The world's best professional athletes have a number of things in common — good genetics, tremendous perseverance, and unparalleled competitive spirit. But one major factor that sets apart paid-to-play athletes from weekend warriors is the 8–10 hours per day that they can dedicate to their craft. We all might not be able to ditch work in favor of the gym, but we can take a cue from their training methods in order to enhance personal performance in our own athletic pursuits.
SPARQ
® training — an acronym created by Nike and tested on athletes such as Boston Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury and Olympic decathlete Bryan Clay — is gaining traction in gyms across the country with everyone from junior high school playground superstars to soccer moms looking to take back a bit of their youth. By training — or retraining — you how to move like an athlete, SPARQ can help you get better at everything else.
"This type of training builds better athletes — period," says Chris Phillips, CSCS, a California-based performance coach and owner of Compete Performance
(www.competeperformance.com). "Speed, power, agility, reaction, and quickness (SPARQ) — those are the qualities of a good athlete. This training can make a runner improve his or her speed and acceleration. For weekend warriors who play hoops, it can improve vertical leap, power, and reaction to the ball. Even coed softball players or golfers gain rotational power and leg strength to hit the ball farther and build endurance."
Translation: Training like a professional athlete can help you perform like one — only without the inflated salary.
Performance Training
Performance training is built around an endless variety of functional movements that mimic on-field actions such as sprinting, jumping, and twisting. You won't find bench presses or dead lifts in any of Phillips' classes, but you will get stronger. By training for explosiveness, you engage your muscles' fast-twitch fibers — those that are most prone to growth — so strength is almost a certain by-product. Also, the cardiovascular nature of the training, which is usually broken up into several nonstop circuits, enables participants to shed a little body fat as well.
"In a lot of our adult classes, some of the participants are just looking to lose some weight and look a little better," Phillips says.
But whether you're in one of Phillips' classes or fashioning your own decathlete-style training regimen in your backyard, SPARQ training is likely a vast departure from the workouts that you're used to.
"It's not the typical kind of fitness program where they just lift, ride the bike a bit, or hit the treadmill and go home," he says. But that's why it can be so effective for bodies that have stagnated under the burden of workout redundancy.
"Runners' training, for example, typically consists of just running. But there are certain muscles that aren't being used with that kind of training. Performance training focuses on core and hip muscles to stabilize the pelvis and increase extension, which is imperative in running. We do quick feet drills, acceleration drills, and power drills, so they can become faster runners. Runners have told me that hills get easier through this kind of training."
Performance Eating
Navigating an alarmist food state where minimal carb intake and low-fat diets are all the rage, Phillips and his contemporaries are quick to lay down the law: If you deprive your body of key nutrients, then your performance will suffer.
"With higher-end athletes, you know when they're struggling that it's likely due to lack of food," he says. “You'll ask them when they last ate, and they'll say that they haven't eaten anything yet. That explains a lot."
But it's not just fast-tracked, blue chip athletes that suffer from nutritional indiscretions in the gym. Sure, if they don't end up dazzling scouts with their 40-yard-sprint time, that can be a problem. But for the walk-in participant, bad nutrition can negate the entire purpose of a workout.
"Since most of our adult classes consist of people looking to just get in better shape or perform better at certain activities, lack of the right fuel will be problematic," says Phillips. Put another way, if your goal is to lose weight, but you're unable to push your body hard enough in the gym, those lbs are likely to linger. If you are hoping to do better in your upcoming 10K but have no fuel in the tank for workouts, you can expect to see that personal record (PR) stay out of reach.
"You want to have at least a snack 90 minutes before working out," says Phillips. "And you want it to have some good carbs. They're your gas — your energy. Then, after working out, you want to have some protein to rebuild the muscle that you've broken down."
That repair, Phillips says, is really the key to running faster and jumping higher.
As it is with any other sport, hydration is crucial for this type of training. And since you're working large muscle groups aggressively, sometimes in unfamiliar fashion, dehydration can occur quickly. Phillips has students drink one or two 12-oz bottles of water during a 1-hour session — and even more after — to avoid the performance deficit that occurs when dehydration sets in.
SPARQ Your Training
Regardless of your athletic niche — you could be a weekend cyclist, a hobby surfer, or a recreational league soccer star — SPARQ-based training can give you a competitive edge. As a bonus, you end up stronger and a little leaner. Though the exercise combinations and activity prescriptions might vary from athlete to athlete and gym to gym, the program below — provided by Phillips — is a good place to start. Try it out, or visit a performance-based gym in your area.
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| Activity | Description |
| Ladder drills | Run with knees high as quickly as possible, taking short steps, across a floor ladder — available at most sporting goods stores — or for a distance of 5–10 yards. |
| Lateral box jump | Stand to the side of a 6–18-inch-high box or platform. Step up onto the box with your right foot and quickly shuffle over to the other side, touching your right foot to the floor, leaving your left foot on the box. Quickly reverse direction and repeat for 30–60 seconds. |
| Medicine ball chest pass | Stand 3–4 feet away from a stable wall, holding a 5–20-lb rubber medicine ball against your chest with both hands. Press it outward explosively at shoulder level off of a stable wall, catching it and repeating the process for 30–60 seconds. |
| Medicine ball walking lunge | Stand holding a 5–20-lb medicine ball at your chest. Stride out with one foot and lower your body until your rear knee nearly touches the ground. Press through the heel of your front foot as you move into your next step. Lunge 20 yards total. |
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Perform this mini-circuit as described, with no rest between activities. Rest one minute at the end of the circuit; then repeat 2–3 times.
SPARQ is a registered trademark of Nike International ltd.
Topics:
Pre-Workout, Hydration, Energy, Strength training
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