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!
1st 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.
2nd 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.
3rd 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.
5th 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 4th 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!
In-season training may be the most confusing and misunderstood component of the year long training cycle. Everybody knows that it is important and must be done but getting better at your particular sport should be the main goal during the season.
That being said, I think in-season training might be one of the most important time of the year to train. Sure the off-season and pre-season are important, but the goal should be to be at your physical peak for the end of the regular season and post-season tournaments. To attain that peak means that the correct steps must be laid down prior to the conclusion of the season.
My philosophy of in-season training might be quite different than others but I believe it to be extremely simple and easy to implement.
DO THE OPPOSITE OF THE SPORT
Huh? What does that mean? Shouldn’t we be doing things specific to make them better at their sport?
I strongly disagree that we should be doing the similar patterns on the sport – this can lead to overuse type injuries that we are trying to prevent against. We want to keep the athletes as healthy as possible so they can be at their physical peak for the end of the season.
Most team sports have the following similarities in-season:
1. High Volume of Activity
2. Low Loads being used – typically just their bodyweight
3. Low Amplitude of movement – never experience full joint range of motion during most sporting activities.
So according to my statement above of DO THE OPPOSITE OF THE SPORT we have the following guidelines of in-season training:
1. Low volume of in-season strength training
2. High Loads to stimulate higher threshold motor unit activation for strength maintenance and/or gains
3. High amplitude of movements to restore and enhance joint mobility.
These guidelines help to direct how I write training programs and progress them throughout the season so we are ready to peak near the end of the year.
Other common sense guidelines that can be used are the following:
1. If your sport is inherently anaerobic, train the aerobic system for extra conditioning
2. If your sport involves a lot of impact (running, jumping) – don’t run and jump them extra.
3. If your sport has a dominance of the anterior chain, train the posterior chain to balance things out.
4. If your sport has a tendency towards kyphotic postures, hammer thoracic spine extension.
5. If your sport has a tendency to lose mobility in a certain area (i.e. ankles, hips), address those issues.
6. If your sports practice structure doesn’t include much conditioning, then this must be included to conditioning levels do not decrease in-season.
By now, I think you can get the point of how in-season training can be accomplished.
These are extremely general guidelines but simple and tends to make a lot of sense.
Hopefully they can help you and feel free to share what your thoughts are.
B
What is the key to success?
A recent question was sent out through email to a group of fellow coaches from my friend, Ray Eady. It was a very thought provoking question that delivered some very good responses. Check them out below and ask yourself how do you measure success:
Question:
How do you measure the success of a strength and conditioning program? Is it measured in wins, loses, injury rates, athlete’s experience, compliance and satisfaction by the coaching staff, etc.? In the NBA, strength and conditioning coaches are measured on the basis of games missed due to injury. Therefore, if players are not missing games due to injury but the respective team finishes the season with a losing record is this still considered successful? Thoughts?
Ray Eady
Strength and Conditioning Coach
University of Wisconsin
Good question. This is a problem seen for many years and will continue for many years in our profession.
I feel that some of the measurement is due to the administration, organization , coaches and how they view it.
Obviously , wins and losses are a big key to how people in charge will respond. Keeping players on the court, field playing and developing well in the areas necessary for success is a huge part of the job. Pressure placed on coaches by upper level management for not enough wins eventually will trickle down to the strength program. This is regardless of any success with a lack of injuries, athletes experience , compliance , and coaching staff’s happiness.
I hope this answers it somewhat , it is a very open question.
Ronald Thompson
Strength and Conditioning Coach
University of Purdue
How do I measure success? Injury rates and performance indicators such as vertical, 10 yard, 4 jump, etc.
How do sport coaches measure success? I think that depends. Some only care about wins/losses. Some just care about bench/squat/clean numbers. If we are lucky, they understand our field a little more “globally” and realize the best thing we can do for our athletes is improve their chances of staying on the court/field.
Devan McConnell
Strength and Conditioning Coach
Stanford University
Devan,
If performance indicators improve and injury rates decrease but the team still performs poorly in the win/lose column is that still considered successful?
Granted, as strength coaches, we can’t control many variables: recruiting, game strategy, etc. etc. but should we still take some accountability for wins and loses?
