A complex is a series of movements performed in a row with the same load. In the video below, I use a complex consisting of 5 different movements using a 25lb plate. Performed for 5 reps/exercise for 1-2 sets ends up being a very good warm up and dynamic flexibility training for the hips and shoulders. Do more sets or reps with short rest periods and you now have a conditioning session.
With complexes, you can get through a lot of different movements in a short period of time and they require very little equipment. Exercises in the video:
Sticking to these movements or variations of them and you will be well prepared for the pool.
From a long term athletic development (LTAD) perspective, the movements are important at all levels BUT how you program them will be very different. What is depicted in the video is something more applicable to an athlete in the Train to Compete (competitive High School or youth regional/national team) or Train to Win (NCAA, Sr. National team, Professional).
In the early stages of development, these movements should be introduced but only one at a time. So, by the time the athlete reaches a higher level with much greater training volume and intensity the coach can take these movements and introduce them to these athletes in a series or complex.
Try them out and please let me know how you are using them with your athletes.
If you are an athlete, do you feel better in the water after doing a dry-land warm up like depicted in the above video?
This is the first of many articles focused on
answering your questions. It will be a collection of questions from the Water Polo
Planet Forum, my website www.WaterPoloTraining.net
and personal conversations I have with athletes and coaches from around
the world.
If you have any questions please do
not hesitate to send them my way and I will do my best to give a
complete answer to your question the next time I write a Q & A
article.
Water
Polo is so much about the legs. Shooting, passing, defence, counter
attack, driving, blocking, ... the one thing all these skills have in
common is legs. To be really good at any of these skills you need to
have very good legs. Beside getting stronger in the weight room and
training more legs in the water it is absolutely essential to develop
the proper flexibility in order be able to perform a high quality egg
beater kick and it's variations (1, 2). Please note that you can download these two references for free, please see the reference section at the end of this article ...
This should be obvious but the purpose of a warm up
is to get warm! How do you get warm? By moving your body through full
ranges of motion in a rhythmic fashion. Not a good warm up exercise.
This
right away kind of excludes passive static stretching where you may be
holding a specific position in a fairly relaxed manner. I believe this
kind of stretching has its place in training but is certainly a little
more of a “gray area” in the field of physical training and rehabilitative sciences. Start
slow and easy and gradually increase speed, complexity, range of motion
and intensity of movement through out the warm up. As you will see in
the warm up included in this article, the first few exercises are
relatively easy and progress to more challenging movements by the end.
At the end of the warm up, you should be sweating which will also be
accompanied by an increased heart rate. In colder climates, I suggest
to wear some clothes (sweat pants and top) over your swim suit to aid
in getting your body warm. With
respect to Water Polo, we need to warm up the entire body with some
special attention to the shoulders, arms and upper back. Since the
shoulder is the most commonly injured joint in Water Polo it would be
somewhat silly not to pay some attention to it.
The warm up is divided into two sections; i) individual joint mobility and ii) multi-joint movements.
There is also a message board discussion on this article which you can read at this link:
This is actually the 2nd dry-land warm up I have published for Water Polo. Last year I designed a similar program for a Water Polo club in Canada. It is available for FREE at the below link with a video demo and PDF download.
You will notice that although there are many things similar between the two programs there are some minor differences like the two stretches programed in the Water Polo Warm Up - vol. 1 but in this current warm up I pretty much "pooh-poohed" on even considering stretching for a warm up.
WHY?
Here are some reasons why.
1. In the current warm up, I am trying to steer people away from thinking of stretching as a warm up strategy in of itself. It can be strategically used as part of a warm up but it really depends on what, when, why and who is doing the stretching.
3. I am life long student, always learning. Since I wrote the first program, I have developed new insights into training and coaching hence the change.
2. The 2 stretches I program in vol. 1.0 are to deal with typical problems of "tightness" or over activity in the Water Polo athlete. One is for the upper traps which if are overly dominant relative to the mid and lower traps can cause or be implicated in various shoulder injuries and/or pain, particularly in swimmers and overhead throwing athletes (i.e Water Polo!!!).
