“Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.” -Dan Gable

I have always admired the wrestlers’ work ethic. My dad coached high school wrestling for 20 years, but I preferred team sports and never wore a singlet. In early March of 1997, I took a campus visit to the University of Iowa. As a zero-star football/baseball recruit, I was with a group of high school athletes touring the athletic facilities, which led us to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. A sunken arena, the basketball court is below ground and out of sight from the main entrances.

My group was listening to the proud history of Hawkeye basketball and wrestling when we heard scary, loud, noises coming from the pit of the arena, which interrupted our ability to focus. The noises kept getting louder and louder; it sounded like a pack of blood-thirsty, heavy-footed demons were getting closer and closer to our location! As I backed away from the group and peeked down the stairs to see what was happening below. I witnessed the Hawkeye wrestling team’s conditioning session, which consisted of running up the Carver-Hawkeye stadium steps while carrying a teammate, piggy-back style. This was right before the 1996-1997 Hawkeyes became both Big Ten Champions and National Champions, under legendary Iowan/coach Dan Gable. As a skinny 17-year-old, it looked like the hardest, most intimidating workout I had ever seen. These wrestlers were crazy!

In his later years, Gable, whose own superhuman career ended at the age of 26 due to numerous injuries, would lament that he wished he trained his wrestlers smarter instead of harder. The sport is demanding and brutal, as Gable used to workout 2-3 times per day, seven days per week.

As a judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner, I have experienced how a high amount of intensity and volume—without adequate rest and recovery—can destroy the body of even the most hardened competitor. While understanding this wrestling mentality, I wondered if there was a way to reap conditioning and skill-based improvement without the punishment of overtraining and physical pain? If the best ability is availability, then how can we train our wrestlers to understand when to charge and recharge?

Professionally, my next foray into wrestling was training with youth phenom Max Schneider. From Chicago’s Lane Tech High School, Max had two undefeated Illinois High School Association state championship seasons (2010 and 2012), was a Cliff Keen All-American, and would later wrestle collegiately at Cal Poly and San Francisco State. Also a judo black belt, Max was a gold medalist at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics and a training partner for Team USA at the 2016 Olympics. Max was a high-level, two-sport combat athlete and had the scars/miles on his body to prove it. While Max dominated on both the judo and the wrestling mats, his body never had an off-season to heal. We tried to keep him available by implementing corrective exercise strategies, cross-train with concepts/skills from other sports, and not beat the crap out of him each day in the gym.

As a more experienced performance coach, I have teamed up with Beat the Streets Chicago (btschicago.org) to incorporate more athletic-based movements into their high school wrestling program.

The inspirational story of BTS Executive Director Mike Powell has been well documented, and his success at Oak Park-River Forest High School was the national gold standard. Watch here: https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/8574528

Coach Powell had state champions, team champions, and future Olympians on his roster throughout his career. In the IHSA state tournaments, it seemed like Max was constantly fiercely battling these uber-talented and gritty Oak Park grapplers. No one accused Coach Powell’s wrestlers of being unprepared.

We know that wrestling is a physically demanding sport and that wrestlers are some of the toughest athletes around. As all eras of wrestlers can attest, they will train as hard as they can for as long as they can. But, sometimes the grind of wrestling practice can inhibit the development of overall athletic ability. Many of these young men and women wrestle year-round, and like many single-sport athletes, do not have an off-season to:

1. Heal their beat-up bodies.
2. Correct muscular imbalances.
3. Introduce a safe and progressive strength and conditioning program.

Our goal was to step away from the mat and work on clean athletic movement, improved body control/coordination, dynamic stabilization, and overall performance efficiency. By creating more functional high school athletes, we have created more functional high school wrestlers.

Each BTS Performance Camp station had a different focus:

1. Dynamic Movement/Corrective Exercises
2. SAQ
3. Power
4. Grappling/Tumbling/Crawling
5. Strength

As you may expect, the wrestlers were amped up to train, so calming them down to prepare their minds was our first task.

To practice diaphragmatic breathing, we had them lay on their backs (position wrestlers passionately hate to be in), close their eyes, and bring awareness to their breath for two minutes—the exact duration of an IHSA wrestling period.

We used the 4-2-6 technique with a four-second nasal inhalation, a two-second hold, and a six-second mouth exhalation. With a longer mouth exhalation, the body can trigger its parasympathetic nervous system, reminding itself to relax. The parasympathetic nervous system’s counterpart, the sympathetic nervous system, cannot differentiate between the stress of a wrestle-off, a first varsity match, the city championship, trying to find a Homecoming date, an ACT, or the freezing temperatures of a Chicago polar vortex. All the body knows is stress. So, the better we can apply breathing to self-regulate our behavior, we can perform and use our energy efficiently.

