Realization In Training
This week, I wanted to take some time and talk about a concept called realization in training. This is the process of putting a concept, idea or principle into practice. When we think of it in training, we want what we worked on in the weight room and off the field to translate into on the field performance. As the theory of specificity applies, the closer we can get training to mimic play, the better.
This is where we start to look at unilateral versus bilateral training. Simply put this is the difference between being on two feet squared up versus one foot for a given exercise. For bilateral training, think of traditional lifts like squats, and deadlifts. Unilateral training consists of things like lunges and split squats. Both bilateral and unilateral training can and should be used when preparing an athlete for an approaching season, but the goals need to be specific. As a general rule of thumb, unilateral training translates better to sport activity. In most sports, an athlete is very rarely planting both feet completely squared up and then generating force. Most sports happen with only one foot on the ground at a time. This is where using unilateral training directly preceding an athletic season has a superior benefit. This is the realization phase. You take the muscle mass and strength built in the off season, typically through bilateral moves, and then progress into more unilateral where the athlete can take what they built and put it into practice.
In the realization phase, we also start looking at power. In physics, power is a function of an amount of work over a change in time. Power is what separates the strong kid from the really athletic kid. If player A can generate 500lbs of force and player B can generate 325lbs of force but it takes player A .5 seconds and player B .17 seconds to generate that force, who will win when the two players meet on the field. Player B will. This is the advantage of power. Power is often described as the “X” factor, that explosive bounce that great athletes have. This is where velocity based barbell training has really accelerated in recent years. This is essentially where a device is attached to the barbell and the athlete completes a repetition, it gives, in real time, the speed that the bar moves. Coaches then can program specific bar speeds instead of weights. When the bar speed dips too low, an athlete needs to reduce the load. This helps strength turn into usable power. I will cover VBT in another installment in the future, but I wanted to introduce the concept today. Power can also be trained with things like jumping up or down from a box, doing broad jumps, vertical jumps, medicine ball tosses in all different planes, all done in a single or double arm or leg. The one thing to consider with power training, is the fatigue has to be low. Once an athlete is experiencing fatigue, they cannot keep the power output high, and now you are no longer training peak power. Also, fatigue leads to injury risk, because power training is mixing heavy loads with speed in athletic positions, injury risk can increase. Coaches just be judical when training athletes for power and monitor fatigue and discontinue the exercise at that point. If you want to train an athlete in a high fatigue state to work things like anaerobic fitness, do that in a very low risk exercise.
All of this to say this: as an athlete progresses closer and closer to a sports season, the realization of training becomes paramount. Coaches should start to get very, very specific in the training to help an athlete take the big base they built training in their off season and stack it up to create the best athlete possible. Specificity always wins and the realization phase is taking training and making it specific to exactly what the athlete needs to succeed.
