Please make sure that your sound is on and click on the video to play.
PUT YOUR CURSOR OVER THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF THE VIDEO AND CLICK 
(IMAGE LOOKS LIKE THIS) TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON FULL SCREEN TO BE ABLE SEE LARGER DIAGRAMS AND VIDEOS
Click the play arrow to view the video.
This is a You Tube video, so please make sure that your network allows you to access You Tube.
You can also checkout more videos like this one at the Glazier Clinics Online Learning Vault
By Chris Beardsley
Chris Beardsley graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. He is also a Director at Strength and Conditioning Research Limited
For more great information regarding strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter ,Instagram, and Linkedin
Only a small amount of research has assessed how deliberate changes in psychological factors through “mental training” programs can affect force production, and thereby help prepare athletes for sport.
Mental training programs can involve either the development of valuable psychological skills, such as controlling self-talk, or the immediate application of simple methods, such as mental imagery and/or modelling.
Mental imagery is often (but not always) done by simply visualising performing an exercise in-between sets of normal strength training with the same exercise. In such training programs, adding mental imagery training on top of normal strength training produces superior results.
Recently, new research found that it was possible to produce strength gains in a multi-joint lower body exercise in a group of subjects who already had experience in performing that exercise, by using mental imagery training.
What is more, these strength gains occurred in just 3 days, in which the subjects did no strength training at all.
Interestingly, in many studies investigating mental imagery (like this one), the changes in strength seem to occur alongside increases in self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is a key psychological quality that determines how confident an individual is at succeeding at a task or exercise. Mental imagery (visualization) training seems to be effective at improving self-efficacy, thereby changing the way in which athletes approach a task.
Mental toughness has also been identified as a key quality that determines strength, athletic performance, and even predicts success in the sport itself, among high-level athletes.
Although mental toughness is anecdotally believed to be either innate, or developed by gruelling workouts, the evidence suggests that even a very low volume of psychological skills training (including self-talk) can improve measures of mental toughness in high-level athletes.
This suggests that mental toughness is also trainable with the right approach, and does not require strength coaches to use otherwise unhelpful physical training methods in an attempt to encourage that psychological trait.
Overall, there seem to be very close relationships between key psychological qualities like self-efficacy and mental toughness, and athletic performance.
Given the evidence suggesting that these qualities can be enhanced by mental training, strength coaches will likely benefit from devoting time to understanding these methods and liaising with sports psychologists, so that they can be implemented with their athletes.
Transcription of the discussion (Video is below)
Big Bag Drill, Big Bag Drill. This is the drill to keep ya, alright. Try to get your back to balance okay. Both guys hit their necks gonna get turned. They’re gonna get shocked, and how ya gonna get them out of it?
You go to the weight room and everything is balanced up for you. Got 25LBs on each side, you could do your drill. You could bench press, you can squat, power clean everything is nice and even. okay, now you got a center with a 300 lb nose guard hitting you in the left shoulder. And there’s nothing balanced nothing on my right side, i got all the weight on my left.
Please make sure that your sound is on and click on the video to play.
PUT YOUR CURSOR OVER THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF THE VIDEO AND CLICK (IMAGE LOOKS LIKE THIS) TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON FULL SCREEN TO BE ABLE SEE LARGER DIAGRAMS AND VIDEOS
Click the play arrow to view the video.
This is a You Tube video, so please make sure that your network allows you to access You Tube.
You can also checkout more videos like this one at the Glazier Clinics Online Learning Vault
How am I going to get past the base? This is a good drill to get them pass the base, get your hands back inside, because the play is not over once you get your self out of position. Look at this spine, spine’s all bent okay, and you gotta be able to get back to base and if both guys work hard, stay low and don’t raise up til you get the thing going.
It should end up that this bag pops up in the air. Its unbalanced weight. unbalanced weight. OK now now when I was in Indianapolis we use to do fundamentals with all people. There’s a full back, there’s a tight end, there’s an offensive linemen. Big guy against little guy, now his necks getting twisted right here but its not over, you got to be able to block a defensive end.
