My good friend, Adam Feit, recently sent me his notes from the Michigan State
Strength and Conditioning Clinic that was held on February 12.  There are some really
good information in here that can help us all.  Enjoy!

1^st Presentation: Christine Bradd- MSU Team Dietician- Spartan Nutrition

·     High(er) protein diets are fine for your health, as long as you don’t have any current kidney issues AND you are drinking enough water.

·     Look at your athletes’ plates of food. It should have sections of ¼ protein, ¼ fruit/vegetable, and ½ carbohydrate.

o     Portions need to be regulated based on the activity performed (women’s golf vs. football practice).

·     High fat diets cause athletes to tank 1 hour into practice/competition

·     Mixed diets cause athletes to tank 2 hours into practice/competition

·     High(er) carbohydrate diets last until 4 hours.

·     If athletes do not eat enough carbohydrates in their diet, the body will burn muscle tissue for energy.

·     If your stomach growls, guess what? You’re hungry and your body is burning muscle.

·     Implement the POWER HOUR

o     1 hour pre/post activity- 30-50g of carbohydrates/ 10-20g of protein

·     Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with low fat chocolate milk are perfect.

·     Need your athletes to gain weight but they won’t eat? Try milk chugging contests after they eat to sneak in additional calories.

·     When you are over tired, you tend to eat more.

·     Easy way to gain weight:

o     Eat trail mix on the hour, every hour.

·     If you exercise for less than 60 minutes, all you need is water.

·     Hydration is crucial. Use the PEE CHART

o     Color chart displaying urine colors and levels of dehydration.

o     Preferred (1)

o     Perfectly pale (2)

o     Pleasing (3)

o     Pushing it (4)

o     Poor (5)

o     Pitiful (6)

o     Pathetic (7)

·     For every pound lost after practice, drink 24 oz of fluid.

·     Why do athletes love supplements? They are glamorous!

·     Use drugfreesport.com for a great resource to prevent your athletes from making a mistake in their eligibility.

·     Stress fractures are caused by excessive stress AND low calorie diets.

·     Remind your coaches, trainers and administrators that when working with female athletes, seeing a number on a scale DOES NOT trigger an eating disorder! An outside stressor causes it; fight with boyfriend, school, and pressure from fellow teammates, society and media.

·     Nutrition will not make a great athlete, but it will certainly break one!

·     Ever wonder why it’s so hard to get an inner city athlete to try eating REAL FOOD on a daily basis? It’s because, chances are, they’ve eaten fast food multiple times per day for a majority of their life.

o     You try eating fast food 3-4 times per day. Isn’t it gross? That’s what they think. Oatmeal, real eggs, whole grains is GROSS to them.

2^nd Presentation: Ted Lambrinides- University of Kentucky- Organization and Implementation Considerations for the High School Coach

·     Success on the field isn’t determined by the strength coach…it’s called genetics…ever hear of it?

·     Difference between Kentucky and other schools in the SEC? Watch signing day. Alabama and Florida recruits are shopping at Nordstrom and Macys. Kentucky have Wal-mart’s.

·     If you’re a young coach, you need to work on your interview skills. You may only have 30 minutes to sell yourself to a head coach. So you better be working on it.

·     When starting out, you should know the following:

o     Rules of your weight room, music policies, behavior policies, cussing rules, assistant coaches and their personal workouts (don’t do that in here, that’s silly, and you won’t do silly movements in my weight room (Kim Wood).

o     You have to know why you are doing what you are doing!

·     The biggest change in athletes since 20 years ago is neck size and grip strength. Period!

·     Proper programs don’t need an additional section for “pre-hab.” Proper program design PREVENTS INJURIES.

·     If athletes don’t study their playbook or watch film, there is nothing we can do to help them win a championship.

·     Remember how your program will be judged?

·     Organize and execute everything to perfection.

o     Every rep, every set. Organize your master schedule effectively.

·     New sport assignment? Look at the sport. Watch what happens. What muscles do they properly use and what are the common injuries?

·     Remember that athletes these days have way more responsibilities than they did 30 years ago. There are study tables, training tables, success coaches, part time jobs, work studies, etc.

·     If you’ve got a staff of graduate assistants, are they using the same coaching cues as you? If they had to run the program in your absence, would they coach like were supposed to?

·     How do you get stronger? Maximum effort! Reps and sets will take care of themselves.

·     Make your athletes accountable by writing in their reps or weight used. We are doing them a disservice by doing it for them.

·     Don’t allow standing around. Make them do something!

·     You get what you emphasize in your program. Want bigger necks, glutes or biceps? Then emphasize them in your program!

·     Don’t you love when sports coaches ask you if their athletes are getting stronger? What else do you think they are doing with us? Playing checkers?

·     A good strength coach has the confidence to tell a sport coach “Don’t blame me for your recruiting mistakes!”

·     Neck should be measured for progress. (Mike Gittleson disagrees). It’s about the strength of the cylinder, not the size.

·     If you are doing manual resistance neck training, be careful with neck flexion.

·     If you can’t fire your glutes, something is wrong (you are injured somewhere).

o     Protective mechanism in place.

·     Read not to believe, but to weigh and consider.

·     To prevent lawsuits in your program, you must coach/demonstrate correct AND incorrect methods. Trust us…you will be held liable if something goes wrong and an athlete gets hurts under your supervision.

·     You need to have documentation and research of why you do certain movements and volume arrangements. (Think of what it going to happen to Iowa right now…why is 100 rep squats a good idea?) Is there research to back that up?

·     Remember the Borg scale? Why is it on a scale of 6 (easy) to 20 (extremely hard)?

o     Put a 0 after the score and you get the current approximate heart rate.

