Most coaches are familiar with the concept of workout stagnation or as it is also known, hitting a plateau. In essence, the work out or exercise is no longer producing visible positive results. However, there is still another element that has typically not been considered. It is the concept of novelty or “newness”. In other words, what are the effects of a brand-new exercise when it is introduced into the program? In general, when you use a new exercise you’ll get positive results. You’ll get these results regardless of whether the exercise uses the same muscles, uses the muscles in an identical or similar manner or if it even remotely resembles what you must execute in your sport. Because of the novelty of the new exercise your body responds in a positive fashion. However, the effects are not long-lived. As a result, the initial excitement of seeing great improvement soon turns to disappointment. As famous Russian swim coach, Igor Koshkin once stated, “If you start to use standing on the head as an exercise for your swimmers, the initial effect will be remarkable and positive due to its novelty. But its effect will be very short-term because this exercise doesn’t touch on your athletes’ swimming specific abilities”. Thus, if you see that the exercises that you are using are no longer working, it may be time to reevaluate the exercises that are being used. This however, is not a simple problem. The exercise novelty problem is very complex. For example, it is not difficult to find an exercise that athletes are not familiar with. It is however, very difficult to find an unfamiliar exercise that corresponds to sport specific physiological, biomechanical and psychological demands. This is why training specificity is an indispensable factor in sports training. The key is to use exercises that duplicate what the athlete requires in execution of his sports and team skills. This sounds easy to do but it is not. You must have a strong background in technique and be able to create exercises to duplicate certain aspects of the technique. This is one of the reasons why I have created exercises with the Total Athlete System™. It is the only way to duplicate the exact technique. For more information on creating sport specific exercises and for examples of sport specific exercises, see the books in the Explosive Training Series. For example, Explosive Running contains exercises that duplicate the exact joint actions seen in the running stride.