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Actually I find picking a sample of five exercises which must fulfill the needs of all sports not "fairly simple" but I'll give it a try.

- Front Squat: Judging from my experience it is the exercise with most carry over to a broad variety of athletic movements. I also prefer it to other leg exercises like deadlift variations or the squat due to the fact that it goes much easier with the lower back and CNS.
- Leg Curls or GHR: For optimal developement of the legs direct work for the short head of the biceps femoris is inevitable.
- Ab and Back circuit: I regard this as one exercise, since picking only one exercise for the core wouldn't be very beneficial. Just throw in some crunch variation, russian twists, back raise, side raise, etc and perform them in a circuit fashion.
- Chin Ups: Probably my favorite upper body exercise. It's a great general strength exercise which involves many muscle groups. I've seen many people who have built beasty backs with chin ups being their only back exercise.
- Overhead Press: My second favorite upper body exercise with great carryover to many sports.

i personally have found front squat to be more effective than back squat in my own training.. only problem is, every time i start front squatting i get this problem in my upper spine.. something gets tweaked, it effects my breathing and it's just annoying.

dno just thought i'd share... but i'd be using front squat primarily if it didn't aggravate that issue.

peace

Nice, I'll try it out today and report back how it went!

how did it go ?

Hey Everyone,

I am about to go into my second year of college track after having a terrible first year.  I had a pretty bad groin pull during the preseason and I injured my left glute twice and my right achilles during the indoor season which resulted in my running only two crappy 200m races.  I quit at the beginning of the outdoor season after pulling my groin again.

Right now I am hoping to get back into shape this summer before I try out for the team again next preseason.  I'll be starting a training journal so I can keep my workouts organized.

damn man.. thats unfortunate..

which college do you sprint for?

welcome to the forum, hope all goes well with your training.. it will be interesting to see your log.

peace

michael from tvs.

i kinda stopped posting there because i dont really have anything to post since i usually forget what i lifted (my trainer keeps my logs) but ill probbaly start a diet journal or basketball skills journal or sommehting.

anway
im 6"6 215
i dunno my max squat or max bench.

are you making progress under him? you should see his overall plan (because he outlines it for you), and see gains as training progresses... you should definitely keep track of weight room PR's and performance pr's in a log... would you just give all of your money to someone and hope they make the right decisions with it? it's better to be fully involved with the process..

peace man

thought i would join this new forum..nice articles on this site...good luck with this site ..

a few stats about myself
5ft 8  70kg

standing vert 30"(old)
Running vert 35"(old)
Broad jump 305cm
Deep Squat 125kg
the vert jumps are old as i have put about 20cm on my broad jump in the last few weeks..i am using vertfreak and it is a quality program on week 8 and have gotten really good gains definitly reccomend it...just tought i would let you guys know

very cool.. how much progress have you made with it, in total? glad you're seeing progress from it, most people's feedback is positive on the program.

peace!

Hi Guys

I love your writings and insights so thought I would get on board.

Top 5 favorite exercises

For Strength

Safety Bar Squats - regular and lightened method
Trap Bar Deadlift
Travelling Lunges - uphill is always fun in a brutal masochistic kind of way

For Jumping
123 Drill
Box jumps with a weight vest - simple but effective

Using a combination of these exercises I have seen great results both in my own training and with my clients.

Cheers

Jack

sup jack

never done lunges up hill, but it definitely has to be good... how heavy do you go on them? is this a lighter variation or do you bring the big db's out?

peace

Well, the site is only a few hours old, but already we've got quite the membership. To ease everyone into posting, I thought I'd start us out with something fairly simple.

Now, I know it would be dumb to limit yourself, but if you could only use 5 exercises to train an athlete (regardless of sport, but assume it's anaerobic and land-based), what would they be?