·     You better know what to do if you’ve got sickle cell trait athletes on your team. They ARE allowed to use their perceived exertion as a crutch. Failure to do so could result in death (and a lawsuit).

·     Great coaches understand not everyone can squat or deadlift or bench or clean. Make adjustments based on their injury history and training age.

·     Athletes who will help you win DON’T have the best lifting mechanics.

·     Remember attention medications cause athletes not to eat.

·     It’s always better to provide food (training table), not more money.

·     What does an athlete do with more money? He/she buys new iPods, shoes, and goes to the club. Do you really think he/she is buying food?

o     Think about the corner crack addict? If you give him/her money for food, are they REALLY going to buy food? (Same principle with our kids).

·     Make sure you go over your program with your athletic trainer and head coach.

·     Never take a day for granted. Remember, every day you wake up is a day closer to you getting fired. What are you doing to stay on top? You better be reading and developing!

·     In the end, just remember this: If you ain’t his guy, you ain’t his guy. ‘Nuff said.

·     Genetics article was presented by Coach Mannie.

o     “When the sperm meets the egg.”

§     Athletes are elite athletes because they have specific genetic make-up that WE CANNOT CHANGE.

3^rd Presentation: Bob Rogucki- Baltimore Ravens- Organizing Your Training Seasons

·     Presentation was performed in the weight room as a packet was handed out on their training splits.

·     5 major areas of training for a Baltimore Raven Football Players:

o     Neck (neck, traps)

o     Hips and Legs (buttocks, quadriceps, hamstrings)

o     Mid-section (abdominals, hip flexors, adductors, low back)

o     Torso (shoulder, upper back, chest)

o     Arms (biceps, triceps, forearms, hands)

·     Program organization

o     Train Monday-Thursday (Upper-Lower-Upper-Lower). Players want the weekends off.

o     Repetitions (always start the off-season with 12, 10,

o     Workload

o     Intensity

o     Sets

o     Rest Interval

o     Frequency

o     Order of Exercise

o     Exercise Selection

·     Demonstration was very simple including the following:

o     Squats, glute ham and RDL variations, bench press, row and chin-up variations, leg press and leg curl/extension demonstrations

4th Presentation: Rock Oliver- University of Kentucky- Agility and Conditioning (on field demonstration)

·     Our job is to prepare our athletes for competition.

·     Take a look at your football program. How many different types of jungle animals do you have?

o     Lions, tigers, hyenas, or a farm of donkeys?

·     Don’t you love it when coaches blame strength coaches for a high pad level?

o     Why don’t you (sport coach) coach their pad level BETTER?

o     Aren’t you hired to make them a better football player?

·     Whatever you do, do it well ~ Kim Wood

·     Why do so many of you coaches do pre-programmed generalized cone agility drills?

·     Is that helping your offensive lineman who needs to be in shape to push resistance?

·     Is that back pedal drill helping that same offensive lineman

·     Do yourself a favor and meet with your position coaches to get what THEY want. Understand how they coach it. Watch the position. See what happens.

·     Implement position specific agility in your summer conditioning program.

·     Alternate between run and pass sets to get your team into peak football shape.

o     Go off of an auditory command. Implement penalties. Have a finish and switch up the start.

·     Metabolic “skill specific” conditioning keeps the athletes engaged and gets them in the right shape!

·     How do you get better? Muscle memory…doing something 7,799 times over and over again.

5^th Presentation: Mike Gittleson with weight room demonstration by Dave Andrews (University of Cincinnati)- A Logical Approach to a Combative Sport

·     Extensive review of the importance of training the head and neck

·     Various demonstrations and rules on training the head and neck through manual resistance, dumbbells, bands and neck machines.

·     Also had a lower body demonstration with a Rogers Athletic piece and manual resistance.

·     Many of the exercises and policies reviewed can be find on Coach Gittleson’s informative blog (http://info.rogersathletic.com/get-strong/)

·     Biggest point taken from presentation:

o     We talk about “protecting the athlete”, but we don’t train the head and neck. This has become a national issue! Coaches want to know how they fit all that neck training into their program. Mike wants to know how you fit squats and bench presses in? Training the head and neck takes priority. Find a way to fit all the OTHER stuff in AFTER you take care of what’s important.

Final Presentation: Kim Wood- NFL Legendary Strength Coach- The Basics

·     Very thorough and detailed review of why training the head and neck is important

·     Our job is to improve performance AND decrease/minimize the risk of injury.

·     Training athletes this day in age ain’t what it used to be.

·     Things have gotten out of hand. Everything is too fancy.

·     Stick to the basics. If you train someone the right way, they won’t last more than 15-20 minutes.

o     Focus on 6-7 movements and that’s it!

Final notes:

·     Michigan State University has an unbelievable facility. Full facility with anything imaginable (with walk-out access to the indoor). Coach Mannie and his staff was very professional, friendly and helpful throughout the entire day. Registration was very easy and plenty of beverages and snacks were provided throughout the entire day.

·     There were numerous college and NFL coaching staffs there, as well as a host of high schools and personal trainers. Easily over 100 people were in attendance. Coach Mannie said it has gotten bigger every year (this was the 4^th annual clinic).

·     Dr. Ken Leistner did an outstanding job as the returning Emcee. This living legend in the iron game is a historian like no other. If you want to learn how it all started, spend a few minutes with this man. His uncensored and uncut dialogue will really leave an impression you as you learn to appreciate how it was done over 30 years ago and what we as young(er) coaches are able to accomplish because of these great pioneers.

·     Biggest emphasis this year was training the head and neck. Every coach made repetitive references to this statement.

·     Whatever you do, do it well!