The NFL Combine is one of the most well-known testing days. Players are able to showcase their athleticism in front of a global audience, increasing their chances of being drafted.
The combine has grown to the point where companies and coaches now offer exclusive training plans, camps, and programmes aimed specifically towards improving combine performance. Despite this, with the exception of sprint testing for running backs, research has revealed no consistent statistical association between combine tests and professional football performance (1).
When we take a step back and look at our job description as Strength and Conditioning coaches, it will say something like "to prepare the athlete to meet and exceed the demands of the sport and training." So, is it truly in an athlete's best interest to focus so much on one specific testing day? Sure, the combine may make a difference in terms of exposing you to more individuals. However, I do not believe that testing days are as important in most team sports, especially for youth and novice athletes.
Additionally, scheduling testing days can be difficult, especially for teams with large squads. This can have an impact on a test's reliability and validity. For example, after a day's rest, you may run your preseason testing first thing on Monday morning. It may be difficult to recreate this scenario throughout the season. Niggles and injuries will occur, as will games and rescheduled fixtures, technical and tactical training, and team rotations. The solution? Embedded testing.
What is Embedded Testing?
Embedded testing is a form of monitoring that does not require specific testing days; instead, it tracks performance throughout training in order to identify general performance trends. This allows you to complete an entire block of training without enduring unnecessary physical and mental fatigue. This method of performance monitoring also allows you to make more precise adjustments from session to session while also gauging overall progress. In fact, by regularly monitoring performance, you can determine whether the progress over the training block was a significant adaptation or merely a daily/weekly fluctuation.
Practical Examples
We now have an understanding of what embedded testing is, the challenge now is to know what to track, how to track it and why. As with all things strength and conditioning, the question can be answered with "it depends". Your desired outcomes from the training block will direct what you track and how.
Strength Adaptation
If you want to increase the amount of force your athletes can produce, you have two options: top set load or estimated 1 rep max. Top set load is very basic and does not require any math. Simply Keep track of the weight your athlete uses for the top set of each exercise, each session. You will eventually be able to distinguish between fluctuations and meaningful change. Unfortunately, this gives us no idea of the actual maximum capacity, only working loads. Calculating your estimated 1 rep max from working sets, on the other hand, can give a good indication of what that max might be.
I have found The Brzycki (1993) equation to be the most useful for calculating an estimated 1 rep max.
Estimated 1 Rep Max = Weight ÷ (1.0278 -(0.0278 × Reps))
I have also seen this method used semi frequently. Essentially, every four to six weeks, an athlete will complete AMRAP as their final working set. From this an estimated 1RM is calculated, from which training percentages are adjusted accordingly for the next block.
Power Adaptation
Work Capacity Adaptation
Final Thoughts
To be perfectly honest, I still occasionally run specific testing sessions. However, the more I coach, the more I understand how to record various metrics and how to build testing into our programmes, the less I see a need for them.
Why waste time and effort, while the chances you have to allow your athletes to train, when you don't need to?! As with everything though, make sure you have a clear understanding oh what, why and how you are going to track performance before you start. Staring at a huge sheet of data and not knowing what to do with it is a horrible feeling!
Kuzmits, F. E., & Adams, A. J. (2008). The NFL combine: does it predict performance in the National Football League?. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 22(6), 1721–1727
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