1. Dynamic Movement

The dynamic stretching starts slower before building to faster, incorporating a gamut of tri-planar, multi-directional, full-body-coordination-enhancing warmup movements. Every exercise had purpose and placement within the warmup, and our goal was to improve efficiency with each rep. Some of the exercises included: lunge with a frontside lean, straight-legged kicks, lateral lunge with a reach, rotational single-leg hinges, and inchworms. We wanted to introduce new movements but keep them consistent so familiarity could improve execution. If the athletes considered dynamic stretching to be their own personal pregame warmup, there was a higher level of ownership and accountability.

We incorporated corrective mini-band exercises for glute-activation (to avoid quadricep dominance) and rotator cuff strengthening/postural awareness for improved shoulder stability and injury prevention.

(https://www.instagram.com/p/CQy_SE1nUJ3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)

2. SAQ (Speed, Agility and Quickness)

Once we got their bodies bending better, it was time to “rev the engine” with speed, agility, and quickness. The sport of wrestling requires athletes to move swiftly in a small space, against a resisting opponent who is also trying to do the same. The ability to get from A to B inside this small area of chaos can be trained more efficiently through action/reaction and quick acceleration/deceleration/change of directions drills.

Multi-directional speed ladder, 10-yard agility bursts, and technical form-running helped reinforce full-body coordination and precision foot placement and movement efficiency.

3. Power

Everyone loves the big jumping exercises, but our athletes needed to earn these reps by demonstrating a controlled ability to stabilize and decelerate dynamically. We can minimize the impact and protect their oft-battered joints by focusing on the landing and teaching joint-stacking cueing. While jumping is usually not part of the sport, exploding through a takedown is necessary. Vertical jumps, broad jumps, and multi-directional skate jumps were our base power movements.

4. Grappling/Tumbling/Crawling

Wrestling is one of the only sports where athletes routinely have all four of their limbs on the ground at the same time, so being able to move from a quadruped position effectively will improve total-body coordination. Bear-crawling, crab-walking, and various animal-themed movement patterns are programmed here. Plus, adding judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu crossover patterns like rolling front/back/side somersaults, cartwheels, handstands, kick-throughs, and butt/hip scoots help promote body awareness and maintaining focus while dizzy.

5. Strength

BTS has pull-up bars and climbing ropes all over their large wrestling room, so the wrestlers were quite familiar with vertical pulling patterns and push-ups; they do a ton of push-ups. In the weight room, we introduced bench pressing (which does not help athletically but gives them an alternative to push-ups). This allows the kids spot each other safely; TRX face pulls and horizontal rowing; Bulgarian bag box step-ups; and partner Nordic hamstring curls.

Two upper-body stations; two lower-body stations. We wanted easy-to-follow exercises with two simple weight room rules:

1. No one gets hurt
2. No stupid s***

This way, no matter their weight room experience, we introduced a strong core of lifts appropriate for high school-aged wrestlers. They could confidently repeat the program once our BTS Performance Camp came to a close.

Best of luck to all the BTS athletes as they begin training for their upcoming high school seasons! *Special thanks to former Iowa State University wrestler Ben Perna for consulting on this project and to Jake Fine for the video credits.

My journey to find athletic success was challenging. Keep in mind that “difficult” is personally defined; what is difficult for one may not be considered difficult for another. We all have to face and overcome our version of adversity. My journey as an athlete was not easy (please keep my struggle in perspective because plenty of people have had worse problems and harder situations than mine).

I am fortunate to come from a supportive family and grew up with excellent youth and high school coaches, teaching me great life lessons. But, once I got to college, none of that mattered. What I learned on the field in the first 18 years of my life was no longer relevant.

Before becoming a trainer, I was an athlete. I had big dreams in high school: I wanted to play Big Ten football and Major League Baseball. These were high-level aspirations, and the statistics work against most high school players achieving either of them.

According to scholarshipstats.com:

• 1 in 14 high school athletes will play a varsity college sport
• 1 in 54 will play an NCAA Division I sport
• 2 percent of high school athletes will earn a Division I athletic scholarship
• 2 percent of the high school athletes that earn Division I scholarships will play professionally

The math was against me. I knew it would be hard, but I was convinced that I could do it. While I would not have been able to articulate it at the time, I believed in myself. There was something deep inside my core that “wanted it more” than everyone else. As cliché as it sounds, I thought anything was possible if I had talent, worked hard, made sacrifices, and was willing to go through hell to get it. I accepted that suffering was a component of achievement, and I was ready to suffer. I did not expect it to be easy.

