An Interview with Cal Dietz
By
Todd Hamer
TH: Cal, thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Can you tell us a
little bit about yourself and your experience?
CD: Thank you for having me. I’m the head Olympic strength and
conditioning coach at the University of Minnesota and am currently working with
eight sports. These include men’s and women’s hockey, men’s basketball, men’s
track and field, men’s swimming, baseball, and men’s and women’s golf. In the
past, I’ve also worked with football, wrestling, dance, and cheer. I’ve served
as a consultant and trainer for various Olympic and professional athletes
participating in the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, professional track and field, swimming,
and boxing.
During my tenure at Minnesota, I’ve trained a Hobey Baker Award winner, two
Big Ten Athletes of the Year, over 280 All-Americans, 21 Big Ten/WCHA
Championship Teams, seven NCAA National Championship Teams, and 12 teams
finishing in the national top four. I also enjoy sports performance research and
founded the Sports Biomechanics Interest Group at Minnesota. The group’s purpose
is to explore the physiological and biomechanical aspects of advanced human
performance.
Prior to working at Minnesota (this is actually my second time there), I was
the strength coordinator for the University of Findlay. I oversaw 26 men’s and
women’s sports, served as director of the fitness center, coached the offensive
line with the football program, and taught the strength and conditioning
classes. My first experience with Minnesota came a few years before when I
served as a graduate assistant strength coach with football and various Olympic
sports while pursuing my graduate degree.
TH: Now that we all know more about you, where do you get most of your
information? I ask this because I can’t keep up with the information that you
send me every day let alone find more to study.
CD: I can certainly understand that because it is tough for me to keep
up at times as well. As for my influences, I try to be as open-minded as
possible and glean information from as many different people and places as I
can. I try to find the value in any and all forms of training and use whatever I
can when working with my athletes. Each athlete is distinctly different from the
next. As a coach, I have to find ways to train the athletes in order to make
them respond successfully.
I have used a wide variety of techniques and methods drawn from a number of
different and sometimes divergent sources in order to make that happen. I’m not
necessarily a “system” coach, wherein I ascribe to a strict and narrow
philosophy only. I may use complex/contrast training with one athlete, Olympic
lifts with another, and adaptability training with others. I try to stay open to
new ideas and new methods in order to get the results that I’m seeking.
Some of my biggest influences with regards to my training philosophy have
been researchers and coaches involved with the now former Soviet Union. Experts
such as Yuri Verkhoshansky, Anatoli Bondarchuk, Vladimir Zatsiorsky, Vladimir
Issurin, and several others have left an indelible mark on my view of training.
I have taken large amounts of information from Verkhoshanksy and consider his
opinion on training to be quite valuable. I have even flown to Penn State
University to meet with Professor Vladimir Zatsiorsky. Talk about an interesting
meeting…
I have always made it a point to try and meet these researchers and coaches
to pick their brains on training and get first hand answers to my many
questions. I have been lucky to meet with several of them and am grateful for
the information that I received. Bondarchuk’s information on training throwers
and Issurin’s take on block training are especially noteworthy.
I also have been heavily influenced by Mel Siff, whom I consider to be one of
the finest intellectuals that strength and conditioning has ever had. I spent a
few days in his home. I still read Siff’s
Supertraining to get different
views, and it is easy to tell how much I have used the book by its tattered and
dog-eared condition. Like Siff, Michael Yessis has played a large role in my
development as a strength and conditioning coach as well. Yessis’ Soviet
Sports Review contained many valuable training articles from the former
Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.
I’ve gained valuable insights from reading articles from the likes of Charlie
Francis, Jay Schroeder, and Mark Rippetoe. Strength and conditioning coaches,
such as Eric Helland of the Chicago Bulls and Tom Myslinski of the Cleveland
Browns to name a few (and there are many more friends and colleagues who have
been invaluable to me throughout the years), have always been great people to
bounce ideas off of. In addition to researchers and coaches, I try to spend time
consulting with experts from other disciplines outside of my profession, such as
sports physicians, physical therapists, and chiropractors.
