October/November 2020 - 30

Total Athlete Development
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4 Trends in Strength & Conditioning That Are Here to Stay
By Nick Friar
Contributing Writer
T
..he strength and conditioning
..business has always been
..about evolution. The primary
goal of the field itself is to physically
improve athletes and clients in some
capacity.
So, it only makes sense that
exercises and recovery have changed
over the years.
Some advancements in the field
stick as-is. Others are interwoven
into routines and develop further.
Then some exit the cycle as quickly as
they're introduced.
Training & Conditioning examined
four trends in the field that are
here to stay, continue to develop,
and are important for all strength
professionals to be aware of.
1. Data-Driven Strength Plans
Technology in the weight room
is far from a new thing. The ability
to test verticals or cleans and
everything in between has been
around for some time.
But, at first, technology was used
to test progress. Now, coaches can
use the data as a tool to formulate
advanced plans.
" Pre-velocity-based training, a
lot of it was based on percentages
of a max left, where now you could
program based on bar speeds, "
Purdue University director of
strength and conditioning Jason
Pullara said. " You can adjust insession
rather than post-session.
So, if you see an athlete that's not
performing quite as high as they are
accustomed to, you could lower their
bar weight, achieving the bar speed
that you want, or vice versa - if
they're doing really well, you can give
them a little bit more load that day.
" It really is becoming used much
more across the country - across the
world really. "
At Purdue, Pullara and his staff
use Push - is a company that
Stanford and Notre Dame among
other colleges work with, as well as
the Miami Marlins and Washington
Nationals of Major League Baseball
and Tottenham Hotspur F.C. of the
English Premier League.
" The Push system gives you bar
velocity in terms of peak velocity, main
velocity, and peak power, " Pullara said.
" You could also attach it to a person.
You could use it for jumping. You could
measure a variety of movements -
we're still digging into some of that,
but we're definitely using it a good
amount for quite a few of our teams,
just in terms of measuring bar speed,
which gives you a really good way
to manage an athlete as opposed to
maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago. "
2. Teleconference Training Sessions
Training clients online has been
around for some time. Though, the
COVID-19 pandemic forced strength
28 | Training & Conditioning | October/November 2020
and conditioning professionals to
rely heavily on Zoom or other online
meeting software to stay in business
and keep their clients active.
" I've been going online training since
the mid-2000s, " owner of the Bostonbased
strength facility CORE Tony
Gentilcore, C.S.C.S. said. " When I say
virtual online training, a lot of that was
just writing programs for people and
then sending videos or having access
to YouTube where I could say, 'Hey, you
don't know what this exercise is. Here
it is.' I certainly haven't been using
Zoom since the early 2000s because it
didn't exist then. "
" The virtual setting, while not my
favorite thing to do, has allowed me
to see my clients and athletes on a
somewhat weekly basis. It was really
more about me serving them, it was
really about me and my preference. It
was more about keeping them more
consistent, keeping them on task.
That was more important. "
Some clients and athletes have
returned to the weight room, but
some still feel the need to train at
home. Ideally, the hope is to get
everyone back into the gym when
things truly go back to normal.
Still, online training, as it is now,
isn't going anywhere.
" In terms of strength conditioning
in general, yeah, moving forward I
think it's going to be a service that's
October/November 2020

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