The journey was made all the more difficult without the validation of personal recognition. I did not receive many individual awards. As a high school athlete, I was All-Conference for football and baseball, All-Area for football and baseball, and played in an All-Star football game. But, unlike many pro athletes, I was not All-State, and I was not an All-American. I was not offered a Division I college football or baseball scholarship or drafted by an MLB team out of high school or college. The reality of my background is that I was a two-sport walk-on and an undrafted free agent.

Being a walk-on meant that no college football or college baseball program thought enough of my potential to pay for my education. Being an undrafted free agent told that no Major League Baseball organizations thought enough of my potential to draft me. I wore the walk-on and undrafted free agent designation like a chip on my shoulder — as a motivator. The odds are against walk-ons succeeding, as we are presumed to be less talented than our scholarship peers. Thus, there are fewer opportunities to show what we can do. Somehow, we must find a way to stand out. Being in the right place at the right time and ready to perform when called upon is important. Focusing on controllable actions, such as preparation, is a must. Practice is an equalizer, so being prepared is better than getting ready.

As an athlete with an English degree, I had zero interest in writing about my sports career, but my attitude about it has changed as I’ve gotten older. There are very few people that know the in-depth details of this story. As a trainer, I have worked with athletes and been disgusted after hearing about their college coaches’ experiences, which sounded very similar to my experiences with college coaches. After realizing that 2017 marked the 10th anniversary of my release from the Chicago White Sox organization, I felt I was removed enough from the game to offer my own insights.

Reading a book like this would have helped reinforce my belief that I was on the right path. Many sleepless nights were wondering if I would ever achieve the goals that I had set for myself. I hope that my persistence motivates someone else to keep fighting for what they want. Staying true to my core beliefs helped me navigate through the shit-storm that is college and professional sports.

Not every decision I made throughout this journey was correct. All athletes are at the mercy of other people’s opinions, and coaching actions forced my reactions. It is important to note that I am a happy person and too fulfilled regardless of my experiences. I have a great family, an inspired career, and a fantastic life. This book was written out of enlightenment and reflection to connect with future athletic audiences. Walked On is an attempt to explain some unfortunate realities of big-time college and professional sports; a demonstration to current and future athletes that our inner strength can determine success. This book has many characters, including family, teammates, and coaches. They all have important roles in the story; some as heroes, others as villains — some as both.

Let it be known that I hold no grudges and wish the heroes and villains a lifetime of success and prosperity.

This writing aims to use my own journey to motivate others to find inspiration through failure and setbacks. I am well aware that if I had an easier athletic path (for example, if I had been All-State if I had received a scholarship, if I had been drafted), my journey would have been entirely different.

Either way, at a pivotal point, we are all tested on how bad we want something. During a life-defining moment, we must decide that our grit outweighs any obstacle. We must believe that our ability to fight is greater than our instinct to run, that our will can overcome our challenge. I hope this book provides numerous examples of times it would have been easy to quit, but a commitment to achieving a life-long goal and the resiliency to see it through proved to be more important. I refused to let any single opinion define me; the only opinion that mattered was mine.

Special thanks to my family for their support. They lived through each chapter and always picked up the phone when I called.

Ruben was 25 years old and looked like an athlete. He was 5-9 and a strong 175 pounds, with a body that had been conditioned from decades of throwing people on the ground. Although young, Ruben was a judo veteran, competing internationally since his childhood and earning black belts in judo, Japanese jiu-jitsu, and hanbo-jitsu. His father, Ruben Martin Sr., is well-known in the judo community and has his own academy in Burleson, Texas. His mother, “Dazzling Denise,” was a professional wrestler. Basically, grappling is in Ruben’s blood, with high-level parental pedigree.

Ruben Martin, right, with trainer Brian Kent, had a plan to bulk up and compete in the heavyweight division with the goal of reaching the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

I was initially impressed with Ruben’s teaching ability. He ran a tight, disciplined class and held the kids accountable. As we got to talking, I learned that Ruben was pretty accomplished for a young man—married to Brianna; had already earned his Master’s Degree in kinesiology; and was working as a personal trainer. Judo was the reason that Ruben and Brianna moved to Chicago; to leave behind his Texas comfort zone, gain access to more training partners and improve his preparation. The goal was to make the Olympics. (Tokyo, Japan—the host for the 2020 Summer Games—iconically, is the birthplace of judo.)

