Martin's speed vault

I have been asked many times by a variety of athletes what supplemental work they can/should be doing. Yes, there is call for more work. For those that are just starting our program, don’t freak out. Given time your recovery systems can handle our daily workouts and some additional work. However, it needs to be controlled and undertaken properly.

Almost all of your supplemental work should be skill work. Our workouts are training. Training can not be done for hours every day. Either you will overtrain and burn out, or your intensity will decrease to accommodate the excess volume. Additionally you will put yourself in a catabolic state and reduce, or reverse your strength gains. Your supplemental work needs to be practice.

Come early and stay late. Pick some skills you want to work on. This may be because you want to fix a goat, or it may because you are really good at something and want to get that much better. Most of this practice should be relatively low intensity drills and movement. Loading can certainly be involved. If you want to practice handstand push ups on a heavy deadlift day, go for it. Don’t kill yourself because we may have HSPU the next day, but certainly work in a few to start heading toward that free standing HSPU. You may want to work on your clean techinque. Does this mean do it all with PVC? Not at all. Pick a moderate load that you can handle with good form and work the movement. Just allow plenty of rest and don’t work yourself into significant fatigue. The workout we do that day will have a great impact on what your supplemental work should look like.

What about supplemental workouts? Except in rare cases. Don’t do it. There are two possible outcomes. 1. Overtraining. 2. Reduced intensity. Either one will slow your progress. Now, if you’re training for a specific event some supplemental workouts may be called for. Talk to our training staff and we can help program for these cases.

So get out there and practice. Repeating movements will only make you better.

Kids strength training

It is commonly accepted that weight training for kids is a bad idea. There are concerns about doing damage to growth plates and inducing other joint stress. While kids can get hurt weight training this commonly held belief is pretty much off base. It’s commonly accepted but not well researched. There are considerations to be held when weight training with kids, but a properly designed program can be exceedingly beneficial.

With adults we have to more cautious with gymnastics progressions, with kids we have to be more cautious with weights. Generally though this is because kids are more apt to do something silly with the weights and drop a plate, kettlebell or dumbell on their foot rather than the actual weight lifting being inherently damaging.

In general weight training with kids should be  a portion of their training, but most of their load bearing can be bodyweight movements. A well structured program can develop exceptional strength with no downside. In fact the kids that start strength training while young tend to have fewer injuries later in life due to the connective tissue development that occurred when they were younger.

Read The Benefits of Weight Training For Kids

We are going to be starting a youth movement and conditioning class very soon. This class will involve a lot of kinesthetic development coupled with strength training. If you have anyone 11-15 interested in improving their performance contact us for details.