Trampoline Periodization Series: "Power Phase"

        Hello Everyone thanks you to all of those who have given me feedback on my articles.  I will be continuing the series with the “Power Phase”. This is the next phase after “Max Strength”. Power is a product of strength and speed so it makes sense that the “Power Phase” would fall after the “Max Strength Phase”.

                Power as mentioned in the last article is (Speed x strength). By either increasing speed, maximum strength or both, an athlete can increase his or her power output. In trampoline speed of contraction is important but maximum strength is more influential for jump height. A runner for instance does not need maximum strength but does need a quicker turn over which is the speed portion of the above formula. If a trampolinist is too fast with contraction it will throw off his or her timing in the bed.  I am not saying that speed should be neglected, but it will not have as much influence as strength.Each athlete will have a slightly longer or slower contraction speed depending on their height and weight. A larger athlete will have a slower contraction to time the bed correctly because gravity is acting on the body at a magnitude larger than the force of gravity acting on a lighter individual. Because size is not fully the athlete’s prerogative when taking Time of Flight (TOF) a laser system under the trampoline record the amount of time the athlete is in the bed and subtracts that time from the total timed routine. This is why TOF is lower than a routine timed by a stopwatch.

             For an athlete to increase power output he or she must take max strength exercises and turn them into speed exercises. This can be done in many different ways and as I say almost every article, it is up to the coach to try new and fun forms of conditioning. Here are a few ideas:

Bounding:

             I know I talked about this in the alst few articles but it is so important I feel it needs a bit more depth.  The athlete starts on the ground and jumps off the balls of their feet and land on a block. The athlete jumps back down and without stopping and then he or she jumps back up after only making contact with the ground for about 20 milliseconds. The shorter the contact time the better but this of course depends on the skill of the athlete, the height of the block and the material of the floor. Less absorbent is better for a quick contact time but is harder on the body. It would be smarter to start on a tumble track and then move to a gymnastics floor after there has been much improvement. This exercise is easily one of the most important exercises a trampolinist can do.  First of all it teaches the athlete to use their calf muscles which accounts to about 15% of jump height. The athlete will also learn to take stress on the plantar ligament which is on the bottom of the foot. This is NOT A MUSCLE!! Do not stretch if it hurts. Stretching the plantar ligament will cause further problems that will take a long time to heal. The eccentric loads taken upon the calves and shins will strengthen the ankle joint as a whole, decrease the incidents of shin splints and help prevent the calf muscles from tightening up during training. This also teaches the body as a whole how to be tight because the contact time is the time the athlete would be in the bed. When an athlete jumps up from a flat foot stance and not a bound then he or she does not have to strengthen the core. The legs get stronger, core stays the same; the athlete jumps higher but is not strong enough to land and you get an injury. I have seen too many injuries because this exercise is not implemented into training. In this phase the reps should be higher to increase endurance of the calf muscles. In the last phase it was all about getting the body use to the idea of impact and staying tight at the bottom. Now the idea is to push the athlete until he or she feels a burn in the muscle. This means there are microtears which are good. Microtears  cause a signal to be sent to the brain to increase proteins, enzymes and nutrients to the muscle so it can become stronger. The athlete can take this as a good time to reinforce proper breathing techniques as well. Hold breath at the bottom and release in the air.

Elastic Band Runs:

        Take rubber tubing that you can get at wallmart for $6.00 and run behind your athletes with the band wrapped around their waist. I guess this is a good time to get into the appropriate intensities during a “Power Phase” . The athlete should not be trying to run with a lot of resistance. It may seem like a good idea to put really heavy loads on the athlete so that when the loads are not there he or she will feel light as a feather. Yes this is true that the athlete will feel light but that does not mean his or her muscles are any quicker. It is a trick of the brain more than anything. The general rule is about 15% of body weight should be added. That is the weight that has been shown to produce the highest speed gains in an athlete. WHY? Because the body adapts to any stimulus placed on it. Resistance training makes the bones  stronger (Wolfs Law) as well as being open to bacteria makes the body more immune to the same bacteria. Your body learns by experience just like our brains. If you take an athlete that has to go fast then put a ball and chain on him or her and ask them to run they will not be able to go very fast obviously. The adaptations to make the body fast are not the same as the adaptations to make the body be able to list a ball and chain. Train fast to be fast. Train slow to be slow. With a small amount of resistance the body can learn to be fast and support the new weight which will cause an increase of speed when the weight is gone.

V-Snaps (NOT “LIFTS”)

        This is another huge one that I cannot stress enough. If your athlete can not do fast V-Lifts, which are called V-Snaps then he or she will have a hard time activating the muscles that are required for a back  or front flip. The abs are very important in a front flip and if the athlete is unable to “snap” into a tuck or pike then every skill will be straight. Go and try that on a trampoline, not easy. The idea is that the legs dn arms never touch the ground and the contraction is as quick as possible with a controlled eccentric portion of the V-Snap. The athlete should be able to actually get the entire body to hop of the ground a small amount because he or she is contracting so fast.