Most of his career, Ruben had been cutting weight and fighting at 66kg (145 pounds), 73kg (160 pounds) and 81kg (178 pounds) with inconsistent success. By “inconsistent,” I mean that he had some international success and was on USA Judo’s (@usajudoofficial) radar, but could never crack the No. 1 ranking in any of his weight classes. Ruben was second or third on the depth chart, and knew that he needed to make some major changes if he was to become an Olympian.

Ruben Martin

Recognizing that Ruben was a motivated, talented athlete, I casually asked him about his training. Although the Chicago judo community is tight—and I had friends that knew him—my relationship with Ruben was brand new. We had not crossed paths on the mat or in the gym; he did not know me and I did not know him. But it was clear there was passion in his voice as he described his goals and his expectations.

Although I had offered my help as a performance coach, Ruben had resisted and explained that he had himself on a strict strength training program and politely declined my invitation. Ruben would later admit that there was one piece of information that I shared with him to make him reconsider working with me. After hearing that he had injured himself in the gym a week before a European tournament, I reminded him that “the best ability is availability.” Somehow that stuck in his head.

Right around this time, Nike celebrated the 30th anniversary of their Just Do It campaign, with commercials geared toward “Crazy Dreams” and “it’s only crazy until you do it.” So, when Ruben approached me with his vision to gain 50 pounds and jump up three weight classes to +100kg (220-plus pounds), I thought he was crazy. Like, clinically insane.

Ruben’s reasoning was that there were fewer competitors at the heavier weight classes and that he didn’t have to win as many matches to make the Olympic team. Instead of cutting calories, his plan was to increase them—by a ridiculous amount. Instead of worrying about his weight, he was going to lift heavy weights. Twice a day, four days per week, Ruben implemented a bodybuilding-style weightlifting program. The pillars of Ruben’s methodology included heavy helpings of Squats, Deadlifts, Leg Presses, and other closed-chain exercises. Nutritionally, he packed his stomach with 6,000 daily calories, coming from two pounds of meat and boxes of pasta, supplemented with numerous protein shakes and desserts.

Remember that Ruben is 5-9, not 6-5. With his frame, I was concerned that his body would resemble a bowling ball with limbs, and that he would lose all athleticism. We agreed that if Ruben took care of the strength training on his own, then I would help with his athletic movement. (Ask any mother how hard it was to move their pregnancy body after gaining 30 pounds of baby weight.)

No matter how sore he was from progressive overloading, or how stuffed his stomach was from eating, Ruben committed to showing up at On Your Mark Coaching and Training (@onyourmarkstudios) twice a week. The focus was ground-based mobility, dynamic stretching, glute activation, rotator cuff strengthening, multi-directional crawling and stabilizing. Our goal was to help him maintain athleticism throughout his weight-gain process, and teach his body to move better and bend better. Basically, we reinforced Ruben’s physical foundation and challenged him to control his new body in proprioceptively enriched environments. The results were incredible: 40 pounds gained in three months. (Equally impressive was the reality of his big butt splitting his judo gi pants.) But, the goal was high-performance judo, not to win a weight-gaining competition. How would Ruben’s big body translate to the mat?

With the skills of a “little guy,” and the body of a “big guy,” I was curious as to how this combination could compete against an equally large, motivated opponent. Would Ruben get smashed? Was he too small? Or was he just crazy enough to win? The tournament results were incredible.

• June, 2019—US Senior Nationals (first time at 100kg): Silver
• July, 2019—US Open (first time at +100kg): Gold
• September, 2019—Pan American Open (Olympic qualifier): Bronze
• November, 2019—Dallas Invitational: Gold
• November, 2019—Presidents Cup: Gold
• February, 2020—Danish Open: Bronze

Ruben Martin won the gold medal in the heavyweight division of the 2019 US Open Judo Championships.

Ruben fought well and won medals at every competition! It was after gold medals in the Dallas Invitational and the Presidents Cup that he earned the ranking of the No. 1 +100kg judo fighter in the United States. Ruben was two grand prix tournament gold medals away from qualifying for Tokyo. Unfortunately, during the Danish Open, he injured the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow. While he went to physical therapy and pushed through the pain—with the intention of competing—the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled both qualifying tournaments. Even if healthy, Ruben would not have had the chance to fight for gold. As a result, his journey to 2020 has come to an unsatisfying end.

