A couple of weeks ago, I came across something on Twitter that was just too good not to share. It was a simple tweet from renowned strength and conditioning coach Lorne Goldberg, that in essence, summed up much of what is wrong with the current approach to athletic conditioning. He wrote, and I'm quoting here: "It's easy to make someone tired. It's difficult to improve an athlete's performance".   

Now I don't know Lorne personally, but if I had to guess, I'd say that this particular comment was tweeted right after seeing a bunch of athletes beating their bodies to death with some form of Crossfit, or other "bootcamp" style nonsense! 

Maybe he was watching an athlete bend over to repeatedly flip a tire with the posture of a shrimp? Or perhaps, he had the chance to observe another cranking out rep after rep of plyometric box jumps, only to land each time with the grace of a thundering herd. 

Then again, the comment could have also been spurred by seeing Olympic lifts performed with lousy form, a seemingly endless amount of push-ups, pull-ups and overhead pressing movements (can you say shoulder impingement?), or repeated sprinting drills done with no regard for proper running form, and almost zero in the way of recovery time. 

Whatever prompted this remark, suffice it to say it's a sentiment that more athletes, parents and coaches need to share. Because more often than not, the type of training described above does little more than increase your chances of becoming injured. 

And please, spare the macho BS that seemingly goes hand-in-hand with this suddenly cultish approach to fitness. Beating your joints into submission on a regular basis doesn't make you some sort of "bad-ass"; what it can make you though, is an orthopedic surgeon's dream.  

Not that I have anything against working hard, mind you. As all of my athletes will undoubtedly attest, the workouts that I put together for them are a far cry from what anyone would consider "easy". We just try and be as smart as possible in how we go about implementing them and always train with the bigger picture in mind. 

As such, the training serves as more of means to an end, rather than simply a way of testing the limits of what the human body can endure. 

The truth is, if I wanted to, I could fix it so that my athletes couldn't sit down for a week following a workout. I say this not to sound braggadocios about what a great strength coach I am- in fact, quite the contrary! 

As Lorne himself wrote, it's easy to make someone tired and sore. The real art to this stuff is being able to read your athletes and assess how they're recovering from one training session to the next. This will allow you to adjust their training accordingly, to help ensure continual progress. 

Keep in mind, you don't make gains during the actual workouts- whatever improvements you're able to make in terms of strength, size, or speed are made during the recovery period. Essentially, your body is learning to adapt to the progressive overloads being placed upon it at regular intervals. 

Here's the thing though, if the loads are too excessive, in terms of either their intensity, or volume, your body can't adapt and the result is fatigue, burnout and almost certain injury.  

The bottom line is that training is supposed to be progressive- not haphazard! Sure, you can always throw some things in for variety here and there to keep it fresh. For the most part though, your focus should be on making measurable increases in both performance and health. 

Whether that means more weight on the bar/ more reps at a given weight, shaving some time off your 40 yard dash, enhanced flexibility, or better posture, at the end of the day, your goal is improvement...not merely exhaustion! 

Obviously this is a topic I have some strong opinions on. So, rather than simply continue my rant, I've prepared a little checklist to help you ensure that your training (or that of your athletes) is serving it's intended purpose: 

1. Have a plan: 

Work on improving things like mobility and systemic strength first, before rushing into more advanced forms of training. If for example you can't do a basic body weight squat without your heels coming off the ground, or your lower back rounding, it makes absolutely no sense to load the movement with any sort of resistance. 

Once you've improved your mobility and become more stable through the core, then start concentrating more on strength development. Finally, adding in some power training in the form of Olympic lifts, plyometrics and medicine ball throws would be the icing on the cake, so to speak. 

Keep in mind however, that a progression like this would take place over the course of several weeks, months, or even years, depending on your age, and level of physical development when you start training. 

2. Never sacrifice technique for reps: 

This is one that I'm an absolute stickler about. And that's because when you're talking about things like lifting weights, plyomteircs and speed and agility training, it only takes one bad rep to hurt yourself. 

Even as fatigue starts to build, you have to ensure that you're still using proper technique. This holds especially true for Olympic lifts and plyometrics, which besides being very technically difficult to execute, target an energy system that isn't meant to sustain prolonged effort. Meaning that doing them for high reps essentially negates any explosive benefits you may have otherwise gotten from them. 

3. Listen to your body: 

It doesn't matter what you have planned from a workout standpoint on a given day. If you're too tired, or sore from excessive practicing and playing, or if you haven't sufficiently recovered from your previous workout, take a break. This happens with my athletes all the time. 

I'll have specific things I want to work on, or target goals in terms of weight, or reps for particular exercises, only to have them show up for the session completely gassed from a tough practice, or weekend competition. When this happens, we'll either re-schedule, or change the focus of the session so as not to excessively tax specific body segments, or energy systems. 

When it comes to training young athletes, I try and stick to a simple mantra: Educate, don't annihilate! There's no benefit to be had from subjecting kids to workouts that would make a superhero nauseous. 

About the only thing they can expert for their efforts, besides being in a state of perpetual exhaustion, is placing themselves at increased risk for things like disc herniations, tendonitis and even early onset osteoarthritis. 

If I come across as a bit of an alarmist, it's because I've seen first hand what too much of the wrong kind of training can do to developing young bodies. So I'm determined to do everything I can to help reverse this disturbing trend.