Texans strength and conditioning coach Dan Riley is back for ...

Texans strength and conditioning coach Dan Riley is back for another
installment of his Fitness Corner column.
Riley and assistant strength and conditioning coach Ray Wright will
continue to post selected answers to your questions throughout the year.
I am a police officer in London UK who instructs other officers in selfdefense/safety
techniques. I totally agree with your assessments of
supplements and I am totally shocked with the proliferation of steroids
amongst young people. There are no quick fixes!
We do not have such a well-established fitness culture over here. I truly
believe football strength and conditioning principles are ideal for police
work. We are the home of rugby but it has only recently professionalized
and is still coming to terms with the strength and conditioning aspect
(rather than sinking 14 pints of beer). My question is do you have any
recommended websites that provide some sound information
-- Gareth Tomlinson, London, England
Now that both of my sons have grown up I am unaware of the current trends
with today’s young athletes. It is disappointing to hear that steroid use may be
popular among young people.
I agree with your stance on steroids. I published articles and spoke out against
steroid use in the 1970s. During this era some coaches sold steroids, and others
condoned or encouraged the use (any use is abuse). There is no justification for a
healthy athlete (or non-athlete) to use steroids to benefit physically.
I find it repulsive when an athlete uses steroids in an attempt to gain a physical
advantage over athletes not willing to use steroids. Steroids are illegal and in my
opinion immoral. It is a gross form of cheating.
As a parent I provided my sons with information regarding the perils of using
steroids. I encourage all parents to do the same. It is an older book but one of my
favorites regarding the perils of steroid use. It is titled, “Death In the Locker Room,
by Dr. Bob Goldman.
The advice I gave my sons was to train hard, develop good eating habits, get
adequate rest, and work hard at improving the skills used to play their sport.
Below is a list of websites I have used.
American Dietetic Association: www.eatright.org
Consumer Lab: www.consumerlab.com
American Council on Exercise: www.acefitness.org
National Council Against Health Fraud: www.NCAHF.org

Gatorade Sports Science Institute: www.gssiweb.com
Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter: www.healthletter.tufts.edu
American College of Sports Medicine: www.acsm.org
Human Kinetics Publishing Company: www.humankinetics.com
Coach & Athletic Director: www.coachadguide.com
Best of luck with your police work and your workouts.
I am a high school strength and conditioning coordinator. I often need to
suggest to coaches proper times to perform strength training during the inseason.
With time constraints such as school hours and practice sessions,
sometimes-optimal conditions are hard to find. For maximum gains to be
made during the season, when should the strength training sessions be
scheduled Before or after practice, and why
-- Ed Cicale, Oak Hills High School, Cincinnati, OH
During the season time is tight for all coaches, to include strength coaches. I
always joke with our head coach Dom Capers that games, practice, and meetings,
get in the way of weight workouts.
Each strength coach must decide how to most efficiently utilize his/her facility
with the time available. You are better prepared in your situation to decide what is
best for your players. You may be forced to train players in conditions that are less
than ideal.
During the season my personal preference is to train our players before practice.
After practice players can be fatigued. This may force a player to place a lower
priority on exerting a maximum effort.
I have mentioned many times how important in-season strength training must
be. Strength is lost rapidly if a near maximum effort is not exerted each time a
player works out. During the season our players use the exact same workouts that
they used during the off-season.
Our games are on Sunday. Our entire team performs a total body workout on
Monday. Training the day after the game helps reduce and eliminate stiffness and
soreness. It also allows enough recovery time to perform a second workout later in
the week. All weight workouts on Monday are completed before our team looks at
the game film in the afternoon.
During the week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, most of our players lift in
the morning before meetings. We have some veterans who prefer lifting after
practice.

I am fourteen years old and do not have any access to weights. So I do
push-ups and an ab workout before I go to bed. How should I perform my
pushups to make the best strength gains
(Name not included)
When using bodyweight to perform an exercise (push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, pullups,
chin-ups, dips) people often become more concerned with "how many" reps
they perform rather than "how" they perform each rep.
For example when performing sit-ups (or crunches) athletes often jerk their body
upward (incorporating momentum) and allow the upper body to effortlessly fall back
to the starting position, allowing the muscles to perform little or no work during the
lowering phase. We call these throw-ups and fall downs.
The same can be observed when performing push-ups. The lifter drops to the
floor rapidly, performing little or no work during the lowering phase and then
bounces his chest off the floor using some momentum to help recover to the starting
position. Some athletes do not even recover to the starting position. They are
basically performing half-rep pushups.
Perform any exercise with your bodyweight in the same manner as you would
any other exercise. We ask our players to observe four rules while performing a
repetition of any exercise (to include push-ups).
1. Eliminate momentum during the raising phase. Force the muscles to do all of
the work.
2. Pause momentarily in the muscles contracted position. More muscle fibers are
recruited at this point than in any other position.
3. Emphasize the lowering of the weight (take longer to lower the weight). The
same muscles are used to lower the weight. Significant strength gains can be
developed from lowering a weight if more weight is used or more time is taken.
4. Raise and lower the weight through the muscles full range of motion. If you are
not getting an adequate stretch, elevate your hands off the floor (place a some
pads under each hand) to prevent your chest from touching the floor.
Using a persons bodyweight for resistance can create problems for some people.
A person may not be strong enough to handle his/her own bodyweight. This forces
the person to abstain from performing certain exercises, or it forces them to use
terrible form in an attempt to complete a set. If you cannot properly handle your
own bodyweight while performing push-ups we suggest the following:
1. Perform modified push-ups by dropping to your knees (only the hands and knees
touch the floor).
2. Perform negative only push-ups (only lower the weight). Allow 8 seconds to
lower the weight and get back to the arms extended starting position position any
way that you can. Perform eight to ten reps at eight seconds per rep. Use a

