elitefts columnist Ashley Jones is Australian by birth, a New Zealander by choice and marriage, but first and foremost, he’s a strength and conditioning coach with 40 years of experience under his belt with plenty of passion and advice to spare to future coaches.
If speed is what we’re going after, then why do the weights on both our heavy and light days continue to climb, and bar speed continues to fall? As we get deeper into the competitive season and continue to put more tonnage on the athletes, we are burning the candle at both ends.
It doesn’t matter if you’re planning on coaching part-time or full-time; coaching is a job that requires time, passion, and a deep love of the sport — no matter the paygrade. If you’re only in it for the glory or money, you’re not going to last long.
Most intermediates that have come to me without ever working with a qualified coach before are lacking a few qualities in their technique, especially on big lifts. Lacking these qualities can potentially lead to injury at one point or another. These two qualities are tension and torque.
You can’t control what people say about you. Sometimes what they say will be good; sometimes what they say will be bad. What you can control is the way you respond to it. You can let the media get you on the highs and lows of the season, or you can simply choose to not respond to it. It’s your choice.
What should you say on video, in your blog posts, or in your emails to clients? What if you’re helping them through a change? The most important thing is to say SOMETHING. So consider this list an example of “Good, better, best.”
Steve “Kono” Konopka and I cover our daily pre-practice warm-ups, bulletproof shoulder circuits, what we call the “f@#k the bottom, you belong at the top” conditioning circuit, and answer a couple of questions in the third part of our #BAMF Wrestler series.
I pose the following questions: How mindful are you of your feet? Do you think about where you want to go versus where you are heading? Are your feet on the right path, and if not, why? These questions and the wisdom you can obtain from them extend far beyond chalk and iron.
Sure, you could just pull out some tarot cards or dust off your great-grandmother’s crystal ball to predict what powerlifting’s going to be like in 10 years. Better yet, you could listen to Dave Tate and Joe Sullivan’s powerlifting predictions.
Reading Al Miller’s “The System” made me think about my most successful program. I’ve dubbed this hodgepodge of six years in strength and conditioning “Performance Drive Response,” which is a culmination of a bunch of different systems I’ve used, seen, and been in or part of.
Coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, equipment personnel, and league officials all have distinctly different vantage points on the same subject matter. Somewhere along the lines, one of the most critical perspectives gets lost in the shuffle: the players’.
One of Dave Tate’s answers to an Instagram Q&A prompted me to think about what makes a good coach in more detail… and yeah, this kind of turned into a verbal Jerk-off of Dave. But I believe what he does for lifters is the pinnacle of coaching.
To answer this question, we need to define strength. But there are many ways to define strength, so we all have to come up with our own method for defining strength. For me, it’s the squat.
This article is not a guide to running your kids into the ground because, you know, “mental toughness.” If that’s what you’re looking for, I suggest you find a different career field.
I know it is a new year, and everyone starts to look back or forward at this time, and maybe it is a good thing to act to re-evaluate what you are doing with your programs and why. 2019 brought me a new head coach and a great opportunity to review and reassess my football team’s program.
People keep asking me how long I intend to train at a high level and compete? My answer: As long as I can continue to improve and get my old ass to the platform, that is where I intend TO BE.
Don’t want to see Ted drop his nuts on the bar? Then look away! Keep your eyes off the bar! Besides, that’s exactly what Ted does when he sets up to do the deadlift: He doesn’t look at the bar.
Live and learn from your failures and mistakes. Be willing to learn, and maybe more importantly, be willing to be wrong. Now go and pass that along.
Is Dave still following Dr. Rusin’s protocol? What are Dr. Rusin’s top-two training takeaways working with Dave? In this Q&A, Dave Tate and Dr. John Rusin share their overall experiences from video series “Fixing Dave Tate” and “Breaking John Rusin,” and more.
I’ve been really blessed to be around some great leaders who taught me these lessons. I wouldn’t be the man and coach I am today without them.
If I can go through hell and back and find success and happiness, so can you. Rise up out of the ashes like a phoenix.
When a lifter at Omaha Barbell struggles with her deadlift during a training session, Ed Coan offers her technical advice, and Dave tells her to “clear your fucking head.”
Running a business is a lot like training. There are steps and signs you deal with…. and if you don’t have a long-term plan, you’re not going to get anywhere. Take action today to create career longevity as a strength coach.
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?
Knowing what to tell the horse is a lot less important than making the horse understand why the information is important.
Most athletes will forget the win-loss records of their teams, but they won’t forget the way the coach treated them. This podcast episode focuses on the impact coaches can have on young athletes outside of sets and reps.
There are four components of a weight room atmosphere: coaching, equipment, training, and athletes.
I don’t care if you have the best athletes and the best equipment in the world — a shitty gym atmosphere can DESTROY their results.
This article relies both on a bird’s eye-view of the scientific discipline itself, with some history to make sense of the information, and on the input of people who actually use this knowledge on a day-to-day basis.
Layering thousands of coaching hours on the floor with successes and failures, I think I know what works and what doesn’t work.
Not many institutional environments promote interdisciplinary collaboration in exercise and sports performance. Starting from the ground up, how can we change this?
In this series, we will explore the challenges of interdisciplinarity in Sports Performance. I have chosen six people to help us on this journey, each one representing one discipline or profession.
What began as a heavy squat session in the S4 Compound became an impromptu coaching session with Dave. Here are the five things he told these lifters to fix.
He critiques each of the following movements: Weighted Car Deadlifts, Axle Press, Stone Over Bar, Yoke Carry/Sleg Drag, Triceptecon Press, SS Yoke Bar Box Squats, Car Deadlift, Press Medley, and Keg Carry.
If your training partner’s technique is poor it will take a lot more than empty encouragement to make him better.
Through our many adventures, Chris Duffin and I trained, went four-wheeling, ate A LOT, and talked about many aspects of coaching and programming.
In coaching, it’s easy to lose hope in the student athletes that don’t seem engaged or interested in your help. It’s your job to find a way.
There are three types of people in the world of strength and conditioning — which one are you?
In my years of powerlifting, I have seen some really gifted people go nowhere, and some really poorly suited people do very well. Mindset is everything.
The primary question you should ask for your training is this: How can I get stronger while staying injury free? Maximize your results with these general rules.
With proper consideration of neural, mechanical, and metabolic elements, this podcast covers the methods used for developing a proper pre-season plan.
The style of your coaching and the content of your program say a lot about you as a coach. If someone questions your approach, do you have an answer?
To overcome the limitations of an exclusively online coach-to-client relationship, these elitefts team members traveled to the S4 Compound for a day of in-person coaching in preparation for CPU Nationals.
How you learn and who you listen to will determine whether or not you keep growing in this industry.