parentheses like (/4)4, the number inside is the number of reps, the number outside is the number of sets.

Lift heavy and get those 1RMs up before you break for the holidays. It’s also a great way to prepare and energize yourself for the new year.

Download Your 4-Week Training Spreadsheet

The post Your 1RM Present: A 4-Week End of Year Strength Program appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Any good gym will have a friendly staff to guide you through your beginner phase. [Photo credit: Thomas Showers]

Weight rooms can be wonderful social environments to relieve stress. Many of my good friends are people I met from the gym. Most of them are just trying to enjoy their workout and improve themselves. Our like-mindedness made for a quick connection! On the flip side, you don’t have to do much speaking to people if you don’t want to. I’ve been through many training sessions where I go about my business and only communicate with others for questions like, “Are you using this rack?” or, “How many sets do you have left?” Headphones are great tool if this is your objective; just make sure you are aware of your surroundings.

What’s in a Warm Up?

Okay, so now you’re in the weight room. What should you try first? Find an open area and do a quick 5-minute warm-up. The point of the warm-up is to literally warm the tissues in your body. A warm up can be as simple as doing 25 jumping jacks, lightly rowing for a few minutes, or even performing your first exercise with very little weight. The primary objectives of warming up are:

• Improve tissue pliability, nerve signal transmission, and muscle coordination via movement rehearsal
• Excite the endocrine (hormone) system
• Increase cardiac output
• Increase synovial fluid viscosity in the joints

Okay, so what do those mean? Improving tissue pliability makes the musculotendinous unit (your muscle and the connective tissue that attaches it to your bones) more compliant and less stiff, reducing your risk for injury. Faster nerve signal transmission will decrease reaction time and may allow you to stay on balance more effectively. Rehearsing a movement at a low intensity for practice will improve your coordination for the higher intensities. Exciting the endocrine system will set the metabolic processes in motion that are necessary for you to exercise at your full capacity. Increasing cardiac output means that your blood is being circulated faster. Increasing synovial fluid viscosity in the joints allows the tissue surfaces in the joints to glide with less friction.

Some people like to get fancy with their warm up by “activating” certain muscle groups that they deem to be important for their performance in the upcoming session. Activation exercises usually address synergistic muscles, or muscles that assist in a movement but are not prime movers. These are located around the hips or shoulders, and are addressed by performing an isolation exercise for the desired muscle. Doing so makes it more readily recruited, or used, during the primary exercises that follow.

For example, you notice your knees are caving excessively inward toward your midline during a squat. This may indicate that your internal rotator muscles are dominating over your external rotator muscles in the hips. Someone who likes activation exercises might use something like a banded clamshell. One set of 10-20 reps per side should be enough. You use that exercise before you squat for the next five sessions, and your knee-caving problem gradually dissolves from session to session. You should now stop using the activation exercise, and continue with the same technique in your squats. If the problem arises again, use the clamshells again or try another exercise.

Overall, a warm up can be simple or complicated. Put something together that works for you, and make sure you’ve broken a little sweat by the end.

Cardio or Lifting? Depends on Your Goals

You’ve just finished your warm up. What’s next? A common question is, “Should I do cardio or lift weights first?” The answer comes back to your fitness goals. If your primary objective is to set personal record times on the rower, running, cycling, etc. do that first. If getting stronger, building muscle, and burning fat are your goals, lift the weights first. If you’re indifferent or don’t have any of these goals, lift first.

Why should you lift before you do cardio? Cardio, if done right, should make you tired. Feeling tired prior to lifting heavy weights is a bad idea because your technique, focus, and strength will likely suffer; dampening the magnitude of stimulus you can provide to your body. Remember: the greater the stimulus, the greater the adaptation. Lifting weights at the appropriate volume and intensity will strengthen and build lean tissue in your body.