stopwatch on the floor to monitor your lowering speed. Do not start counting until
you have unlocked your arms. The lowering speed should be smooth and even. If
you need more resistance have a spotter apply some manual resistance to your
upper back.
3. If you reach the point where you cannot perform another push-up (while
performing conventional push-ups) and want to perform additional reps have a
spotter assist by helping you recover to the starting position.
The next time you perform your push-up workout, get out the bathroom scale
and place both hands on the scale in the push-up position. Observe the weight
registered on the scale when you are in the push-up position. It is significantly less
than your overall bodyweight (when you stand on the scale). Your bodyweight may
not be enough to generate strength gains. It would be similar to bench-pressing 75
pounds for fifty reps. Eventually you get tired, it burns, it hurts, yet you did nothing
to build additional strength. At some point with a lighter weight, you stop increasing
your anaerobic strength and begin improving your aerobic endurance.
Your muscles will quickly adapt to whatever percentage of your bodyweight you
are using to perform push-ups. At this point you must find a way to make the pushup
harder if you want to continue to gain anaerobic strength. You cannot expect to
provide the same overload one workout after another, and expect to get stronger.
The same can be observed while performing sit-ups. The weight of your torso
does not change from workout to workout. If you want your abdominal muscles to
get stronger they will eventually need more resistance. An exercise can burn and
hurt but it does not guarantee strength gains.
You can make a bodyweight push-up more difficult by utilizing one or more of
the following techniques:
1. Take more time to raise the weight. We call them slow reps. Allow eight seconds
to raise the weight.
2. Have a spotter apply manual resistance to your upper back. A spotter can push
on your upper back while you raise and lower your weight. With a proper spot you
should reach the point where you cannot complete another push-up somewhere
between 10 and 12 reps.
3. Elevate your feet. Use the stairs in your house to elevate your feet in the pushup
position. The higher you elevate the feet the more difficult the exercise. Use your
bathroom scale to see how much more of your bodyweight you are lifting when
you begin to elevate your feet.
5. Preexhaust your triceps before performing push-ups.
a. For variety we periodically have our players perform an exercise to isolate the
triceps (triceps pushdowns) followed immediately with a set of ten push-ups (with a
spotter adding manual resistance). We manually add resistance to their upper back.
We add enough resistance to allow them to barely complete 10 reps.

Why do football workouts train body parts more than once a week where as
regular bodybuilding only train body parts once a week Aren’t football
players over-training
-- Jason Regala
I am not real familiar with the routines employed by modern day bodybuilders so
it makes it difficult for me to accurately compare workouts. My guess is that most
bodybuilders perform many more exercises and sets per body part than our players
do. If the volume of exercise performed is significant, more time is needed between
workouts to recover.
Keep in mind our longest upper body routine incorporates a total of twelve sets.
The volume of exercise our players perform is very low. Once they adapt to our style
of training they can easily recover from two upper body and two lower body
workouts in a week.
I have published our routines in past Fitness Corner installations. Below is a
sample of one of our 10 – 8 Routines:
Set # Exercise Reps
1 Dumbbell Bench Press 10 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
2 Dumbbell Bench Press 8 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
3 Nitro Pullover 10 reps
4. Lat Pulldown 10 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
5 Dumbbell Incline Press 10 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
6 Dumbbell Incline Press 8 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
7 Hammer Rear Delt 12 reps
8 Hammer Seated Row 10 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
9 Rotator Cuff External Rotation 12 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
10 Lateral Raise 12 reps (Rest 90
seconds)
11 Dumbbell Seated Press 10 reps (Rest 90 seconds)
12 Dumbbell Seated Press 8 reps
Total # of reps performed = 120 reps

You can observe from the upper body workout listed above, our players only perform
four exercises (36 total reps) for the chest, four exercises (42 total reps) for the
upper back, and four exercises (42 total reps) for the shoulders.
We do not waste time and energy by performing non-productive sets. Our players
warm up on the first upper (or lower) body exercise by performing several
preparatory sets. Once the warm-up process is complete our players exert a
maximum or near-maximum effort on each set performed.
Some workouts require athletes to perform an endless number of non-productive
sets (sub-maximal efforts). The body must use some recovery energy on every
repetition performed regardless of how light the weight is. Hans Selye tells us that
we do not have an unlimited supply of adaptation energy. The ability to recover from
exercise is limited. Therefore after warming up our players, every set must have a
purpose. And that purpose is an attempt to increase strength on every set
performed each workout, until strength maintenance becomes the goal.
In my early years with the Redskins our players performed three total body
workouts per week. The volume of exercise was less than our current twice per week
workouts, but in looking back I firmly believe I was over-training our players.
I have learned to listen to our harder working players and have made volume
adjustments in our running program and our lifting program based upon their
feedback.
Dr. Hans Selye (in his book, “The Stress of Life”) teaches us that one half of the
successful fitness formula is stress (exercise) and the other, and equally important
half, is adaptation (rest).
Too much exercise and not enough rest produce an athlete incapable of
recovering from one workout (or practice) to the next. During my younger days I
was guilty of over-training players. It can only be described as bad coaching.
I am constantly searching for information that can help us better determine how
little exercise is needed to produce the best results.
Jason, your question about over-training is a good one. Some day I hope there
will be a simple, scientific, and non-invasive method to monitor over-training. Until
then we must rely upon keeping accurate records to compare progress from one
workout to the next. We must also seek the opinions of our most disciplined workers
and make adjustments when necessary.