Trampoline Periodization Series: Hypertrophy Phase

Hello Everyone,

This is the third article of the Trampoline Perioization Series and today I will be talking about the “Hypertrophy” phase. This phase tends to be left out because athletes and coaches love to skip to the power training or max strength phases. Skipping this step can cause a lot of injuries as well as causing the athlete to decrease performance.

Hypertrophy is defined as the increase in muscle fiber width due to training. The number of fibers does not increase; it is the circumference of each fiber that increases. Hypertrophy is important for a few great reasons. (1) It prepares the athlete for the next phase where extremely heavy loads are going to be placed on the body. Going from an RPE of 10-12 in our “Basic Strength” phase to an RPE of 19-20 is a big jump so the athlete needs to go to an RPE of around 15-16 first to prepare the body. (2) This phase has the reps and sets at a specific number where muscle building takes place rather than endurance or neuromuscular adaptations. The endurance phase was in our “Basic Strength” phase. Because the athlete is just starting out the reps are very high at a low intensity. This will not bulk up the athlete; it will simply tone them and awaken the muscles. Hypertrophy is set at reps around 6-8 for 2-3 sets depending on the athlete. Neuromuscular adaptations which I will discuss in our “Power” phase has even lower reps that range from anywhere from 1-6. More on that later.

This muscle building allows a few things to happen.First of all it increases the impacts that are allowed to be taken by the athlete. Muscles act like cushions. If you punch someone in the shoulder they will be ok usually, well unless the Rock is your opponent. Take a punch on the wrist or a hammer to the foot and a lot more damage will be done simply because there is no padding. You can imagine this phase as a blow up phase and you are blowing up the bubble wrap for your athlete. Not to say he can’t be “popped” but it does increase the impact that can be withstood. In trampoline this is good because it is a violent sport compared to gold of ping pong. Trampolinists are always flying off the trampoline an violently slapping their back on the matt, arching the back on a bad landing, twisting the knees and or ankles on a under twisted skill ETC.

This is where my opinion comes into play. I have seen a lot of injuries in trampoline that I am very certain would have never occurred if this phase was fully trained. Too many coaches and athletes half-ass this phase and as a result ankles become twisted, knees become sore and so on and so forth. In my opinion strengthening the muscles is not good enough. The mind and body have to be use to taking an impact. The mind is a much undervalued component of all injuries. Having done my undergraduate Thesis on Neurodegenerative Diseases, I have done a lot of research on how the brain works under pressure, and how it reacts to unknown external stimulus. At the end of the day crunching your ankle on a tumbling pass will do more good for your ankles then any hypertrophy training regimen. Specific training for the muscle will help of course, however the signal that is sent from the affected area to increase ankle stability is stronger. Plus the athlete learns to take pain and eventually by comparison trampoline falls are low on the totem pole. I have people ask me if my ankles are ok after I fall out of a skill onto the end deck witha stuck landing from 15 feet in the air. In my head I am questioning why is this person even asking, obviously I am ok, that was nothing, I have taken 10 foot falls onto concrete because I missed the corner of the floor on a tumbling pass.  With this said not every injury can be prevented with training and sometimes luck is not on your side and you get a ball on the trampoline which is perfectly positioned for you to land on. Or you get double bounced accidently during a game of dodge ball and your ankle is not reay for the impact. I would be very interested to start a intense training program focusing on the stabilization of ankles and knees and backs on the younger athletes coming up and see if there is a decrease in the injuries that are affecting our athlete’s today.

“OK great Greg, tumbling probably will help decrease ankle and knee injuries, so what am I going to do ask the kids to come and do tumbling a few times a week?” – No because no one wants to. In a perfect world yes you would incorporate small amounts of tumbling into your trainings however a simpler way of going about it does exist which I will discuss.

The idea of taking impact does not mean it has to be from a double back or a double layout. It can simply come from jumping off a block and bounding. Bounding is the term given to the mechanics of how a tumbler gets maximum eight off a tumble track or a gymnastics floor.

In the muscle there is a protein called Elastin and it basically gives the properties of stretchability (do not know if that’s a word, but I like it anyway). Without it in our muscles there would be a ridiculous amount of injuries.  It allows the muscle to stretch in awkward situations and bounce back before too much injury is done. This can also be used for POWER. If you take a muscle and hypothetically take out the Elastin then you would get a counter movement jump power of let’s say for example 100 Watts. If you put the Elastin back in then the athlete will slightly stretch the muscle before  the jump and then add the contractile power of the actin and myosin interaction and increase that watt outage to let’s say 130 Watts. The Elastin wants to go back to resting length and like a rubber band it will snap back into place causing a slight increase in power. This will be discussed further in our “Power” phase.

Figure 1: As you can see Elastin wants to be bundled up but has the ability to stretch which saves the muscle from injury and can be used to increase power output by stretching before contraction called the "Stretch shortening Cycle (SSC)

In the “hypertrophy” phase you are warming up the body for the quick contractions that are about to be utilized.  Have the athlete jump onto block, have them jump off of blocks, have athlete’s jump in different body planes such as frontal and sagittal. My athletes are going to begin their “Hypertrophy” phase in the fall on their way to Provincial 1 because they are still on their “Basic Strength” phase.

