Teaching the Squat, Bench, and Deadlift to Athletes
Do you teach them the squat, bench, and deadlift the same way you would teach a powerlifter? If not, what differences are there?
Progressions in Exercise Selection Based on Technical Proficiency
I firmly believe you have to start at the simplest movement that you can master correctly and then over time progress from the simple to the more complex movements. Download my basic outline with notes included here.
You’re Training Athletes, Not Lifters
I had those days, especially early on in my career, that I didn’t understand why the athletes weren’t as enthusiastic as I was at 6 AM. I mean, what the hell is better than getting up early and training your ass off?
Meet Ryan Davis, Rodney Hill, Brian Johnson, and Dantonio Burnette
Each of these men are great attributes not only to the field of strength and conditioning but also to the development of future generations of men. In this introductory interview, we discuss philosophy, programming, and summer training.
WATCH: Must-Have Equipment for Any High School Weight Room
Board of Education President Josh Hobbs recounts what he’s learned and shares his checklist of must-have equipment for any high school gym or weight room.
WATCH: Road Trip Rants — Max Effort Work, Bands and Chains, Jump Trainin...
Dave Tate and Nate Harvey compare exercises for strength sport and team sport athletes, discuss training with bands and chains, examine the value of jump training, and debate the importance of personal records vs. podium finishes in the sport of powerlifting.
Why I Don’t Incorporate Agility Training
Perhaps you’ve seen the video of an athlete moving through the agility ladder with his feet hardly visible because they are moving so fast. This remains the common mainstream perception of agility training. Does this, however, actually make athletes more agile on the field?
Samoan Rugby Union Returns to CARE Program
The program I am currently running features the CARE program in a new format that I feel better allows the player to get a workout in without going too deep in the RPE continuum, especially if he or she is coming from a unit or a team session.
The SAID Principle — Training Optimally for Sport
We as strength coaches have a way of screwing training up even with this ancient, written-in-stone principle.
Determining the Needs of an Athlete
If an athlete is training on heavy squats but is unable to get into a good technique, he is risking injury, plus he is not getting the most of his training because he is in bad positions. First things first, let's start with an assessment.
Start Here Before You Clean
A lot of individuals take what’s arguably the most highly coordinated regimen you can perform in the weight room and start individuals doing it day 1. At the collegiate level, these are the movements I make sure that my athletes can do before they are allowed to perform a proper clean motion.
How to Teach a Team to Lead Itself
If the majority of leadership has to come from coaches, that's usually a sign of a rough season ahead. In my experience, I've found this to be 100% true.
Championship Nature Series: General George S. Patton and James J. Braddock
Most historical figures aren’t single-faceted, and if your athletes truly connect with them, you can bring other aspects of them to light to aid them in their journeys. General George S. Patton leads by example and James J. Braddock overcomes opponents using visualization.
Resurgence After the Rust
When the dust settles and I turn the lights off in that weight room for that final time, what legacy will I leave, how many lives did I touch?
Valuable Accessories for Your Strength and Conditioning Program
Beyond a rack, bar, and plates, here are the smaller pieces of equipment I feel have added the most value to my strength and conditioning program.
Rules for Interviewing
For this month's article, I want to write about something that I've been doing a lot of recently with some success: interviewing. Consider these eleven rules for your next job opportunity.
A Semester with Conjugate U
After meeting Nate Harvey and reading his ebook, I decided to try out a conjugate-based system with two of my teams, men’s soccer and women’s volleyball, during the spring semester. Here's what we did, how it worked, and changes I'm making moving forward.
15 Habits You'll Need as a Full-Time Strength and Conditioning Intern
High school did a terrible job of preparing you for the real world. The only way you will make it is by trial by fire and by implementing the following habits immediately.
Get in the Flow State for Peak Performance
Flow is where challenge and skill meet. These are points during your training year where you push the envelope and attempt things that might be slightly outside of your athlete’s capabilities.