Although the ultimate goal was not reached (yet), Ruben deserves credit for sticking with a long-term plan through short-term implementation. Although his body got bigger, his system was continually taxed from the heavy weightlifting and mountainous calories. There were numerous days, while his body adjusted to its new workload, that he just didn’t feel good. He still chose to show up.

It is my hope that with four more years until the 2024 Games, Ruben’s diet can become more balanced (i.e., eat some vegetables) and he can maintain a healthy, low body-fat physique.

For any athlete with a long-term goal, it is important to focus on the process. Maintaining motivation for daily, incremental improvement is essential for all competitors. Our own thoughts, actions, and decisions are the only factors we can control in an increasingly chaotic, uncontrollable global environment. As a result, we are in charge of our mentality, our preparation, and our responses to adversity. Adversity will always be present, so learning how to effectively manage it is an important skill for life. Be sure that your process is productive (not destructive) and that you are conditioned for success.

Remember, it’s only crazy until you do it.

Train hard. Train smart. Train safe.

READ MORE:

• Trying to Gain Weight? Here’s What Your Meals Should Look Like
• 31 Powerful Exercises for Combat Sport Athletes
• Ranking Martial Arts for the Real World

That’s something my client/friend Claire Quinn (@claire___quinn) knows all about. She’s an amateur boxer who’s been racking up the KOs lately and will soon be competing in the women’s final of the Chicago Golden Gloves. As a 152-pound fighter, Claire packs a powerful right cross and frequently spars with men (Most humans don’t like being punched in the face, but Claire doesn’t seem to mind.) Her high school volleyball career laid the foundation to coordinate her long limbs, and she is a good athlete. But, when Claire asked me to help with her strength and conditioning, I pictured a different plan than what you saw in Creed.

After watching video of her sparring, we agreed on three very important combat sports principles:

1. Circular movement vs. linear movement
2. Full-body coordination
3. Focus on yourself, not your opponent.

In my opinion, being elusive is equally important to being powerful. The name of the game is to hit and not get hit, so the best defense is always a—good defense! If we think of boxing like playground “tag,” the fewer times she’s “it,” the more likely she is to win. So, standing in front of someone and playing Rock-’em-Sock-’em robots might look good in movies, but it’s bad for the brain and bad for your odds of winning a fight.

Using superior footwork to get in and out of range and create favorable angles will always be a smart fighting strategy. Standing on the big monster tire, Claire shadowboxed to train circular footwork while still throwing punching combos—from both fighting stances. Sometimes, she closed her eyes to deeply reinforce mind-body connection and proprioception. Keeping her balance (and her calm) under stressful conditions (like me occasionally swinging foam rollers at her head) translates to the ring.

We also worked on coordination. Most boxers tend to only fight out of their dominant stance, which for Claire, is her left foot forward and her right leg in the rear. In our training, we strived to get her stronger in this stance, but also get her comfortable with her limbs in different positions. For example, we did a standing single-arm chest press/punch on the Hammer Jammer from her dominant stance as well as from the southpaw stance:

Claire had to stabilize from different positions, which helps provide better overall body balance and reinforces coordination on her non-dominant side. This helps eliminate imbalances and minimize weaknesses in her game. It also leads to stronger punches from either hand.

Great boxers are strong from the ground up. Strong, accurate punches aren’t just thrown with the arm or shoulder; they’re thrown with your legs and core. Those are your biggest muscle groups, and that’s where your real power is going to come from. To help Claire tap into feeling that power, we utilized moves like this Keiser Pull/Push:

Olympic lifts are a great way to build explosiveness, but they can take a lot of time and effort to learn properly. The Hammer Jammer machine allows Claire to enhance her explosiveness and power with a triple extension movement and has a very low barrier of entry:

These type of movements have been our bread and butter, along with a steady diet of conditioning work (because if you’re winded halfway through the first round, it doesn’t matter how hard you can punch). The mental side of boxing is also essential. We noticed that social media can be a gift and a curse in this sport. It might allow us to check in and scout our next opponent, but based on what we see, we can formulate misleading opinions of them. We may lose the fight in our minds before even stepping into the ring. When it comes to your mentality, the best thing you can do is focus on what you are doing—not what anyone else is doing. Do the work and trust your preparation. Bring the best version of yourself to the ring and let the cards fall where they may.

Like any athlete, boxers benefit from strength and conditioning. Their programming should prepare them for the demands of their sport. Paired with proper in-ring and boxing technique training, it can make a fighter very hard to beat!

