Where Are All of the Girls Basketball Players?
Across the state of Alaska in the last decade there has been a palpable decline of girls basketball players in urban areas and, contrarily, a substantial increase in volleyball players. The question is... why?
As women’s basketball is on the growing rise in popularity in America, thanks in large part to Caitlin Clark, in Alaska there is an interesting contradiction to this trend. In the last decade there has been a palpable decline of girls basketball players in urban areas and, contrarily, a substantial increase in volleyball players.
A necessary disclaimer, this statement is based on a decade of experience as a basketball player development coach and strength and conditioning coach in Alaska. There currently is no research to support this claim that is not the opinion of myself or others; and with that I’m thinking this would make a great thesis for a University of Alaska Anchorage college senior.
We really need to identify if there is an actual exodus happening, and why.
As a basketball player development coach, I train athletes of all ages primarily in Anchorage and around ninety percent of the kids across all ages are boys.
I am also fortunate to be able to do basketball camps all across the state of Alaska. While the 90% trend does not apply in these cases, it does help highlight the reality that basketball is Alaska’s primary sport.
Many non-Alaskans think it’s hockey.
While we do play hockey here, it is an expensive sport to play and manage logistically. In poor rural areas across the state, the ability for a community to have a hockey team is less likely than you growing another big toe.
What is easy to play anywhere is basketball. You don’t even need shoes. I’ve been to several communities in Alaska where kids show up in socks because their family, for whatever reason, hasn’t been able to get them gym shoes, and after basketball camp, they’re at it again shooting outside on hoops at parks.
Ballet shoes and boots at basketball camp in Point Hope, Alaska.
Thus, in rural Alaska, basketball is alive and well for both genders and I don’t see that changing any time soon. But, in urban areas like Anchorage, there appears to be a significant downward trend in numbers, and here are my three main theories as to why:
Volleyball is the pretty girl, popular sport to play
In volleyball, you can sparkle not sweat, and for teenage girls this is a much more appealing reality than becoming a human swamp sprinting up and down a basketball court.
Being a great basketball players requires a level of ruthlessness and aggressiveness that isn’t ingrained in what we as society typically value for our young girls. Most of the time, when you meet a young girl who is unapologetically emboding these areas of toughness, a male role model in her life (and sometimes female) is not far away encouraging her to grow these qualities, and most often has a background in athletics.
Basketball is mentally and physically demanding
In the weight room I’ve trained collegiate volleyball players, and currently at the Sweat Lab we work with the high school level, and with all due respect to all the wonderful volleyball athletes out there, there tends to be a general lack of tolerance to intensity.
By design when comparing volleyball to other sports, it’s one of the least intense by nature. While it challenges athletes to have excellent hand eye coordination, vertical jump, hitting power, reaction time, and be excellent at volleyball skills, the need for a high aerobic threshold, muscular endurance, and ability to create and take physical contact, is not like it is in other sports.
This doesn’t mean volleyball players don’t have or need a level of toughness, my argument is that the toughness needed for volleyball is simply much different than that of basketball. And, different isn’t bad, but I am guessing that it’s a deterrent for a lot of young girls out there to continue with basketball as they get to a middle and high school age.
Her basketball experience was a bad one
The number of young ladies who have ended up at my skill development sessions because they need to, “rebuild their confidence” is very disheartening. I’m not trying to point fingers or offend anyone who takes on the responsibility of coaching a team because that’s certainly no easy task, but there are a few bad eggs out there who unfortunately have misguided priorities and are more focused on winning instead of building players love of, and character through, the game.
Having played volleyball and basketball myself in high school, I will say this, volleyball is an extremely fun and valuable sport, and this article is not intended to take anything away from that.
What it is intended for, is to bring awareness to the possibility that this is happening at an accelerated rate and my question remains:
Why is this actually happening?
What are your thoughts?
