Lessons Learned from Westside Seminar

This past Saturday I took the time to attend the Westside Athletic Development Seminar in Grove City.  For those of you that are unfamiliar, Westside Barbell has produced the strongest people in the world under the expertise of Louie Simmons.   Although the training at Westside is mostly geared towards the sport of powerlifting, Louis has also consulted with and trained many athletes ranging from track and field to the NFL.  The seminar outlined Louie's philosophies and methods and a major part of it was dedicated towards strength and conditioning for athletes of all sports.  I have been studying the Westside methods for years now, but I felt it was the right time to really dive into the information with a group of like minded strength coaches.

Louie's system of training is called the Conjugate Method and consists of Max Effort Work, Dynamic Effort work, jumps and assistance work.   Each week there is a Max Effort Upper body day and a Max Effort Lower body day.   Exercises are rotated each week   (bench variations for upper, squat and deadlift variations for lower) and the goal is to always beat your 1 rep max on the chosen lift.   Its always 1....no sets of 2, 3 or 5.    ONE!     Louie was emphatic about this....    "You can't do 6 good reps at a weight worth lifting!" he said.   Once you break a personal record, max effort lifting for the day is over.

Dynamic Effort lifts are again bench and squat or deadlift variations and are performed with 40% to 60% of the 1 rep max for sets of 2 to 3 reps.   Chains and bands are added for accommodating resistance and the goal is bar speed at .7 to .9 meters per second.  You would need advance equipment to measure that precisely, so if you stick to the percentages of your max and progress, everything will be fine.

Jumps are cycled in throughout the week.   Jumps are performed with weights, without weights, to boxes and from the knees.   Jumping is speed strength and essential for athletic performance.

Assistance work comprises of 80% of their weekly training.   Basically you find your weakness and work on it at the end of each of the 4 main lifting days.   Hamstings, glutes, triceps, upper back and abs are the main focus of assistance work.

Here are a number of learning points I took away from seminar.

1.  Rule of 3

Louie is heavily Soviet influenced when it comes to his training philosophies and he talked about the youth training and the Rule of 3 in Russia.   Basically, all youth athletes in Russia have to dedicate 3 years to GPP  - general physical preparedness before they specialize in a sport.    Translation:   there is no year round baseball training for 12 year olds!

2. Everything works, but nothing works forever

Exercises must be rotated every 3 weeks or less to avoid overtraining and to continue to make strength gains.   This notion condemns the conventional Clean, Squat, Bench week in and week out for ever and ever strength program.   If you want training to go stale, do the same thing over and over again.

3  You must recover from intense training

72 hours separated the Dynamic Lower body day and the Max Effort Lower body day.  The same goes for the two upper body days.    Sled work and other forms of training are used at the end of workouts to restore the body, not to continue to break it down.  


One of the most popular slogans at Westside is "Often Imitated, Never Duplicated."   After spending  2 hours at Westside on Sunday, I would agree 100% with that slogan.  I would be crazy to even attempt to duplicate what they do with my athletes.    Keep in mind, that 90% of the kids I train are not even close to ready for that type of programming  - hence the rule 3! 

I left the seminar on Sunday very confident that I have been doing the right things with my athletes.  I have been a firm believer in foundational training for youth athletes  (GPP, rule of 3) and not trying to specialize them with advanced "sport specific" training methods.   I began experimenting with the Westside model with some of my advanced high school and college athletes and it has paid off big time with performance results.   Like anything else, the key is taken the information Louie provided and making it work in my setting.

Lacrosse Pre Season Training

We are a few weeks away from the start of spring practice for my high school lacrosse clients.   To save time and essentially "kill 2 birds with 1 stone", I like to combine agility work with plyometrics.   Below is a drill we used this Friday.

Postural Restoration at Soar Fitness

For years I have been searching for the solution to the problem of crooked squatting that I see with a lot of my athletes.  After watching kids squat for years, it seems like a lot of them have the tendency to lean to the right.   I knew it was wrong and I knew that there had to be a way to fix it, but how?   The answer ended up being the Postural Restoration Institute.  After months of deliberating, I finally decided to enroll in the PRI Myokinematic Restoration Home Study course.   After two weeks of intense video watching and studying, I can honestly say that it was by far the best continuing education course I have ever taken.  The course I took involved a ton of in depth information about the body, so I will do my best to give you the major points of it in the simplest way possible. 

