For consults or on-site clinics on the Conjugate Method and proper strength training for your athletes please email nateharvey2600@gmail.com
The next series of logs will be following the training we did with Women's Basketball in the spring of 2016. For this phase of training we get 4 weeks to train, basically the month of April. I'm picking last year's training because we had great post-testing results. I think part of this had to do with the fact that the team really started to hit their stride on squats as the season went on. Later in the season we started doing mostly speed squats with increased band tension and lower bar weight. As their form on these cleaned up so did their ability to accelerate weights. This momentum carried over to the post season training and gave us some great scores on their squat and vertical scores. With WBB we generally test in October before practices start to ramp up and at the end of April after our post season block.
I will also point out this has been a great group of athletes to train. They are usually on task and are motivated to get better, this allows me to use more advanced concepts in their programming.
This series is also a good example of how the 8 day Conjugate template (4 day plan while lifting 3xs/ week) can work very well. We've had a lot of success with this model with a few of our teams. How it works is you just train whatever day you are on when you come in. For example:
Week1:
Monday- ME upper
Wednesday - DE lower
Friday - DE upper
Week2:
Monday- ME lower
Wednesday- ME upper
Friday- DE lower
Etc....
All accessories were performed as a team. Each exercise is a station. Order does not matter. These were done as timed clusters. The athlete performs 10 reps on my command, then rests approx. 15 sec and we repeat this over and over for the prescribed time. In Wave 1 we did 3 minute clusters. Athletes were not allowed to put down the implement. We were able to use light weights/ bands because after 3 minutes under tension EVERYTHING feels heavy and you WILL stimulate growth. My reasoning for incorporating the clusters was to keep the weights light and push a lot of blood around. These athletes have been practicing/ competing/ traveling since late October so I wanted to get a large amount of work in with out crushing them with heavy weights all the time. I thought we could also build their work capacity with these.
Instead of labeling these by weeks I'm going to say wave because each wave was not completed with in a calendar week.
Wave 1:
Day 1: Max Effort Upper
1. dynamic warm up
2. Ultra mini band pull aparts - 60 total
3. 2 Board - 3 rep max
3 MINUTE CLUSTER ON ALL ACCESSORIES (10 reps/ 15 second rest, repeat for 3 minutes)
4. 5-10lb DB lying triceps
5. pulldowns w/ ~30% bodyweight
6. wide grip shrug w/ empty bar
7. see-saw abs - for the whole 3 min, no rest- Bamboo bar
8. Chest supported T raise
9. Team abs
10. Light band shoulder traction
Day 2: Speed Lower
1. Dynamic Warm up
2. seated abduction - doubled up mini band- 80 reps
3. Seated box jump - 4x5 or 20 total
4. Speed squat - 10x2@40% - as soon as your partners off, you're on
3 MINUTE CLUSTER ON ALL ACCESSORIES (10 reps/ 15 second rest, repeat for 3 minutes)
5. Light band prone leg curl
6. Back Ext.
7. Groiners w/ light band
8. Feet hooked sit ups
9. Light Band hip mobility
Day3: Speed Upper
1. Dynamic Warm Up
2. Shoulder clean - 60 total
3. Speed Bench - 8x3@50%
3 MINUTE CLUSTER ON ALL ACCESSORIES (10 reps/ 15 second rest, repeat for 3 minutes)
4.Mini Band Tricep Pushdowns
5. Inverted Row
6. Incline push ups (on elevated bar, usually same as their bench height)
7. Standing banded Y raise - micro mini band
9. Team abs
10. Banded shoulder traction- light band
Day 4: Max Effort Lower
1. Dynamic Warm up
2. fire hydrant- 80 reps
3. Seated box jump with a 10lb plate - 4x5 or 20 total
4. SS Yoke bar Squat - 3 rep max
3 MINUTE CLUSTER ON ALL ACCESSORIES (10 reps/ 15 second rest, repeat for 3 minutes)
5. Pistol Squat to bench - 3 reps/leg
6. Ankle weight Reverse Hyper
7. ankle weight knee raise
8. Front Plank 45 sec on/ 15 sec break
9. Band hip mobility
In the summer I like doing interval/ tempo runs after our upper body lifting days and short sprint work before our lower body lifting days.