The 2nd stretch (sleeper stretch) is for the posterior capsule of the shoulder which is typically tighter on the throwing arm. This is commonly referred to as "glenohumeral internal rotation deficit" (GIRD). Basically, if you have GIRD you are at higher risk of a shoulder injury.
sleep stretch
Both of the static stretches are used to specifically target a problem area. Also, both static stretches are performed very early in the warm up phase and are part of gradually moving from isolated to more complex and intense movements.
Overall, I strongly believe both programs are very valid for use as a dry-land warm up for Water Polo.
In
this monthly series of articles, Mike will discuss the science and
practice of physical training for Water Polo. Strength, flexibility,
Water Polo science, rehab and other areas of interest with respect to
the physical development of the Water Polo athlete will be covered.
It
would be safe to assume that in this day and age all high level
athletes perform some form of strength training in their program. Just
look at any professional team and you will see that they have strength
& conditioning (S & C) coaches as part of their staff while
Collegiate level sport in the USA also will routinely have a team of S
& C coaches.
Athletes used to be able to succeed at a
very high level just based on their talent. This is no longer the case
as athletes are getting bigger, stronger, faster and more powerful
every year. Look at any sport and you will see the evolution that has
occurred. For example, Tennis is now dominated by big powerful servers
as opposed to the serve and volley players of the past; ice hockey was
once dominated by the likes of Gretzky but now the super stars of today
are much bigger and stronger and this translates into a much more
physical game; even Water Polo is changing.
Do you need to do more then just training in the pool?
The
key plays in a Water Polo match are all about speed, strength and
power. Just think for a moment about the strength and power required
to drive, catch and shoot the ball or the wrestling match that goes on
at the centre forward position. The ability to win in these situations
has very little to do with how fast you can swim 400m or how many 100m
you can swim on a 1:20 but on your strength and power. Getting
stronger will absolutely help you win more of these battles.
The
occurrence of injuries, particularly over use type injuries that
usually occur to the shoulder and elbow of Water Polo players could
greatly be reduced with a program designed to work on movements and
muscles that are underused during regular training. But for your
on-land training to make a difference you have to be doing the right
exercises with the correct loading and volume.
I get
lots of questions from athletes regarding what to do in the gym. I
just had an athlete the other day at the pool ask me what he should do
with a universal gym he just got for his home. I gave him some
suggestions but I really should of said get rid of it. After reading
my “Top 10 Physical Training Tips” you hopefully will begin to
understand why.
Top 10 Physical Training Tips for Water Polo:
1. Always do more pulling exercises than pushing. Try a 2:1 to even a 3:1 ratio.
Pulling Exercises
Pushing Exercises
Pull Ups
Chin Ups
Seated Rows
Dead Lifts
Bench Press
Shoulder Press
Push Ups
Pec Deck
2.
Be very careful with to much Barbell Bench Pressing; in my opinion,
Bench Pressing with dumbbells is much safer for the shoulders.
Is this a good exercise for Water Polo players?
3. Push Ups are a great pushing movement for keeping your shoulders healthy.
There are lots of interesting and challenging variations. Push Ups are
classified as a closed chain exercise where Bench Press is an open
chain exercise. Closed chain exercises have been shown to activate
more of the stabilizing musculature of the shoulder joint (i.e. rotator
cuff muscles). Push Ups allow more natural movement of the whole
shoulder complex when compared to Bench Pressing.
4.
Be very careful with doing to much stretching to the front of your
shoulders. Most Water Polo players will be too flexible in the
shoulders.
Instead focus on the mobility of your
thoracic spine. Stiffness in your thoracic spine, which is your
mid-back area, puts the athlete at much greater risk of shoulder
impingement injuries. This is pain in the shoulder when the arm is
overhead, just like when you throw a ball.
If
you don't have any of the above issues, there is one shoulder stretch
all throwing athletes should be doing; the sleeper stretch.
Sleeper stretch
5. Train your legs, good Water Polo players have strong legs, great players have crazy strong legs. Regardless of position, leg strength is a huge factor in your ability to perform in the water.
If you want a better shot, train your legs.
