Structuring Your Sports Performance Training Session
....though I could do without the Yankees
About a year ago my move from New York City to Portland, OR caused a real shift in my training schedule (as well as the travel time to and from: my gym was my office and my martial arts school was one door down, and I took care of everything in a daily 2 hour lunch!). No longer could I work on fighting and conditioning for an hour or so four days a week and then (already warm) run back to the office to hit a couple big lifts and a small amount of accessory work, leaving all my 'speed'--more on this later--training to one day a week. Currently both my MMA gym and my 'gym’' gym are about 20 minutes away from my home, in opposite directions, and so I switched to doing about 7 hours of martial arts skill work weekly spread over three days, and 4 hours of performance training spread over two.
Fortunately, there's still a river a number of bridges to walk over
With the decision to make each performance training session (as differentiated from the martial arts ‘sport skill’ or ‘technique’ session) 3-4 times as long as previously, and with the freedom to structure the workout without worrying about fatigue resulting from, or repeating components performed during, the preceding skill session which I had no control over, I was able to design a program with a structure that I had not used for myself in a long time, but which serves as an excellent starting template for combine preparation or training off-season athletes. The components themselves are listed below:
Preparation
--Soft tissue preparation
--stretching and mobility work
--muscle activation
--movement preparation
Velocity---Power---Force Production/Strength
--acceleration/speed/agility work
--plyometrics
--olympic lifting
--Lower <---> Upper Extremity Energy Transfer and Spinal Dynamic Stability
--Resistance Training: For the Extremities
Conditioning
--Interval Training, Tempo Runs, Implement Circuits, Cardiac Output Training
Recovery
--Stretching
--Thermal Modalities
--Nutrition
Each of these components can be emphasized or de-emphasized as necessary for the athlete’s needs and the requirements of their sport, but the chronological progression should be adhered to unless there is a compelling reason to alter it. Additionally the insertion of skill practice run by the sport coach after the preparation portion and before the Strength Portion can be beneficial from a time-management perspective if facilities and schedules allow.