Below are the major points that I took from the course. 

1.  The Left Anterior Chain  (AIC) is the pattern that this course addresses.   A person in Left AIC, will have a forwardly rotated left pelvis, left foot pointed out and most of their body weight on the right leg.   How many people do you see that stand like this?

2.  The goal of the program is to get some muscles working that are "shut off" and more importantly inhibiting some muscles that are overworking.

3. After a series of tests, the protocol to reverse the AIC pattern is to first reposition the pelvis.  Once that is accomplished, a series of exercises are used to strengthen the Left Adductor group, the Left Glute Medius and the Right Glute Max.  After a certain level of strength is achieved, exercises that integrate all of the above muscles are introduced.

So how is this really going to help my clients?

1.  At lot of athletes experience general back pain because of poor posture.   By introducing these exercises, we can get some muscles working and other muscles to calm down.  Feel better, play better!

2. Internal rotation of the hip is crucial for speed and power and lot of athletes lack that range of motion  - especially on the left side.   The PRI course addresses this issue with a simple progression of exercises.

3.  This seems to be the solution to a lot of the ugly squatting patterns that I have seen over the years.  Fixing that will help with #1 and 2 as well.

So far, I have used the PRI methods with a few advanced and beginner level clients with great success.   One of my pro football prospects has already taken a tenth of his 10 yard sprint time with just 2 weeks of PRI exercises!  As time goes on, my goal is to find the easiest way to implement these exercises into our weekly group training sessions.

The Importance of Grip Strength

Why do our athletes perform weighted carry variations on a weekly basis? Why do we preach strong grip on every exercise? Watch the video to find out.

Hip Mobility

This weeks video blog focuses on the importance of hip mobility. Whether you are a sprinting, squatting or jumping, if your hip mobility stinks, your performance will suffer.

The Importance of Ankle Moblity

There is a reason why we start every session at Soar with ankle mobility drills - the ankle is the last link in the chain between the body and the ground. If you lack ankle mobility, you lack the ability to put force into the ground. Watch the video to listen to me discuss this topic further.

A Look at this Summer's Training

Its been a busy summer as usual at Soar Fitness. Lots of college athletes preparing to go back to school, high school athletes preparing for college camps and junior high athletes working their asses off to get better. More clients means less blogs and newsletters from me - so here are some short videos of what we have been doing this summer. For 3 weeks, we focused on horizontal power with a mix of broad jumps, sled pushes and sprints.

Of course, we are always working on lateral acceleration and deceleration. In this video, we are mixing it up with a tennis ball drill in one of our general strength and conditioning classes.

The 4th of July holiday week always throws a wrench in our college training schedule, so it always a great time to bust out a circuit of non - traditional exercises. In this video, you will see a pro lax player, a variety of college football and lax players and a high school football player getting after it.

Prior to the circuit, we mixed in some acceleration and deceleration work with quick feet plyometrics.


And last but certainly not least - we are always working on power!

5 Things the Average Athlete Program is Lacking

5 Things The Average Athlete Program is Lacking

I have seen hundreds of high school and college lifting programs over the last 10 years.   90 % seem to consist of the usual blend of speed, strength and power exercises.  The same 90% of programs also seem to lack some concepts that I feel are very necessary for the team sport athlete.  Below are 5 things the average athlete  program is lacking.

1. Ankle Mobility

If you lack mobility in the ankle joint, then you are leaving yourself open  to non – contact  knee injuries.  This is exactly why I am not a big fan of the healthy athlete bracing and taping their ankles.  In addition, improving your ankle mobility will make you a better squatter and dead lifter.  At Soar, we start every warm – up with ankle mobilizations over the middle toe, big toe and little toe.   Keep your heel on the ground and push your knee towards the wall.  It is so simple, but very few athletes do it.

2. Lateral Plyometrics

If you play any team sport, you are going to  move in all directions  - not just straight forward.   But, the average high school lifting program consists of only vertical and horizontal power exercises such as broad jumps, box jumps and power cleans.   These are all great exercises, but what about creating power in the frontal plane?   Aside from the benefits to your speed and power on the field, lateral plyometrics will help keep the ankles, knees and hips healthy.  

