Performance- The action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.

When talking about strength and conditioning the primary goal is to improve athletic performance. In a traditional setting a strength and conditioning coach can therefore monitor his work objectively by measuring; weight lifted, speed a distance is covered, points scored during a match, and even points stopped during a match. What happens though, when there is not a playing field to watch the athlete perform? What happens when the arena to compete disappears and the only measurable numbers are in the weight room or on a track? Can we still focus on improving performance? How can we properly prepare for something that is not there? That is what I am looking to cover today and in the future, but first we need to cover a few basics.

Begin each day as if it were on purpose

Will Smith

The fitness community has began to focus almost entirely on elite athletes and hollywood actors. The information that is readily available to you is more than often the same strategies that are used to get someone ready for the big screen or the big game. As a community the fitness industry no longer covers the basics. We put too much attention on how to use information from your Heart Rate Variability to better recover, without first teaching an athlete how sleep and nutrition will allow them to perform better. We are quickly fed interval training with kettlebells, barbells, and resistance bands without first learning how to do a proper bodyweight squat. All of the information that we are able to see should make us all be better performers and athletes, the problem is that they should not be the center of our training. Like supplements they should add to our diet, not encompass it.

A good strength and conditioning program will develop a complete athlete. There are many ways to add to the basics in order to make them more specific to your goals, but for now let’s focus on what will work for everyone.

There are 3 key components that are present in every good strength and conditioning program. Most often however one of them is completely ignored and the other one is performed poorly. Let’s look at each of these principles and understand how they can help improve your workouts, but your quality of life.

Strength Training

For the strength portion we will be developing using an example on how to develop an athlete’s squat. In this example the athlete tested a 135lb squat for 5 repetitions (5RM) and we are looking to progressively increase weight during the week. Our reasoning to starting the month so light is so that we can practice the movement of the squat under a manageable load and slowly progressing to a heavier weight than we tested.

As you can see by programming a month this way you are able to slowly work up to adding 10lbs to the original 5RM in a single month. By linearly progressing this way you would theoretically be able to add 60lbs to your squat in a single year. Of course once this style of programming stops working we would make tweeks, but this will be discussed in a later post.

Conditioning

For the conditioning portion we will be developing the One Mile Run. In this example we will pretend the current one mile time is 10 minutes. To keep things simple we will only program a 400M interval workout throughout the week. Our goal is to slowly progress to a point where we can learn to pace ourselves at a higher speed. Programming this way allows us to become more efficient with the way that we run and allows us to become more comfortable running at a faster pace.

During the programming the intensity of the workout remains constant throughout the week, but the volume of the run starts to increase. By being able to increase the volume you are increasing your aerobic capacity and enabling for progress in the timed event. Slowly increasing the intensity and volume will prevent injury and fatigue during the program. By programming the conditioning and strength session you are allowing your body an entire day to recover.

Take Action

I included some PDFs that will allow you to program some workouts of your own. Make sure you test were you are currently by finding out your baseline and progressing yourself slowly throughout the month. Give yourself some wiggle room and you will find that you do not need to train to failure in order to get stronger and faster. All that it takes is consistency and rest.

If you give this a try feel free to send me a message or contact me at echtrainingsystems@gmail.com I would love to hear how your workouts are going!

Hey There! Thank you for visiting my blog! My goal is that with each article I write I can share some of the things I have learned in order to bring strength and conditioning to athletes and working folks alike!

I will cover basics and foundations of training. I hope that by sharing basic concepts you are able to improve the quality of your workouts, nutrition, and maybe even your life in general!

Why do this?

• There is a lot of information online. Unfortunately, most of what is readily available is either wrong or not appropriate for everyday individuals that are just looking at getting stronger and moving better.
• I enjoy sharing how training and sport in general has allowed me to become a better person. I hope that by sharing simple actionable items you are able to grow with me too.

Interested in learning more about a certain topic? Here is some basics I would love to cover in the near future:

• What are small things I can do today that can set me up to be successful in the future?
• What is the best way to start training?
• What is the best way to train when you are busy?
• How to transition from basic, intermediate, to advanced programs?

Obviously this blog is going to be very flexible and I would love to connect with whoever is out there reading. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me through email and let me know what things you are currently working on: ECHTrainingSystems@Gmail.com