Blog
What I Am Reading – The Great Starvation Experiment
The Great Starvation Experiment One of my favorite podcasts is Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History Podcast. Gladwell did an entire season dedicated to creating experiments - which brought me to this book. The Department of Physiological Hygiene Part I The Rise of...
Strength Coach Chronicles – High Performance Model a Failure? (Pt. I)
I have this image of a European soccer club having this beautiful set up of players, coaches, and trainers connected as one towards the path of sports mastery. This utopia of high performance with everyone in complete synergy with each-other. But we all know that is a...
Strength Coach Chronicles – Preparing for Post Season
There is a certain amount of anxiety or relief going into the final parts of a competitive season. Anxiety is centered around having a chance to move on to future success. Relief of a season filled with disappointment is almost over. Post season with college sports is...
What I’m Reading – Team of Teams (Gen. Stanley McChrystal)
Team of Teams What is amazing about this book is that it was a solution that was forged organically to meet the needs of the situation. The story is what makes this sticky - the Iraq War forced the US military to adapt to an ever changing landscape. We are constantly...
What I’m Reading – How to Create a Mind
How to Create a Mind For those not familiar with Ray Kurzweil, you should be. He has a profound amount of insight on Artificial Intelligence, which may or may not matter to you. What you will find with this book, it should. Kurzweil wrote a very interesting book on...
Strength Coach Chronicles – Season Varsity (Travel) Workouts (Pt. II)
We have talked this about in other blog posts and how hard this part of the year is on the S&C coach. Your work is proverbial done, at least in the development side, and you are phasing into a support role. However, that does not change the fact that this is the longest unbroken period…
Periodization in the Private Setting is Alive and Well! (Article from 2018)
IS PERIODIZATION DEAD? I hear this from time to time, it is not a new debate, from my perspective it is the cornerstone of programming in any setting which I guess that means (in my opinion) it is most definitely alive and well. If you are planning frequency,...
Band Assisted Pullups Are a Waste of Time (Article from 2019)
(Want a program that doesn’t waste your time? Check out Allegiate Online Programs here). You can’t do a pull-up, so your coach says, “Grab a band”. You grab a band, attach it to the pull-up bar and awkwardly try to situate your feet on the band while suspended. This makes sense…
Strength Coach Chronicles – In Season Developmental Workouts
This is easily the biggest opportunity for a S&C coach during the season to contribute to future success. The idea is to help players that are underdeveloped in certain areas get a leg up for the future off season. But that may not be necessarily the case, as we...
What I’m Reading (S&C Classic)- Poliquin Principles
I can tell you where I was when I first read this book. I was flying to Washington DC to visit Michael Ungar and the Georgetown Staff. I read the book cover to cover over the course of that flight. At the time it was incredible how many insights this book had for me....
Strength Coach Chronicles – Injured Workouts
To me this is arguably the most important part of the job. At least during competitive periods. Our opportunity to improve biomotor ability is primarily in the off season. We discussed in last month’s blog In Season Training that we can still improve, just not the...
5 3 1 Program for Athletes (Article From 2007)
I am absolutely obsessed with Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 program (2); I think it is a work of genius. The best part of it is the creativity it allows me as a coach/lifter to have. The rep range is perfect; I do not know of an athlete that doesn’t need to get better at 5s, 3s, and most importantly 1s…