Archive for July, 2007
Justin Gatlin
The joint world record holder for the men’s 100-m, Justin Gatlin, will begin the final day of a 2-day United States Drug Authority (USADA) hearing in Atlanta today, with the aim of clearing his name.
Testosterone
Despite failing and accepting both A and B samples contained testosterone or a pre-cursor in April last year, Gatlin is aiming to overturn the life ban imposed on him by USADA.
Athletes fail a drug test if the Testosterone- Epitestosterone ratio is above 4:1, if there are concentrations of androsterone greater than 10,000 ng/ml or concentration of Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is greater than 100 ng/ml.
Athletes beware
DHEA is readily available on the sports supplements market and is specifically targeted at power sports. Do not be coaxed by gimics or clever advertising – this stuff can ruin your career- plus it’s not even proven to enhance performance!
Research
Your far better to sticking to the stuff that has been scientifically proven time and time again to work, carbohydrates, creatine, caffeine, protein, glutamine (anecdotal) and pay attention to when these supplements have the greatest effect on anabolic hormones.
Carbohydrates: Before, during and after
Creatine: Absorbed faster (5g) after exercise
Caffeine: At least 3mg per kg body mass 60 – 30 mins before exercise
Protein: Immediately before and after exercise
Glutamine: 10 g after exercise.
All comments welcome
Kick-Off!
As pre-season for many soccer teams in Europe draws to a close and the 2007-2008 season kicks-off, coaches will be looking for players to “sharpen up” by emphasising speed and agility training. But what will the top teams such as Manchester Utd., Real Madrid and AC Milan be doing to prepare for the start of the season?
Soccer Sprints
The key lies in the activity profile of professional soccer. Research has indicated that although high intensity/sprinting represents less than 10% of a match (Helgerud et al., 2001) it is considered critical to the outcome of a game. High-intensity running accounts for about 7 minutes of the whole game, composed of about 8.1% high-intensity running, 2.1% high-speed running, and 0.7% sprint running (Bangsbo et al., 1991). The top coaches know this and so plan training to represent these aspects of professional soccer. As you might expect the training programmes of top soccer teams are closely guarded secrets, however, the good news is they are not magic training programmes, and with a little application of knowledge, specificity and creativity you too can train like the pro’s.
Designing Speed Drills
There are an innumerable number of speed and agility drills you can create and these should reflect the movement patterns of soccer (e.g. forwards, sideways, backwards, jumping etc..). However, of more importance is the duration and rest periods of the drills. Helgerud et al. (2001) reported that elite junior players sprinted (duration > 2 sec) on average 12.4 ± 4.3 times during a match corresponding to around 300- 400m. Knowing this sprinting at 100% should last no longer than 5-seconds with a work:rest ratio of around 1:12-20, depending on the condition of the players.
The idea is to develop whole body neuromuscular quickness, so players should be fully rested and aim to give maximum effort on each rep. The best time to train speed is immediately post warm-up, when muscles are warm and players are relatively free from fatigue. Making drills competitive increases the effort players gives, although be careful players maintain correct technique.
Simple example: using a multi-directional speed drill - 15, 20, 25, 30, 25, 20, 15-m @ 100% effort (2-3-mins rest).
Final Thoughts
So in developing speed during pre-season identify specific soccer drills, and tailor the exercise intensity, duration and rest period to the aspect of speed you want to develop. My preference is for athletes to train at speed no matter what they are doing, warm-ups, game specific conditioning, speed training, even thinking!
All comments welcome.
References: Helgerud, J., Engen, L.C., Wisloff, U. and Hoff, J. (2001). Aerobic endurance training improves soccer performance. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33, 1925 – 1931.
Bangsbo, J., Norregaard, L. and Thorso, F. (1991). Activity profile of competition soccer. Canadian Journal of Sports Science, 16, 110 – 116.
