Versatile Training Academy Insider | July 2023Post

Author

Devin Young
July 11, 2023

 

 

Versatile Training Academy Insider | July 2023

 

Welcome to the Versatile Training Academy Insider Newsletter, your go-to resource for the latest updates, tips, and strategies in athletic performance. Whether you are an athlete striving for peak performance or a coach looking to elevate your training programs, this newsletter has you covered.

 

 Athlete's Corner

For many athletes, July is the peak of summer in multiple ways. In most of the United States, it is hot, and people are taking time out of their usual routine and vacationing. It is personally my favorite time of the summer. It is also the middle point of summer training/programs, a time of training that might seem boring or stale. Remember, this time will lead to the strength and power gains we all want in late August when fall sports start back up.

 

Summer for most athletes is the long stretch of structured training in the weight room where consistency will be your best friend in terms of gaining strength and adding in injury prevention come season time. Three to four days a week will be the perfect amount of time in the weight room. As a strength coach, I understand that summer leagues, tournaments, camps, and vacations are going to happen. I recommend three total body training sessions weekly to ensure your training does not fall off. Three total body workouts is a great split to create an adaption for increased performance and enough recovery time in-between training days.

 

With the total body splits, the exercise choice can easily be set up to ensure that the athlete is not too sore for a sporting event a day after training. Remember, summer is the time to set yourself up for a great session: be consistent, train hard, and recover hard!

 

Training Techniques Hang Clean Progression 1:

When teaching the hang clean, I have a specific progression to ensure the technique is learned, repeated, and mastered. This week, I will break down the first step I teach to learning the hang clean. This is the same I would run for the first 3-5 lifts until we move on to progression 2 of the hang clean.

Over the past 7+ years as a coach, I have come to really appreciate the small but important details of the complex Olympic lifts. Taking your time (an extra week or two) will not limit the progress your client will make, but rushing the progress can be a step back that limits progress or could even lead to injury.

 

Progression 1 is all about the position in the most basic sense. We have the athlete/client grab the bar a thumbs width from the start of the knurling on the bar (where the smooth and rough parts of the bar meet). They should have a good hand position that is even to ensure the bar is balanced. The next step is having the athlete stand tall and we tell them to squeeze their shoulder blades together. We ensure they have a tight back that will not flex forward. One key point is to make sure they are not shrugging their shoulder; they need to remain relaxed. The final two steps are to have them curl their wrist in and slightly unlock their knees. Once completed, this should look like our power position in the movement of the hang clean with shoulders slightly behind the bar and flexion at the knees, hips, and ankles.

 

Progression 2 will be coming in our next issue of the newsletter. In the link (here) is a video demo of this progression. Remember, this step might seem super simple, but I have found that if it is mastered, the carry-over and speed people progress in the hang clean is worth the time and patience it takes.

 

Coaches Corner- “Where Iron Sharpens, Iron”

 

Periodization and Program Design:

One of my favorite summer program design templates is 3x a week total body session. Whether I was at the Division I level, Division III, or training GPP clients, it is my go-to program for one main reason; it is Minimal Time Required. In the summer, people take vacations, work, do internships, and are in a less structured schedule than during the fall and spring (mainly looking at college athletes here). The total body split allows for days to easily be moved around. We could go Monday/Wednesday/ Friday, Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, or Monday/Tuesday/Friday. It allows for any combination with no feeling that if I miss a day, I miss a whole section of my body, which can be the case in an Upper/Lower Split.

 

As a coach, I know summertime is tough for consistent training. I have yet to work at a school where I had my teams there over the summer, so I do my best with programming to make it as easy for them to be successful. My mindset is that they might only have a Planet Fitness and 45 minutes, so with 3x a week, it is not a lot of training. My main goal for summer training is to make sure my athletes have the chance to be successful versus feeling overwhelmed and they end up not training because of the demanding pressure.

 

When you’re programming for your athletes and clients over the summer, when it comes to exercises, periodization, and time remember the KISS (Keep It Stupid Simple) principle.

 

 

Versatile Training Academy Podcast:

Our latest episode of the podcast is up on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and YouTube. This episode is about how VTA builds warm-ups for lifting and conditioning sessions. Below are the links for the episode. If you want to learn more about building a better warm-up, leave a comment after you listen.

 

 

That wraps up this edition of the Versatile Training Academy Insider Newsletter. We hope you found the content valuable and informative. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future topics, feel free to reach out to us.