Here are a few examples of 2 and 1 leg Lateral plyometrics we use at Soar:

-          Lateral quick feet plyos in an agility ladder

-          Lateral bounds

-          Lateral hurdle jump and hops

-          Lateral broad jumps

  

3. Bent Leg Hip Extension Exercises

The glute is the king muscle when it comes to speed, but very few programs utilize exercises that specifically target it.   Glute ham raises and RDL variations are great for the hamstrings, but do not recruit the glutes in the same manner that a lot of bent leg hip extension exercises do.   The best thing about them is all you need is a bench or box to do them.  

Here are a few examples of Bent Leg Hip Extension exercises we use at Soar:

-  Back on Bench  (BOB)  1  and 2 leg hip extensions.     We weight single leg ones with chains and 2 leg ones with a barbell.

-  Forward sled marches

- Half get ups with hip lift

-BOB glute bridges

In addition to the speed benefits you will get from adding these to your program, they will go a long way towards preventing nagging hamstring injuries, back pain and knee pain.   The average high school kid that has knee pain or “glute amnesia” will benefit greatly from a few sets per week of these exercises.   Consult the Bret Contreras, aka “The Glute Guy” for an in depth look at glute training.

4. Weighted carries

A strong athlete has a strong grip  - and weighted carries are some of the best ways to improve your grip strength. Don’t have farmers walking handles?   KB’s DB’s or anything heavy will work.   The key is to mix up the kind of carries that you have your athletes do.  At Soar, we have a “Weighted Carry of the Week”.   We rotate through a variety of carries with heavy handles or KBs.  Here is a list of carries we rotate through:

-Heavy carry  - same weight in each arem

- Offset carry   - load is heavier in one arm

- Suitcase carry  - weight is only in one arm

- Heartbeat carry  - hold KB at chest height and press is out as you walk   - Thanks Dan John!

- Bottoms up carry  - Hold the KB upside down and keep elbow bent at 90.

-Suicide walks  - any of the above carries but changing directions  - like a basketball suicide.

  

5. Rotational Training

The term “functional training” has become a fire starter for many arguments in online forums.   Some trainers have taken it way too far by having their clients do everything with a wobble board.  Then there is the coach who thinks that anything that doesn’t involve a bar is for pussies.   I would say I fall somewhere in between.   This is where diagonal chops come in.  A lot of sports are played in the transverse plane and this is why rotational training is ‘functional” for most team sport athletes.  The problem is that most coaches fail to understand that rotational training is NOT explosive twisting of the lumbar spine.   It is learning how to rotate the hips and upper back while the center of the body stays relatively stable.

A sound rotational training progression begins with learning how to resist rotation.   We start all our athletes with chops in Half Kneeling position where the goal is to brace the core and resist the forces that the cable is putting on them.  We then progress to rotational MB throws and standing chops where the hips and upper back produce the power.   Two sets of 10 reps in each direction 1 – 2 times per week serves as sufficient rotational training in my experience.

Linear Speed Training from 4/15

Early in the training week, most of our movement training is geared towards linear speed development. We use a progression of jumps, technique drills, resisted sprints and unresisted sprints to help our athletes maximize their ability to run faster. We always focus on one, maybe two cues during each session. Last week it was "body angle" and "knee punch". The wall drill we used allowed the athletes to support themselves in the body angle that we are always trying to coach. While they held the position, they "punched" their knees forward and then back into the ground in a piston like motion. That was the goal anyways! As you will see in the video, some do it better than others.


 

After a couple wall drills, it was time to get the kids moving at full speed. I decided to go with a complex of sled pushes and unresisted sprints. The sled push allowed the athlete to perform the same exact motion as the wall drill, but move forward. About 15 seconds later, the goal is to recreate the exact same body angle in a true sprint.

 

Basketball Training Has Started

I am very excited to say that I have had more basketball players  (especially females) get started in my program this spring then in the last 6 years.   As I have stated over and over, if you want to jump higher and improve your speed and quickness, you MUST do more than attend open gyms and play AAU.   The body needs trained, and in a manner in which the right dose of exercises are being applied.