Lifting heavy weights after cardio won’t allow you to get the best training stimulus. [Photo credit: J Perez Imagery]

More often than not, the cardiovascular training people perform at the gym is called low-intensity, steady state (LISS). LISS is categorized by the intensity and duration you perform it. Walking, jogging, using the elliptical (perhaps the most ineffective piece of exercise equipment you’ll find), biking, or rowing at an easy to moderate pace is LISS. The stimulus you get from LISS sessions is usually not enough to send your body into this anabolic (building) state, and generally makes you feel tired for a short period of time after the session. This tired feeling won’t last like an intense session will. Basically, if you can hold your pace (or intensity) for longer than one minute, without getting heavily fatigued, then it’s too easy.

When it comes to cardio, intense, short bouts of sprinting, rowing, biking, etc. can provide a large enough stimulus to create significant adaptation. Each bout should last one minute or less and be alternated with a rest period. An example would be to row as hard as you can for one minute, rest for two minutes, and repeat for 15 total minutes. This style of training is commonly known as high intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT should be performed as a separate session from resistance training because both should be intense, and your body can only handle so much intensity at one time before it’s too much. HIIT is hard, but that’s the whole point! You’ve got to send a message to the body that it needs to adapt to the demands of this training, and the only messages that get through are the strongly worded ones.

Lifting Lingo

Lifting weights is similar to HIIT in that the lifter usually performs an exercise at a moderate-to-high intensity for a short period of time. This concept is called time under tension. The amount of time under tension for a training session is called volume. If you spend time in a weight room, most people don’t directly measure their volume in seconds or minutes; they measure in repetitions. A standard repetition for a resistance training exercise lasts three seconds; two seconds on the way down and one second on the way up with no wasted time in between. Small groups of repetitions are called sets. Sets are followed by a period of rest to prepare for the next set.

To draw a parallel to the rowing example, a lifter could theoretically perform a similar exercise for five sets of twenty standard repetitions with two minutes of rest between sets. This equates to the same volume as the rowing example. Exercising at moderate-to-high intensities followed by adequate rest periods stimulates adaptations in your body. Lifting weights and HIIT do that job well.

Don’t Over-Think the Cool Down

The end of your exercise session is a good time for stretching or self-massage techniques like foam rolling. This period of training should be used for 5-10 minutes of light movement, stretching large muscle groups, and massaging problem areas. A lot of people cool down by walking to the locker room, changing clothes, and walking to their car. There’s nothing wrong with cooling down this way; in fact, that’s usually what I do. Your body temperature is still decreasing at the same rate as if you performed a cool down routine.

The cool down can be separated from the session completely, if that’s what you prefer. Now, it’s not so much a cool down as it is an excuse to move around and do a quick “system check”. The system check can include a handful of callisthenic movements, foam rolling the entire body, and stretching the entire body. Throughout the system check I pay attention to areas that feel tight, painful, or somehow “out of whack,” and try to relieve them. Sometimes, I’ll do a system check in the morning, before I lift, and before I go to bed. That may seem excessive, but the more it’s done, the easier it is to stay on top of imbalances. Here’s the takeaway for cool downs: You’re going to cool down no matter what. It’s just a convenient place to fit in stretching, massaging, and lightly moving around, which everyone should be doing.

Time to Get Started

I hope this article has answered some general questions you may have had about working out in a gym. In future articles, I’ll be diving into the specifics of the methods I’ve outlined, and show you how to design your own training program. For now, explore the gym and all it can offer.

Don’t let age be a barrier:

Starting Weightlifting Over 40

The post What to Expect Your First Time in the Gym appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Variable resistance training (VRT), plyometrics, and the Olympic lifts are three popular means of developing power in athletes. All strategies are proven to be effective, but are there periods when one is more appropriate than the others? These are the essential differences:

• VRT places low demand on technical proficiency, but lacks triple extension.
• Plyometrics develop triple extension power under light loads, and are highly specific to most sports.
• The Olympic lifts offer triple extension power development under heavy loads, along with a holistic means of monitoring overall training status of the athlete, but require adequate skill from both the coach and athlete.

I underwent a 600-hour strength and conditioning internship with a Division 1 university as a coach in their Olympic sports department. Coaching in the university athletics setting, I learned that time, or lack thereof, was an important consideration for the training of these athletes.

