Dumbbell Workout Handbook: Strength & Power

These workouts focus on the three main athletic qualities of indi-vidual sports: rotation, power and endurance. Most sports require multiple athletic qualities, but for the purposes of this book we will focus on the primary needs for each sport.

I have been coaching in the weight room for 18 years and I believe the term “sport specific” is overused—its meaning has been confused by those using it incorrectly. As my knowledge base grew, I started asking myself, “What does it mean to be sport specific?” I started reviewing years of workout programs I had written for high school, college and professional athletes. And for each sport, at each level and for each gender, the programs focused on building the basics. Where the difference lay was in the injury patterns for each sport and level of physical development at each level.

Therefore, to create truly sport specific programming, we target these specific needs. It is slightly beyond the scope of this book to break down each and every sport, which is why I created these three categories:

Rotation: This program uses single arm and leg exercises to build core stability and includes healthy shoulders exercises built into the Warm-Up/Activation sections.

Power: This program features Assistance exercises based on sports traditional injury patterns.

Endurance: This program includes an emphasis on strength and healthy knee exercises.

ROTATIONAL SPORTS WORKOUTS

Armed only with dumbbells, the focus for building rotational power will be single arm and single leg movements, to develop your core stability. The primary function of your “core” is not all those crunches you have been doing, but the four core stability groups:

Anterior core stability (also called anti-extension)

Posterior core stability (also called anti-flexion)

Lateral core stability (also called anti-lateral flexion)

Rotary core stability (also called anti-rotation)

Single Arm Farmer Carry - 4 sets of 30 yards in each direction, switching sides with each set

PVC or Barbell Overhead Squat - 2 sets of 10 with a 3 second pause at the bottom of each squat rep

Program Notes: Circuit the warm-up/activation exercises. For the Super Set, use about half the weight for the second exercise as you used for the first.

POWER SPORTS

For the power sports, we build on the power workouts from earlier in the book with the addition of single leg and single arm movements to make them more functional for athletes. All Power Sports benefit from workouts designed to make them run faster and jump more powerfully.

All sports need to focus on the basics, but to make a workout “sport specific,” the Assistance exercises need to match the physical needs of the sports and mitigate its specific injury potential.

Program Notes: Circuit the warm-up/activation exercises. For the Dynamic Effort movements, aim to be quick and controlled on the way down, explosive on the way up.

ENDURANCE SPORTS

Endurance sports focus on single arm and single leg movements, hybrid exercises, body weight strength, core strength, and healthy rehab type exercises to keep the body healthy through grueling training sessions.

The volume (sets and reps) are kept under 10 reps per set and 30 reps total per exercise. The idea is to emphasize strength building to match their high aerobic engines built in practice and meets.

Strength training is also a form of cross training. A common error for the endurance athletes is to discount the importance of strength and power for performance. Strength training (heavy-ish weights and fewer reps) will help build work capacity so that the athlete can train faster speeds for longer.

Program Notes: Circuit the warm-up/activation exercises. Hold the bottom of the Split Squat while performing the Shoulder Press.

Program Notes: Circuit the warm-up/activation exercises. Hold the top of the back extension while performing the Row.

SPORTS SPECIFIC
WORKOUTS

SPORTS SPECIFIC WORKOUTS

ROTATIONAL SPORTS WORKOUTS

POWER SPORTS

ENDURANCE SPORTS