Uh oh… I Think I’ve Plateaued
Feeling stuck and like your numbers aren’t improving? You may have plateaued. The good news, don’t have to stay there. Here’s how to get yourself unstuck and out of your plateau!
Feel like you’re doing everything right, but your numbers are no longer moving? It’s okay, you may have just hit a plateau.
What is a plateau?
More than the geological formations found in the desert, a plateau as it refers to training is when your training stimulus, or a variety of other variables, are contributing to lack of improvement in the areas of fitness you are prioritizing.
For example, your goal is to hit a 300# Deadlift, but you’ve been stuck at 280# for weeks. Your goal is to drop 2lbs of body fat per week, but the scale has been stuck on the same number for what seems like eternity. Your goal is to get under a 7 minute mile, but you just can’t quite seem to shave off more than a second or two each week.
Wherever you’re stuck, the fact of the matter is, you’re stuck… and it sucks.
So what do you need to change?
It depends, but there are a few common reasons why people plateau.
Doing too much, and now it’s back firing
When you first start training, your body is going to respond quickly and the effects of training typically happen rapidly. That can present negatively as extreme soreness or positively in relatively rapid weight loss. In either case, your body is undergoing new stimulus and it likes it - even though sometimes it feels like the opposite!
Because our body’s are amazingly adpative, after awhile these changes become less dramatic. The soreness isn’t as extreme or lingers as long, the weight isn’t dropping as fast, the gains in strength are less noticeable, the time you're shaving off of runs isn’t as large, etc.
A common response is… well, I guess now I need to do more to have the same gains as before. I should workout twice as much or twice as hard. Not necessarily the case! Doing more can and most likely will backfire on you sooner than later. Your body will start to do the opposite and break down, referred to as overtraining.
Furthermore, during the mesocycles of your training (your 4 - 12 week snapshot), you need periods of deloading. This means your intensity and volume decrease to allow your body to recover and rebuild stronger than before, something referred to as supercompensation.
FAQ on deloading: no it doesn’t mean do nothing, no it doesn’t mean you can’t workout every day. It more looks and feels like working at intensities that won’t make you sore.
Give your body a little rest, and you will feel better going into subsequent training weeks!
Not prioritizing Recovery
We just talked about deloading, which is one factor of smart training. Another variable in smart training is optimizing your recovery on a day to day basis. This allows us to maximize today’s work, and feel better for tomorrow’s work. In no particular order of importance, these strategies include:
Getting enough sleep, typically 7.5 + hours
Getting enough water, at least half of your body weight in ounces + more on training days
Eating to maximize nutritional needs, not just caloric needs - this includes eating enough in general and eating enough nutritionally dense foods (stop relying on your multi-vitamin)
Supplementing vitamin D as needed. If you live in a climate where sun is not present on a daily basis where you can get 10 minutes or so on your skin so that your body can absorb vitamin D, you most likely need to supplement this extremely important vitamin. Consult with a doctor.
Add 5 - 15 minutes of mobility work into your day. Doesn’t matter when or where, this work to release tension in your fascia and muscles is more important that we give it credit for.
Not Doing Enough
This is a highly subjective and sensitive topic, but needs to be addressed regardless. Unfortunately, your plateau may be a result of simply not being doing enough either. There is a principal in strength and conditioning called progressive overload. This means that as your body adapts to the intensities you’re training at - weights, work capacity, etc. - then you need to up your weights or paces to progressively continue to overload your body’s systems. Aka, you can’t keep going for the 20# dumbbells, eventually you’re going to have to go for those 25#’s.
Being fit and healthy is not easy, and no supplement or drug will ever replace the powerful impact of consistently working out and eating healthy. Both of those variables require effort and intentionality. The majority of us don’t have a personal trainer and personal chef, so we can’t just show up to our day without thinking about these things.
If you struggle to make time at least 4 times a week to sweat, or to cook your own food daily, then it needs to be something you start scheduling time for just like you would schedule your work appointments, go to class, shuttle your kids around, etc. Allowing yourself to continue telling the story of “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have energy” is enabling yourself to continue to fail and plateau.
