Q: Tell us a little about your history. When and how did you first get into competitive strength sports?
A: I started lifting at about 16 at the YMCA. Two years later I started working with a guy who was a powerlifter, started helping him out for his first meet. I got hooked right after that.
Q: When did you first decide this was what you wanted to do with your life?
A: Probably about that same time, I remember reading an article in Muscle and Fitness that the Dallas Cowboys had a Strength Coach, and I go “Wow, you can really make (this) a living." I really knew, right then, this is what I wanted to do.
Q: Who was the greatest inspiration to you as a coach?
A: (Ken Fontana) the best guy in the world. He was like my dad to me. He just taught me so much. As a coach he was my greatest inspiration. He knew how to coach people. He knew what commitment was.
Q: Who was your greatest inspiration as an athlete?
A: It would definitely have to be Bill Kazmaier. The things that he did back then, and even today, are ridiculous.
Q: From 1992-1996 you served as assistant coach to the USA Men’s World Powerlifting Team. Can you tell us a little about this and how it altered your career?
A: It taught me that everyone has different buttons to push. Guys like Ed Coan, there’s nothing that goes out until he gets under the bar, then he almost explodes with intensity. But Kurk Kolaski on the other hand, I can break a chair over his head and make him run through a brick wall and then he’d be ready. So, that helped me tremendously and it just gave me a pool of knowledge that you can’t buy. I still call on those guys today if I have a question or am trying something new.
Q: You talked about different kinds of motivation, where would you fall in that spectrum?
A: I’m definitely one of those guys, I definitely go after it.
Q: What are your current training methods and philosophies, and how did you come to them?
A: We find out where the team's weaknesses are and then we go after them. So it changes as team and individual goals are all different, we have to adjust to that. Every exercise is a tool in a toolbox, and if you put too much emphasis on one, you’re not going to get it out of the others. We just use everything as tools and put the best product out there that we can. Our basic deal is here, we do what works and we get rid of what doesn’t.
Q: What inspired you to start integrating Strongman techniques into Football Strength and Conditioning?
A: It was a tool that we looked at. I really liked it more for the conditioning aspect than the strength aspect. The strongman allowed us to have a short burst with a little bit of a rest in there. So it’s a lot closer to training the football energy system than anything else that was going on. And the other thing I like about it: it gets rid of the boredom. It’s not just the same lifting all the time. It’s more challenging. It just trains your overall body and mentally you just get after it.
Q: What is your position stance on training the Olympic lifts?
A: Again they’re another tool. I would not say that they're the most important thing you need to do, but there’s a place in the program for them.
Q: Almost everyone has a pre-competition tradition. When the football team here competes, do you have a tradition?
A: Not really, we just do whatever we do. Whatever you do for practice you do it for the game.
Q: What is the environment here at the ECU strength and conditioning center like?
A: We get after it. Prepare, perform, that’s how we look at it.
Q: How do the strength coaches here get along as a team?
A: Excellent, we get along. We couldn’t do what we do if we didn’t. It would be impossible.
Q: What would your ideal weight room look like?
A: This one probably. If we had an indoor, so we could do strongman inside, instead of going outside. That’s the only thing I would change though. I love the set-up here. I think it’s perfect.
Q: What is the most frequent mistake you see in the weight room, either by novice powerlifters or athletes?
A: Poor technique and they try to do too much too soon.
Q: When you coach your players, is it all together, or by position and why?
A: We train by position. It’s a lot easier to adjust by position than it is to adjust as a team.
Q: How do you set up the training programs for your team?
A: That’s probably my favorite thing to do. What we’ll do is bring in about six dry erase boards and we’ll just write ideas down. Every training cycle is just trying to find out where we can help the most, where is our most glaring weakness.
Q: What are you feelings on “functional training”? What is your perspective on “sport-specific” training?
A: The only sport-specific thing you can do in the weight room is powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman, or Olympic lifting, because that’s what that sport is. If you’re going to be specific, you’re not going to do it lifting.
Q: How do you feel about cardio for athletes?
A: It comes back to energy systems. What do they need? If you get a kid that’s 20 pounds overweight, he’s going to be doing cardio. Cardio itself, running on the treadmill, we don’t do that. If we run, we run, that’s it.
Q: How do you feel about cardio for powerlifters?