Photo Credit: Drazen Zigic/iStock

READ MORE:

• Master the 4 Basic Boxing Punches
• Boxing Workouts: Test your Conditioning with Heavy Bag Intervals
• 2 Boxing Drills to Develop Punching Power

Coach Winters (played by James Caan): Jefferson, are you injured or are you hurt?

Darnell Jefferson (played by Omar Epps): What’s that mean?

Winters: Well, if you’re hurt you can still play; if you’re injured, you can’t. So, are you hurt or are you injured?

Jefferson: I think I’m just hurt.

Winters: That’s good, get up.

The above scene plays out after Jefferson endures a violent collision on the football practice field. It was a welcome-to-college moment for the highlytouted running back. But since life is not a movie, odds are that if you’re an athlete, you will eventually encounter something you cannot shake off. You won’t be hurt. You will be injured. The longer you play your game, the more likely it is to happen. No matter how much preparation is done to keep players healthy, sometimes bad luck runs its course and players go down. Chances are, you will miss practice(s) or game(s) due to your injury. The question is, what do you do next?

Pouting or feeling sorry for yourself is natural, but we cannot allow ourselves to fall victim to this. Yes, being injured sucks. In fact, researchers have found that injured athletes have significantly higher rates of anger, anxiety, low self-esteem and clinical depression than their healthy counterparts. To help combat these issues, you need to bring a competitive mindset to your own recovery. Even though you might not be able to play for a while, you have to take the same qualities that make you a great athlete and apply them to your rehab.

With that in mind, here are three tips that can help an athlete handle an injury in the most productive way possible.

1. Own Your Recovery

With most injuries, there is some type of pre-hab/rehab/physical therapy/corrective exercise implementation. Attack this process like it was the NFL Combine. Sure, picking up marbles with your toes may seem tedious compared to maxing out on Barbell Back Squats. But, accept that injuries have limitations. Apply your mentality from the field to the rehab and ask yourself: what have I done today to get better than I was yesterday?

Show up for your rehab with a positive attitude. Set short-term and long-term goals with clear expectations about what it takes to get back on the field. If I can bend my knee without pain, then I can play. But, be honest about it. Telling the medical staff what they want to hear, just to get yourself back on the field, is a recipe for disaster.

You also need to see the injury as a chance to re-build yourself better than ever. Odds are, you had weaknesses in your game before you were injured. Now that you have to start back from square one, it’s the perfect chance to address those little issues.

RELATED: 5 NFL Stars Reveal How They Came Back Faster, Strong and Better Following ACL Surgery

“When you tear your ACL, you kind of have to reteach the whole leg how to work,” All-Pro cornerback Chris Harris once told STACK. “I kind of re-taught myself how to run, how to fix my mechanics and the fundamentals of running. Little things like that. Now I feel faster and quicker. [I worked] on having fast feet, good strides, drive—anything I could to get faster.”

2. Be a Cheerleader

I know, you’re an athlete, not a cheerleader. But the key word to remember here is leader. The game continues even though you’re injured. Your teammates are still grinding, fighting and bleeding through their season. Support them by coming to practice, sitting in on meetings, being attentive and bringing great energy to every team activity. Coach up whoever took over your position, and do your part to make sure everyone is prepared.

Being injured can develop or reinforce leadership skills. If your teammates see you bring effort/energy on a daily basis even when you aren’t playing, it will elevate their overall level of play and confirm you as a true leader in their eyes. There’s a reason that “Win One or the Gipper” is such a famous speech. If you’re too young, Google it.

3. Complete Mental Reps

We’ve already established that injuries have physical limitations. If you’ve got a broken collarbone, you can’t play football. But, you can still go to meetings. You can still go to practice. You can still exercise your brain by knowing exactly what your job is on every single play, and then imagining yourself performing it.

Mental reps are as good as physical reps. Find a coach who can tell you the play call during each rep of practice. Visualize yourself in your usual position. Watch what happens and mentally dictate how you’d react at game speed. Mentally recreate game scenarios and prepare for all possible outcomes. If they do this, then I will do that. Use this time to improve your mental game!

Once you’re cleared for certain types of physical activity, you can strive to make it mimic what you’ll face during a game. Football plays are generally 6-8 seconds of all-out effort followed by 20-30 seconds of rest. Performing high-intensity interval training on a stationary bike can help mimic this demand! The sharper you stay throughout the process, the better you’ll be when you’re finally back to full strength.

Photo Credit: Serega/iStock

READ MORE FROM BRIAN KENT:

• How an Elite Club Volleyball Team Learned to Jump Higher Without Jump Training
• What Should I Do if One Side of My Body Is Stronger Than the Other?