At this point in the season, the vast majority of my basketball clients are attending open gyms or practicing AAU 2 - 3 times per week.  On top of that, they could be playing anywhere from 3 - 6 games per weekend.   I would be doing these clients a major disservice if I ran them through countless ladder and cone drills for the sake of saying  - "We do speed and agility".   I prefer to say that we do some necessary movement training  after our 15 - 20 minute flexibility and mobility routine.   Our movement training focuses on improving acceleration and deceleration mechanics in all planes of movement as well as small doses of vertical and lateral jumping exericses.   The focus is always quality of movement, not quantity of work.   On top of that, if some of the athletes are experiencing knee pain or some other form of pain from overuse, the movement training is the first thing that we take out of the workout.   The lifting portion is then tailored to improve strength in areas that will help alleviate the pain eventually.

The main bulk of spring training for basketball players is the strength portion.   This is where we are improving weaknesses, building lean mass, increasing power and strengthening the foundation.   It is amazing how quickly my female athletes go from not being able to do a good body weight squat to squatting with a 44lb KB.   All it takes is a properly designed program and a tremendous amount of attention to detail.  The athletes that are here now are the ones who are going to be ready for very intense training come late summer and early fall.  This is because they took the time to build their foundation in the spring.

So basketball players, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!  

Looking to Play College Football?

If you are a high school football player that has hopes of playing at the college level, then this is a critical time of year for you.  Unless you are a 5 star, blue chip recruit who has lots of offers already on the table, you are going to have to prove yourself at a variety of college camps and combines this summer.   Even if you do not possess Division 1 size and speed, there are a ton of opportunities for solid football players to earn scholarship money at the Division 2 and 3 level  - especially if you have have great grades and high test scores.

Many of these camps involve combine type tests (40, vertical jump, shuttle, ect)  along with position drills.   The key to performing well at these tests is very simple........prepare specifically for the tests!   All of the lifting and stuff that goes on in the high school weight room is fine, but if you are not practicing your 40 yard start on a weekly basis, you are doing yourself a huge disservice.  Along with specifically practicing the tests, there are a number of exercises that we do with sleds, medicine balls and bands that will also enhance your ability to perform your best.

I have been conducting combines for 7 years and have been preparing athletes for combines for 8 years.   I have seen numerous players earn scholarships based on a tremendous performance in a few drills and tests.  I know of one of my linemen who received multiple Division 1 offers as a result of great short shuttle times.  In a sport where a tenth of a second means everything, paying specific attention to detail could be the difference between a scholarship and a walk - on offer.

In addition to our test preparation, we also can help the player with some position specific drills.   Through my experience with the NFL, I have been lucky enough to stand next to pro scouts while position drills are going on.  I have seen the mistakes that players have made that immediately gets them disregarded.   I have also seen the specific techniques that makes the scouts eyes light up.  Which player do you want to be this summer?

Contact Mike Kozak at 614-306-9364 to set up a consultation and begin the preparation process.   The time you spend in our facility now can pay major dividends this summer when you get in front of college coaches.

SOAR Fitness - February Update

February has been a HUGE month at SOAR Fitness for myself and a number of my clients.   Here are just a few of the highlights of what has been happening.

1.  Olentangy Boys Lacrosse has been going very strong since the 1st of the year.  Next week will be their last week of preparation and I wish them luck with their upcoming season.   Also, if you need some mulch for spring yard work, I hear they are the people to see!

2. Last Wednesday, I was lucky enough to attend National Signing Day at Olentangy High School.   My long time client, Andrew Horstman, signed to play football with the Air Force Academy.   In addition to that, Austin Schmidt signed to play football with Illinois and two of my female basketball clients, Gina Miccinilli and Katie Heath signed with Heidleberg and Otterbein.

3.   On Tuesday, I attended the National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete Awards Ceremony for the Columbus Chapter.  My long time client, Jay Grote, was recognized as one of the finalists.  It was great to be in the same room with many former and current Buckeye legends as well as numerous scholar athletes.  Jay is a kid who has worked his ass off for 5 years and he deserves every bit of recognition he has received.

4.  My longest standing trainer Ricky Crawford will be attending the NFL Regional Combine at Cleveland Browns facility this coming Sunday.  Good luck to him!  This also signals the beginning of my combine season so my blogging will be few and far between for the next month.

5.  I just got word that SOAR Fitness will be featured on the local Channel 6 show  - Out N About Columbus.  I will have more information on that next week.  Time for some of my clients and myself to get TV ready.

