Weekend Warriors' Exercise And Injury Prevention

If you're a weekend warrior, you need to exercise to prevent injuries and win those games for bragging rights! If you just show up for your game on the weekends without preparation, you will blow out a hamstring or pull a quad muscle (or worse injury).

Begin your training by getting your body in general condition to play your sport. Full body strength training (3 days a week) and interval cardio (2-3 days a week) sessions will get your body ready for more intense training to follow. Do this training for 2-3 weeks.

You would then progress to do basic plyometric exercises like squat jumps and cone hops. Plyometric exercises help you to increase power. Traditional barbell and dumbbell strength exercises do not allow you to move at the speeds necessary to improve power. Strength training gives you muscular and nervous system development needed to develop optimal power.

Advanced sports power training supersets a strength exercise with a biomechanically similar power exercise. An example would be barbell squats and repeating full-speed squat jumps. The squat jumps would be performed immediately following the barbell squats to get maximum neuromuscular adaptations.

You would do a set of squats at 85% of 1 Rep Maximum (5 reps) followed immediately by a set of full-speed repeating squat jumps (8-10 reps). This is an advanced training method and should not be performed by those who do not have adequate stabilization strength and muscular strength. Other plyometric exercises can also be superset this way. It is also advisable to choose exercises that mimic the movements in your sport (transfer-of-training-effect).

Surprise your friends with improved power and explosion during your games! And, do so without getting injured!

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"Exercise is not my life.....exercise makes my life better!"

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Posted in: Exercise Technique,Sports-Related Conditioning,Weight Training