Ray Eady
How do I measure success by keeping our guys healthy and how many games did players miss – that is a quantitative approach. I also see success from a qualitative standpoint in what kind of impact does our program have on them from a mental stand point:
I.e. Are we making athletes more confident because of their improved strength, body comp, conditioning, power, etc.
Are we making athletes better by improving their mental state and teaching them how to remain positive and not show defeat and frustration during difficult tasks?
Are we making athletes better by asking them to themselves and their teammates accountable?
Are we making athletes better because they start to care more about their bodies inside and outside the weight room (attentive to nutrition, recovery, extra workouts, etc.)?
These are all things that make my program successful – as well as the feedback that I get from the athletes about what we are doing – if I see them buy into what we are doing, then I know I’m being successful.
How do sport coaches measure success – they see performance numbers increase, they see that they are healthy, they see improvement on the field/court/ice, etc.
I don’t think we have a direct result in wins/losses but we do have an indirect effect:
1. are the athletes able to with stand the rigors of the sport (conditioning, strength, power, etc)
2. are the athletes resilient enough to bounce back from difficult practices (mobility, flexibility, stability, recovery)
3. are the athletes confident in their preparation that they won’t crumble under the pressure of competition (mental toughness, discipline, accountability)
Unfortunately if teams lose but stay healthy there might be a trickle down effect to the strength coach, b/c everybody is quick to point the finger during difficult times but in reality we don’t have any technical or tactical effect upon the game itself – our job is done prior to the ball being tipped.
Brijesh Patel
Strength and Conditioning Coach
Quinnipiac University
I don’t think I can say it better than B did.
If performance indicators increase and injuries decrease, I believe we have done our job. As B stated, their may be trickle down if we lose, but we really don’t have direct influence over those stats, so while I do take it personally, in the end we can’t claim victories nor SHOULD we be held over the fire for losses. Not real world obviously.
I will add 2 aspects to my evaluation of a successful program:
1. FMS scores improve. I am a big believer in this screen, and though it could be seen as the same as injury rates decreasing, I do get fired up for my athletes when they improve their scores.
2. As B alluded too, how much have our athletes changed for the positive and grown as people when they leave. At then end of the day, very few of them will make money playing their sport, and even if they do, if they leave a more responsible, confident, “better” human being than when they arrived, and my program had anything to do with that, I view my time with them as successful.
Devan McConnell
When a high school athlete signs their letter of intent, their #1 goal is to play [and play immediately and long-term]. Simple! They choose that “specific” collegiate program because that program gives them the BEST opportunity to achieve that goal. Therefore, success [for me] is helping that player [who signs that letter of intent] achieve the physical and mental tools needed to compete in the sport they LOVE. Basically, creating a POSITIVE experience and environment for the athlete when they are in a strength training [conditioning] session and using that environment as a catalyst for on field, court, or ice success.
Of course, in order to achieve that positive experience and/or environment we must keep our players healthy [first and foremost]. Nothing is more discouraging for a player than not being able to play [THE SPORT THEY LOVE] because of an injury. Positive experience/environment also means helping that athlete achieve the physical attributes that are needed to excel in the sport and giving them the motivation and confidence needed to be successful on AND OFF the playing field. In a nutshell, that is all I can control.
I agree, I don’t think we have a direct result in wins/loses; however, our yearly interaction with the players can definitely influence how they compete. We can all agree, outside of the coaching staff, we spend the most time with the players than any other person within the athletic department. Therefore, if our interactions [and environment] with the players are not positive, I believe it can have some influence on wins/loses.
In the end, the best testimonial must come from the athletes. Athletes with positive experiences that are achieving positive results is a key indicator of success.
Ray Eady
Everyone has great points, the big elephant in the room is that at the collegiate level everyone has a different answer to this question. “Everyone” being the sport coaches, administration, athletes, and strength and conditioning coaches. Regardless of how success is viewed it should be generally agreed upon by all major parties involved. I’m constantly amazed at how sport coaches and administration do not understand what our profession as speed, strength, and conditioning coaches is supposed to do for athletes. That may be a whole other discussion though.
Amanda Kephart
Head Sports Performance Coach
Akron General Health and Wellness- North