6. The end of training for most spring sports athletes will be February 24th.   As always, I encourage all athletes to get their in - season lifting in to maintain the strength and power they built over the winter.  More importantly, keeping up with strength and mobility work will go a long way towards keeping you healthy during the season.   As for my wrestlers and basketball players, its time time to start building strength in the spring.  Don't wait until the fall to start preparing for next season!  

Combine prep for high school football players will also begin in March.  Call 614-306-9364 for more information.

January Acceleration Program

The week of January 7th started a new jump and acceleration program for all of my athletes that play a spring a sport. I felt that it was time to shake things up from our normal flow of plyometric and speed and agility training. This new system of plyometric and speed training is modified version of the Xtreme Jumpsole program that myself and my business partner used religiously in the early years of my business.   I credit that program for getting me the fastest I have ever been in all directions during my years of semi - pro football.  However, years of research brought me to the realization that the original program had a few flaws:

1.  It had an extreme amount of volume and would take too long in my current training schedule
2. It did not have progressions that were appropriate for beginner and intermediate level athletes.
3. There was not enough rest between sets of very intense jumping exercises.
4.  Jumpsoles really were not necessary.

After a few weeks of tinkering and testing the program on myself, I was confident that I had a program that would address some of the concepts that most of my athletes really needed to work on.  Here are some highlights of what the program entails:

1.  3 levels, 2 different workouts  - Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.   This allows us to prescribe the right plyometric progressions for the right levels of athletes.   There is also 1 day dedicated to linear plyometrics and acceleration and 1 day dedicated to lateral plyometrics and acceleration.

2.  Our Intermediate and Advanced clients would be introduced to transitional plyometrics.   These are a combination of very quick hops and explosive tuck jumps.   I felt that a lot of our plyometric exercises had gone stale and this was a great way to shake things up.  Plus I noticed that a lot of my athletes were not very explosive when asked to jump after some kind of athletic movement.





 3.  Acceleration  -After watching my athletes sprint and push sleds for the last few weeks, I knew that we needed some specific technique work on sprinting and accelerating out of different positions.  A lot of my athletes were making one or more of the following errors when sprinting: not picking feet up high enough, poor arm mechanics, not putting enough force into the ground and accelerating at a bad angle.  After the plyometric training, the main focus become acceleration drills.   On the linear day, the athletes perform drills such as high knees and butt kicks for 5 yards then accelerate into a 10 yard sprint.  On the later day, athletes transition from shuffles and crossovers into sprints.


Week 1 flowed very well.  The progressions of plyometrics in all 3 levels timed up well so that all athletes were ready for the acceleration portion at the same time.  However, there was one aspect of the training that I was not satisfied with at the end of the week.  Even though the majority of athletes were doing a great job on the high knees and other form drills, they were not changing their angle of force production when it came time to accelerate.   Basically, they were staying in high knees (vertical shin) instead of punching their knees forward and driving back into the ground (shin angled).

Here is a drill that I came up to help my athletes learn the angle of force production that I am looking for when they accelerate.  At the start, it might look like something out of a Jane Fonda video, but oh well, it grooves a good pattern if they do it right.
As always, our athletes hit the weights after the speed and plyo portion of the workout.

What's Up for 2013 at Soar

I can't believe 2012 is coming to a close.  It has been the best year yet at Soar Fitness  I have more new clients than I ever dreamed of and my long term clients are moving on to play college sports on scholarship.  Unrelated to Soar  - I was lucky enough to marry my tremendous wife in 2012 and that has been nothing other than a blessing.......for me at least.    But how are we going to make 2013 even better?  Well......that process has already begun.

I have said before that the best piece of advice I ever received was to never be satisfied that you are doing the best job possible.  With that in mind, I am constantly learning new ways to provide the BEST service possible to all of my clients.

Recently, I purchased a video seminar  - Strength in Motion.   It featured three of top names in Strength and Conditioning - Charlie Weingroff, Patrick Ward and Joel Jamieson.   I was able to take valuable information from all three of them and it will shape how our training at Soar is designed in 2013.   I am going to summarize what I learned in layman's terms to give you an idea of what my clients will expect.

