Dr. Yessis Sports Training Blog

Since the newly expanded 6th edition of Supertraining has been published, the number of people getting Supertraining has increased greatly. There is a good reason for this as the information contained in this book is beneficial to all who aspire to become the best athletes, coaches or teachers. For students, it often alllows them to know even more than the professors!

Supertraining should be required reading in all colleges that have a sports or physical education (Kinesiology) curriculum. The information contained in this book covers the training an athlete in the area of strength training and its many variations. No other text comes close to covering or having the depth of information presented in this book.

To bring in even more readers of this great book we are keeping the price of the book the same at $65.00 even though the number of pages has increased. The book now has close to 600 pages! All the added pages are due to the articles by Dr. Verkhoshansky, the main contributor to this book.

To see how this information can be applied to training in specific sports, especially in the areas of technique and specialized physical training see: Secrets of Russian Sports Fitness and Training; Explosive Running; Explosive Golf; Women’s Soccer; Build a Better Athlete; Explosive Basketball Training; Explosive Plyometrics; Transfer of Training; and Block Periodization.

It is common knowledge in the running community that the more economical your run, the further you can go because you are using less energy. In spite of this, we see very little work done on improving running economy.

One of the latest recommendations is to do plyometrics to improve running economy. This is effective but it is essentially jump exercises. If you do more true plyometrics (shock training) you would also get even more economy – but this aplies more to the elite runner. Read more… »

If you read the many reviews of running shoes and what each shoe supposedly does, it makes you wonder why we don’t have more outstanding runners. But then it may be due to some of the information about shoes presented on a lack of understanding of what occurs in running.

For example, according to an article in Runners World, “…a shoes flexibility is … important in helping the body generate maximum propulsion …” This flexibility is needed since “runners spend 70 to 80% of their time on the balls of their feet as they transition from footstrike to toe-off”.
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It appears that some fads keep coming back even after they have been discredited theoretically and in practice. Coming to mind at this time is the extreme slow lifting also known as high intensity training (HIT) that is being advocated. Overlooked is the fact that there are different ways of producing high intensity training.

Instead of relegating this type of weight training to very specific purposes the proponents of this method expand it to such a level that it becomes unbelievable. For example it is the answer to producing the best lifts in weightlifting and powerlifting, gaining greater strength and is the key to making athletes faster and more explosive. Read more… »

There have been quite a few articles in the papers about young baseball players. Some of these players, aged 9-10, play for travel baseball teams that often play for a national championship, as for example the under 10 title. According to the coaches, these experiences will help them grow as baseball players.

The articles bring out that there are now hundreds of such teams that do extensive travel –which is often quite expensive for the parents. However, they believe it is well worth it as this is a great way to to have their son not only become recognized, but also develop into an outstanding player. Thus they rejoice whenever the team does well and especially when their youngster does well.
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I have always maintained that there are two key reasons for the occurrence of injuries: poor technique and inadequate development of the physical qualities specific to the technique, i.e., skill execution. Now there is a third: overweight and obese athletes.

The injuries appears to be indirectly if not directly related to coaches, mostly football coaches. As reported by Michael Popke in Athletic Business, 45% of the offensive and defensive lineman playing football at Iowa high schools were overweight, while almost 10% fit medical standards for severe obesity. Read more… »

Much research has been done on the effectiveness of different exercises and for whom they are of most benefit. Most of the work has been done by the Russians, especially Anatoly Bondarchuk and by various US coaches involved in particular sports. They know which exercises seem to bring about the greatest gains in relation to the competitive event.

But yet, it is not uncommon to read articles in which the same exercises are prescribed regardless of the athletes level of sports mastery, level of play, age and so on. This implies that the exercise is of benefit not only in relation to the athletes level of fitness, but also to game (sports) performance. Read more… »

Following are some comments that I wrote in a discussion about the best marathon training programs: All training should be individualized. This is something that the running world has not addressed nor is it for the most part practiced.

Each runner should have a general overall plan worked out which includes some specific goals. The weekly program should be adjusted every two weeks (sometimes one) depending upon what he or she experienced and how well he or she did in the prior week(s). Read more… »

Don’t follow the conventional. This is a recommendation commonly heard for training in the off-season. In essence it states that you should not do the usual or commonly accepted practices in your training. You should instead do different things.

On the surface this appears to be a wise recommendation. Do something different for variety and to make your training more interesting etc. But, unless you know not only your level of mastery of the sport but also have a good grasp of the scientific principles of training this recommendation can be very dangerous.
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If you closely examine most sports training programs you’ll see that up to 90% of the recommendations revolve around improving your physical abilities such as strength, endurance speed, agility, explosive power etc. It is rare to find specific recommendations for improving technique.

The physical qualities are of course, extremely important. But without simultaneous improvement in technique you will not see much improvement in game performance. Keep in mind that the ultimate objective of all training is to improve the athlete’s ability to execute and execute well, the skills that are needed in order to be successful in gameplay. Read more… »

I’ve seen several articles dealing with not getting hurt while running in which the authors make some far-reaching comments regarding the pelvic girdle. For example, they state that “almost all common overuse injuries are related to a lack of pelvic stability”.

This conclusion, however, may be based on false assumptions. For example, it was stated that when you have a weak, wobbly pelvis, “As you stride, one side rotates forward as the other side drops down, forcing your back to overarch and your striding foot to rotate in”. Read more… »