However, all things aside, one doesn’t have to be a renowned expert or
researcher to come up with an excellent idea. I’ve received plenty of solid
advice from the likes of students, interns, and even the athletes themselves.
The key is to listen to everyone you can and try to incorporate the best of what
they have to offer.
TH: At the University of Minnesota, you work with many sports, with
basketball and hockey taking up most of your time. How do you treat and train
each team differently?
CD: I like to think that I treat every athlete the same for the most
part. The athletes are all unique in their own way, and the sports that I work
with are quite diverse. However, in my experience and through much trial and
error over the years, I’ve found methods that seem to work. What has helped
immensely is the fact that I work with a couple of sports that have distinct and
measurable results. In swimming and track and field, the athletes’ performances
are timed and/or measured. Because of this, you can truly measure or judge the
effectiveness of the preparation with a level of objectivity that you can’t get
with most team sports. If the times are improving or the distances are
increasing, you’ll know that the training and preparation is working.
This isn’t always the case with team sports such as hockey and basketball. In
those sports, it can be difficult to tell what is having the most effect on
performance because there are a wide variety of variables that go into winning
and losing. The objective nature of the stopwatch in swimming or the measuring
tape in track and field serves as a barometer for how successful my training
programs are. Once I have found certain methods that work with the measurable
sports, I know they will work in the more abstract and subjective team sports as
well. I can take comfort in the fact that at least I know that I did all I could
to properly train the athletes whether they win or lose.
I take pride in trying to establish personal relationships with each of my
athletes, and there is ample opportunity given the fact that we train nearly
every day of the year. Still, there are quite a few of them, and I can get
stretched pretty thin at times. Add to that the fact that I have athletes
training in two different facilities on campus, and it can be easy to miss
someone.
What helps is that I have great assistant coaches to help carry the load, and
my communication with them serves a very important role in properly training
each athlete on each team. As far as men’s basketball and the hockey teams, they
certainly can demand quite a bit of time and effort. However, I’ve found that I
have never really been overwhelmed to the point where I can’t work with other
teams. The coaching staff for the sports that I work with communicate well in
terms of when they are practicing and when they can train. I rarely have time
conflicts as a result. Without that, it would be difficult to train the athletes
in a manner that pleases everyone.
TH: I believe very heavily that a strength coach must train with that
in mind. Would you mind telling us about your personal workouts?
CD: I will be the first to admit that I don’t always get to train as
often as I would like. Part of being a strength coach is working very long hours
that do not afford you much time in the way of breaks. I’d like to put a
strength coach’s spin on Coleridge’s, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—weights and
weights everywhere, nor any time to lift!
When I do get a moment or two, I still enjoy training the traditional
powerlifting lifts—the bench, squat, and deadlift. I love getting a heavy squat
workout in or some heavy pulling. On occasion, I’ll throw some cleans into the
mix to change things up. I’m really a “meat and potatoes” guy when it comes
right down to it. I believe in training hard, lifting heavy weights, and always
striving to get better. There are days when all I have time for is a quick and
intense adaptability workout, but I try to get something done each day. I may
not have the mass and strength of when I was a college football player and
wrestler, but I like to think that I’m doing well for as much as I do train.
TH: What advice would you give to someone who is trying to do what you
do?
CD: Strength and conditioning, as a profession, is a difficult one to
get started in. I recommend that students contact a strength coach early on in
their undergraduate studies and start observing and volunteering. I also think
it is important to train yourself during that time to test things out and get a
true feel for what training is all about. The more experience you gain and the
more contacts you make, the better your chances will be to land an internship
and even a graduate assistantship.
It is difficult to get a foothold in the field without knowing a few strength
coaches who can help you on your way. It is a high stakes profession, and there
are not many coaches willing to take risks by hiring people they don’t know
anything about. Everyone gets certifications. Most everyone gets a master’s
degree. Work experience and solid references can set apart a good candidate from
others. The earlier a student can start building on those two aspects, the
better.