1.  Charlie Weingroff is my go to guy for information related to blending physical therapy with strength and conditioning.  Since I see tons of injured athletes per year, it is a no brainer for me to look to him for the latest in rehab and training.   I have some of his other products, so I had already heard a lot of what he presented in Strength in Motion.  However, I took one very major piece of information - The Functional Movement Screen is a must if you are training anyone!    I have used FMS for years and a lot of my long term clients have already been screened by me.  However, I somehow got a away from it just like you get away from flossing your teeth a few times per week.   I just simply decided I didn't have enough time to do it  - and that is BS!   All it took was Charlie to say,  "If you are not using FMS, you are on the B team."

That's all I needed to hear!   The FMS is simply a screen that gives a trainer an idea of what is appropriate for each individual client and what is not.  It ensures that you will not hurt a client by putting them in a position that their body is not ready to be in.   This is exactly what is wrong with many school lifting programs.  Many kids are asked to perform exercises such as deadlifts but do not possess the functional movement to do the exercise correctly.   The result is adding strength to dysfunction which ultimately leads to injury.  All new clients at Soar are given the FMS on their first day now.

If you train people and have not listened to Charlie before, I highly recommend it.


2.  Patrick Ward and Joel Jamieson both spoke in different ways about how to manage your training programs in terms of how the stress of training affects them.  Overtraining is something that I have always been very aware of and this seminar reiterated to me that I am on the right track.  The overlying theme of their presentations was that everything (sport practice, school, training, games, ect)  an athlete does during the course of a week takes a mental and physical toll on their bodies.  It is completely unrealistic to expect any athlete to train at 100% intensity day in and day out on a weekly and monthly basis.  Volume and intensity must be adjusted, even on the fly and recovery must be built in to the training model.

One topic that was completely new to me was Heart Rate Variability  - HRV.   I learned that HRV is the biggest indicator of if an athlete is ready to train at a high intensity or not.  Joel Jamieson has a product that measures HRV and I will be purchasing that very soon.   I will begin to implement HRV testing before workouts for a variety of my athletes  - especially when we are in pre-season conditioning.

Remember, this is just a summary of what I learned from the seminar.  If you are new to training seminars and these presenters, you will learn a ton.  I guarantee that if you are looking to improve the quality of training you provide to your athletes and clients, you will not be disappointed.

Preparation for Winter Football Training

Before we get into the videos, I want to congratulate three of my clients - Jason Grote, Andrew Horstman and Austin Schmidt. All three of them received All - Ohio honors this week. Jason and Andrew have been clients of mine since they were in junior high and it is great to see that all the years of hard work had paid off for them. FYI - Jason was a slow, flat - footed, knee brace wearing kid at one time. He made 2nd Team All Ohio at Guard - at a 195lbs! Andrew made 2nd Team All- Ohio at Punter and is also one of the best athletes to ever walk through the doors of my gym. He has a chance to punt or play a variety of other positions at the college level. Austin has only been at Soar for 1 year and made outstanding progress this spring. He is heading to Illinois on full scholarship. Congrats again to all three guys.

 So what are we doing right now to get our football players ready for intense winter training? Boring old GPP - building a base. Remember, these guys just came out of 4 months of collisions. The last thing they need one week into training is a heavy bar on their back or tons of mindless agility training. Here are some videos our GPP
.


 After 2 - 4 weeks of GPP - its time to move on to getting jacked up and fast!

Assessing Proper Squat Depth

Squatting is without question one of the best ways to develop lower body strength in athletes and the general fitness population.  Its benefits are almost unlimited.  Need to burn fat  - squat.   Need to jump higher  - squat.  Need to run fast  - squat.   Need bigger legs   - squat.     All of my athletes and adult clients squat.   They front squat, back squat, KB golbet squat, high rep squat, max effort squat and dynamic squat.   It all depends on who they are, what part of their off- season they are in and what their goals are.  

One often overlooked or taken for granted part of squatting is the depth.  Different strength coaches and trainers have different opinions on what the depth of a squat should be.  There are those people who believe that Ass to Grass Squatting (femurs below parallel)  is the only way to go.

This kind of squat is accepted in some circles.    Not in my circle.   Ever.  Yes she is low  - but in my opinion the knees are too far forward and her back in flexion.   Keep in mind that is the bar only.

There are others who only believe in  box squats and there are those who think that squatting to a box is for pussies.   To me, it is finding the best depth of squat to for each individual client.  To ensure proper depth of squats at Soar, we use various heights of boxes .  Plus I have found it is way easier to get someone to sit back in their squat confidently when there is a box behind them.

