Landmine, the only tool you'll ever need.... pt2

If you’re one of our handful of dedicated fans, you know how much I love using the “landmine” (LM) as a training tool. If it were up to me, it would be a mandatory training tool in all gyms. It’s versatility remains unmatched, the adaptations experienced with landmine training are second to none, and you look cool using it!

I start my persuasive piece of landmine training by saying that everything mentioned above is a little dramatic. Of course there are other tools out there that do things the landmine could never do. Like, you can’t tow a landmine, you can’t use it as timing device, etc. But, in regards to free-weight training modalities, it is by far my favorite tool.

The Physics

In school, you learn that there are 3 classes of mechanical levers named pretty appropriately I’d say: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class levers. What defines the class of the lever is the placement of 3 key components, and that is the locations of the fulcrum (joint/ pivot point), resistance (load), and effort.

I’ll save the physics lesson for another day, and I’ll give you the answer to which class lever the landmine is… most of the time, and that is a 2nd class lever. A 2nd class lever system places the load in-between the effort and fulcrum. Think of a wheelbarrow, your load is what’s in the wheelbarrow, you provide the effort lifting the load with the attached handles, and the wheel is the joint/ pivot point.

Why is this important? Well, lever systems provide us with either more or less mechanical advantage. The 2nd class lever is the most efficient lever of the three when it comes to lifting loads. This means that you can lift the most weight, with the least amount of effort compared to the other lever types.

Try lifting 200lb bag of dirt in your hands, compared to placing the dirt in a wheelbarrow, tell me if you feel a difference! But enough with this physics stuff, how do we apply in the weight room? Why not just lift dumbbells, and barbells like everyone else?

The Movements

Here are some movement examples :) If you would like some ideas on how to apply landmine movements to your training routine.

The Feels

Dumbbells and barbells are great, but they don’t provide all of the necessary “feel” to a movement that sometimes athletes need. They also may begin to muscle through a movement, which is not what we want when your goal is athletic performance.

The ever ambiguous term of “feel” is used as feedback mechanism. The landmine is free to pivot in any and all planes, but it’s also on a track. Athletes are free to perform pretty much any movement you can think of, but when completed “incorrectly” they often times lose control of the LM or they run into the LM! One of the benefits of free-weight training is the fact that you are required to control loads in space without the assistance of machines. However, many novice athletes have trouble doing just that; experienced athletes learning new movements will need guidance when learning new movements as well.

So, to avoid sticking athletes on a machine to train a muscles, or just throwing them a dumbbell and saying figure it out, the LM provides a safe middle ground that gives the athlete an opportunity to train the movement, while being guided on a track.

That mechanical advantage can play a huge role in providing the athlete with a stimulus that is more conducive to human movement. Hardly ever do we want athletes to muscle through a movement. We want athletes to move cleanly in and out of positions. The LM gives us the opportunity to put on a little more weight, on a freely-moving track, so athletes can complete the movement with little to no errors.

There will be a part 3 because as they say, the sequel is never as good as the original, but the trilogy makes the series.

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Periodization: Beginners to the Elite

When you start to train, you may feel great… rather quickly. When you go from training 0x/ week to training 3+x/week, you can pretty much do anything, and see some acute results. You’re excited, and want to keep training, but then you notice, you’re not seeing those results from the beginning. Why? you’re working just as hard, training the same amount of time per week, hitting all your big lifts, but that’s just the thing! You need progress to progress!

Periodization is just a fancy term for planning in the strength and conditioning world. The variables you can manipulate, and track are endless! Some will claim they have the best scheme to develop strength, others will say their method is best for endurance, but at the end of the day one plan will work for one athlete and not for another. This is where getting to know your athlete is vital. To create a plan that works for you, we use variables such as: your goals, current training status, requirements of your sport/ life, how much time we have to train, and time of year. These factors will allow us to select the correct plan for you!

Beginners are like a sponge, and as I mentioned, you can pretty much do anything for a little bit and see results. Adaptation to your training routine will take place almost immediately as long as you’re sleeping and eating appropriately. This will not last long however. Eventually you will need to map out your plan. In my opinion, beginners need to spend blocks of time focusing on one goal at a time. When mapping out your plan, you want each phase to build on the previous. If your end goal is speed, but have the stiffness of wet paper, you can sprint all day long with only minimal improvements in speed. You need strength, and if you’re past puberty, you more than likely need size to attain some strength! In the beginning, the more time you spend developing size and the strength, the higher the ceiling you will have for speed development. How this would look in a periodized format would be, hypertrophy training followed by strength, to power, and finally speed training. This is called “linear” or “traditional” periodization.