Increase your Chances of getting over the plateau exponentially
The quickest way to hack your way to success is to join a community of like-minded individuals. Find a gym with excellent coaches, smart workout programming, and people you vibe with! Perhaps intimidating at first, you will not regret your choice to immerse yourself into a fitness community.
So… You Have Jumper’s Knee
What is Jumper’s Knee, aka Patellar Tendinitis, how do you prevent and rehab it?
Did you know that jumper’s knee, aka patellar tendinitis or quadriceps tendinitis, is among the most frequent injuries in sports. According to a 2009 Biomed study, if you are a volleyball or basketball player, your chances of having had it are 30 - 51% and 25 - 32%, respectively.
This leads one to wonder… why? And more importantly, how can we prevent it?
THE WHY & WHAT
Though Jumper’s Knee can happen due to repetitive jumping, particularly on hard surfaces, it is a slightly misleading term as it can also occur from other repetitive motions at the knees like stair climbing, kicking, or running.
These activities place a high load on the patellar tendon, which can increase the risk of developing Jumper’s Knee. A sudden uptick in training volume during training phases such as preseason conditioning, starting a new squat cycle, or incorporating more plyometrics into your training, can easily trigger this overuse injury, and many others.
Symptoms typically include pain, tenderness and inflammation at the patellar tendon, pain with bending, and pain with activity.
PREVENTION
Warm Up: on a day to day basis, do the work early by warming up appropriately! Though your ego may tell you that you don’t need to, you do, especially in colder temperatures. Ever try to stretch a rubber band that came straight from the freezer? Yeah… doesn’t result in shooting it across the room at your friend, results in it snapping. Don’t let that happen to your muscle.
Build Your Posterior Chain & Good Movement Patterns: make sure you have good body mechanics as they apply to your sport. Example used in video: defensive slide. Are you dumping into your quads? Or preferrably using your glutes and hamstrings.This is where getting into the weight room is ultra important because you train your body to know what to do without having to think about it when practicing or competing in your sport.
Do the Work Early: similar to the previous tip, your training should be well in advance of when your actual competition schedule starts. The off-season is a great time to work on making your muscles strong and pliable - quadriceps, hamstrings, anterior tibialis, soleus, gastrocnemius. Furthermore, improving the mobility of joints up and down stream from the knee - ankle and hip - make it less likely to incur unwanted pressure in the knee joint because the overall system that is your leg knows how to absorb and transfer force appropriately.
You Have It, Now What
Sorry to hear that! The encouraging news is that youu can absolutely rehab yourself though. Start with mobilizations shown in the video, complete each for 1 - 2 minutes per side:
Quad smashing
Quad scrubbing
Pin and stretch
Then, incorporate the following specific strengthening exercises (also shown in the video) into your strength training routine as a warm up. These are also a good idea for before hitting the court, or whatever surface your sport or activity is played on.
2 x 10 Bodyweight Tempo Slant Board Squats @ 4 seconds on the eccentric
2 x 6 - 12 Reps: Light weight Tempo Slant Board Squats @ 4 seconds on the eccentric
Heavy Bench Press vs. Turkish Get Ups: Which is better for boosting athletic performance?
Heavy Bench Press vs Turkish Get Ups: which is better for boosting athletic performance?
This is a PSA mostly to the gentleman in the room. It’s going to be an uncomfortable truth… please don’t look away… but, bros, bench press isn’t everything.
How much you can bench is not an exceptional measurement of ones fitness. Contrarily, in my professional opinion, it’s actually one of the least valuable movements available to most athletes.
Is it easy to do? Yes. Earlier today I found my 1 rep max with barely having had to warm up. You literally get to lay down to do bench press.
I’m not saying that makes it easy per se, but it is one of the easier movements to perform at any age and fitness level. Think about it, the only limiting factor would be a shoulder injury that prevented horizontal pressing, which for the most part when it comes to shoulder injuries, horizontal pressing is more often than not an acceptable range of motion.