Want a quicker return on the counter attack, train your legs.
Want to be a more explosive driver, train your legs.
Want to dominate at the center forward position, then train your legs.
"Everything in the game is about the legs."
Terry Schroeder, head coach USA Men's Water Polo team
You
got to have good legs to succeed, it is something I wish I did more
work on as a youth player. Replace some of those endless miles of
swimming with some serious leg work which will not only make you a
better player but take some of the stress off of your shoulders. Did
you know that the game is almost evenly split between vertical (think
passing, shooting, blocking) and horizontal (swimming) positions.
6. Having strong legs is not enough if you do not have the required flexibility.
To have a good egg beater kick and all the other associated kicking
movements you must have good flexibility in your lower body,
particularly the hips (Alexander M & Taylor C. The Technique of the Eggbeater Kick. web-based publication, www.coachesinfo.com 2008).
The lower body is certainly one area where regular flexibility training can have a very positive impact.
7. Use Free weights and stay away from machines.
No exercise machine will ever be made that will out perform what can be
accomplished with free weights (paraphrased from Mike Boyle, www.strengthcoach.com).
Good
Wasting Your Time!
8. Water Polo athletes do not get the loading on their body the same way as athletes doing land based sports.
Since you spend most of your life on land and not in the water I think
it is very important to think of strength training as a tool to become
healthy in and out of the pool.
Kavouras et al. (2006)
found that "Water polo is associated with an apparent redistribution of
bone mass and density from the lower to the upper limbs".
This
is where I think some running as well as weight lifting exercises like
Dead Lifts and Squats can be very good for Water Polo athletes.
Deadlifts are GOOD!
9.
Do not worry about being “sport specific” in the weight room. Get
strong using free weights and do your sport specific training in the
water.
10. Technique is always the first thing you need to learn in the weight room, so get a qualified coach.
Strength training is a very powerful tool and when done right it can have a very positive impact on your sport performance.
However, done wrong, it can destroy your athletic career in one session.
All
athletes new to strength training should first start with body weight
strength training programs. Only after becoming competent with your
body weight should you then consider the use of additional external
load.
With these 10 tips in mind take a look at your training program and evaluate what you are doing.
Are you using machines or free weights?
What is your push:pull ratio?
Leg training?
Next month I will apply these tips to a sample training program.
I got the below question from a youth Water Polo coach in Europe.
---- Hi Mike
Hope everything is fine on your vacation!
I'd like to ask for some help from you, I know that you have worked
with physical training a lot and we have 6-7 junior players from 15-19
years old that are starting to work out now for waterpolo.
Any hints or ideas of what they should train?
They're meeting with a swim coach but it would be nice to hear if you have any ideas!
They have not been lifting any weights before.
---
My response:
I would suggest a program of Squats, Push Ups and Chin Ups or Pull Ups + some shoulder external rotator cuff strengthening.
3 x 8-10 reps, 2-3x per week.
You gave me an idea though for a blog post on waterpolotraining.net. I will try to post a more detailed description of a beginner program in the next day or two.
---
Here is the more detailed response of the above program.
1. Warm Up
I recommend the 15 minute dry-land warm up I designed last year. It was originally published on www.michaelreid.ca. You can download the PDF of the entire program below and please study the video for a demonstration of all the exercises.
I am not going to discuss the rational for the exercises that are chosen except for this, keep it simple and focus on performing multi-joint exercises with free weights.
There are reasons why I choose a front squat versus a back squat and push ups instead of a bench press. I will discuss why another time but you will have to trust me that it is best for your body and for keeping your shoulders healthy.
I really don't like giving programs with out actually coaching the athlete and at the least seeing how the athlete moves. Every athlete will be different regardless of age and even though many can do the same program, each one may require very different coaching cues and small tweaks to really make the program work for them.
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The
occurrence of injuries, particularly over use type injuries that
usually occur to the shoulder and elbow of Water Polo players could
greatly be reduced with a program designed to work on movements and
muscles that are underused during regular training. But for your
on-land training to make a difference you have to be doing the right
exercises with the correct loading and volume.
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