POWERLINE STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
Go with a three- to fi ve-minute dynamic warm-up prior to any static stretching. Dynamics increase blood and oxygen fl ow to the muscles and enhance the elastic properties of connective and muscle tissue.
Create A Conditioning Culture In The Offseason
10 points of emphasis for training athletes with competition many months away
By Ken Mannie, Head Strength/Conditioning Coach, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
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ost spring/fall sport coaches are well into their offseason strength and conditioning regimens, and it’s an opportune time to step back momen-
tarily and assess the initial goals set forth by coaches and athletes. Doing this either reaffi rms the approach in place or allows enough time to make the needed changes and still achieve the intended results. While the pace is usually frenetic this time of year—
and the details often seem overwhelming—there are priorities that cannot get lost in the mayhem. Not all of these components are physical in nature. The following is our Top 10 list—in no particular order of importance—of priorities we set during this period.
Maintain a prideful, functional training envi- ronment. Whether you are fortunate enough to
March/April 2013
have a pristine, state-of-the-art train- ing facility, or have to sweat blood just to set up shop in a renovated boiler room, make the very most of it. I’ve traveled the entire facility spectrum in my 38-year coaching ca- reer. That span encompasses a ru- dimentary high school space in the mid-1970s, which was equipped with whatever odds and ends we could salvage, to our 16,500 square-foot, multi-million dollar facility here at Michigan State University. In every situation, coaches and ath- letes worked together for a common cause, used the resources at our dis- posal to the utmost, dug our prover- bial trenches, applied a heavy dose of elbow grease and went to work. If you’re stuck in what could be perceived to be a dungeon, then make it the best training dungeon in your conference. Clean it, paint it in the school’s colors, emblazon your school’s logo on a wall along with other motivational graphics and fur- nish it with the safest, best equipment your budget allows.
Maintaining 2
Be assured that the strength program is all-inclusive. periodic checks on
the comprehensive nature of your strength training program is vital. All sports require the entire muscu-
lar system—as an interdependent conglomerate of neu- ral, morphological and histological components—be addressed on a consistent, progressive basis. This net- work includes the muscles of the head/neck, shoulders, chest, upper back, legs (including lower compartments and ankle area) and core (as we defi ne core, this encom- passes the entire abdominal area, low back complex, hip complex and the superior aspect of the hamstring origin at the Ischial tuberosity). Place an emphasis on each of these areas at least two to three times by the end of the training week.
Dynamic and static fl exibility activities should be a mainstay. To stretch or not to stretch is of- ten the burning question in athletics. Recommendations on stretching usually are sketchy and sometimes con- fl icting. While the injury prevention variable continues to be a conditioning hot potato, most practitioners and clinicians believe that stretching signifi cantly improves fl exibility. From a performance perspective, improved fl exibility—when combined with increased overall strength—heightens power output.
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