That being the case, finding “bang for your buck” in exercise selection was absolutely paramount. The Olympic lifts were often coached; however, not nearly enough time could be allocated to their development for the full benefits to come to fruition. Other means to develop power such as VRT and plyometrics were more commonly used, and proven effective.

A recent study¹ showed that adding band resistance of 30% 1RM to the back squat during one training session per week in NCAA Division II collegiate basketball players increased rate of power development more so than the control group, which did not use VRT.

Vertical jump measurements also showed greater improvements than the control, and the researchers cited previous studies showing the same results within their write up.

VRT shines in training environments that have time contstraints or high athlete-to-coach ratios. [Photo credit: Thomas Showers]

Variable resistance training is time efficient because of its ease of execution and implementation.

Take a high-bar back squat for example: a simple movement that involves removing a barbell from a rack, setting the feet at proper width, and maintaining a tight back and midsection throughout a full range of motion squat. Attaching a band to both sides of the barbell and instructing the athlete to squat can take less than a minute.

Adding resistance that increases as the lifter becomes more erect in posture requires more effort during the range of motion that should be the easiest in a squat (the top end).

This forces the lifter to accelerate toward the top of a squat, a trait also present in the Olympic lifts.

The top of the squat inherently places more stress on the quadriceps, which are involved in knee extension. Thus, the acceleratory factor during this stage of movement assists in developing power in the quadriceps (knee extensors). The ankles and hips are not brought to complete extension during the exercise.

The apparatus for this exercise is quick to set up and can be reproduced on multiple squat racks if the training session involves a large group of athletes.

The relatively simplistic technical nature of a high-bar back squat allows the coach to issue quick technique corrections, making them efficient in monitoring multiple athletes at once. This strategy is therefore effective for a coach who must deal with with high volumes of athletes during a session, and who aims to develop powerful knee extension in their athletes.

Olympic Lifts for Triple Extension Intensity

I now coach for a weightlifting and strength and conditioning facility, in which coaching the Olympic lifts are the primary focus. All athletes start practicing these movements on day one, no matter their background, because of how universally effective the lifts can be.

The snatch, clean, and jerk all involve rapid extension of the ankles, knees, and hips at the top of the pull, and dip and drive. The simultaneous extension of these three joints is commonly known as “triple extension.”

Triple extension is also present in a jump or a sprint, arguably the two most common movements in athletics.

The Olympic lifts are essentially a loaded jump while holding a heavy barbell, although rather than propelling one’s body into the air (which can still happen slightly) the lifter propels the barbell into the air and subsequently catches it.

The catch of a snatch, clean, or jerk requires immense stability of the entire body. If any muscle (or group of muscles) is significantly asymmetrically developed, it will show. This is where a sharp coach’s eye becomes important.

Proficiency in the execution of the snatch, clean, and jerk can be judged by the “coach’s eye,” or the coach’s ability to notice errors and inefficiencies in the lifter’s technique.

A keen eye can discover imbalances in a lifter’s musculoskeletal development simply by watching them move on a rep-to-rep basis.

Sharpening one’s eye requires time and experience. It is a skill that is constantly improving or worsening, so it must be used frequently to maintain.

An eye for movement is not exclusive to the Olympic lifts, and should be developed for all movements as a means to monitor an athlete’s progress. The Olympic lifts provide a unique medium to critique an athlete’s movement because of the extreme circumstances they provide.

For the adept coach, a heavily loaded barbell pulled from the floor, launched into the air, and subsequently stabilized overhead or on the shoulders reveals weak links in the chain of movement.

An example of this is a lifter who rotates to one side during the catch of a snatch. This inefficiency indicates that there is a group of muscles contracting in an asymmetrical pattern to the other side, somewhere along the kinetic chains (which run from the toes up to the wrists on both sides of the body).

Let’s say the left hip is externally rotating slightly and the right is internally rotating slightly during a catch in the snatch. Depending on which leg is dominant and how capable the athlete is, this may manifest as an imbalance of force application to the barbell, resulting in a rotation to either side.

Imbalanced hips are often the source of this symptom, but it can also be caused by something as small as gripping the floor more with one foot than the other. Fixing a problem such as this is a topic for another article.