TH: In the past, you and I have discussed what different populations
need to read. If you had to use three groups—high school coaches, collegiate
strength coaches, and personal trainers—what are the top three books, journals,
or websites that each group should read?
CD: I believe there are some resources that can be of universal value
to all three populations. Some of the best resources to start with are
professional organizations. Coaches, teachers, trainers, and strength coaches
each have different organizations they can belong to that disseminate
information, host seminars, and help people build their network. These can be
either state level or national, and they can provide the most specific
information to each of these different organizations. All three populations can
also belong to organizations that service a wider variety of professions such as
the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), the American College
of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and others. These organizations have journals such as
the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and Medicine and
Science in Sport and Exercise, which are valuable to anyone involved in
strength and conditioning. They also sponsor symposia and conferences that allow
the members to participate and ask questions.
As far as specific resources for strength coaches, those at the high school
level should look with particular interest at training for beginners and youths
as well as developing athletes. The training that kids are provided with at the
high school level has the most affect on their athletic development. I have
often said that high school strength coaches have produced far more professional
athletes than I ever will.
When an athlete walks in my door, they often are what they are. That’s not to
say that I never spend time developing athleticism, but there are many things
that can’t be developed in the time allotted for their collegiate development
(which shrinks every year because more and more freshmen are required to step up
and play immediately). There is also a very real possibility that many of these
college athletes will never reach the elite levels of training that they should
be at because of a poor start in high school. It is the high school strength
coach who often holds the key to establishing elite athletes, and as such, they
need to learn as much as possible about how to properly develop young athletes.
Once the coach has learned the basic principles of training through
undergraduate and graduate coursework in exercise science, I believe they should
pay special attention to experts in youth training. This includes reviewing what
the Soviets did when progressing young athletes through their long-term training
plans (available in translated texts and the Soviet Sports Review) as
well as reviewing the works of Avery Faigenbaum, a renowned researcher on youth
strength training, and other researchers like him in journals provided by the
NSCA, ACSM, and others. Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore’s Starting Strength
also provides a simplistic and highly effective approach to beginning strength
training.
For strength coaches at the college level, a thorough understanding of the
training of high school athletes should be established because not every athlete
who walks through your door will have received proper training. Therefore, it
can be expected that some of your time as a strength coach will be spent
teaching basic movement skills and basic strength training to college freshmen.
If a coach does not know the basics at this level, he can quickly get into
trouble.
Aside from that, college strength coaches need to seek out research and
information on training higher level and elite level athletes. As athletes
develop and adapt to training, they must be given new and novel stressors or
else they will cease to adapt. This is where creativity and open-mindedness as
well as the study of other methods play a very important role. Siff’s
Supertraining is a terrific place to start as well as the works of
Verkhoshansky, Issurin, Bondarchuk, and
Yessis. Don’t be afraid to look in other
places, too, such as the training of elite level Olympic weightlifters and
powerlifters. Take what you can use and always keep looking for more.
Finally, one can certainly look to the internet to find a vast amount of
training information. For example, XL Athlete provides a wealth of workouts,
drills, exercise videos, articles, and coaching tools for high school and
college coaches free of charge (www.xlathlete.com).
The NSCA, ACSM, United States of America Weightlifting (USAW), and USA
Powerlifting all have websites that provide information for coaches. Dr.
Yessis.com (www.dryessis.com), Hamer
Strength (www.hamerstrength.com),
Elite Fitness Systems (www.elitefts.com),
Athletic Muscle Building (www.athleticmusclebuilding.com),
and many more all provide excellent training information and resources.
TH: When Robert Morris and the University of Minnesota meet in the
Frozen Four next year, how many goals will RMU win by?
CD: That would be great to see ol’ Bobby Mo reach the Frozen Four! I
wish you guys all the success in the world. If we happen to be fortunate enough
to make it there, too, it would be a heck of a game. I like to think that we
would edge you out in a close goalkeeper’s duel.
TH: I wanted to get you to bite on that one. Back to serious
conversation…tell us about training your NHL guys.
