In the highschool area, coaches often debate the necessity to maintain issues easy in coaching our student-athletes. It is a idea I undoubtedly help however with a caveat: I consider in retaining issues easy for the athlete however not limiting the instruments or protocols I take advantage of to arrange.
From the teaching aspect, the best way I strategy programming, know-how use, skilled improvement, and different elements of my profession doesn’t have to be easy—these simply have to be actionable with reasonable means. In my present position, we’re blessed to have entry to a big number of efficiency know-how. In reality, our student-athletes have the chance to make use of a lot that we take week-long “know-how breaks” a couple of instances a 12 months simply to de-load. Consequently, I exchange the phrase “easy” with “actionable” on the subject of my use of know-how and information assortment.
Over the past decade, I’ve examined and used extra know-how than I might probably record: some by no means made it to the ground with our student-athletes; some grew to become a each day staple. Throughout that point, the one know-how piece that didn’t seem easy for our athletes or me was drive plates.
- Did we’d like that a lot data?
- How troublesome would the method of set-up and assortment be?
- Would we be swimming in a lot information that taking motion on it might be unattainable?
Fortunately for our program, I had the chance to get solutions to these questions and extra. Drive plates weren’t solely very simple and intuitive to make use of for all concerned, however in addition they supplied an perception that proved to be a drive multiplier for our information assortment and motion protocols.
Force plates are not only extremely simple and intuitive to use, but they also provide an insight that proved to be a force multiplier for our data collection & action protocols, says @MarkHoover71. Click To Tweet
Missteps and Course Corrections with Hawkin Dynamics Drive Plates
Early final spring, I acquired a set of custom-made Hawkin Dynamics (HD) drive plates, together with a Zeus isometric rig. Unpacking the gear, I nonetheless had questions in regards to the feasibility of utilizing drive plates in a highschool setting. As with a lot of the present know-how for athletic improvement, it’s important to be cautious about falling into the entice of information overload. In reality, this proved to be my preliminary misstep when getting began with the drive plates.
Hawkin’s ease of use had me up and working at full pace in a day—to my private detriment, sadly. That excessive ease of use and expansive record of assessments and metrics at my fingertips actually led to self-inflicted information overload syndrome. My first week or so was spent making an attempt out each cool check I’d seen on social media. I spent hours each potential metric for our athletes: unilateral breaking drive proportion, breaking drive RFD, all potential sorts of left versus proper deficiencies…it was all fascinating and received my thoughts working over prospects. I discovered myself wading so deep by the weeds of potential makes use of that I overpassed my aim: accumulating actionable information to information coaching.
At that time, I reached out and had conversations with a number of individuals who had extra in depth backgrounds coaching with drive plates. I wanted steerage to maintain myself in examine. I found that I wanted to step out of the weeds and develop a plan that will permit me to unleash actionable metrics that may very well be collected organically inside the regular context of a coaching session.
Finest Recommendation: “First Stock What You Do”
The recommendation I obtained was to carry out a listing of our coaching templates. We wanted to pinpoint:
- The place the usage of drive plates match.
- How usually they may very well be utilized.
- Precisely what assessments would give us the actionable data we sought.
What might we realistically use in our setting and timeframe? We have now 800 sq. ft, 5 energy racks, a room stuffed with youngsters, and about 35 minutes to get the job executed. The reply was in a protocol we had been utilizing already, the efficiency circuit.
Drive Plates in Efficiency Circuits
Not too long ago, I wrote an article about utilizing efficiency circuits (impressed by Cal Dietz) and the way that protocol solved most of the points we confronted at Metrolina Christian Academy. The identical resolution helped us match the usage of drive plates into our coaching program.
Contemplating we had three days every week to coach and the time and area limitations I beforehand described, it grew to become obvious that we might be restricted to not more than three assessments per week (one per coaching session). The movement of the session and time restrictions we confronted wouldn’t permit us to do a number of assessments in a day (as I had initially meant). So, I narrowed it all the way down to:
- Isometric mid-thigh pull. We selected IMTP (regardless of a studying curve of correct method) as a result of we knew we wished one check that will give us a glance into peak drive outputs. I wished a real check of the energy ranges of our athletes.
- Step-off altitude drop with a direct rebound bounce (from a 24-inch field). The drop bounce is essential as a result of I wished to measure peak braking forces with a direct re-acceleration. We wished a approach to take a look at deceleration skills, but additionally if we have been enhancing the facility and pace that we have been in a position to bounce from that sudden touchdown.
- Three-rep countermovement pogo bounce with arms on hips. The countermovement bounce would give us a Reactive Power Index metric to measure our in-season fatigue, amongst different issues.
I sat down and chosen seven primary metrics from these three assessments that I felt would give me perception into how athletes have been adapting to the stress of our coaching. Our ultimate protocol seemed like this:
- IMTP: max peak drive and time to max peak drive.
- DJ: max peak braking drive, max bounce top, and imply propulsive drive.
- CMJ: common modified RSI and physique weight.
For extra on the distinction between RSI and mRSI or any metrics/assessments obtainable from Hawkin Dynamics, please look right here.
Within 2 weeks of beginning these protocols, the need for a coach to help the athletes use the technology was eliminated—the HD app is extremely user-friendly, and the athletes flew through the reps. Click To Tweet
Right here is an instance of our in-season efficiency circuits, which we used with our varsity soccer athletes this season. We programmed anyplace from three to 5 rounds of those circuits relying on in-season variables. Regardless, we solely prescribed two units of drive plate testing. Inside two weeks of starting these protocols, the necessity for a coach to assist the athletes use the know-how was eradicated—the HD app is extraordinarily user-friendly, and the athletes flew by the reps.
In the long run, the drive plates grew to become the simplest and smoothest know-how we had obtainable at our disposal, surprisingly even quicker than ShredMill or EnodePro, which the athletes additionally picked up very quickly. Hawkin is intuitive and quick to make use of. We have been in a position to train the athletes the procedures, permitting them to create a student-athlete-led information assortment course of that gave us precious and actionable data.
Right here is an instance report from RockDaisy (its API works with HD) that allowed us to assessment every athlete’s historic information.
One other {custom} report we used for fast reference in RockDaisy was the Every day Metric Report, which saved up with rolling averages and maxes over a sortable interval. It additionally supplied workforce and positional data with only a click on of a tab.
Individualizing and Managing Coaching with Drive Plate Information
Our expertise with HD drive plates has been clean and profitable. The information proved to be extraordinarily precious and actionable when it got here to planning and monitoring our week-to-week variations.
We use Hawkin Dynamics force plates in coordination with our GPS data to give us a multi-layered platform to individualize practice and training plans, says @MarkHoover71. Click To Tweet
We used Hawkin in coordination with our GPS information to offer us a multi-layered platform to individualize apply and coaching plans. We discovered that once we narrowed the main target of our testing, the info assortment was quick, easy, and athlete-driven. Total, I’ve found that drive plates should not only a luxurious; they’re a sensible asset to our athlete’s well being and efficiency plans.
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