My goal is to always to get my clients to get as strong as they can to the lowest depth that is appropriate for them.  Keep in mind that I am not training power lifters.   Whether or not their squat will qualify in a meet is irrelevant to me.  Making sure they are at their strongest and healthiest to play their sport is my only concern.

The video below shows what I look for when determining the box height for a new client.


Remember - the purpose of the video was finding the proper depth. Breathing, sitting back, keeping the chest up and pushing the knees out are techniques that we are constantly working on as well.

Training the Athlete that Trains at School Revisited

As a strength coach in the private sector, the majority of my clients are required to train with their teams at school to some degree.  This is something I have dealt with for 10 years and I wrote a blog about it a few years back.

Click here to read.

Like any other solid strength coach, my program has evolved since I last wrote that.  Even though there is nothing in the old article that I don't do, there are many other things I now do more of and some things I do less of.   I have also found that more and more athletes other than football players are required to lift at school.  As a result, I am seeing even more eyebrow raising workouts being put into play and as a result I have gotten more creative with my program design.

Just like wrote before, I must know what my athletes are doing on each day at school.   Sprinting?  Long distance running?   P90X?  Insanity?  Benching?  Squatting?   I need to know all of the particulars and I usually wait to make a program until the athlete fully informs me of their weekly training regimen.  Once I have all the information I need, I make a program that usually contains exercises from the categories listed below.


1. Sled training.    We push sleds and drag them in all imaginable directions.   For one, I know it is not being done at school.  For two, it eliminates eccentric stress so my athletes will not be sore for their school workouts.

 

2. Bent leg hip extension.    Google that term and you will see many of the top coaches talking about how that movement directly influences speed.   However, very few coaches have their athletes perform bent leg hip extension exercises.  Various forms of bent leg bridges and extensions are performed at Soar on a weekly basis.


 3.  Shoulder and Hip Prehab movements.   Again, very little of this is done at school so they are an easy add in to our program at Soar.

4.  Horizontal pulling  -  In my experience,  the push to pull ratio of my athletes that lift at school is at least 2 to 1.   This means that twice the amount of pressing is being done in comparison to pulling.   Usually they mix in Lat Pull Downs and Chin ups, so I add lots of rowing and suspended horizontal pull ups to offset all the benching.

5.  Submaximal Work on the Big Lifts  -  This has become a staple for me.   So you say you can squat 315 for 3 at school?   Show me 185.   98% of the time, their technique is mediocre at best.   Since their already doing max effort work at school  (with incorrect load), the submaximal lifting just serves as technique practice.  You can squat and dead lift a few times a week if you do it correctly!

6.  Warming Up  -  This one is laughable.   It shocks me how many teams do not go through a proper dynamic warmup before their workouts at school.   Since most of my high school clients have terrible mobility and flexibility, its a no brainer to have multiple warm- ups in place.

7.  Lateral Plyometrics   -  I wrote a blog on this topic a few weeks ago.   Lateral plyometrics are often neglected and very necessary for the any team sport athlete.  Like anything else, volume and progression is key.

I will acknowledge that supervising a weight room full of 40 high school kids of various sizes and strengths is a daunting task.   Even the best strength coach in the world would struggle to give individual attention to every kid in the program.  But, the reality is that most high school weight rooms are supervised by the sport coaches.   I give credit to them for trying to implement a program, but if quality work is not being performed  - are the kids really getting stronger?    Or are they adding strength to dysfunctional movement?

Introducing Lateral Movements to New Clients

During any training week, most of our clients will participate in some form of lateral movement training at least once.   Our sessions are approximately 90 minutes in length and the way the sessions break down goes like this:

10 minutes  - foam rolling, static stretching

15 minutes  - Dynamic Warm up

15 minutes  -   Early in week   -   Linear/Vertical plyometrics,  Linear speed work
                       Later in week  - agility ladder drills,  lateral plyometrics, lateral movement training

50 minutes   - strength and power work

This is just a template we follow for our average 12 - 15 year old client that comes to the gym 2x per week.  For our more advanced athletes that train 3 - 4x per week, their regimen might be different depending on their training cycle.