CD: The NHL guys are a lot of fun to work with. For one, I know all of
them from when they played hockey here at the University of Minnesota. Each
summer, it feels like old friends getting back together again. For the most
part, training NHL players during the competitive year is incredibly difficult,
and I have much respect for NHL strength coaches who must do so. The season is
long and tough, and it can take its toll on the players themselves both
physically and mentally.
Post-season, I consider it very important for the guys to recover and
rehabilitate any injuries or wear and tear they have experienced during the
year. Once they are ready to begin training, I put them through an adaptability
phase to get them back into training shape. Some progress more quickly than
others, depending on their schedules and their condition following the season.
From that point on, they train very similarly to players on the current
Minnesota squad.
What is outstanding for our current players is that the professionals work
alongside them, doing the same exercises with an added intensity and passion.
These guys play hockey for a living, and their bodies are their livelihoods. The
entire atmosphere of the gym gets kicked up a notch when the professionals are
there giving it everything that they’ve got. I pay special attention to recovery
work post-workout with the NHL guys because they are older athletes and can take
a greater amount of time and energy to recover fully for the next training
session.
Proper nutrition and mechanical recovery (such as vibromassage, hanging
relaxations, and manual massage) play a very important role in getting the men
ready for the next day. I encourage each of them to continue to work on recovery
throughout the year, especially during the season because that can help give
them an edge in staying healthy and performing well.
TH: What are the biggest mistakes you have made in your career?
CD: I think early on I made the mistake of not being open-minded
enough when it came to training. I had certain ideas of how things should be
done, and I stayed within those finite boundaries. I started to read and learn
from others, and I opened up and discovered a whole new world of training that I
previously hadn’t considered. I believe I wasted time in those early years, but
that’s all a part of developing as a coach. The trial and errors that we go
through everyday are necessary evils if we want to continue to try and push the
envelope.
TH: Here’s a big one to finish with. What is missing from most
athletes’ programs?
CD: I think one key ingredient that is often missing in strength and
conditioning programs is recovery work. For as much time and effort that we
spend on making the “perfect” program and stressing our athletes to the max, we
often fail to realize that it is the rest periods and recovery between workouts
that is one of the most important factors in proper development. When they
aren’t breaking their bodies down in training, they’re building them to be
stronger than they were before. Anything that helps spur this process on is a
positive and important part of the training as a whole.
Recovery can take three primary forms—mechanical, biochemical, and
psychological. Mechanical recovery includes those movements and methods that
take place following workouts, practice, and games. These can include massage,
hanging relaxation, low intensity cardiovascular exercise (such as slow biking
or walking), foam roller work, stretching, and even laying relaxation. These
types of activities help bring the body back to a normal state more quickly and
help to decompress the spine.
Biochemical recovery is comprised of post-training/competition nutrition.
Solid nutrition is an integral part of successful training, and there are
certain things an athlete must do to properly nourish the body and help it
recover quickly. The ingestion of proteins (casein and whey), water,
electrolytes, recovery fats (such as fish oil), and other nutrients following
training or competition are necessary to promote full recovery. An athlete’s
diet can be a critical factor in determining whether he or she succeeds or
fails.
Finally, psychological recovery is an often overlooked but important part of
enhancing the athletic experience. Sports psychologists can serve a professional
role in helping to relax athletes’ anxieties about training or competition. They
can help athletes relax during times of rest and motivate them in times of
activity. Coaches themselves can help as well by providing a relaxing atmosphere
during sessions of recovery work and encouraging the athletes to recover back to
a normal state.
TH: Cal, thanks for your time. Where can we read more about what
you’re doing?
CD: Thank you for having me, Todd. I have many articles and
information posted at XL Athlete, which can be found at
www.xlathlete.com.
Todd Hamer is the head strength and conditioning coach at Robert Morris
University. He received his bachelor’s of science degree in exercise science
from Pennsylvania State University in 1999 and his master’s of science degree
from the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in August 2002.
Todd is a competitive powerlifter, and his best lifts are a 545-lb squat, a
375-lb bench, and a 500-lb deadlift. He can be contacted at
toddhamer@hotmail.com or
www.hamerstrength.com.
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