Why is the Turkish Get Up (TGU) a superior movement to measure fitness and athleticism then? Several reasons, one of which ironically does involve lying down.
TGU > BENCH PRESS: HERE’S WHY
TGU’s teach you how to get up and down from the ground. While not necessarily a huge concern for young athletes, this is an extremely valuable life skill. The mobility and coordination to do a TGU assists all other movements (spoiler alert, even the bench press) because it requires effort from every system in your body.
TGU’s bulletproof your shoulders and core. If you have tried them before, you already know that the demand on your shoulder to keep that weight safely overhead without your elbow squishing and the weight crashing down and concussing you, is significant. This stability is essential in most other movements in the weight-room and in sports, particularly the ones that require overhead movements like hitting, throwing, setting, serving, swinging, or handstand walking.
TGU’s train your Central Nervous System (CNS) to a greater degree. The more motor pathways involved in a movement, the more neurons that are required to fire. Have you ever read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers? If not, I highly recommend. It talks about the physiological changes that occur in the human body with repetition and practice, one of which is the myelination of our nerves. Blink note: the more myelinated our nerves, the stronger our proficiency at a skill. The more stress a movement has on our CNS, the faster the nerves become myelinated.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Bench Press. It’s a great lift and serves a purpose in everyone’s training, especially if you are a competitive Power Lifter. For the vast majority of the population though, we shouldn’t be asking “Bro, how much you bench?” we should be asking the much less sexy question of, “Bro, how much do you TGU?”.
Dear Diary, If I Fell Into a Pit of Snakes… I would Surely Die
If you fell into a pit of snakes? Could you pull yourself out? This is both hilarious and horrifying context to the Infinite Pull Up Challenge, of which the goal is to test and improve your pull ups!
Falling into a pit of snakes is seriously my worst nightmare. I’m dead serious when I ask, if you fell into a pit of snakes, and could reach the top edge of the hole, could you pull yourself out?
Or a more practical, similarly horrifying example, if a building was on fire and you had to pull yourself up and out of it, could you? Could you pull someone else out?
These are two - yes, extreme - examples of why being able to perform a pull up as an able bodied human is important!
As a cornerstone functional movement, pull ups translate to many real world scenarios that are less life or death. They are an important link in our posterior chain; central to having great posture; improve cleans, snatches, deadlifts, and many other in-gym movements; as well as counter-act many daily movements that predominantly utilize the anterior (in the front) muscles of our bodies.
PULL UP CHALLENGE
There are two ways to complete this challenge, and depending on your strength levels now, you may be able to do it in 10 seconds or less.
OPTION A
Complete 5 Strict Pull Ups (women) or 10 Strict Pull Ups (men).
OPTION B
This is the test-retest option. If that many (or more) strict pull ups are unavailable to you, what you’ll do instead is pick a modified variation, test it, and then in 30 days retest it with intent to achieve a higher score. To help you along in this process are four different workouts to follow and complete two days per week. For best results, maintain this schedule for the next four weeks.
Each of these workouts you’ll do twice; they don’t necessarily need to be in order, but as humans we thrive in routine; therefore, I’d recommend following along in order.
Workout #1 & 5
*Workout 1 ONLY: Pull Up Test (how many can you do?! attempt after the warm up)
Use any variation you need so that you have a number greater than 0.
Warm Up
3 x 6 Tennis Ball T-Spine Release
Reads as 3 spots x 6 reps at each spot, 3 reps clockwise and 3 reps counterclockwise.
10 PVC Around the Worlds (5R/5L)
10 Forearm Scap Push Ups
Strength
E2MOM: 5 Rounds
6 Ring Rows @ 3:0:0:0
Reads as complete 8 ring rows using a 3 second eccentric count (on the way down).
Add any 20 - 30 second accessory movement you’d like.
