Weekly Letter

Part Three of a Four Part Series

The CAP Athleticism Development Program (Levels Program) Defined

The developmental curriculum used to advance our athletes in the CAP program seems to be a misunderstood aspect of our training. Athletes ask every day, “What level am I in, and how do I move up?” This 4 part series of weekly articles will walk you through the levels process by introducing you to the standards and expectations that we have for the athletes within each level. Hopefully this will clarify some of our procedures and expose the steps we are taking to redefine modern athletics!

Level 3 – Defined (part 3 of a 4 part series)

In the Level 3 classes the athletes become powerful. By now they should be able to efficiently recruit and coordinate the firing of specific muscles and the movement patterns they control. A strong athlete is just strong, but a powerful athlete can be dominating.

The Level 3 athlete is confident, and can intelligently discuss his or her program with the instructor. They must be an active part of their own development through communication and progression. They must know that it is the more accurately the EFFORT, and not the EXERCISES, that will produce results. It’s time to stop going though the motions and begin to dictate the outcome.

Some parts of the workout now require the athlete to be somewhat independent. The athlete must understand the warm up and cool down protocols as well as some of the general stability drills and injury prevention strategies that we implement. This gives the instructor time to coordinate some of individual work with the athletes that may need it. Due to the fact that most of our Level 3 workouts revolve around the club season, the instructors need this time to set up alternate workouts for those athletes within the group that may have an upcoming tournament, showcase, camp or just a change in practice schedule.

As we discussed in part 1, the Level 1 movements are centered on how strong and stable you can get into a cut, or landing. In part 2 we transitioned from strong and stable to being powerful out of a cut, or into a jump. Now in part 3 we will focus on putting those two movements together to create an efficient, powerful use of the stretch shortening cycle. This is the aggressive use of momentum you take into a cut, landing or eccentric (lowering) part of a lift, and it’s elastic response on the muscles, resulting in an explosive burst out of a cut, landing or lift. This is in layman’s terms of course, but this is the foundation of plyometric movement. If you lack the strength, position and knowledge to effectively use the stretch shortening cycle (ssc) you are most likely doing more damage than good when you train plyometrics.

This effect is realized in the Level 3 program when the athletes will notice the effectiveness of training at specific intensities, loads, and volumes. They will also notice an increase in the power they feel during acceleration and change of direction. We will focus on maximizing every step, so the control and stability is accentuated (not overpowered) by the speed of the speed and power you take into the cut. This should translate into more aggressive skill play on the field and the game should become easier.

The Level 3 workouts become a little more creative and specific. Focus areas include peaking max acceleration using loaded runs for power on a resisted treadmill sprint machine (Woodway Force ©). Other specific work might be on accentuate load – velocity curves of the pull and jump based movements with Tendo Force Analyzers ©. And still another might be the way we incorporate periodization strategies and specific phases of peaking in to the year long development structure of the athlete.