Behind the Scenes: Tide Women?s Basketball
4/23/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
In the first of a week-long series on RollTide.com, we go behind the scenes with the Alabama women’s basketball team, who are in the process of putting the finishing touches to their spring workout schedule under the direction of strength and conditioning coach Michelle Diltz.
Most fans understand that it takes 12 months of hard work to make a player ready to compete in the SEC. Most know that players put in long hours in the weight room and on the floor, working on improving strength and conditioning and improving specific basketball skills to prepare for another campaign in the nation’s toughest women’s basketball league.
What most fans don’t see, however, is the preparation that goes behind those workouts and just exactly what goes on inside the weight room. This week’s series is an attempt to get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes and how much hard work actually goes into the making of an SEC team...
Monday ?? April 23 (Leg Day)
The Tide gathers at 1:15 p.m. for the first of four workouts in the final week of its spring schedule. Players are off next week as spring classes at UA wind down and final examinations begin.
“This final week, we are just trying to see where they are according to the strength testing we did in the fall,” said Diltz. “I need to see if we need to re-focus anything for the summer, if I need to add anything to balance out where we are it or if there are any muscular imbalances or anything like that. We don’t want any injuries this summer or in the season, and if I can see that by testing them this spring, we can avoid any complications later in the season.”
Each day in the spring workout schedule is designed to target a few specific muscle groups. Monday is heavy on the legs with some work on the shoulders at the end of the workout.
The goals of the workout as explained by Diltz:
“After we warm-up, Monday is our squat day. They are fresh, just coming off the weekend, so this is a day where we are going to do some heavy lifting on the squat rack. Their legs are ready and rested with some recovery after two days off, so we are going to go hard. In the off-season we are doing a little less weight but more repetitions, so it evens out. We are trying to give them a strong base with the squats.
“Mondays are heavier on leg workouts, so right after the squats that work the bigger muscles in the leg, we go into working some of the smaller ones like the hamstrings, single-leg work that isolates each leg, and calf raises, which the girls enjoy and that help them jump.
“To close the workout I always do some kind of body weight pull-up or similar exercise that works the back and gives them stronger back muscles. Most females have a tendency to slouch and not be too strong in the upper body. Keeping them tall and upright allows them to be stronger.
“We always do shoulder work on our squat day, with some heavy lifting with our shoulders. That will be our major arm movement for the day. We are doing higher reps at about 70% of their max, which is what the off-season is about. We always end the workout with core work, which are things like sit-ups, which we do often.
“We are doing Pilates this year to do something different. One of our problems this year I think came from not having the strong core muscles we needed. We had some strength and some increase in strength, but we weren’t able to transfer it. I think that focusing on core work for at least 15-20 minutes to give them a strong base will help that.
“Again, we are trying to give them a strong base so that this summer we can advance to heavier work, like explosive Olympic lifts and those kinds of things so that they can absorb some of these heavier lifts.”
The schedule of lifts completed by the Tide on Monday is below, listed with the muscle groups each lift is intended to target. Demonstrations of each lift can be found at the following link:http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html
Diltz’s goals for Monday:
“The squats today were to see what their rep-max was, or how many times the players could lift a certain weight. Today we went for 85 percent of what their maximum weight had been in the past. We wanted each player to lift that weight at least six times. I took those results and compared them to where we were in the fall when we finished our pre-season. If a player could do 85 percent of their maximum six times, that’s great. If not, then there has been some strength loss that we need to focus on getting back. We did these max-outs at the end of our spring season because I didn’t want to do them to close to the end of the season. We needed to see where they were to see if we need to re-evaluate anything or change our focus.”
MONDAY WORKOUT
A. Complex II ?? a series of Olympic lifts designed to warm the body up and develop power
1. High Pull -- 6 repetitions -- Works the upper back and develops explosiveness
2. Muscle Snatch ?? 6 repetitions -- A warm-up exercise that focuses on technique
3. Good Mornings ?? 6 repetitions -- A lower-back exercise
4. Squat-to-Push Press ?? 6 repetitions -- Designed to work on transferring power from legs to upper body.
5. Bent-over Row ?? 6 repetitions -- Works on the back and core stability
B. Squats ?? an exercise designed to work the major muscle groups in the legs.
C. Single-leg squat ?? an exercise that uses the players’ body weight in place of a bar and plates.
D. Calve raises ?? designed to develop the calf muscles.
E. Military press ?? used to work the shoulder muscles.
F. Pull-up ?? the classic exercise with different hand grips to work different parts of the shoulder and back.
G. Shoulder triangle ?? a series of lifts designed to target different areas of the shoulder.
H. Pilates ?? used to strengthen the abdominal muscles and core strength.
Time of workout: 90 minutes
Diltz’s highlights:
“The highlights were Nikki Davis and Tamara Williams, who both looked amazing in their technique and results today. They were both doing about 190 pounds today and both did six repetitions. Their technique was good, they got down low like we wanted and they looked strong. They worked hard to get through what they needed to and they looked like they have gained strength.”
Player reaction ?? Sophomore guard Nikki Davis
“I think right now we are trying to not only build team discipline, but also get stronger to help us prepare for next year. In the past few weeks, we have been just trying to get our strength back from the season to build on for the summer.”
“We did heavy legs today with squats where we did a max-out to see how many repetitions we could do. I was able to lift 190 pounds six times, so I was happy with that. The last sets were hard with the weight and concentrating on getting the technique right, but it’s all mental toughness to get through when your muscles are tired.”
Tomorrow, RollTide.com takes another look in the weight room at Tuesday’s workout, designed to build power.