A: I think they need to do a little more. I think it helps in recovery in between sets and work out to work out. I really believe in a lot with what they guys at Elite (EliteFTS) talk about the GPP. To me, that is a powerlifter’s cardio, doing the light sled and all the things they talk about. I think that’s the cardio strength guys need to have.
Q: If you could only use one piece of equipment for the rest of your career, what would it be?
A: Do I get a bar and a squat rack? If I get a squat rack, a bar, and some weights, that’s all I would need.
Q: If you could only perform one exercise?
A: Honestly, even to this day and age, I have to squat. I just have to.
Q: What was your biggest challenge as an athlete?
A: My first strongman competition. We made up our minds the Wednesday before the competition, and we said, “You know what, let’s just do it.” It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We were embarrassed and we were crushed. It actually turned out to be the most fun thing we ever did because we talked to a lot of people and really got a good insight on how to train for it.
Q: As a coach?
A: Winning back-to-back championships, because no one’s ever as hungry when they’re on top.
Q: Would you also recommend other strength coaches to compete?
A: You should, because you kind of need to get under the bar. Some guys can run, that’s great, the kids can know “well he runs this.” For us, I’m not running, so for our guys it’s lifting. It’s another way for these kids to know “these guys get after it too.” And that’s really brought this staff together.
Q: What has been your biggest mistake so far as a coach?
A: Treating everybody the same, when it comes to motivation (not punishment wise, if you’re late, you’re late). Everybody gets screamed at and they’re all going to respond to that, that’s probably the mistake a lot of young people make now too. Now, I see the opposite, I see a lot of the people coming into this profession are afraid to coach.
Q: Do you think that’s because these new strength coaches are afraid of the athletes?
A: I think they’re afraid of the athletes, I think a lot of them don’t know what they’re doing. Some of these guys are GA’s at big schools, they don’t even get their own team. They’re assistants of assistants. Someone else did all the yelling, someone else did all the programs for them, and someone else just did everything for them. I think as strength coaches we need to start trusting some of the guys under us and letting them do some things. If you don’t trust a guy, don’t put your name on them and don’t let them do it. Get guys in here that you trust.
Q: Do you think that lack of ownership with these new coaches is causing them to be apathetic, there’s not that passion?
A: Yes I think that could be one of the reasons. There’s not that passion because you don’t have your people. Once we broke our guys down into groups, they were our guys. It’s a friendly, but intense competition. These guys are my guys and my guys are the top dogs.
Q: What is the importance of a coach to have “under the bar experience” vs. traditional education and research?
A: I was lucky to have it. The trial and error, dumb mistakes that I made myself and the people I got to meet to give me a resource. Some people are smart and they don’t lift and they still get the job done. Luckily I went the other way, which is more suited to my personality.
Q: Do you think having made those mistakes for yourself helps you identify mistakes in athletes?
A: No doubt about it. There’s things that I’ve done, in technique with the squat, or whatever, that if I see a kid doing something, I say, “You know what? I know exactly what you’re going through.” There are a lot of things that you just can’t read.
Q: It sounds like you were a little stubborn and had to learn it all for yourself.
A: I had to learn it inside and out for myself, because I refuse not to know my profession. It’s an art, there’s a lot of science behind it, but it’s the mixing of the two that makes you a good strength coach - or a bad strength coach.
Q: What advice would you like to pass on to aspiring coaches?
A: Learn it inside and out. If you know someone is doing something wrong, correct them. Don’t let them have bad form, that’s how they’re going to get hurt and that’s how guys lose their jobs.
Q: To athletes in strength sports or incoming collegiate athletes?
A: Learn how to work, keep your technique perfect, and don’t get carried away with the weight. It will come.
Q: What do you believe is the most critical attribute for a coach to posses (i.e. if you could magically give every coach one skill or trait what would it be)?
A: Have fun, this is the greatest job in the world. What are you going to do - sit behind a desk the rest of your life? Have fun doing it. If you don’t love it, don’t do it.
Q: What do you believe is the most important attribute for an athlete to posses?
A: Knowing that hard work can overcome any obstacle in their life, doesn’t matter if its lifting, on the field, doesn’t matter if you have marital problems, doesn’t matter if you have financial problems. If you work hard, you can succeed.
Mike Golden is the Director of Strength and Conditioning Coach at East Carolina University. He helped the ECU Pirates win two back to back Conference USA Championships. He also served as an assistant coach for the five-time World Powerlifting Champion USA Men's Team.