Yet imbalances are all but unavoidable. And every day, we reinforce many of our body’s physical imbalances through seemingly innocuous habits.

We brush our teeth with the same hand every night. We carry our bags over the same shoulder every morning. We favor the same side every time we get up from our desks.

Over time, these repetitive actions result in some parts of our bodies being stronger and more coordinated than other parts of our bodies. Injuries often exacerbate the issue. Although every person can benefit from eliminating or reducing muscle asymmetries, it’s especially important for athletes.

Almost everyone feels that one side of their body is stronger than the other. A right-handed person will often feel the right side of their body is stronger than the left. Since we use our dominant hand to perform the majority of tasks, this makes sense. However, too much of an imbalance can inhibit your performance and increase your risk of injury. If you feel one side of your body is lagging behind, here’s what you can do about it.

One of the easiest ways to identify a potential side-to-side imbalance is to watch someone Barbell Bench Press. Once the weight becomes challenging, you’ll often notice that one half of the bar is moving more easily than the other side. The dominant side is doing more work. If the person is right-handed, odds are the right side of the barbell will rise with more speed and more control than the left side. They eventually complete the set, but there’s no doubt that one side of their body was doing more work than the other. Unless these imbalances are addressed, the gap between strong and weak continues to grow, further increasing the likelihood of injury and body asymmetries.

So what can we do about it?

Our first task is to change the way we think about strength training. Most of us can lift heavy weight with two arms (Bench Press, Pull-Up, etc.) or two legs (Squat, Deadlift, etc.). Most popular exercises are bilateral in nature, meaning we use both of our limbs (left and right) together to complete them. Bilateral training is great for building strength, but not-so-great for addressing imbalances. So to reduce the imbalance, we need to shift our focus from training bilaterally to training unilaterally.

Unilateral training means each limb is responsible for doing its own work. Think of a Single-Leg Split Squat as opposed to a traditional Squat. Unilateral exercises force each limb to work independently. This fact alone is what makes them so good for destroying muscle asymmetries. Unilateral training will also help you quickly identify where your imbalances lie, and many of its qualities transfer better to sport than bilateral training. While unilateral training is certainly possible via the use of barbells and machines, many of the exercises make use of dumbbells, kettlebells, cables and resistance bands.

Increasing your use of unilateral exercises is easier said than done. Once you’ve established a base level of strength, you should ask yourself four questions:

1. How can I apply unilateral training principles to my program?
2. What substitutions can I make to work unilaterally?
3. Am I willing to lift less weight for better overall performance?
4. Am I willing to take a step back to take two steps forward?

Let’s use the Barbell Bench Press example again. A great unilateral substitution is a Single-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press. The motion is the same as a regular Bench Press, except the use of a single dumbbell allows you to isolate the movement on one side at a time. From this position, we can feel our weaknesses. If our right side cranks out 10 reps with a 50-pound dumbbell, but our left side can only do 6 reps, we have a clear example of muscular imbalance.

But identifying the imbalance is just the first step in your battle. From that point forward, you should continue to utilize the Single-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press in your training. You should also start each set on the weaker side (so in this case, the left side), and only perform as many reps with your strong hand as you did with your weaker hand. Then, use these same principles with all of the unilateral exercises you include in your training. So if your left leg is weaker than your right leg, perform Lunges with your left leg first in each set, and then only perform as many reps with your right leg as you did with your left leg. It’s not rocket science, but these simple principles will help expedite the process and destroy the imbalance quicker.

There are a ton more benefits to unilateral training aside from simply destroying imbalances. Since it requires us to stabilize an uneven load, we recruit more stabilizer muscles during unilateral training. Almost every athletic action is performed off one foot, further solidifying the benefit of this type of training. However, you cannot move as much weight during unilateral exercises as you can during bilateral exercises, as two limbs are obviously stronger than one. Bilateral exercises can also force you to develop greater amounts of core strength to support those heavier loads. This article examines the differences between bilateral and unilateral training, but in a well-designed program, both bilateral and unilateral exercises should be utilized. The ratio of bilateral to unilateral depends on the individual’s sport and performance goals, but if you’ve long found one side of your body to be weaker than the other, you could likely benefit from including some more unilateral training in your routine.

Here are some ideas on how you can take traditional bilateral exercises and turn them into unilateral movements.