I feel that lateral movement training is one of the most neglected aspects of  strength and conditioning by a lot of coaches.   As you can see by the template above, we are not spending hours running around cones for the sake of calling it SAQ, Performance Training or whatever BS term is popular to use now.   We are giving kids the right dose of what they need to be well - rounded healthy, strong and fast athletes.  At Soar,  we have a progression of lateral plyometrics that we use to improve lateral explosiveness and deceleration.   Our lateral movements (agility) from week to week could focus on resisted movements, reaction, deceleration or a combination of all.  Typically a lateral day will consist of a few sets of lateral plyos and then 8 - 12 reps of agility work with each rep being 3 - 8 seconds long.

What about our new clients?   Do we just throw them into a class and expect them to keep up in some of our more advanced movement drills?   Absolutely not.    We make sure that the new athlete is first assessed and then prepped with some foundational lateral drills.

This first video is a clip of our two most basic lateral single leg hops.




This next video shows our basic progression for teaching lateral deceleration.


If you are training young athletes as a coach of a team or in the private sector, make sure you are introducing them to all the necessary concepts that will make them a well rounded athlete. The key is using the right progressions and applying the right dose. Remember, less is usually more! Nobody needs 30 minutes of agility ladder training.

Just Another Case for Getting Stronger

One of my college softball clients came into the gym the other day with the kind of news that I love to hear.

 Her:  Guess What?

Me:  What?

Her:   I ran the fastest 20 yard sprint time on the team the other day at testing.

Me:  Not surprising  - but nice work!


So what did I have her do this summer that brought about this increase in speed?

Mondays  -    run 50's 100s and 200s

Tuesdays -  Total body strength circuit

Wednesdays   -  Run Stadium Stairs until her legs felt like they would fall off

Thursdays  - Core

Fridays  - Long distance running


If you believe that, then surely you have never read my blogs thoroughly before.   That would be a recipe for being the slowest and weakest girl on the team.  Unfortunately there are way too many female athletes training like that for power sports just as softball.


Not hitting many homeruns this season!


What did I really have one of my longest standing clients do this summer?

First of all, she had a lot of conflicts with work this summer that shortened  our sessions.   There were some weeks that we didn't have any time for speed work  (if time is an issue, I always go for strength work over speed.)   For the most part, she made it to the gym 3x per week from June to mid - September.   Here is a overview of what her weekly workouts looked like:

-   Full Dynamic Warm up each day

- Linear, vertical and lateral plyometrics

- Sled pushes, sled resisted sprints and short burst sprints  (when we had time).   At no point did she sprint over 20yards.

- MB throws, weighted jumps and snatchs

-  Dead lifts and squats  - both max effort and dynamic

-Single leg lifts and posterior chain  exercises

- Upper body presses and pulls.

-  Core work  (bridging, chops and other necessities)

  This is just another case of an athlete maximizing their training time in the off-season by getting stronger.  The strength and power that she gained transferred right onto the field for fall ball. What's great about this case is that we have all winter to get even stronger and more powerful!

Are you a coach looking for the same results for your team in the off -season? 

Are you unsure of how to put together a proper strength and power program for your team?


Look no further than Soar Team Strength!   

Imagine if you had all our exercises and programs at your fingertips.   The best part is that all workouts can be performed in any high school or college weight room.

Here is an example of a Soar Team Strength video from our exercise library.

 

If you know any team that needs to gain strength and power, then they probably need a complete overhaul of their off -season program.   Please pass this blog onto any coach that is willing to make a change for the better.

Soar Team Strength

Improving Your Bench Press

It's no secret  - every man that lifts weights wants to get stronger at the bench.   Almost every high school kid I train is obsessed with their bench press max.   I have said it before  - bench press max determined who suited up for varsity football at my high school!

As a strength and conditioning coach, I am fully aware that bench press does not have a whole lot to do with performance on the field or court.  Vertical leap, sprint time, conditioning shuttles, pull ups and squat/deadlift max are probably much better indicators of who the best athletes are.   However, it is never a bad thing to be really strong in the upper body.   Even if you are a weekend warrior or a fitness enthusiast   - getting stronger should always be your focus in the gym.

The video below will show you a few basic mistakes that I see most kids and adults make when they bench press.   If you are looking for specific power lifting advice, I would seek advice elsewhere from the many power lifting experts available on line.   If you have been benching the same weight for the last two years and have never addressed your technique  - definitely watch this video.