So far I have discussed the concept of increasing impact to the body by taking impact so let us move onto the conditioning side where traditional exercises are used to increase hypertrophy. There are two types of hypertrophy and if you have been following I have discussed each a few times. I will re-discuss them now. Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy is the concept of increase the sarcoplasmic fluid within the muscle belly. The sarcoplasmic fluid is the fluid around the muscle fibers that holds all of the substrates. If you recall we spoke of these substrates within the nutrition series. By increasing sarcoplasmic hypertrophy you are increasing the amount of fluid and therefore the amount of substrates and enzymes used to catalyze reactions that fuel exercise. The other form of hypertrophy is called myofibular hypertrophy. This is where the numbers of myosin and actin increase and cause strength gains. It is a debated controversy as to which one works better and even if they can be done separately of each other. Some research shows that body builders rely on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy because it makes them look bigger but their strength is not as high. It is common to think of an Olympic lifter as a myofibril hypertrophy dependant athlete because they do not need size, they need power in a small container. If you were to have an Olympic weight lifter undergo sarcoplasmic hypertrophy training he would be in a weight class higher then he should be but will only be able to lift a fraction of what he is suppose to be able to judging by the size. Most studies show that these styles of training are improved simultaneously and only slight if any differences are really present. Some studies show that sarcoplasmic hypertrophy does not even increase muscle size like it is believed.

The take home note would be that substrate volume and actin and myosin interaction are equal in the production of strength. Each athlete needs both and the substrate volume will come from their nutrition rather than their hypertrophy training. For more information on the nutrition needed for a trampolinist look at the nutrition series.

So what are some good exercises for actin and myosin interaction? –Start with more specific exercises than in the “Basic Strength” phase. Instead of froggy jumps put in partner squats. This is where one partner sits on the shoulders of the squatter. Have the athlete perform push ups with blocks on their backs or with the coach pushing down. Turn the crunch holds into a coach resisted sit up or v lifts. The coach needs to simply try adn take a general exercise and focus on a particular movement. Generally the idea is to train the movement rather than the muscle. The athlete will not be doing a hamstring curl on a trampoline so instead activate the hamstrings with a squat jump onto a block instead. The athlete will not be doing an overhead press on trampoline so have them do a front raise with a weight to re-enforce a proper arm swing on a take off.  I could make another list but the it will look very similar to the list in the “Basic Strength” phase article. This is because the exercises are not going to look much different but the way they are performed is going to be. Add weight and resistance to ever exercise.  Find fun and creative ways of doing it of course but generally there is only so many exercises that will help your athlete. There is going to be repetition. As a coach you have to help motivate these athlete’s at their starting stage to keep doing the exercise.

This brings up a small side note on the style of coaching. I spoke to Dave yesterday and we discussed appropriate training for different types of athletes and different levels of athletes. The gist that we agreed on was that at the early stages the athletes need to be pushed and told what to do so that the correct training habits can be implemented for later use. After this base is established then the coach can relax the leash and allow the athlete to do what they feel is good for them. The coach must be careful however to not relax the leash to much at any age or level because the athlete will start to get lazy and  coast on their accomplishments. The periodization for this phase is still the “tight leash” phase because these athletes need to be taught what is expected from a high level athlete. Some ask me why do i push my athlete’s like national level if they are simply in provincial or even interclub. Simple. They come to me and say they want to learn trampoline. I ask if they want to compete and maybe one day travel across Canada showing off their skills. If they say yes I train that athlete as if they are going to be on senior team. The training and competition mentaility needs to be taught early as possible. Look at all the parents who baby their children and give them whatever they want at a young age and then become strict later on. That method rarely works because the child is already use to “GIME GIME GIME”. Athlete’s are the same way.  

OK back to Hypertrophy. Here is a example program for a “Hypertrophy Phase”. Please remember this program needs to be changed and played around with to keep the athlete's interested. 

Exercise	Reps	Sets	Intensity (RPE)	explaination
Front raise	8	2	15-16	Prepare for power phase
partnerSquats	8	2	15-16	Prepare for power phase
V lifts	10	2	15-16	Do slow with resistance
Handstand walking	A single floor length	3	15-16	Assist athlete or find partners- if handstand is not mechanically sound start with feet on shoulder wheel barrow walks
Back arch lifts	10	3	15-16	Has to be same as v lifts or compensations arise such as kyphosis or lordosis
Windshield wipers	12 ( 6 ea)	2	15-16	See below for explanation
Resisted Single Leg calf raises	8	2	15-16	See below for explanation
Bounding onto a block	10	2	15-16	Start forwards and then start bounding side to side. Mix it up and have some fun. We do “roof tops” where blocks are lined up and athletes jump block to block, down up, sideways, backwards etc. They love it.
Jump off block onto ground	8	2	3-4	Start off small and gradually increase when proper landing mechanics are achieved. Do not move up to quickly or injuries will occur

Windshield Wipers:  The athletes lay down on their back and pike the legs into the air, arms out to side for balance. Drop the legs to the side keeping piked as much as possible. Flexibility may be an issue however if appropriate stretching has been practiced then the athlete’s should be able to achieve a proper pike at this point.  No resistance is needed at this point. It is hard enough already.

Resisted Single Leg Calf Raises: Have the athlete stand in a handstand position with their hands above their head on the edge of a block. The coach pushes down the athlete as they do a calf raise. This encouranges tight body along with the extra resistance of a calf raise. Athlete’s may not be able to do a single leg calf raise and in these extreme circumstances add an extra set every training and give home conditioning.

To go through every exercise is going to take too long. Coaches, analyze the movement patterns in trampoline. Recreate those with your imagination off the trampoline. This concludes the “Hypertrophy Phase”. If there are any areas that you would like me to go into more depth about or things that I have said that are incorrect please let me know because I am still in school and learning. I would rather criticism then praise. Feel free to message me.

 ThanksJ