Welcome to Week 1 of Building Resilient Athletes. A nine week training program for athletes of all sports to become faster, stronger and more robust.
Before beginning your training it’s good to first perform a baseline test to understand what your current technique looks like for a deeper understanding of your natural tendencies. This can be achieved simply by video recording your running technique. While this program will work on all aspects of athletic ability, running serves as a master skill, so will be a big focus throughout.
Scroll down to learn about the best method for recording and analysing your running technique.
If you haven’t already, download the workbook here.
First warm-up as you normally would prior to a sports practice session, take your time and make sure you are feeling warm and ready to go. Once you are feeling good, run three accelerations over a 20 metre (22-25 yard) course, increasing intensity on each effort walking back to the start on each sprint.
Now it’s time to film.
Have your camera-person (a training partner, parent, coach or a tripod) set up holding the recording device in landscape mode perpendicular to the running lane. Once the camera is in position and recording, sprint the entire 20 metre course at 95% intensity through the shot. The video below contains instructions to help you do this effectively.
Now that you have your footage, it’s time to analyse your technique, in the video below coach Jacob breaks down the stages of sprinting technique using coach Meg and coach Pat as examples. Below the video you will find screenshots for these stages with good and bad comparative examples for your reference.
Where and how you first strike the ground with your foot has huge effect on speed, efficiency and how load is spread through the shins, knees and lower back. You should be aiming to strike the ground on your mid-foot just slightly in front of, or directly under your centre of mass.
This video from our YouTube channel goes into more depth as to why.
The two most common flaws we see are a reaching heel strike with a straight leg or a weak toe first ground contact with the foot hanging limp.
Scroll forward a few frames in your video to find the point where your leg bends to the greatest degree. This is the point of peak loading.
Four things to look for at this point:
Scroll forward once more until you reach the point of highest knee drive. This is the point just before the back foot pushes off and leaves the ground.
At this point there are a number of factors to look for here:
The last thing to do with your footage is play it back a few times at full speed and in slow motion to get an overall picture of your running technique in motion.
Some things we look out for when doing this:
How did your running stack up?
You might see some components that are similar to yours in our examples, or you might find your running wasn’t as unco as first expected. Either way, now that you have a great picture of how you currently run to keep it in mind as you progress through the program.
For training this week you will start all four training components.
This warm up contains many of the same elements as your previous program; Foam rolling for myofascial release, Static stretching for increased mobility and Glute activation for, well, Glute activation. Perform this warm up in this exact order prior to all training sessions during the program.
For more info on each component, the links above will take you to our blog where you can learn more about the deeper purpose and mechanism behind each component.
Take your time with the rolls and be sure to get the full length of the muscle.
The crouching three stretches. These are an athletes best friend, opening up the hips for better mobility and greater speed and jumping ability.
The gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle in your body, better wake it up before we get to training hard!
There are two drills included this week, arm swings and stationary marches. Refer to the videos for instructions on how to do these and refer to your workbook for the sets and reps you will need to do this week.
Are a great drill for improving your upper body mechanics when running or during agility, be sure to stay relaxed and loose through the upper body and swing the whole arm from the shoulder.
Connecting the arm swing to the leg action, marches are a slow and controlled way to feel the connection between your elbow driving back as the knee drives forwards
Tall to Smalls - This is a foundational exercise for learning how to jump higher. Developing the sense of loading into the bottom of your jump with a powerful arm drive and a strong hip and knee position.
Video coming soon
Each week as part of this component of the training you will also be prescribed an amount of running to be done. This running will range from 10 metres up to 30 metres and range in intensity from 70% up to 95%. Use these run throughs to focus on the new technical components that you have learnt during your Drills & Skills.
*For reference 100% intensity is how fast you would run if you were being chased by a tiger, so 50% would be a supre easy jog, 70% is moderate effort (striding powerfully) and anything 90%+ is a pretty fast sprint! The most common mistake athletes make in picking their intensities is that 70-80% is too slow and 90% is too fast!
The strength workouts will start with four bodyweight exercises that you can do anywhere you have a flat surface and a little space. These should be familiar to you coming from the Osgood or Severs programs.
Ideally you would do your strength workout immediately after your running sets, making it all one big workout, but if your schedule requires it, the strength can be done on separate days.
You can make these harder by placing a mini-band around your thighs just above the knees and pushing out against it for an extra glute challenge.
You can make these harder by placing a mini-band around your thighs just above the knees and pushing out against it for an extra glute challenge.
Be sure to watch all the videos for this weeks exercises and download a copy of the workbook so you can log all your exercises.
Remember, if your sports training schedule is demanding right now, feel free to just do two sessions from the workbook instead of all three, make sure you are still getting in your recovery!