Yeah, if I currently can’t bench press 60kg x 5 without pain, I’ll only know my pain-management protocol worked once I bench 60 x >5 or >60 x 5
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Oh wow thanks for that. How about athletes who have to jump maximally like volleyball?
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I actually train a reasonably high-level volleyball team, and I personally haven’t found use for nordics for that population.
In contrast, regular (1-2x per week) exposure to maximum-velocity sprinting is an excellent means to improve the lower-limb power and elasticity necessary for an explosive vertical jump.
In terms of injury management, my biggest priorities for jumping athletes are to:
- Get super strong quads and super strong soleus
- Be able to land as many different ways as possible. Big height, low height, mostly horizontal, mostly vertical, mid-air twists, turns, one-leg, two-leg, being pushed mid-air etc. I’’ even include “weird” stuff like rolls, flips, swings off monkey bars/rings and more
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This is a new thought, that it’s requisite to be pain free. I’ve heard suggestions that it’s okay to engage in the painful activity but that the pain level should be at about a 2/10, and certainly not increasing intra-session or feeling residual pain the day after.
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I completely agree, sorry if I was unclear. Training through pain is absolutely okay under the constraints you listed.
I regularly recommend a 3-4/10 threshold with my athletes, depending on the diagnosis, their competitive level and the importance of this competition/session
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Thanks for posting that! I just came across him very recently and as someone who’s had stiff/sore knees for years, I’ve been intrigued. I’m not even close to any of those standards.
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hes a keen guy who by the looks of things genuine loves what he does and isnt just out to make a quid buck from a fad . . . but alot of what he is saying has been around for years with the likes of Charles Poliquin. Good stuff tho!
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He’s said Charles was his mentor so that tracks.
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He was just on Joe Defranco’s podcast. Really cool to hear more from him than the short IG videos. I haven’t seen his actual program and had wondered if it would just be gimmicky mobility drills and exercises. I didn’t realize he’s actually huge into sled drags; heavy going forward and lighter walking backwards. He focuses on strength. From what I could tell, there’s actually no formal stretching or mobility work, that’s all gained while gaining strength in different positions, like the knees over toes split squat. I also mentioned he doesn’t warm up and there isn’t a warm up in his program. That’s taken care of with the sled.
Anyway, I’m not getting his program - a bit to expensive, but if anyone’s interested in his stuff, I’d suggest listening to the podcast.
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Not sure how appropriate a confession this is but I agree about it being expensive, and for me being on part-time sick leave prohibitively expensive at that. I am however very interested to learn more about the makeup of the program as I’ve had more than one lower body ailment that has set me back for a long time . The confession is that I’ve considered using the discount code on their website to check it out and note down how the program progresses (if that’s even possible) and then try it out for a while without an active subscription but I’ll be darned if that doesn’t conflict with my morals.
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I do that all the time…
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I’ve seen dude popping up on videos here and there. It looks like he has some useful ideas.
He has Strength Standards, like 25% of bodyweight for tibia raises or 100% BW for ATG squats or 50% of BW for multiple 2 minute backward sled drags. Those could be pretty useful for someone using the gym to get better at sports vs some gym brah obsessed with maximum weights.
Dude understands how to use Regressions of lifts. Like he wants Hamstrings mashed on Calves depth squats and lunges. But he shows how to start off with easy stuff like Poliquin Step or Partial Sissy Squats pushing the knees to a progressively lower pad or step.
Or he wants everyone to work up to Nordic Hamstring curls. But those things are hard so he uses a step or box to limit the ROM. Then the progression is 3 sets of 5, once a week for 12 weeks, improving ROM and Quality of reps as you go.
The general formula looks like Tibialus, Quad, Hamstring, Hip Flexion. Gradually working to expand your mobility in single leg stuff then building your strength within that expanding ROM with squats. The strategy looks like include the right stuff then Go Slow. Like “10,000 lunges and take 10,000 steps backwards, Then tell me if it’s working.”
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@flatsfarmer nailed it, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t pay to find that out, which brings me to what @voxel said about conflicting morals - the guy has a lot of free content out there. I think, when you pay, you’re getting all that scrambled info organized along with more focused progression and that stuff. Point is, the guy seems like he just wants to talk about this stuff constantly (and geez, does he talk a lot), and seems pretty excited about sharing his knowledge with as many people as possible. You can, in this case, be guilt-free about piecing together his stuff without paying.
I’ve posted in a couple places on here about how I tried his method of strengthening my hip flexors because I was getting pretty crippling pain after squatting. I started by hooking my toes through kettlebells and doing knee raises, but having to keep my foot in dorsiflexion made it feel kind of awkward, so now I’m using the ankle strap connected to the cable station and facing away from it, and adding reps/weight slowly - my pain is all but gone after just a couple months. His standard for the hip flexor raises is 10% of your bodyweight for 20 strict reps.
I’ve also started letting my squats have a deep knee bend, but not using buttwink to create it, so elevating my heels and slowly lowering the elevation as my mobility increases. It was uncomfortable at first, but my knees are beginning to feel strong and not achy again - and after the Marines I had pretty much resigned myself to a lifetime of achy knees.
Anyways, N=1 and all that, but I’ve been paying attention to his stuff and it’s making a difference in my training and my comfort levels already.
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Yeah, he said something like he wanted to put all the info out there for free and what you pay for is him putting it all together in a program.
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I’ve thought about buying the program, but so far I have just been implementing the free information in my own workouts.
For example I backward sled drag for a warm-up, do ATG squats in between working sets, and cool down with some step downs.
I think it has made a difference and that has made me even more keen in actually trying his program.
tweet
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I am really intrigued by this program and I think I’m going to pull the trigger and buy it. I’ve spent a lot more money on a lot dumber stuff over the years trying to get my knee issues sorted out. I haven’t tried progressively challenging them the way this program seems to work and I like the idea of having it all laid out for me.
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I’ll be really interested to hear how it works. I’ve just been throwing hits and pieces and just with that, have noticed a huge difference.
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Thank you for posting this!! I need to start doing these as my posture is all jacked up
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Also the perfect pose for sitting on the edge of the pool so you to perfect that as well. Two birds, one stone.
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