mondry wrote:I brought this exact thing up in the "Vikes go to old school weight program" thread and this is EXACTLY what I was talking about between building for Bruce Lee (explosiveness) compared to slow useless bulk trying to turn football players into body builders and the injury concerns I had.
I said lifts like the Bench press that over develop pectorals and what not is what leads to injury (more or less) and that was my primary concern with the change. Funny this article pretty much says exactly what I tried to say. Hopefully you guys believe me now. The thing is, who cares if you can't lift really heavy while laying on your back, that doesn't matter in football at all, if you're on your back, guess what, you got pancaked and you already lost.
I particularly liked this quote, “This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll said. “Each player has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.” It'd be like Lance Armstrong having a huge chest and shoulders when all he needs to do is pedal a bike.
That's exactly how I lift and when people ask me for advice that's what I try to tell them. It's about functional full body strength. I don't care if you can isolate your pek's laying down on a bench and knock out 350 pounds for 2 reps. I care that you don't tear your pek right off the bone and sideline yourself for 3 months as you can't even raise your arm #1, and then #2 is that you get stronger in a way that might actually be useful to you.
That's because there are two types of muscle fibers you can develop, one is slow twitch which gives you that "power" on the bench press in a non chaotic and controlled situation where you can use perfect form and take your time. The other is fast twitch which gives you the explosiveness in chaotic and uncontrolled situations. Training those slow twitch muscles and getting bulky is what leads to injury when you depend on slow twitch strength to play a chaotic sport like football. Imagine trying to bench 500 pounds with a 300 pound guy pulling on you and knocking you around, it's down right dangerous.
Stanford most likely focuses on developing the FAST TWITCH muscle fibers in their athletes so while it says that Yankey can barely bench his own body weight, who the hell cares? It just means he hasn't developed the slow twitch muscles that aren't that useful for football as much as a bodybuilder going for nothing but mass has.
It actually makes me laugh now, finding out why Yankey slid to the 5th round for us. WHAT A JOKE some of these quotes are saying he won't be strong enough to play FOOTBALL in the nfl. I bet he'll be one of the most reliable, never hurt, and one of the higher functional strength guys. A good puller, a good blocker at the 2nd level because he won't be too bulky to even move around!
Now I will say, the BEST program probably falls somewhere in the middle of what Stanfords doing and the "old school" stlye. You should primarily focus on fast twitch muscle development but you also shouldn't completely abandon the slow twitch muscles for pure strength gains. I would say 75% to 25% would be a good ratio (the focus of your workouts) developing primarily fast twitch for explosiveness most of the time but still doing workouts to improve slow twitch strength.
What concerns me is I think we might be doing it the other way, 25% for fast twitch, 75% bench press and squats to the moon.
You're going in the right direction here, but you're not entirely correct in some of the concepts you discussed. First and foremost, there is NOTHING wrong with incorporating bench press, squat, deadlift, etc. - these type of lifts are so important, in that they are compound exercises, multi-joint lifts that recruit large numbers of muscles to complete the lifts. They are much more effective than isolation exercises or machines in developing lean muscle mass. I think your opinion of these type of lifts being less effective or contributing to injury is misguided - as long as you perform the lift through the body's entire/full range of motion, they are 100% safe, effective, and entirely beneficial for sport related performance.
The idea that Stanford is focusing on fast twitch muscle fibers over slow twitch muscle fibers, and that is what makes Stanford's program so effective? Sorry, that is completely off base. Bench press and squat are HUGE for fast twitch fibers. A man with large pectoral muscles, developed from flat/incline/decline bench pressing generally has LOTS of fast twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch, or type IIA/type IIB muscle fibers are larger and contract more powerfully and quickly than slow twitch muscle fibers (type I muscle fibers). Anaerobic activities (such as lifting weights and sprinting - explosive movements), are what recruits fast twitch muscle fibers. Aerobic activities (endurance activities, such as long distance running, swimming, etc.) are what recruits slow twitch muscle fibers.
I believe you're missing the point of the benefit that Stanford football's strength and conditioning program. I am 1000% on board with the way they do things - but it is more about flexibility, and training specificity than anything. The idea that they are training recruitment of fast twitch vs. slow twitch fibers? No, that is nothing revolutionary. That is every football program across the country that realizes that to be sudden and explosive on a football field, you need to practice sudden, explosive movements in the weight room.
As long as you also incorporate Olympic lifts, such as clean, clean and jerk, snatch, etc, you are training your body for power (speed x strength). I agree, that training solely for strength is not going to improve an individual on a football field, but by combining the strength one has gained with speed of movement, you see significant gains on the gridiron. I will say it again, because I can't stress how important it is: HANG CLEAN, POWER CLEAN, SNATCH, CLEAN AND JERK - lifts like these that train your body fthrough triple extension (ankle, knee, and hip) teach you how to convert strength to power by teaching your body how to EXPLODE.
As I stated, I love what Stanford does in their strength and conditioning program. Functional strength and flexibility SHOULD be a large part of what a football team is doing in the weight room. It is huge for injury prevention, and I have long said that football teams need to look more at ankle mobility, hips, and flexibility when scouting players for the draft. In fact, back in February I posted a similar article regarding Stanford here in a thread discussing David Yankey:
frosted21 wrote:
I think you are spot on in regards to Yankey. Stanford players the last few years don't necessarily test out well as far as measurables go at the scouting combine and such, but they are trained a bit differently, and that has a lot to do with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/sport ... ted=1&_r=0
That's an awesome article. Give it a read, the Stanford strength and conditioning coach is a big believer in flexibility and functional strength. It definitely shows on the football field.
Check out Barry J. Sanders doing some foam rolling:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/1 ... RD-11.html
Making his pops proud.
I guess my whole point with this, is that Stanford is doing a wonderful job, but you do not need to be concerned about what the Vikings are now doing in their strength program. From the article I read about it, they are going in the right direction. The old way of doing things sounded like it focused entirely too much on isolation, one joint, open chain machine type exercises. Now they are getting back to compound, closed chain, multi-joint exercises. For someone like me (I'm a nerd), that is very exciting. They could learn some things from Stanford's program, and could certainly incorporate some of those things into their program for the purpose of flexibility, injury prevention, and functional movement abilities, but Stanford, I feel, could also stand to incorporate some of what the Vikings are now doing into their program as well. They're not opposite concepts - they're entirely different areas of study, really.
The main thing is focusing on training specificity - that is:
1. Muscles involved in the movement task
2. The specific ranges of motion for all the joint actions in the movement task.
3. The body segments train at the frequency of the desired movement task.
4. Train the energy systems that are utilized while performing the movement task.
Additionally, for a movement task such as football, developing a large amount of lean muscle mass is advantageous as it increases a performer's power (speed X strength) and inertia (speed X mass), both of which are essential.
I am sorry for being so long winded. I am extremely passionate about this subject, and it is the area I got my degree in, so I wanted to chime in. I apologize if I came across condescending or a jerk, I didn't mean it to be. I could honestly sit here and type about this all day, but I'll spare you all.