Workout #2 & 6
Warm Up
Hug of Death (see workout #4)
2 Rounds
5 Scap Pull Ups
10 Ring Rows
10 PVC Around the Worlds (5R/5L)
Strength
EMOM: 10 Rounds
Minute 1
Max Eccentric Pull Ups
Lower down as slow as possible, as many times as possible, in 1 minute.
Minute 2
Rest
WORKOUT #3 & 7
Warm Up
3 x 6 Tennis Ball T-Spine Release
2 Rounds
5 Cuban Press
5 Scap Pull Ups
Strength
6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4
Bench Assisted Pull Ups
30 - 45 seconds
Rest
Reads as complete 6 Bench Assisted Pull Ups, then rest 30 - 45 seconds, complete 6 BAPU again, and then rest, then in the next round drop down to 5 reps of the BAPU, and so on.
Workout #4 & 8
Warm Up
Hug of Death
5 DB Cuban Press
3 Rounds at increasing weight:
5 Romanian Deadlifts
5 Bentover Barbell Rows
Strength
E2MOM: 5 Rounds
6 Pendlay Rows
8 Deadlifts
Optimize Your Core to Maximize Your Performance
We know it’s important, but why is training your core an essential part to athletic performance? Here are the whys behind your core training program and a few assessments to see where you’re really at.
We know it’s important, but why is training your core an essential part to athletic performance? Here are the whys behind your core training program and a few assessments to see where you’re really at.
Transfer of Power
Not the kind of transfer of power that occurs during election season, but the kind when you throw, kick, run, punch, shoot, catch yourself before you fall on ice, and basically every other athletic and daily movement under the sun.
Your core is the foundation of your body, much like the foundation of any structure. Imagine a cannon in a giant warship, and a cannon in a tiny little canoe. The warship provides a stronger, more stable surface for the cannon to fire from because of it’s size and command presence in the water. The little dinky canoe on the other hand, takes up no presence in the water at all and will be displaced when the cannon fires.
Your core is the type of ship in the above example. If your core muscle fibers are small and weak, they don’t stabilize your spine and absorb the force of your arms and legs in action, and the power leaks away through your weak foundation as well as forces your joints, ligaments, and skeleton to absorb impact instead. Imagine wood splintering on that canoe when the cannon fires. Your bones are the wood now in this metaphor. Eek.
However, if your core muscles are big and strong like the warship, then they will be able to absorb and then transfer force back into your arms and legs into that game winning goal kick or jump shot, and you will decimate the other boats in the water.
Spinal Bodyguard
Have you been warned about back pain yet? Because if you haven’t, consider this your warning, you do not want it. It is the most crippling, humbling pain a person can ever experience. Your spine is so central to every single movement you take, that if you damage any part of that structural chain, the rest of your body feels it to the point of where even getting out of bed or sleeping itself seems intimidating due to the pain factor.
Strengthen the muscles that do a 360º around your spine, and you will have a happier playing career and, more importantly, better overall quality of life for your entire life.
How Do You Know If You Have a Strong Core?
This perhaps, is the most important part of the article, and will require that you actually go test yourself physically. I hope you’re up for the challenge! Coaches, you can also use this testing battery with your team to establish levels of overall fitness to develop smarter training programs, strategies, and predict and prevent injury using data.
World renown back guru Dr. Stuart McGill (who also has a sweet mustache) and a few of his colleagues use the following four isometric postures to test overall core endurance.
BIERING-SORENSEN TEST
This is an insanely important test because it can actually predict the likelihood of back pain in an athlete in the next year. It’s a little tricky to set up, and if you don’t have a physiotherapist table with three straps for your legs like most of us don’t, you can simply use a Glute Hamstring Developer (GHD) that they have at most gyms.
If you are unable to hold this position for 176 seconds (2:56), it is indicative that you will have back pain within the next year! If you are able to hold longer than 198 seconds (3:18) you will most likely not experience back pain. Between that range of time? Well, it would seem from the research it’s a bit of a grey area.