The primary reason the Olympic lifts are irreplaceable in an athlete’s preparation for competition is because of the potential for absolute intensity, or load on the bar, during triple extension.

The most powerful moment in all of sports is the second pull of the clean (the phase of the pull where the knees re-bend and aggressively drive the bar upward to the shoulders).

The second pull mimics the postures present in a maximal effort jump, so heavily loading it will stimulate a unique adaptation. The same can be said of snatches and jerks, during the second pull and amortization of the dip and drive, respectively. No other exercise involving triple extension offers the same potential for absolute intensity.

Loaded Plyometrics and Risk

Plyometrics do not offer the same stimulus to the body as the Olympic lifts because they lack the same absolute intensity. The closest plyometric exercises in intensity may be depth jumps from great height, or the back squat jump.

Back squat jumps provide a loaded means for triple extension, but hip extension is generally incomplete because the implement is placed upon the upper back. Securing the bar to the upper back requires a slight forward tilt of the torso.

Theoretically, an athlete’s back squat jump could be the same absolute intensity as their Olympic lifts, if the back squat 1RM was high enough. Typically, back squat jumps are loaded between 40% and 50% of the 1RM back squat.

Anything more than 50% introduces too much risk of injury. VRT back squat jumps may require even lighter loading. The risk for horizontal movement of the athlete relative to the anchor point of the bands creates potential for non-perpendicular forces to the ground. Chains would be more appropriate for this exercise.

The snatch, clean, and jerk are typically loaded from 60%-100% 1RM, allowing for a variety of speed and force combinations to perform the movements with. The pull of the snatch or clean places the implement in front of the body, and held with the hands.

This bar placement allows for slight backward lean at the end of the second pull, which should be achieved by complete hip extension. Risk of injury is very low with these movements, as long as the coach progresses the athlete appropriately.

Variable resistance training and plyometrics are undoubtedly effective tools to make athletes more powerful. They are typically suited for periods of training where specificity is important.

The two methods are also effective in environments where multiple athletes are training simultaneously. To learn more about VRT, examine literature on the Westside Barbell method, and visit local strength andconditioning or powerlifting gyms. For plyometrics, read the works of Yuri Verkhoshansky, and talk to strength and conditioning or track and field coaches.

Ultimately, the Olympic lifts require a fair amount of skill to execute and coach, and provide a unique means for loading triple extension with high absolute intensity. They also offer the opportunity to monitor an athlete’s movement efficiency.

Developing a keen eye for these efficiencies or inefficiencies takes experience. If you want to gain experience in coaching these lifts, find a weightlifting club near you on the USA Weightlifting website; preferably one with a highly experienced coach that’s developed national level lifters.

Be humble and let them teach you a thing or two. Take the USAW coaching courses, read the literature, and immerse yourself in a training environment. Strength coaching is a trade. Trades involve apprentices and masters, and no one gets to skip their apprenticeship.

Weightlifters: What should your training focus be?

How to Analyze Which of Your Lifts Needs Attention

Guide your athletes:

Move Well First: A New Path for Coaching Fitness

Reference:

1. Joy, Jordan M., Ryan P. Lowery, E. Oliveira de Souza, and Jacob M. Wilson. “Elastic bands as a component of periodized resistance training.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2013).

The post Lower Body Power: VRT vs Plyometrics vs Olympic Lifts appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Take the first step towards making a change – that’s usually the hardest part. [Photo credit: Thomas Showers]

Your Body Is Adaptive

Let’s establish what exercise means to the body. Your body is incredibly adaptive to the stresses of its environment. If it spends most of its time sitting in a chair typing on a computer, it will change its structure and function to fit the demands of sitting and typing on the computer. If we immerse you in an environment that involves appropriate physical stress, it will specifically adapt to what those stresses are. This immersion in physical stress is commonly known as working out. People generally work out for 1-2 hours a day, 3-5 times per week and get healthy, strong bodies from it. Remember: your body will adapt to the environment you immerse it in.

Step 1: What Do You Want to Be?

