To Parallel or not to Parallel

This is a great debate, but there are many things that we can touch upon that will help our kids!

1st. You should never never have have your kids clean or hang clean if they have not done the proper prepertory work in various phases leading up to dynamic oly's. The clean is used as a method of training the CNS, not necessarily the hip, hamstrings or back. Those muscle groups are used when performing this movment BUT it is the CNS that controls how quickly, efficiently ad how hard they come in. If you are using oly's to train muscle groups you are missing the boat, if this was the intent then oly lifters would not always continue to deadlift, squat and press even when in max lifitng phases of their respective lifts.

2nd. The squat is great, I love it, but before you can squat our kids must be given the proper prehab so that the squat or deadlift is actualy working the right sequence of muscles. For example a great therapist once told me: "you can do any exercise you want, you tell your body to squat it will squat but you may not be recruiting the correct muscle pattern." We MUST get the hip to wok properly before overloading it with complex lifts such as the squat or deadlift, if we do not our kids will see moderate improvment and then injury. There are those athletes who's hip will work correctly immediatly but for a large group it will not. The firing sequnce must go: low ab/multifidus - glute-hastring at the end

-Low ab/multifidus: are stabalizers that will help to brace the pelvis and sacrum (area where all force is transfered)
-Glute: pusher, if it works correctly it engages when we push (tackle, accelerate, hit)
-Hamstring: complex group of muscles that are: pullers if they are the primary mover = injury

Reasons why?
-sitting at a desk all day, going home and sitting at a computer or TV = short hip flexors and aductors which rotate the pelivs forward which = inactive glutes
-it is not enough to stretch the hip flexors we must peform hip activation drills: glute bridge, side lying abduction, bird dog all prior to any lifting what evryday for months.
-always open your training phase for the first few blocks with single leg movments ie: variations of Bulgarian split squat, pistol, step up
-next phase must begin to incorporate 2 footed movments, ie: deadlift the begining of any lifting program is the deadlift, it lays the ground work for all oly's as well as you can work with those athletes who have range/mobility issues
-begin this block with the athlete tying a vey tight rubber band around the knees que the athlete to push the knees out when they are doing the deadlift this will force the glute to activate through the move and allow them to concentrate on maintaning low ab contraction.

Once all of this has been done we can actualy start to squat and clean (the fun stuff) now about the squat always deep as deep as you can get!
There is an old saying: "Those that squat the deepest often are the ones who can run the fastest and jump the highest"

It is great to have our athletes work out and get stronger but we can set them up for success even more by taking a more structured approach that is used by National Sport Federations when preparing Olympic and World Championship seasons and applying this to our schools.