Curious what age based norms are? Open this link in a new tab to see, you may be very surprised by what you find, especially now knowing the criteria for predicting back pain. Side note, 39% of adults in America experience back pain… so… yeah.
SIDE PLANK (BOTH SIDES)
In my experience, folks typically struggle with side planks more so than front (tall or forearm) planks. This is likely because in every day situations we are moving more forwards, up, and down, than rotationally or sideways.
Your obliques, or the muscles being worked in side planks, are used more with upper body rotation and bending. This type of stress on the core is much more common in sports, and from an injury prevention standpoint, we absolutely want to be bulletproofing these muscles.
“A number of functional core assessment tests can be used to assess the core. Keep in mind these tests do not directly assess the core but speculate a strong or weak core based on how well the participant completes the task”
Though there is no magic number like in the Biering-Sorensen test, a good goal for most people for time held in a side plank is at a minimum 30 seconds. For higher level athletes, a realistic minimum goal is more around 60 seconds.
FOREARM PLANK
A classic test of muscular endurance for pretty much every single core muscle, but primarily the rectus abdominis, or the singular “six pack” muscle that you may have previously thought of as your core.
TURKISH GET UPS
It’s become a point of angst and hilarity among a few groups I currently train and have trained in the past, that the Turkish Get Up will come out of no where in programming, and then hang around for awhile in weeks worth of workouts.
That’s because it’s somewhat of a tricky movement to learn, but once mastered has incredible benefits for core and shoulder stability, as well as systemic coordination. Furthermore, it’s centuries old, and was used as a training technique for soldiers who fell in battle and needed to get back up. Okay, that’s one of many cool reasons to learn this!
STAR EXCURSION BALANCE TEST
Fun fact for you, good balance is a direct correlate with core endurance, so the stronger your core the stronger your balance. Now check this out, if you’re a high school athlete, you will find this very interesting. The Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) shown below indicated whether or not high school basketball players had a increased chance of getting hurt in season, and though this study was only on basketball players, I would strongly argue that fact transcends all sports that require balance.
“Plisky et al. (2006) used the SEBT to predict injury in high school basketball players during the competitive season. Athletes who displayed a four-centimeter right–left anterior reach difference were more likely to suffer a lower extremity injury. ”
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Help, Everyone is Faster Than Me
Sick of feeling like you’re eating other people’s dust? Time to do something about it. Here are 10 powerful movements wrapped into three different strength session combinations for you so you can stop feeling like the tortoise next to the hare.
Sick of feeling like you’re eating other people’s dust? Time to do something about it. Here are 10 powerful movements wrapped into three different strength session combinations for you so you can stop feeling like the tortoise next to the hare.
DISCLAIMER: always differ to learning and performing these movements under the supervision of an experienced coach or adult.
FRONT Squats
Trains:
Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes
Core
Builds:
Lower body strength, power, and speed
Ability to handle your own body’s force output, and forces acted upon your body (taking hits).
Box Jumps
Trains:
Glutes, Hamstrings, Lower Leg Complex
Builds:
Lower body power
Single leg stability
Coordination
Note:
This video shows the single leg landing variation, simply land on two feet to perform a regular box jump.