The first step is to think about some goals that you have for your body. If maintaining a healthy heart is all you want from training, then walking, running, or playing sports will probably be enough to achieve that goal. Many people want to look good naked. For them, a combination of resistance and cardiovascular training will be the most effective option. Others want more from training. These people want to be strong, look great naked, have a healthy body, and perhaps compete in sports. Fitness enthusiasts are often drawn to sports like weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding, Crossfit, triathlons, marathons, etc. They want the whole spectrum of benefits that physical training can offer. No matter your long-term goal, you need to establish small and medium sized goals to check off along the way. Doing so will ensure you stay on the right track.

Step 2: Select Your Medium

Once you’ve decided on your goals, step two is to select a training medium. The medium through which you exercise should be somewhat enjoyable because it needs to become a habit, especially if you are not already active on a daily basis. This could be playing basketball, soccer, intense games of ping pong (I’ve walked away from some ping pong games sweating like crazy), lifting weights, running, walking, or anything you enjoy that gets you moving around and tired. Hopefully, the innate enjoyment you feel from your chosen activity will make it easier for you to perform it three or more days per week. If that amount of activity is enough to wipe you out after every session, then stick to it for about a month. Make an effort to discover aspects of the activity that you enjoy, and aspects you don’t enjoy. Remember to set those small goals from session to session, or within a session. These goals can manifest as exercising with 5lbs more than your last set, adding extra repetitions, running an extra 100 meters, etc. Use your creativity!

Step 3: Find a Buddy and Keep It Fun

Finding a partner to do the activity with is a good strategy, because it may assist in holding both of you accountable to the schedule. If you don’t enjoy physical activity and are having a hard time choosing a medium, remember that there is something to enjoy about all the options; you may just have to spend some time discovering the enjoyable part. You’re just getting started, so let’s keep it fun in the beginning.

If you decide to play sports as your starting point, great choice. Sports do a good job of giving you tasks to distract from the exercise and keeping the environment fun. You’ll use your body in new ways and perhaps discover your hidden athleticism.

Step 4: Find a Place and a Coach

The fourth step is twofold and involves finding a place to exercise. For those just starting their exercise journey, this can be in your living room, at the park, at a gym, or virtually anywhere. Obviously, if your medium requires certain amounts of space or equipment then you’ll need to adjust your environment accordingly. You need to be somewhat comfortable with your environment. Remember that any change you decide to make in your fitness will involve some level of discomfort.

I recommend hiring a coach or personal trainer if you have the means to do so. The spectrum of quality coaching is very wide in this field, so it’s important to know how to identify the high quality coaches. Hire a coach with the appropriate certifications and make sure the governing body of those certifications is nationally recognized. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), are nationally recognized organizations and offer courses to certify personal trainers (CPT’s). The NSCA also offers a certification called the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), which requires a college degree and issues perhaps the most extensive exam in the field.

The perfect coach should hold a degree in exercise science, biology, or similar field, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) for the NSCA, has a long and impressive client portfolio; and successfully coaches an iron sport (weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding, Crossfit), track and field, or distance running, depending on your chosen exercise medium. Successful coaches in these sports should have an understanding of effective training because winning performances necessitate it.

Keep Going Until It’s Fun

If we take a step back to look at your overall fitness journey, we want you to get to a point where the physical exercise itself is what you enjoy. This kind of exercise can be in the form of lifting weights, running, rowing, cycling, or many others. These are collectively known as strength and conditioning. Experienced athletes do them because they like how they feel, and that’s what you should try to achieve. These exercise forms are consistent, effective, and time efficient. The great part is that you never have to drop the sports you enjoy. In fact, these forms of exercise can be organized to improve performance for your preferred sport.

If you’ve decided that now is the time to get fit once and for all, these are the first steps you should take. Establish some concrete goals, choose an exercise medium that you’ll stick with, find a conducive training environment, and choose an experienced coach. We’ll get into the details of what comes next in a later article. For now, just take the first step towards making a change. That’s usually the hardest part.

Don’t let your fitness fall victim to your intellect:

Less Brains, More Heart

Create the community and nail the vibe:

Use Music to Drive Your Workouts

The post Your First 4 Steps Toward a Fitter Life appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Every coach worth mettle uses some form of periodization, which is a big word for planning variations in an athlete’s training over a given portion of time. Periodizing a training program effectively allows an athlete to steadily progress and achieve “peaks” in performance when necessary.

