Understanding Proprioceptive Staleness and the Importance of Variety in Training

Today’s episode features Boo Schexnayder, current strength coach and former jumps coach at Louisiana State University.  Boo is regarded internationally as a leading authority in training design, possessing 37 years of experience in the coaching and consulting fields. Most noted for his 12 years on the Track and Field coaching staff at LSU, he is regarded as one of the world’s premier coaches, having developed 19 NCAA Champions and 10 Olympians.  Boo is one of the world’s leading authorities on training for speed and power on a variety of levels. I get a lot of requests on the show to talk about training organization and programming, and we had a great chat with Grant Fowler for episode #190, but outside of that show, talks on programming have been a bit sparse, so I was really excited to get Boo back on the line to have a great chat on programming and organization. This show gets into it.  It’s one of the best talks I’ve had on straight-forward planning and organization for speed and power training.  Although Boo’s deepest and most well-known experience is with track and field, there is a huge gold-mine of information for working with team sport athletes as well.  For the episode Boo takes us far into his thoughts on how he builds a power development program through the year, from his “home base” power workouts, working into his more intense work and “trump cards” that he selectively plays when he wants athletes to be their best.  We also get into a lot of great information on recovery workouts, de-loading schemes, plyometric training for team sport athletes, full vs. partial range thoughts, and much more.  This is not an episode that you casually listen to, it’s one that you really study. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:20 How Boo approaches changing themes in year round training for speed and power athletes, as well as Boo’s take on “proprioceptive staleness” 11:00 How Boo cycles his power training means throughout the year and how he leaves himself work to build on, as well as his “home base” workouts versus his high intensity power workouts 24:20 Boo’s take on training novice versus advanced athletes from a power perspective 25:20 Boo’s favorite “trump card” workout sets to use when peaking athletes for maximal performance 30:30 Boo’s take on building work capacity and how to optimally use recovery days 39:40 How to look at training a team sport athlete from a jump training and plyometric perspective versus a track and field athlete 45:55 Loading to deloading ratios throughout the year for various athletes 51:40 Using higher frequency work in training days, and how that fits in on the periodization timeline 57:25 Thoughts on unilateral work, bilateral work and range of motion in lifting Quotes  “Mental staleness is something all good athletes have to trudge through, but physical staleness is a problem” “I think variety in training has a lot to do with proprioceptive shortness” “A lot of times I change (exercises) for the sake of change and variety” “Ultimately, my goal is to get the intensities in my power training as high as I possibly can.  I always say that the intensity you reach is the level of performance you are going to get” “There is going to come a time when athletes have seen everything you have and you have to use variety, you have to use creative set-rep loading schemes to move them along” “I save most of the things I use for variety and variance like trump cards at critical spots” “Lower ends of power development provide support for the more intense bouts of reaching that you do: Things like acceleration development, light Olympic lifts, rudimentary plyometrics, those types of things are always in my program from day 1 to ...