Kettlebell Swings
Trains:
Hamstrings, Glutes
Upper-Back, Lats, Core
Builds:
Explosive jumping power
Great posture
Coordination
Proper hinge patterns
Workout #1
E3MOM: 6 Rounds (Every 3 Minutes on the Minute)
5 Front Squats @ 3:0:x:0
*tempo reads as 3 seconds down, 0 pause at the bottom, up quick, 0 pause at the top
3 Box Jumps
10 Heavy Russian Kettlebell Swings
ROMANIAN DEADLIFTS
Trains:
Hamstrings, Glutes
Forearms
Upper-Back, Lats, Core
Builds:
Explosive jumping power
Grip strength
Great posture
Coordination
Pre-requisite movement for Cleans
Single Arm DB Hang Snatch
Trains:
Glutes, Hamstrings
Core
Lat, Shoulder Complex
Builds:
Lower body power
Shoulder and core stability
Coordination
Pre-requisite movement for Barbell Hang Snatch, Devil’s Press, and Double KB or DB Snatch
Single Leg Box Squats
Trains:
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings
Builds:
Single leg stability
Right to left imbalances
Single leg strength and power
Workout #2
E3MOM: 6 Rounds
6 Romanian Deadlifts @ 3:0:x:0
9 Single Leg Box Squats (each side)
12 Single Arm DB Hang Snatch
Tempo Lateral Lunges
Trains:
Glutes, Adductors, Quads
Core
Builds:
Lateral strength, power and speed
Control and stability in awkward positions
Swing, Stick, Lateral Bound
Trains:
Glutes, Hamstrings, Quads
Calves, Anterior Tibialis
Builds:
Lateral quickness
Bilateral and unilateral landing mechanics
Body control and coordination
Exchange Lateral Lunges
Trains:
Glutes, Adductors, Quads
Calves, Anterior Tibialis
Core
Builds:
Lateral strength, power and speed
Control and stability in awkward positions
Double Hurdle Hops
Trains:
Calves, Anterior Tibialis, Foot
Builds:
Lateral quickness
Footspeed
Coordination
Workout #3
E3MOM: 6 Rounds
12 Tempo Lateral Lunges @ 3:0:x:0 (6R/6L)
8 Swing & Stick to Lateral Bound
12 Exchange Lateral Lunges
16 Double Hurdle Hops
There are hundreds of different combinations and ways to train. Doing something is, of course, better than nothing at all. That said, the best recipe is following a consistent plan where you train 2 - 5x/week depending on your goals.
Build Your Bunnies! Two Week Jump Rope Workout
Jump rope is one of the best low impact ways to improve bounce, foot speed, and improve stamina. It is a common misconception that jump roping is hard on a person’s body. Because most people run heel to toe, jumping rope is actually easier on our joints because it forces us onto our mid-foot and our joints stay stacked over one another the entire time. In turn, this can assist in becoming a mid-foot runner, which is exceedingly better for your body than being a heel-striker.
Jump rope is one of the best low impact ways to improve bounce, foot speed, and improve stamina. It is a common misconception that jump roping is hard on a person’s body. Because most people run heel to toe, jumping rope is actually easier on our joints because it forces us onto our mid-foot and our joints stay stacked over one another the entire time. In turn, this can assist in becoming a mid-foot runner, which is exceedingly better for your body than being a heel-striker.
Reap the benefits of this two week program by using it as a warm up to whatever training you have planned that day.
Week 1
Day 1
5 Rounds (5 Minutes)
20 Seconds Single Unders
20 Seconds Skip Steps
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
Day 2
4 Rounds (6 Minutes)
30 Seconds Single Unders
30 Seconds Skip Steps
30 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
Day 3
2 Rounds (2 Minutes)
20 Seconds Single Unders
20 Seconds Skip Steps
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
3 Rounds (4 Minutes)
20 Seconds Scissor Hops
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
20 Seconds Lateral Hops
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
Week 2
Day 1
3 Rounds (3 Minutes)
20 Seconds Single Unders
10 Seconds Double Unders
20 Seconds Skip Steps
10 Seconds Double Unders
3 Rounds (4 Minutes)
20 Seconds Scissor Hops
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
20 Seconds Lateral Hops
20 Seconds Two Feet Alternating
Day 2
2 Rounds (3 Minutes)
30 Seconds Single Unders
15 Seconds Double Unders
30 Seconds Skip Steps
15 Seconds Double Unders
4 Rounds (4 Minutes)
30 Seconds Three Step (right)
30 Seconds Three Step (left)
Day 3
2 Rounds (3 Minutes)
30 Seconds Single Unders
15 Seconds Double Unders
30 Seconds Skip Steps
15 Seconds Double Unders
4 Rounds (4 Minutes)
30 Seconds Three Step (right)
30 Seconds Three Step (left)
1 Rounds (1 Minute)
30 Seconds Double Unders
30 Seconds Skip Steps
30 Seconds Double Unders
Make sure to super charge the benefits of this workout by also using the following mobility hacks to keep all the tissues of your lower leg happy. Click the image below for videos and descriptions of all three!