Hypertrophy training will involve higher volume schemes at lower weight loads, and as you move down the phases volume will decrease and load will increase. Undulating volume and load either weekly, or biweekly is termed “non-linear” or “undulating” periodization. Training multiple phases at the same time, while undulating volume and load is termed “undulating conjugate” or “undulating concurrent” periodization

-Hypertrophy: 3-5 sets x 6-12 reps with loads between 60-80% of an athletes 1 rep max

-Strength: 3-8 sets x 1-6 reps with loads between 80-100% of an athletes 1 rep max

-Power: 3-10 sets x 2-5 reps with loads between 30-85% of an athletes 1 rep max

-Speed: 3-10 sets x 2-10 reps with loads between 0-30% of an athletes 1 rep max.

Following this format will allow the novice athlete to develop size which will help bolster is strength capabilities. When the loads are higher, strength development can take place. With a foundation of strength, the athlete’s power capabilities will increase; which also means their speed ability will increase as well.

If you have 12 weeks to train, traditionally you’ll spend about 3-4 weeks on each phase, broken up with a deload week between each phase giving the athlete a chance to recover and adapt. The younger the athlete, the longer you can spend in hypertrophy and strength. A true novice will need to spend time learning how to train in a pattern development phase. The training parameters can range from anywhere between 2-6 sets x 6-20 reps (quite a large spectrum, I know). The novice needs time to practice the movement, learn how to develop force/ intent with the movement, and demonstrate consistent rep-to-rep coordination before moving to any other phase.

The intermediate to elite level athletes will train the same qualities listed above what could change is how long they are in a particular phase, and how many phases they train concurrently (strength and speed at the same time) in their training cycle. Spending too much time in one phase will fatigue that quality you are training to develop, and that is totally necessary to see improvement. However, if you got an elite level guy who is looking for a job at the professional level, they need to be ready to go at any moment in time. The elite level athlete will have a sufficient training age that allows them to spend 1-2 weeks in a strength phase, and focus on speed and power. The larger the training age, the less time you will need to spend in hypertrophy and strength. Checkout the training scheme below for 3 athletes as an example.

Beginner- 4 weeks pattern development, 4 weeks hypertrophy, 1 week deload, 4 weeks strength, 1 week deload, 4 weeks power (traditional periodization)

Intermediate- 3 weeks pattern development, 2 weeks hypertrophy, 1 week deload, 2 weeks hypertrophy, 2 weeks strength, 1 week deload, 2 weeks power, 2 weeks strength, 1 week deload, 2 weeks speed (biweekly undulating periodization)

Elite- 1 week pattern development, 1 week hypertrophy/strength, 1 week strength/power, 1 week power/speed, 1 week deload, 1 week hypertrophy/strength, 1 week strength/power, 1 week power/speed, 1 week deload, 1 week strength/power, 2 weeks power/ speed, 1 week strength, 1 week deload. (weekly undulating concurrent periodization)

You can even have daily undulation periodization, where the training emphasis changes day to day! At the end of the day, you have to know who you are working with. This will help you decide which plan will work best for your situation. If you only have 8 weeks to train an elite level athlete a traditional plan probably isn’t the best idea, but may be perfect for a novice. We have barely scratched the surface of what goes into a training plan. There is so many other variables that were’t even mentioned. This is truly just the outline of a few different examples for a power dominate athlete. What happens if your goal isn’t to be the fastest on the field? Maybe your training goal is to run a marathon, in which case your training plan would look totally different! Know your goal, and work backwards from there ;).

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If you want to watch an incredible video on periodization, from a great coach, click here.

The 7 Laws of Strength Training (according to Dr. Tudor Bompa

What separates performance coaches from everyday personal trainers is our ability to develop and appropriately modify a program for athletes. With each athlete that walks in the door, there is a new set of problems that require a completely new set of solutions. There is no “cookie cutter” solution book that will apply to every athlete. There are “laws” of training we must follow, but how these laws are enacted will differ from person to person. 

