Adaptive Efficacy in Resistance Training [Infographic]

Here there is another infographic, this time about adaptive efficacy in resistance training.

In a nutshell, what are you training for according the RM (repetition maximum, which is how many reps you can do with a certain weight).

Enjoy it ;)

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Olympic Games [Infographic]

Click to enlarge.
Enjoy it ;)

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PS: done in about 3h with Inkscape

Light Traffic [Warm-up Drill]

The warm-up could be the most boring part of the training session.

2 laps of run, back-pedalling on the short sides, sprint the last 20 meters. Then, all on one line and do some dynamic stretching; job done.

Every time the same routine. If people spends a lot of time thinking about new drills to avoid the tedium, why shouldn't we do the same for the warm-up?

Here I will show you a nice warm up drill that I use when I am coaching multisport.

This drill is called “The light-traffic”.

All your players are on the line (again?). When they are ready, you shout red, orange or green.

Green → they sprint forward

Orange → they slowly run forward

Red → they stop

You keep on shouting the colours and you can even change the exercise, e.g. back-pedalling or frog jumps, focusing on the muscles that the players are going to use the most during the training.

To make the drill more competitive and fun, you can introduce a forfeit every time a player doesn't follow your command, for instance you shout red! Then, red again and someone runs forward instead of staying still.

The effectiveness of this drill depends on the “creativity” of the coach and on his ability to make the training “interesting”.

Coaches in UK [Infographic]

I quite like infographics. They allow you to represent data in a creative way... "Miscere utile dulci" as Orazio said once (for those of you who does not speak Latin - unbelievable - it means "to mingle the useful with the pleasant").

This is my actual first infographic (click to enlarge) and I do recognise that there is a lot of room for improvements. Please let me know what you think :)

Enjoy it!
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Netball: Possession analysis 1.5

As I promised in my last post, I watched a match on youtube to test my performance table.

Well... I watched only a quarter...

I came up with some improvements.

Column POSS.

If the team get possession because the opponents committed a fault, e.g. foot work, I will put F under this column.

Moreover, if the team loses possession because of a fault, I will draw a line over that possession.

It might happen that the team is defending and loses a rebound. I should put this under the REBOUND.DEF column, but in this way I will use a line for the possession and the team hasn't got the ball (my table track possession only).

So far, I put an L to remind me that they lost a rebound and to not count that line as possession; I think I should write them down somewhere else.... any idea?

Anyway, this is an infographic that I created to show the data of the 1st Quarter Commonwealth Netball Final between New Zealand and Australia.


Bye bye!

Netball: Possession Analysis 1.0

During our last lecture of Performance Analysis we have been asked to design a table to analyse the possession in netball.

I thought: "Cool! Eventually we begin to do practical stuffs!"

Yet, I have only a little concern. I have no idea how to play netball. Just a small detail.

In my country netball basically does not exist; the same goes for cricket for instance. So I decided to go to watch the training of one of the uni team.

After getting a vague idea how does this sport work, I came up with this table (click to enlarge):

I am considering all the output of the possession: shoot (miss or score) and losing ball (due to wrong pass or interception by an opponent). I am not counting the number of passes because it is irrelevant, unless there is a specific need, e.g. decrease the passes to get into opponent’s area.

Moreover, on the first column I am tracking down how the team got possession and the data concerned to rebounds is in the last two column.

Next image shows the table with some raw data in it. Bare in mind that is a “hand and paper” table. I just virtually recreate it for the purpose of this article.

I am going to explain how this table works.

Every line represents one possession and the output of that possession.

Column POSS.

If it is empty, it mean that the team get possession after a shot missed by the opposition, so they move the ball from their area or they keep possession after scoring. If they intercepted the ball, I put In; if they won a rebound in defence, I write down Re and I use Wr if they got the ball because the challengers missed the pass .

Column SHOOT\SCORE and SHOT\MISS

This one is very easy. If they score I put O and if they miss I put X under the right column.

Column WRONG\MISS and WRONG\INTER.

You will find an X under MISS if the team misses the pass. On the other column, you will find an X every time their passes are intercepted.

Still, there is one more output. If the pass is intercepted but the ball goes out (the team still keep possession). In this case, you will find X(F).

Column REBOUND\DEF and REBOUND\ATT

If the team win the rebound, I write O under the correct column (if it happens while attacking, under ATT and under DEF if it happens while defending); on the other hand, if they lose the rebound, I write X.

Apexes

You may have noticed that sometimes there is a number close to an X. I use this number (apex) to keep chronological information of the possession.

Let's have a look at the row 6. The team intercepts the ball and they manage to shoot but they miss (X¹); yet, they win the rebound (O²) and finally score (O³).

Let me know what do you think and how can I improve it.

One limit of this table is that is general and not specific to the single athlete; moreover, we do not know in which part of the court interceptions and missed passes take place.

I am going to watch more games (real one would be better; otherwise youtube is the place to be) to test it further more and to make some arrangement.

Hypertrophy Training: planner overview

To track the progression of my friend's hypertrophy workout I created a training log with OpenOffice Calc, a software like Microsoft Excel but free.
This is what a week of training looks like (click to enlarge):

We use the Strength Training Anatomy book of Delavier as reference for the exercises. The number  between brackets referred to the page of Delavier's manual.
This is a daily workout:

This image is from TUE workout.
We started with a warm-up with the skipping rope. 15 set of 30sec, 10sec between sets. Follow this, we did dynamic stretching for the upper body.

First body part worked was shoulders. We began with a superset focused on the front deltoid; after we did the Nautilus in stripping mode to isolate the deltoids and to stress them as much as possible. Last exercise for the shoulders was focused on the front deltoid too.

Second body part was upper arms.
All the exercises were executed normally and wee mainly focused on the biceps for this session.
As you can see, the triceps extension is highlighted in green. It means that my friend enjoyed this exercises or he found it very useful to pump the muscle. In this case, he felt that the squeezing was very emphasized during this movement.
On the other hand, I will highlighted an exercise in red if something went wrong (or he didn't like it).

A workout ends always with a cool down, generally a low intensity run on the treadmill, followed by 10 min of dynamic stretching.

The next image referred to the feedback.

On a scale 1 to 5, we cover fun, challenging, satisfaction, fatigue pre\post workout of the day. He also write me his weight after the training.
Training intensity is a formula (tot.reps divided by tot.sets) to have an idea of the workout load.

This is how my planner looks like!