Augmented feedback instantly improves jumping performance

Many performance coaches pride themselves on being able to provide instant technical modification or cueing to an athlete that will result in an immediate improvement in a performance measure such as sprinting or jumping. Perhaps the athlete has a poor first step or shoots his/her hips too high off the start. Simply teaching the proper …

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Morning Training Enhances Afternoon Performance

What do you typically have your athletes do on the morning of an afternoon or evening competition? Some coaches prefer to let their players rest, while others may hold film sessions or very low intensity walk-through sessions. Very rarely will you see teams perform lifts or repeated sprints on the day of the game. In …

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Ballistic Squats Enhance Jump Height

In one of our recent posts, we provided a brief summary of new research that compared potentiating 10 m sprint performance with traditional back squats at 85% 1RM or with band resisted back squats at the same intensity. The novel finding was that squatting against bands enhanced 10 m sprint time more so than traditional …

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What can we learn from a vertical jump test?

What can we learn about an athlete from a vertical jump test? The first thought that may have jumped in your mind is “explosiveness” or more specifically, “lower body power”. This is a correct answer. However, this is only one of a variety of pieces of information that a coach can garner from a simple …

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Key Performance Indicators in Elite Sprinters

Key performance indicators (KPI) enable coaches to have a general awareness of the competitive readiness of their athletes. In terms of athlete monitoring, KPI’s may provide the most meaningful information pertaining to performance, assuming the KPI and actual sport performance correlate well with each other. An important characteristic of a KPI is that it must …

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Monitoring post-match fatigue with vertical jump and CK

It seems that coaches are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of monitoring and managing fatigue in athletes. This is because fatigued athletes are at greater risk of being injured in addition to performing sub-optimally. Various techniques for assessing fatigue have been developed. Performance tests like drop jumps, counter movement jumps and sub-maximal bar velocity …

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Ankle Range of Motion Affects Jump Height

Without question, there is a direct relationship between lower body strength/power and vertical jumping ability. However, other factors are at play that can enhance or inhibit ones jumping potential. Specifically, biomechanical factors such as range of motion restrictions at the ankle joint can alter jumping mechanics and reduce jump height. Recent work published in the …

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All else being equal, does the stronger athlete win?

If you were to assess a team of young athletes in a 5 and 20 meter sprint, countermovement vertical jump, and squat jump, you will likely determine that the strongest athletes performed best. This is precisely what Comfort et al. (2013) found when they tested a team of 17 year old soccer players in these …

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