Hayden Beck Strength and Conditioning

Strength and conditioning has come a long ways from when our parents, and grandparents did them. The technique has change and will continue changing forever. Changing strength and conditioning forms is a huge part of an athletes success. Another part of an athletes success is the athletes diet and calorie intake. Coaches are constantly trying new ways of lifting, conditioning, and dieting to try and better their athletes, but do some ways in fact hurt your players? Bigger Faster Stronger is a workout routine that was released in 1976 to athletes everywhere. This routine was a 3 times a week for 4 weeks and was told to be very successful for an athletes success. During this workout your Mondays would consist of Flat Bench Press/Squat, Tuesday being Deadlift/Power Clean, and Wednesday being squat/ bench variation. The reps and the sets would vary from week to week in this order; Week 1: 3x3, Week 2: 3x5, Week 3: 5-3-1, Week 4: 10-8-6/4-4-2. For example, week one tells you to do 3x3; This means you do three sets of three reps. Week two is the same concept however, this week you do 3x5. Week three is where the lifting concepts changes. Instead of doing the same amount of each set you do three different amounts. So on week three the first set you will do five reps, then three reps, then one rep. Lastly, is week four this is the same as week three just different amounts of reps, but still three sets. Another thing to remember is the higher the reps the less the weight. This workout does in fact put muscle on you but you pay a price for doing it. The form that your suppose to use when squatting based upon the official BFS website says

Hayden Beck that the Squatter must have feet shoulder width apart and toes pointed straight ahead. This form sounds like it would be a good thing because most athletes play their game in this stance. The reason the BFS program is not successful is because of injuries. This workout program has been argued by many and said to be very successful and also said to be very unhelpful. Trainers say this is a successful workout because it shows quick results. However, this workout has been said by many to cause problems in the knees. The main problem in the knees was known to be patellar tendinitis (also known as Jumpers Knee). The form Bigger Faster Stronger tells you to use is, feet shoulder width apart and toes pointed straight ahead. This problem occurred because squatting with this form is not a natural motion for your joints. So others and I have found out that you can stop this pain from changing up your form when squatting. Your form should be feet wider than shoulder width and toes pointing at 45-degree angles outwards. This causes a more natural bending motion and allows the patellar tendon to move more freely. This also works more muscle groups rather than the way BFS is promoting it. Another thing that BFS does is promote using a straight bar to do your dead lifts as well as some other primary lifts. You can cut down on knee injuries if you switch to a hex bar when deadlifting because this also creates a more natural motion on your joints. Rotating bars can also prevent injuries in elbows and cut back on surgeries such as tommy john surgery which repairs the UCL in the mid elbow. These rotating bars take s tress off of this ligament and distribute the weight on various other muscles in your arms. This can save you your career, money, and time. Jim Durning told me the proper ways to do each

Hayden Beck lift that I stated above. There is not a formal name for the workout route we do here at Charlotte, but we do use the proper techniques and they are enforced very heavily. Off-season workout programs tend to be more strenuous and harder than any in season workout you will do. The off-season is when you want to gain muscle and put more weight on the bar and become better on technique. The reason for off-season workout being harder is because your not having any competition and you want to be fatigued by the end of the week. But some workout programs will have you doing the same workout year round. This is wrong because your in season should be much less difficult than your off season. In season workouts are meant only to maintain your strength that your put on during the off season rather than trying to put on muscle while your in competition. BFS has no in-season or off-season. It simply is a four-week program that repeats itself. Where as the lifting programs we do here a Charlotte is different season to season. Conditioning is a huge part of an athletes success also. People may think that being in good condition is how far you can run or how long you can do a certain activity. But in reality this is complete wrong, condition is a term that is used to classify how good youre are in doing your certain sport. A cross country runner doesnt need to be able to run ninety feet like a baseball player and a football player doesnt need to be able to sprint one-hundred meters without being fatigued. This is why condition is so complicated when athletes that just want to look ripped because they may just burn away their fat but not be able to compete at there best level. This plays a huge role

Hayden Beck during competition and also can show which team or individual has the best program for exceling their athletes. Agilities are a form of conditioning. Agility is also a huge part for an athletes success in your contact sports. Agility is usually measured by cutting back a forth between lines or cones or running shuttles. Shuttles are usually a distance between fifty to three hundred yards and your run a certain distance and back until you have reached your overall length. Acceleration can be helpful to skill players in athletics. You can improve your acceleration by stance to take off drills. Dieting is another huge part of an athletes success. Many people would think for someone to be a good athlete to stay away from fatty carbs, and eat more healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables and non fatty meats, but in reality you want to load up on these so called fatty carbs because when exercising you burn these first. Forty to fifty percent of your energy in early stages of exercising comes from carbohydrates. The reason these are so good for you before exercise is that it takes less energy to break them down and turn them into energy. Carbohydrates yield more energy per unit of oxygen consumed than fats. Because oxygen often is the limiting factor in long duration events, it is beneficial for the athlete to use the energy source requiring the least amount of oxygen per kilocalorie produced. As work intensity increases, carbohydrate utilization increases. J. Anderson, L. Young and S. Prior1 These carbohydrates come from your breads, pastas, potatoes and other grain products. You can get simple carbs from fruit but they usually are not packed in with them like these other foods. During your digestion you body transforms carbohydrates into

Hayden Beck glucose and stores it in your muscles as a chemical called glycogen. And during exercise the glycogen is converted back into glucose and used as energy. I believe this information and suggestions to athletes can be very helpful in their success to becoming better. If you change your methods and try new things results could be better. Try to stay away from using big companies programs because they usually just care about selling their brand and not what the goal should be; creating better athletes. I hope I help people out by letting them know what risk they have when doing squats, deadlift, or cleans the wrong ways. These lifts can make you, or break you.

Hayden Beck

Works Cited Anderson, J., L. Young, and S. Prior. "Nutrition for an Athlete." ext.colostate.edu. Colorado State Unversity Extension, 10 Dec 2013. Web. 27 Oct 2013. <http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09362.html>. Andrews, James R. et al. "Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction With Gracilis Tendon In Athletes With Intraligamentous Bony Excision: Technique And Results." American Journal Of Sports Medicine 40.7 (2012): 15781582. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 26 Feb. 2013 Cluett, Johnathan. "Patellar Tendonitis Tendon Damage Often Called 'Jumper's Knee'." orthopedics.about.com. About.com, 11 Aug 2012. Web. October, 27, 2013. Durning, Jim. Personal Interview. 02 Sep 2013. . Smith, Donnie. Personal Interview. 02 Sep 2013. Treutlen, Tom. "The BFS Program." elitefitness.com. George Spellwin Elite Fitness, 17 Dec 2003. Web. October, 27, 2013. <http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/weighttraining-weight-lifting/bfs-program-287915.html>.