Everything’s not going to be all matched up for you. How we gonna help the guy get back to base. It’s not over, you got hit, its not over get your hands back inside, okay get your balance back, get your feet spread get your good base, get your hands and shoulders.
Everything we do you want to have your feet in your shoulders gotta get back in line okay let your body work for ya, this guy right now if we put a squat rack up there that guy can do squats in that position right there. He can do a power clean, that’s football position. Get back to base.K you got a fullback that going to have to kick out, walk on a linebacker, ok, its the same thing. Alright, lets look at a little video and see if we can find it on the tape. K you’re going to get wrenched, you’re neck’s gonna get bent over here okay, tight end right here is the big bag. Okay, keep your feet moving…
Chris Beardsley graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. He is also a Director at Strength and Conditioning Research Limited
For more great information regarding strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram
Change of direction (COD) ability is a key component of agility. Biomechanics research can help us identify which factors lead to better COD performances. In a comparison of rugby athletes, starters were able to accomplish the same COD tasks in a shorter period of time.
Importantly, it was the deceleration phase (the time before the knee starts extending) that was the main contributor to this difference. So deceleration ability (which is determined by eccentric strength) may be a key factor.
In another comparison of athletes, stronger subjects were faster, displayed higher ground reaction forces, had a more horizontally-directed force vector, and adopted a lower body position (greater hip and knee flexion) in a COD task.
This suggests that the stronger athletes were able to produce greater maximum force, more horizontal force, and greater force at longer muscle lengths.
One final comparison of athletes found that the horizontal propulsive force in a final step was positively associated with faster COD ability, while the vertical braking force was negatively associated.
This finding also supports the role of a more horizontally-directed force vector for optimal COD performance.
Taken together, these studies imply that certain strength qualities are very important for COD ability.
Eccentric strength, maximum strength, horizontally-directed strength, and strength at long muscle lengths may all therefore transfer very well to COD performance.
Long-term training studies are still catching up with these biomechanical investigations, but we can already see that eccentric strength is able to improve force production preferentially in the deceleration phase of COD tasks, which may be key to enhancing agility.
Hopefully, future studies will also investigate the impact of other specific strength qualities, such as maximum strength, horizontally-directed strength, and strength at long muscle lengths, so that we can identify all the essential strength qualities that transfer best.
By Chris Beardsley
Chris Beardsley (Google Scholar, ResearchGate) graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University.
For more great information regarding strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram
Although it is the largest muscle in the body, the gluteus maximus has historically not been a major focus of strength training research.
However, there are a number of electromyography (EMG) studies that help us understand how it can be developed most effectively.
Firstly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is reduced during isometric hip extension when the hip is flexed, compared to when it is fully extended.
Therefore, exercises with peak contractions in high degrees of hip flexion (such as squats) are likely to be less effective for strengthening the glutes, compared to exercises with peak contractions close to full hip extension (such as hip thrusts).
Secondly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is increased during prone hip extension by greater hip abduction, and by greater hip external rotation.
Taken together, these finding indicate that the gluteus maximus is more strongly activated when it is shortened (full hip extension, abduction, and external rotation) than when it is lengthened.
Thirdly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is greater when the knee is flexed to 90 degrees, compared to when the knee is fully extended. This is probably because a straight leg leads to more hamstrings involvement in hip extension.
Therefore, exercises that involve hip extension while the knee is more extended (such as deadlifts) are likely to be less effective for strengthening the glutes, compared to exercises that involve hip extension while the knee is flexed to around 90 degrees (such as hip thrusts).
What do these studies mean?
In summary, it seems likely that the best position for producing maximum tension in the gluteus maximus is full hip extension and 90 degrees of knee flexion. This is where the gluteus maximus muscle is shortest, and also where hamstrings involvement is least.
Unsurprisingly, this is the exact position used for manual muscle strength testing.
In addition, it is the top position of the hip thrust exercise, which probably explains why this lift is so effective for glute training.