If you are looking to make a positive impact on your team this season, start with the repetition. Each game boils down to how plays are executed. Turn overs, miscommunication, being out of position, over playing the ball, etc can all result in a disappointing season. The same goes for strength training. How you execute each repetition say a lot about you as a player, a coach, and your program. Disciplined athletes expecting success during the season use five coaching points to ensure proper repetition replication.

The purpose of a properly performed repetition is to produce tension in the muscle, which repeated for short periods of time will fatigue the muscle. To do this in the most efficient way possible we need to be aware of five coaching points:

1. Minimize momentum.
2. Pause in the fully contracted position.
3. Emphasize the lowering phase of the lift.
4. Body position and leverage.
5. Constant tension.

1. Minimize momentum.

If you move a weight too quickly, it will increase in speed to the point of actually traveling on its own. The increase in momentum will take tension off the muscle, making the exercise both easier and more dangerous, the two things one tries to avoid when strength training.

2. Pause in the fully contracted position.

Once raised, the weight should be paused momentarily at the highest point or where the muscles are in the fully contracted position. This “pause” helps minimize momentum.

3. Emphasize the lowering phase of the lift.

Lifting the weight is one half of the exercise. Lowering the weight is the second half. Because you can lower approximately 40% more than you can lift, you will use fewer muscle fibers in the lowering phase unless you one, allow more time to let the weight down or two, add more weight during the lowering phase. A good rule is that it should take three to five seconds to lower the weight. Lowering the weight any faster would be dropping it and just as throwing a weight up is an inefficient and dangerous way to train, dropping weights will do nothing to develop strength and muscle.

4. Body position and leverage.

Body position and leverage are the next important points for safe and efficient exercising of the muscles. Lifting more weight for the sake of lifting more weight, with no regard to how it is lifted, may be fine for the ego, but does not necessarily translate to stronger muscles. Remember, if the leverage is right, you can lift the world. Only the undisciplined will adjust their body, seat height or machine to give them better leverage.

5. Constant tension.

The final coaching point is constant tension. When strength training, the muscle should be forced to work through a full range of motion under a constant load. Too often trainees let their concentration slip as the exercise becomes uncomfortable and they seek relief by resting part way through the repetition or bouncing the plates off the weight stack. The trainee should lower the weight in a slow, controlled, smooth manner, and raise the weight in the same fashion.


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