Reverse V-Snaps:

       This is when the athlete starts in a V position on their backside and slams their hands and feet in the he ground as hard and fast as possible. Have a soft matt under the athlete at first and when the athlete is older toughen him up a bit by making him or her do it on harder surfaces. You may ask “How is a harder surface going to make my athlete strong?” It won’t. It will help increase the impact their body can withstand. It also forces the athlete to be tight. On a soft matt he or she can literally fall loose. On a gymnastics floor with only a sting matt the athlete will have to be really tight throughout entire body or it will not feel very good.  This can be progressed to a fast back raise while the feet are held by a block or coach. Be sure to instruct the athlete to not hyper extend the back. Go to just past horizontal when working on speed. Do not want the athlete to get a disk herniation. More advanced conditioners can push the limits slightly but generally it will not help too much because the back should never hyper extend during a routine. It is good for injury prevention however. Use your own discretion.

Elastic Band Work:

         This is the easiest way to increase power in the shoulders and arms. Many different exercises can be done and as long as they are being done with a fast concentric contraction and controlled eccentric contraction then everything is great. Some exercises include:

1 1)      Arm Circles

2 2)      Front shoulder Raise: stand on band and perform a front shoulder raise to a straight jump position. Good for prebounce arm work.

3 3)      Pull downs: Kneel under a bar or rail of some kind and pull down in different directions for different muscle group activation. Good for the Latissimus Dorsi which help solidify the spine to decrease back arch when not wanted.

44)      Shoulder Abduction and Adduction

55)      Shoulder extension

66)      Shoulder Stretches

         Keep the Exercises Simple and fast for the beginner athletes. The do not need to get into the complicated exercises yet when the basics are still being implemented. In all honesty I do not want to go through 50 exercises so i will make a list of some that beginners can use for their “Power Phase”.

Beginners:

11)      Wall runs – run against a wall leaning forward with fast turnover

22)      Wheel barrow runs- very fast wheel barrow

33)      Squat Jumps- flat foot jump up and jump down, pause and repeat

44)      Bounding – jump up and down off the toes with no pause

55)      Single leg hops

66)      Clap push ups

77)      Front support run ups- classic run up but instead of the feet  the athlete is on the ground in the push   up position running on their hands up and down. Elevate feet for increased intensity.

88)      Straight jumps across a floor off the toe. 

                  Here are just a few of many to get the coaches started. Now let us take a minute and talk about the top senior athletes and how they can improve their power output. There are three important exercises that need to be addressed here that normally would not be taught to a younger athlete. These are:

           

           Advanced:

Clean and Jerk and Snatch: 

        This is one of the Olympic Weightlifting exercises. This exercise has been shown to increase jump height in all athletes better than any other exercise. This is because the clean and jerk, as well as the Snatch both use triple extension. This is the concept of using the same mechanics to lift that are used to jump.  The difference between the clean and jerk and the snatch is that the clean and jerk lift pauses at the clavical and a over head jump press is used to get the weight over the head. A snatch is when the weight is directly thrown over the head and the legs squat the weight up.

Jump Squat:

         This exercise is only used for older athletes who can take a loaded bar bell on their back. Put on pounds on either side and instruct the athlete to jump onto a small block. Increase the height of that block but not the weight for reasons discussed above.  Make sure you spot the athlete. I know that there are not many gyms with Olympic weightlifting equipment so I will not go into much detail right now. All you athletes, if you want to jump higher go do clean and jerk and snatch. If you would like me to go into a detailed article about these exercises please let me know.

        OK So we have gone through a lot of different exercises  so let us see how a program for “Power Phase” may look.

Exercise	reps	Sets	Intensity (RPE)	Rest
Bounding	15-20	2	15-17	1 minute
Wheelbarrow Run Ups	45 seconds	2	17-18	2 minutes
V-Snaps	20	2	17-18	2 minutes
Front arm Raises	15	2	17-18	2 minutes
Wall runs	45 seconds sprint	2	18-20	4 minutes
Reverse V -Snaps	20	2	17-18	2 minutes

         You may be wondering why I am including rest intervals in this chart when I have never done it before. Before it was simple, rest until the athlete feels ok to move on. During the “Power Phase” it is a little different. The athlete will feel like his muscles are not tired and will tell you he or she is ready to go again but then the next set will always be slower. This is because speed is not a product of the muscle it is a product of the signal sent from the brain. The neuromuscular portion of the recovery is slower than the muscle recovery. The body will send fast signals to the muscle to contract. After sometimes the signal slows down. As we discussed earlier, train fast to be fast. This is when you should cut the exercise and tell the athlete to rest so speed is the outcome rather than endurance or strength. It usually takes about 5 minutes for an athlete to fully recover from a power exercise. You may be wondering why I have such high reps when the neuromuscular signal will usually slow down after about 6 reps. This is because these exercises are not full intensity and the speed is not 100% yet. These are new athlete who have to get use to speed, not the senior athletes who are performing a snatch or jump squat. After about 5-6 reps of a jump squat the athlete will start slowing down incredibly. After 10 bounds onto a block the athlete will not even feel phased. For the younger athletes it is ok for them to feel like the speed is easy, that means those specific muscles are already working properly.  Get the entire body functioning equally before increasing the reps and sets or compensations will occur. As you can see for the wall runs it is a full sprint and you want them going at 100% effort because the chance of injury is small in this exercise because there is no lifting. Other exercises have to be done more carefully as to not snap a tendon or roll an ankle or wrist. At first it will seem boring and easy and that the athletes did not work very hard but after a month and a half to 3 months you will notice much fast and harder conditioning being performed.

For trampoline that is our last phase. This last article of this series will bring everything together and discuss how to properly administer these phases to your athletes. 

Thank youJ