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.