I've spoken a little bit this summer about the 4 phases all of our athletes go through in their NXFT Performance Program. And there are always a few questions about them and what they entail. So I thought I'd save myself the time and have one post to refer to if you want to know what I'm on about!
Movement Quality
After a thorough assessment, we'll get to work making sure you have adequate mobility as well as stability in all your key joints, then we need to put them together in well-controlled compound movements. This phase is usually dominated by light weights, assistance, body weight and a slow, controlled tempo where you can demonstrate ownership of both positions and movements. This block will have you feeling more confident in your movements, and looking like you're really dialled in during your workouts. You'll also gain strength quickly, as your movement efficiency improves.
Work Capacity -
The next step is to learn how to execute high-quality movements under fatigue. Both central (breathing hard) and Peripheral (other body parts burning) and local (the target body part, already burning) fatigue. We can vary these workouts with circuits involving varied movements and challenging different energy systems from PCR all the way to Aerobic. It's only responsible to enter this stage after completing stage 1. You'll enjoy these workouts and start to feel like a badass, as you punch out circuits of varying intensity. Expect to sweat, huff and puff! Work capacity is awesome when we time it to coincide with the end of a base block of Cycling/Running or during a period of low-intensity skill work such as the off-season in Golf or pre-Snowfall for you Skiers & Boarders.
Power - What matters here is that you start expressing your hard-earned strength gains as fast movements. After all, with the Sports, we're addressing, speed is the name of the game. The Power phase is a great time to increase the reliance on sports-specific movements in tandem with traditional power movements. Neuromuscular elements such as balance in the transverse plane for a Golf swing or going and lower limb control for Skiers can help to direct your power to exactly the right places when you need it. This is a high rest, low volume training block and as such it pairs really well with periods of intensification in your Sports Practice. Expect to feel a little like an Olympic lifter during this phase. You're going exert yourself for short, extremely high-intensity, explosive sets. Then take a nice rest :)
This is the pinnacle of our imaginary performance pyramid. Once we've completed our 4 phases, we have the option to go right back to the start and work through them again, but starting from a higher jumping-off point, you stand to gain even more. Usually, an in-season period dictates that we'll enter a "maintenance" period of conjugate or wave loading, where we'll continue to work on all of the above qualities at the same time aiming to allow you to really get after it in your chosen sport.
The benefits of this approach are -
You're going to make gains straight away - neurological adaptations come first in any training program - you can notice the difference in the space of just a single workout. So the movement quality phase holds huge potential for all of us, just by getting you to move better.
The Gains keep coming - by the time you've maxed out the gains of one phase, you're already moving on to the next one. Each training block elevates you and then acts as a foundation for the next level.
Get hurt, less - Varying movements every 3-4 weeks protect us against both plateaus and repetitive injury. Quitting while we're ahead, so to speak. Looking at your long-term development, an emphasis on variety of movement is going to maintain healthy joint balance and tissue health down the road.
Stay Engaged & Motivated - The most effective program is no good if you get bored and quit. So keeping your program fresh and engaging is important. You'll repeat movements week to week for up to 4 weeks, giving you the chance to hone your skills. And before you know it, another block will be in your inbox ready to go!
If you're ready to get started and want to see if the performance Program is right for you. You can book a no-commitment strategy call with me here. Or if you just have a couple of questions, email me here. If you want to see where your first block of training (with or without me) should focus, then I recommend trying our free video assessment here.