Mine would be (in no specific order)
-ISO Bulgarian Split Squats
-ISO and OI Weighted Ab Work
-Short Sprints (<60M @ full speed)
-Depth Jumps
-Overhead Weight/DB/KB/Med Ball Throws

in no specific order as well:
- squat
- depth jump
- barbell lunge
- heavy weighted pillars for core (30-45s)
- controlled barbell calf raises (ya im becoming a fan...)

i'll assume sprinting/jumping is apart of this sport so that i don't have to waste an exercise

only problem with heavy weighted pillars is that, since I train alone, i simply cannot do them.

i notice excellent ankle stiffness with the incorporation of depth jumps.. these improvements don't last too long unless i keep performing them.. i've noticed alot more pop out of my calfs as of late, by simply introducing heavy barbell calf raise singles..

i love kellyb's horsepower analogies.. unfortunately, alot of people assume horsepower is only important in the glutes/hamstrings.. the body has a few engines that are vital to performance;
- calfs/ankles/feet
- hamstrings/quads/adductors
- glutes/core
- powerful arm swing

unfortunately my list of exercises doesn't include med ball work.. i have not used it in my training, but in the training of Jamie McOwen & the other pro guys i definitely have seen its effectiveness... you can tell it works just by how fast you see improvements in broad jump/vert.


the "ankle engine" to me seems so damn important.. I have yet to make significant permanent gains in this department.. jump sessions following moderate-high volume depth jumps from 18" are much more efficient.. stiff leg ankle hops also work the same way for me.. in my dunk videos, you will see my plants alternate from mushy to stiffer, throughout the last 1.5 years.. they are stiffer following depth jumps/stiff leg hops, and thus higher.. i need to be more consistent with my depth jumps/stiff leg ankle hops from now on, and add in the heavy weighted stimulus of barbell calf raises.. after my deload, my new high frequency program will try and achieve some permanent gains in this department.. it's also much more glute/hamstring dominant.


edit #233523523: if you look at the intro pure-dedication video, i definitely was staying off my heel in my plants.. i had alot more spring than normal.. i did ramp up stiff leg ankle hops (submax) and hit some heavy barbell calf raises singles 2 days prior to this session.. it could also have been some crazy supercompensation though, because i maxed out on squat 2d in a row, rested a day, then dunked.

peace

Thanks! Im very proud of those kids.

As for my college career, I walked onto the team as a 41' triple jumper. Nothing special by any means. I progressively got worse until I tore my hamstring mid freshman year. My first meet back after taking two months off, I PRed to 43'. That's how overtrained I was. Spent the next two years never reaching that mark again. In that time I was plagued with injuries including shin splints, pulled hop flexor, and torn cartilage in both knees. Going into Sr year I was restriced from the traditonal preseason of running stairs for an hour. We also got a jumps coach who focused on quality over quantity. I improved to 45' after spending 2 years not cracking 43' again. Unofficially I jumped 46' in practice. I was strong, had great technique but was slow as sin.

The coach had no idea how to manage the needs of specific events. Preseason was spent running/bounding stairs from 30-60mins nonstop. That was 8 weeks of aerobic development. I can't remember one workout that included more than 45s recovery, most had a jog as recovery.

Secondly, volume was WAY too high. He was proudest of a workout that was 16x200m on an indoor track. Goal time was 32-35s with 1-1:30 rest. A midseason workout once was 3x8x80m all out sprints with a walk back and 5 mins recovery.

Nothing was ever timed or measured so there was no concept of a drop off. We ran till we dropped.

Finally there was no real speed work up until the week of league championships. At that point we would do a workout along the lines of a flying 30 with a 200m walk recovery. So speed was never developed..it was only introduced at the end. That was their idea of peaking.

In that time I saw a lot of good athletes get worse while a very small handfull improved. And the only ones that really improved were the multi-event athletes who were predisposed to have a higher work capacity. Most other people didnt even beat their HS marks until Sr year. Some never even came close.

man that sucks..

i've seen it plenty.. i really don't understand it at all though.. the addiction to quantity over quality when it comes to power sports. Every athlete I trained at MSC had coaches addicted to aerobic work.. they turned every sprint session into an aerobic workout.. kids would come to me completely drained.. one summer we helped a baseball team achieve some great results in their sprinting, and within one month of this team ceasing to utilize our program, all of their sprinting became even worse than the pre-testing, due to endless "spinning classes" & frequent mile runs.. every single person got slower when we re-tested them after their pre-season training.

peace man