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3 Next Level Mobility Hacks for Knee & Ankle Pain
Maintenance on our calf muscles as well as all of their surrounding tissues and overall biomechanical system, is critically important to maintaining and improving athletic performance as well as mitigating injury.
Since Dahmer is trending as a top show on Netflix right now, it seems appropriate to note that if we were to eat a human calf, it would be a grisly, chewy, nasty, meal.
Cringey to think about in that respect, yet so true because the calf muscle undergoes an extreme number of loading cycles during an average day. The typical active human takes 10,000 steps daily, and the average athlete will take many more than that, usually under more intense conditions of force output like jumping, cutting, and sprinting.
That said, maintenance on our calf muscles as well as all of their surrounding tissues and overall biomechanical system, is critically important to maintaining and improving athletic performance as well as mitigating injury.
Scar Balls
The biggest issue with mobility I see as a coach is that most of us neglect it, possibly because we don’t know how to utilize these tools effectively or we’re just being lazy bums. Hence the purpose of this post, may it help you heal any pre-existing naggy injury, or prevent disaster from striking all together.
As the master of mobilization techniques, Dr. Kelly Starrett, says in his book Becoming a Supple Leopard:
“Your calves are prone to sliding surface restrictions. Left untreated that stiffness aggregates into intramuscular adhesions and knotted up scar balls that compromise mechanics and increase potential for injury.”
Scar balls doesn’t sound particularly comfortable and this becomes very evident when employing the following mobilization techniques to optimize performance and save your unedible lower legs from injury.
Key note: if you don’t use these, or other, mobility hacks on a regular basis, they will give you little benefit. It’s kind of like when your dentist sternly eyes you over the brims of their glasses after you tell them you’ve only been flossing your teeth once or twice a week. As the saying goes, “Floss the teeth you want to keep!” which becomes a good way to think about mobility as well, do it often or else.
Mobility Hack #1: Anterior Tib Smash
Your first few times doing this particular mobilization, you may want to throw the lacrosse ball through the wall or be tempted to only smash your tib for a few seconds, but I promise if you hang out on there for at least a minute, it will get noticeably better, especially if you can apply this prescription a few times a week and not just a few times a year.
This mobilization is a great way to prevent or reduce ankle and knee pain.
Perform for at least 2 minutes on each side.
Mobility Hack #2: Calf Bone Saw
Drape your ankle over a foam roller and then cross your opposite leg over the top of your ankle. Use your top leg to saw back and forth across the leg on the foam roller to really dig into your heel cord, soleus, and gastrocnemius.
Perform this mobilization for at least 10 seconds of sawing in 5 different spots up the length of your calf starting at your heel cord and ending at the biggest part of your gastrocnemius.
Mobility Hack #3: Elevated Banded Ankle Distraction
This is a far better way to improve flexibility of the calf and range of motion in the ankle than old school stretching against a wall because it’s actually quite difficult to elicit change in the tissues when just hanging out in a static position. In Becoming a Supple Leopard, Dr. Starrett compares this to hanging onto a piece of steel cable hoping it will stretch.
The second reason, is that this particular mobilization targets more than the muscle. It is also addresses the ankle capsule and our fascia, or the connective tissue that encapsulates our muscles.
Fast forward to the end of the below video for the Elevated Banded Ankle Distraction.
Perform this mobilization for at least 15 to 20 repetitions on each side.