Joaquín Vico Plaza

There Are as Many Performance Tests as Athletes Performance testing should be part of sports planning to obtain information about the athlete’s condition and the effectiveness of training. Recreational athletes train a few days a week because it is not their real way of life. Elite athletes train almost every day but cannot afford to …

How Interesting it is to Change Your Athletes’ Muscular Fibers? Skeletal muscle contains a heterogeneous composition of different fiber types on a continuum from slow to fast, which causes them to have different performances. Within each bundle of fiber types there are also structural and functional differences (Plotkin, Roberts, Roberts, Haun, & Schoenfeld, 2021). In …

What’s Undulating Strength Periodization?  Strength training results in numerous performance and health-related benefits in youth and adults. These benefits include improvements in athletic performance, musculoskeletal health, muscular strength, power and endurance, motor performance including jumping ability, balance and coordination, and cardiovascular and metabolic health (Faigenbaum et al., 2009). To obtain maximum benefits from strength training …

There are many tips for strength and conditioning (S&C) training that I wish I had known about when I started my career in sports science. When you attend a university course or a weekend course, you receive theoretical and practical information about training, but nobody usually comments that you are going to spend many hours …

What Does Transfer Training Means? The concept of “training transfer” is a hot topic in discussions among strength and conditioning coaches. This term refers to the degree to which a workout affects a particular performance or task (Issurin, 2013). For example, is performing power loads in the gym going to improve our 100m sprint performance? …

What are the training phases that field sports athletes go through? The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) developed an evidence-based fitness training system based on scientific principles more than 20 years ago (NASM, n.d.). Dr. Mike Clark, its creator, established five distinct but complementary training phases to improve the physical performance of field sports …

History of oscillatory training Oscillatory training is a method that emerged based on Sherrington’s law of reciprocal inhibition which states that for one muscle to contract, another must relax (Johnson, 1960). Several decades ago, Matveyev, one of the most influential Russian scientists in the field of training, found that one of the main differences between …

Workload for strength and conditioning coaches: why is it essential to work with VBT technology? A strength and conditioning coach must administer the workload as precisely as possible to obtain maximum results with minimum fatigue. Velocity-based strength training (VBT) is the fastest and most optimal way we currently have to control whether the administered load …

First key to becoming a great S&C trainer: specialist of specialists   They say that “knowledge does not take up space”, but it does take up time. They also say that “learner of everything, master of nothing”. There are many personal trainers who have a client portfolio that includes pregnant women, older adults, people with …

What is long-term athletic development (LTAD) and why is it important? Image taken from Brett Wharton (Unsplash) Physical activity improves the overall health of children and young adults by reducing the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and suicide, among other chronic medical conditions (Washington et al., 2001). Increasing youth physical activity has become …

What is a key performance indicator (KPI)? Image taken from Jonathan Chng (Unsplash) A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows how effectively an athlete’s specific objectives are being met. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs from now on) are useful to evaluate the success of the objectives set for each athlete. Every athlete …

Why is velocity training important for the boxer? The main objective of boxing is to land a clean blow to the opponent without receiving any in return. The greater the impact against the opponent’s head or torso, the greater the likelihood of success in achieving a knockdown or knockout, as well as to get a …