College Football Off-Season Max Effort Variations: Programming and Compa...
Inspired by Joe Kenn, this is how Pace programs the conjugate method (the use of variations) over an eight-week off-season for our athletes.
3 Reminders for a Healthy and Productive Training Camp
To an outsider, things may seem easy during camp as far as being a strength coach goes. You have them maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes a day if you’re lucky. Easy peasy, right? Wrong!
WATCH: Chainz for Gainz — Is Your Accommodating Resistance Doing Anything?
Using chains as accommodating resistance incorrectly can be detrimental to your athletes...and your street cred.
Three Tips for More Effective In-Season Training
You can vastly improve the effectiveness of your in-season programming by understanding submaximal maintenance training and programming flexibility, the use of concentric-only exercises, and high-rep work for recovery.
6-Week Lower Body Accessory Lane Progressions
The main purpose of this is to get you some change-up in your program and get you thinking outside your usual movement selection. I have been doing this in the gym myself and it’s amazing how mentally refreshing it can be.
New Team, New Approach: Working the Curve with the Samoan Rugby Union
What I outline in this article is the third generation of this style of programming, taken through the furnace of professional rugby and modified accordingly to fit specific needs of the playing group I now work with.
A Useful Coach: The Horse, The Water, and What People Miss
Knowing what to tell the horse is a lot less important than making the horse understand why the information is important.
Dynamic Effort and Practical Application to Football Sports Performance
In layman's terms, dynamic effort can be described as fast, explosive movement. This seems simple, but many people get lost between "fast and explosive" and "movement."
So You Want to Be A Collegiate Strength Coach: Untold Truths of the Job
Here are some rarely discussed things to keep in mind when asking yourself if you really want to become a collegiate strength and conditioning coach.
No Man Is an Island: Recognizing Those Who Have Inspired Me
No one ever gets anywhere alone. These are the people that have supported me and paved the road to where I am today.
6 Lessons of a Fired Strength Coach
Last week I went into a meeting with my direct supervisor and came out jobless. Here are the things I've learned and the mistakes I've made that led me to this point.
The Top 5 Accessory Lifts to Improve Your Strongman Press
You will have weak points on events, and not focusing on bringing them up will leave you in the dust. The big pressers always have monster triceps, just as they do in powerlifting, so that’s what we need to work on with these movements.
Championship Nature Series: Coming Back
What each athlete must remember is that it’s not the mistake that defines you as an athlete; it’s how you respond to the mistake that defines you.
The Coach's Guide to Programming and Periodization: Residual Effect...
This fourth article helps set us up to be able to put together our macrocycles, mesocycles, and microcycles.
Building A Summer Training Philosophy
These are the five ingredients you need to put together the summer plans for your athletes: core exercises and runs, team goals, position plans, individual goals, and correct grouping.
WATCH: Jeremy Frey's 2018 elitefts Sport Performance Summit — RDL T...
Range of motion should be limited by the hamstrings for this exercise, which means the bottom position may vary between athletes. That's not a problem if they follow these rules.
Find the Perfect Squat in Five Minutes
There is no squat stance that suits everyone; all of us are individuals with different conditions, and our personal anatomy can differentiate more than you can imagine. Here's a simple way to find your ideal stance.
A Strength and Conditioning Program for Youth Figure Skating
This program is used for athletes ranging in age from 10 to 14 years and is based on specific goals in the primer, strength, conditioning, prehabilitation, and regeneration phases.
3 Non-Traditional Movements to Overcome Weakness in the Overhead Press
Weaknesses in rack position, leg drive, or the lower back will severely hold back your overhead press strength. Here are solutions to each of those problems.
WATCH: Jeremy Frey's 2018 elitefts Sport Performance Summit — Bench...
There's more to it than lying down and busting out reps. Focus on these points for stronger and more injury-resistant athletes.