Two popular forms of periodization are traditional (TP) and daily undulating (DUP). Traditional is characterized by high initial volume and low intensity that gradually shifts to low volume and high intensity. Undulating is characterized by frequent shifts in volume and intensity, usually on a daily or weekly basis. While a graph of these changes will show many peaks and valleys, the trend line is the same as traditional.

A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research pits these two styles of periodization against each other to discover which is more effective for increasing strength, power, and hypertrophy in adolescent elite judoka athletes.

While this population appears quite specific, the results of the study reinforce some principles both coaches and athletes should consider during the program planning process. First, let’s look at the study design.

The Study Design

Eleven total athletes ranging from 14.2 to 15.4 years old engaged in strength training three times per week during two, four-week mesocycles separated by a seven week washout period.

The first mesocycle, preceded by a two-week period for baseline measurements, utilized traditional periodization. The second mesocycle utilized daily undulating periodization. The two-week baseline included regular Judo training with no strength training.

Mesocycles one and two had both Judo and strength training, and the washout period had no Judo with only recreational activity. Both mesocycles used the same exercise list, with the goal of improving upper, lower, and total body strength and power.

The exercises selected were the snatch, clean and jerk, squat, knee flexion curl, lat pull-down, barbell bench press, and barbell bench pull. Total and lower body exercises were performed in the morning while upper body exercises were performed in the afternoon.

Tests for the one repetition maximum (1RM) were administered twice during baseline, once after TP, once after washout, and once after DUP. Anthropometric and ultrasonographic measurements were also taken to monitor hypertrophy.

The Study Results

Traditional and daily undulating periodization were equally effective in improving lower, upper, and total body strength, power, and hypertrophy. The researchers concluded that the force-velocity characteristics of the chosen exercises may have been the root cause of the athletes’ performance increases.

In other words, the researchers think that the speed of the bar combined with the amount of force being exerted by the athletes had greater effect on their improvements than the periodization type.

Study Considerations

The group of athletes selected for this study were young in chronological, biological, and training age. All possessed a lot of talent. These factors cultivated a fertile combination for improving performance. When this combination is present, any program that follows the basic principles of strength training will elicit performance improvement.

It is true that some styles are more effective than others, but there is no need to try and get fancy with program planning in this specific population. The low chronological age should encourage coaches to keep things fun in the training environment so the athletes don’t burn out.

The athletes’ biological age places them in a phase of life when anabolic hormone production is high, thus creating a conducive environment within the body for adaptation. Low training age suggests that the athletes should make steady initial improvement as a result of learning new motor patterns and improving neurological efficiency.

In simpler terms, they’re practicing new skills and getting better quickly. Finally, these athletes were categorized as “elite” in the sport of Judo, so they’re highly talented. Talent has too many components to break down in this article, so suffice it to say they most likely achieved proficiency in movement skills much faster than average.

Complicated Periodization Isn’t Needed for Kids

These athletes probably would have improved from any fundamentally sound training program, no matter the type of periodization. Traditional periodization is a common starting point because beginners respond well to it.

Undulating periodization becomes necessary for athletes of higher training age, because it allows for more recovery and the training of multiple performance qualities at once. It also provides a solution to a problem that may not exist yet in this population.

Within this study, both types worked because of the psychological and physiological conditions present in its chosen population. Coaches lucky enough to be given a young and exceptional athlete to develop should aim to keep them interested, injury-free, and constantly improving.

More on youth programming: The Middle School Block Zero Strength Program

Keep your athletes moving safely: Coaches: Learn How to Keep Young Shoulders Healthy

References:

Ullrich, B., Pelzer, T., Oliveira, S., & Pfeiffer, M. (2016, August). “Neuromuscular Responses to Short-Term Resistance Training With Traditional and Daily Undulating Periodization in Adolescent Elite Judoka“. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 30(8), 2083-2099.

Headline photo credit: Vladimir57 via Shutterstock.

The post Traditional vs. Undulating Periodization in Youth Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.