Develop Joint Mobility: 

Having good joint mobility will help prevent pain and injury down the road. When someone lacks a range of motion at a joint, the body will compensate in some form or fashion to ensure the completion of the movement. Over time, this compensation pattern will lead to muscular imbalances and higher risk of injury. As a species, humans have the same joint set up across the kinetic chain, (ankle, knee, hip, etc). How well we are able to utilize each joint’s movement is different from person to person. Lifestyle demands of an individual will determine how well these joints operate. Knowing this alone, we can not assume the same tool will solve everyone’s problem. In the world of sports performance, the demands of a sport, and the demands of a position within that sport will dramatically alter the training for the athlete. A program we use for a pitcher will differ from that of a wide receiver. 

Develop Ligament and Tendon Strength: 

Often overlooked due to lack of aesthetic qualities associated with healthy ligaments and joints, the importance of having a strong joint capsule is crucial to successful performance. A ligament is a form of connective tissue running from bone to bone, and it helps maintain the integrity of the joint. The tendon has a similar role, but the tendon connects bone to muscle, and aides in force distribution. The majority of injuries do not occur at the muscle belly, but rather at the myotendinous junction. Without a proper training protocol, tendons and ligaments may be inadequately prepared to handle the forces being transmitted through them. Exposing the body to ever increasing stress levels, while allowing enough recovery between bouts of stress will increase the connective tissue’s ability to handle more and more stress. 

Develop Core Strength: 

In this blog, I will define the core as trunk musculature. The trunk not only houses the vital organs of a human, the muscles associated with trunk are supposed to provide a stable surface for the limbs to operate on. Looking at a squat, our hip and leg musculature may be able to handle to perform a 500lb squat, but if our trunk is not up to the task, the lift will surely fail. A less extreme example would be someone’s posture. “Poor posture” will lead to muscular imbalances that prevent efficient human movements like walking, thoracic rotation, trunk flexion and extension amongst many others. When the core is weak/ imbalanced, it negatively affects the performance of other movements. 

Develop the Stabilizers:  

Stabilizers aide in movement ability by stabilizing the active joint will a gesture is being performed. Isometric contractions at the joint prevent joint separation. If a joint lacks stabilizer strength, the prime movers of the joint must now act as stabilizing muscles which in turn take away from performance. Unilateral training, and unstable surface training are different modalities utilized to enhance joint stabilization. In the world of athletic performance, we must be careful not to spend too much time emphasising joint stabilization, since the co-contraction of muscles from each side of the joint can take away from strength and power production.

Do not isolate joints

If your goal is to be better at your sport, and that sport is anything besides bodybuilding, you must develop the entirety of the kinetic chain. There is a time and a place for isolated joint exercises like a knee curl, or hip flexion, do not get me wrong. But, when we isolate muscles, we take away from the body’s ability to coordinate movements. In sports, there are literally a million different body alignments the athlete can be exposed to. While we cannot pre-expose our athletes to all of them, we can enhance inter-muscle synchronization and develop strength in these positions to help enhance performance and prevent injury. 

Focus on the Needs of the Athlete

At the beginning of this blog I said each athlete will have a new set of problems requiring a new set of solutions, and this is true. However, this does not mean we need to reinvent the wheel for each individual. People who play the same sport, or have a similar lifestyle will require a lot of the same training. Variables such as frequency, exercise type, intensity, and volume are often what is changed. There is yet to be discovered a magic exercise tool that will make someone faster and stronger. What people actually require is appropriate exposure to increasing stressors with appropriate rest periods to ensure adaptation. No vibrating belt, or ankle bands will make you lose fat and get faster. Eating right, being consistent in the gym, and a well throughout program will improve your performance. 

Plan for the Long Haul

Too often do I see kids wanting to throw their hardest at 16 years old, or run their fastest as a middle schooler. There is a way to get the most out of the body at each stage of development, but it is often done at a price. Premature exposure to advanced training techniques will often to a short playing career. When exposing a developing body to advanced training methods, you will not get the same amount of adaptation if you were to wait until the athlete was more mature. The stress is often mismanaged, and overtraining ensues. 

Performance specialists are a different breed of coaches. When someone stays up to date on the latest research, can apply the knowledge gained from text and past experience, keep the athlete safe and peak at the right time, the only possible outcome is success. Applying outdated training practices to every client that walks through the door will lead to lack of training adaptation, frustration, and eventually cessation of training. 

Thank you for your time!

Coach Nate Garcia 

nate@tpstrength.com

tim@tpstrength.com

scott@tpstrength.com 

914-486-7678

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