A Message to Young Trainees: Pump Down the Volume
The garage gym is getting a lot of use as of late, I am happy to say. It is frequently rumbling with young athletes who remind me of an important fact of the early training years.
Getting the New Job: Sharpen the Sword
Doing an extraordinary job in your present position does not guarantee you immunity to the inevitable changes that take place with funding cuts, administration changes, or coaches moving on. Are you prepared to find a new position?
New Rules for Being a Strength Coach
If you aren’t willing to change and grow, you won't survive. Here are the ways my perspective on strength coaching rules has changed since my previous article on the topic.
WATCH: Jeremy Frey's 2018 elitefts Sport Performance Summit — Front...
Missouri State University Director of Strength and Conditioning Jeremy Frey has a few ways to make front squatting easier to learn and more effective for your athletes. Here are the things that are most important to focus on.
S&C Programming Considerations for College Football Freshmen
What we all want is to set our freshmen up for success for the future. How we go about it isn’t about ego and “our system” or anything like that; it’s about taking the time to put thought into what you’re doing and what will be the best for them.
Cultivating Champions: How I Trained the C2 Volleyball Team
All of the athletes at this high-level volleyball academy are from overseas and come to the United States to get a better chance at receiving a collegiate scholarship. Working with head coach and founder Caitlyn Vann, this is what we did in our five short weeks.
The Coach's Guide to Programming and Periodization: Surfing The For...
Understanding this tool for manipulating training intensities is key for athlete programming at every part of pre-season, in-season, post-season and off-season phases.
Your Circle of Trust: Don't Be the Captain of a Ship of Fools
There are moments in life that shape your mind and determine the way you choose to think and live. I have experienced two such moments that have shaped my coaching and life philosophies.
Where Most Box Athletes Miss the Mark
Many coaches still believe it is heresy to say that athletes can build absolute strength and endurance simultaneously, but athletes all over the world are doing so and making great progress. Here are a few ways to do so even more successfully.
Flip the Script: What Is Your Internship Really Teaching You?
Making 200 protein shakes per day and cleaning up the weight room isn't going to make anyone a better coach, so you'd better hope there's more than grunt work for you to do.
So You Want to Be A Collegiate Strength Coach: Steps to Earning Your Fir...
This is where you need to start if you want to get one of the strength coaching jobs you're dreaming about. It’s simple but not easy, so swallow your pride and ego before you move forward.
The Coach's Guide to Programming and Periodization: Variable Manipu...
In the first article of this series we covered the basic principles of programming and periodization. Now let's discuss strategies to manipulate volume and intensity, and start examining the training units used to structure training.
Learning from Those Around You: 10 S&C Lessons from Friends, Mentors...
If you aren't open to the knowledge and expertise of those around you, you're only holding yourself back. These are some of the most influential things I've learned from others in this industry.
Strength Coach Ego Check: Rediscover Who You Are
I had a conversation with Coach Jeff Ward that not only humbled me, but shook me to my core. I thought I had been focused on convictions, but ego had slipped into the driver's seat.
4 Rules of Training Professional Athletes (with Off-Season Program Sample)
Four years ago I got a phone call about training a local kid who had just been cut by the Atlanta Falcons and wanted to make his move back to the NFL. Here are my four rules of training professional athletes and what I did with Roosevelt Nix.
WATCH: From Collegiate Defensive Lineman to NFL Fullback — Brian Saunder...
Making it to the NFL isn't easy. It's even harder when you're changing positions from the one that made you so successful in college.
Stronger Necks, Fewer Concussions
Neck training can be done with isometric or range of motion exercises, performed self-administered, working with a partner, or with equipment. I've recently begun to trial a new device to take this training even further.
Athletes and Strength Training Technique
Because an athlete's focus is sports performance, they may be less concerned with consistency in strength training, or they may harbor a false belief that having great technique during weight training is relatively unimportant. Change this.
Trust the Process — Perfection
Turn into the head coach of the weight room. Come up with a plan to cover everything down to the finest detail.