Strength Exercises

• Bench Press—Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
• Pull-Ups—Single-Arm Vertical Cable Row
• Squats—Single-Leg Split Squats, Pistol Squats, Step-Ups, Lunges
• Deadlifts—Single-Leg Deadlifts

Power Exercises

• Hang or Power Clean—Single-Arm Kettlebell Clean
• Hang or Power Snatch—Single-Arm Dumbbell Snatch, Single-Arm Kettlebell Snatch
• Push Press—Single-Arm Dumbbell Push Press, Single-arm Kettlebell Push Press

In the above listed substitutions, the unilateral focus allows each side of the body to work independently of the other. It encourages the left and right side to become more coordinated and promotes mind-muscle communication: the brain must tell which limb to do which job at which time. Athletic gains will be achieved by having a better balanced, more coordinated body.

It’s also worth investigating if your flexibility and mobility are significantly better on one side of your body than the other. If they are, that could also be holding back one side of your body and adding to this imbalance. A thorough warm-up that targets many common flexibility and mobility limitations, such as this one from STACK expert John Papp, can go a long way toward addressing these issues.

Photo Credit: IndigoLT/iStock

READ MORE:

• 3 Single-Leg Exercises Every Athlete Should Utilize
• Is Single-Leg Strength Training Right for You?
• Unilateral vs. Bilateral Training: What’s Best for Athletes?

At the end of May, the girls did their performance testing, and each player added at least 2 inches to her vertical jump. It should not be surprising that talented, motivated high school athletes jumped higher after progressing through a structured strength and conditioning program. What’s more surprising is that they added inches to their verticals with zero jump training in their program. By design, we did not jump once. Why?

It’s been my experience that most athletes are good at moving fast. By the nature of their sport(s), they have been trained to accelerate and move their bodies from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. Chicago Elite is a year-round commitment. They jump at practice; they jump at tournaments. They don’t need to jump more—they need to jump better. Any exercise or drill in the speed/power category plays to their strengths. But we don’t want to focus on strengths, we want to focus on weaknesses.

When the players first came to On Your Mark Coaching and Training, for many of them, it was their first gym experience. It can be intimidating. To create familiarity, we kept the same “pre-game warm-up” for each session. While going through light agility, dynamic stretching, mini-band glute activation, rotator cuff strengthening, SPARQ ladder work and superband-resisted partner sprints, one reality became crystal clear: These kids had no clue where their limbs were going or what their limbs were doing. Coordination was off, balance was off, proprioception was off. These kids were great on the court—when they could play fast—but struggled with body control when asked to slow down. It was hard for their brains to send a message to specific limbs at specific times, which makes sense, since they’d never practiced it before.

On one of our first days, I had them do a Single-Arm Dumbbell Floor Press, but it was way too hard. The girls were not strong in this way. Sports like football, hockey, wrestling and even basketball have a physicality where a base level of strength is achieved simply by having to push other people around. Volleyball is not that kind of game, so I needed to make serious programming changes. Their foundations were weak, and adding external loads to a weak foundation is a bad idea. So, what should we do?

Focus on strengthening weaknesses; focus on strengthening the foundation; focus on stability.

We spent the majority of our program working on body control. Instead of dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells, we focused on bodyweight movements. We emphasized joint stacking, drilled unilateral balance and strength, added anti-rotation for core connection. We demonstrated how valgus knees—extremely common in high school girls—lead to ACL blowouts. These concepts are not sexy, but they are a necessary and often overlooked portion of many training programs. By emphasizing controlled deceleration and moving with purpose, we hope to save them from preventable injuries and keep them on the court.

Alternatively, what would happen if I loaded these girls with barbells and asked them to squat? If they squat poorly without weight, they will squat poorly with weight. Or what if their knees collapsed while doing 20-inch Box Jumps? Repeated impact on misaligned joints is a recipe for disaster. Major imbalances deserve immediate attention, and I am doing them a disservice if I implement flash before function. Sometimes, taking a step back is what’s needed. There’s a reason we all learn basic math before algebra, geometry and calculus.

All training programs must be adjusted to the ability of its participants. As the girls get stronger and show a better understanding of their bodies, we will progress to more loaded patterns and more complex circuits. But, for now, we will focus on strengthening the foundation. And as their recent testing results demonstrated, strengthening the foundation can lead to tangible improvements.

Those improvements helped the 15-year-old Chicago Elite team become National Champions at the recent AAU National Championships, while the 14-year -old team finished as National Runner-Ups.

Train smart. Train hard. Train safe.

Photo Credit: FatCamera/iStock

READ MORE:

• 3 Essential ACL Injury Prevention Exercises for Female Athletes
• The 5 Keys to Jumping Higher
• Volleyball Workout and Drills You Can Do at Home