Some of my best tips for staying productive in the coaching environment.

It was a particularly gloomy day in Wichita, Kansas but that didn’t stop the hustling of our Wichita State athletes from flying through the weight room like a precision strike missile set upon it’s destination.  I love days that this.  The atmosphere in the weight room was perfect; one part fantastic momentum from a great weekend sweep; another part great senior leadership; and equal parts of both competitive & hungry freshman and sophomores eager to move up the depth charts.  This makes for a great environment to train and an even better one to coach under.

This atmosphere is akin to having a freshly hand-washed 2011 Ferrari, turbo charged, and eager for top speed drive.  The road conditions are perfect with freshly paved cement and a straight away stretch that begs for putting the pedal to the metal.  What a great day for cutting loose and opening the speed up.

Stephanie was one of my more gifted athletes; she was one of the most talented athletes I’ve worked with.   On the court, she was a complete show stopper; dominant, aggressive and eager to put the team first.  I cannot reiterate the capabilities and talents Stephanie had.  My job is to help her realize how dominant she really is.

Stephanie had only one downfall to her game; herself.  The session was coming to a enthusiastic finish and I noticed Stephanie wasn’t herself throughout the lift.  ”Steph!” I said questioning. “Let’s talk when you finish foam-rolling”.  She nodded.  Moments later, Stephanie came into my office with her workout card in hand and sat down in front of my desk.

As I commonly do, I motioned for her workout card and she slid it across my desk.  I sat bewildered as I read through her latest lifting session.  After drawing comparisons from her previous six weeks of lifts, I noticed that Stephanie didn’t attempt to progress in either weight or reps during this last lift.

“Stephanie, is there any confusion about what my expectations are?” I said sternly.  She looked back at me and repeated “The team looks up to me during the sessions because I am their go-to on the court”. She added, “I don’t want to fail in front of them so I didn’t add weight to my lifts today.  I don’t want them to see me struggle, or possibly worse, fail.”

I handed the workout card back to Stephanie and added to the conversation “Steph, you’re an amazing athlete capable of so much more; I wouldn’t tell you otherwise if I didn’t believe in these words with full conviction” I said.  ”You are a top speed Ferrari but are deathly afraid to take it above 35 MPHs.  Believe in yourself.  Believe in your preparation” I added.

“You’re teammates are counting on you to push yourself to your full potential and any failure to do so hurts the team” I said.  ”I know you were trying to protect the team by securing their confidence in you, but in reality, you’ve cheated yourself an opportunity to let it rip”, I said.

Stephanie gathered her belongings and collected herself before leaving my office.  She responded “I understand what you mean about being capable of so much more.  My team needs me to lead and part of that means that the need to see me confident under stress.”

I nodded and I repeated our leadership creed,  ”A leader accomplishes the mission first, and protects their teammates second.  Your mission is to prepare yourself to the demands of the sport.  Do not forget what the mission is.”

The next lifting session I witnessed a transformation in Stephanie.  I want to write that I didn’t know this transformation was possible, but that would be a lie;  I knew Stephanie had more to give than what she ever believed.  After all, she’s a top speed Ferrari.   It’s up to her to continue pushing the pedal to the metal.

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Show Notes:
Topic 1: Women’s Basketball Off-season Training
Topic 2: Progressions and Regressions

Trap bar Deadlifts

Our facility didn’t have any hex-bars that allowed us to do any trapbar deadlifts but having just purchased two of them for our weight room; I’ve really been blown away by the progressions that this one piece of equipment has allowed for our programming.  We picked up the bars from PerformBetter.com.  Beyond simply the bilateral stance deadlift, we’ve been using it as a progression variation for bilateral RDLs as well.

What I like about the trap-bar deadlift variation is that the trap-bar tends to evenly distribute the load between knee extension and hip extension.  A recent study by Swinton et al. (2011) found the following:

“Across the submaximal loads, significantly greater peak force, peak velocity and peak power values were produced during the HBD compared to during the SBD (p < 0.05). The results demonstrate that the choice of barbell used to perform the deadlift has a significant effect on a range of kinematic and kinetic variables. The enhanced mechanical stimulus obtained with the hexagonal barbell suggests that in general the HBD is a more effective exercise than the SBD.”

The important take away from this study is that with submaximal loads, the hex-bar deadlift produced greater peak force, velocity and power than the conventional straight bar deadlift, with a significantly decreased loading on the axial spine.  Not only is the hex-bar deadlift a safer lift, but it also produced equal if not better results.

Goblet Squats

Why do I like goblet squats so much?  I like it because when you put an athlete in the goblet squat position, the body naturally teaches the system as a whole what to do.  Dan John turned me on to this exercise and since then, I’ve been programming it into our athletes’ earlier phases of progressions.  I’ve found that programming the goblet squat tends to make the athlete “squat better”.   When athletes squat in this position, I’ve found that the torso is more erect, the hips have a tendency to sit further back into the hinge position, the knees gently track outward preventing collapse, and the centered load distribution pulls the athlete into a deeper squat.  I absolutely favor the lift as a beginning phase progression for athletes who’ve progressed from bodyweight variations to loaded implements like lunging, squatting, single-leg squatting, etc.

Medicine Ball Throws

We’ve been doing more medicine ball throws in our summer off-season training phases than we have throughout this last year of training athletes.  This is one thing that I will continue during our pre-season training phases as well.  Developing rotational power without the use of a Keiser can be difficult.  However, with using weighted medicine balls, we’ve been able to introduce explosive upper and lower body rotational movements with ease.

TRX Suspension Trainers

How can you not invest $150 some dollars into a piece of equipment that offers so many different ways of doing conventional exercises?  When I first arrived at Wichita State, we didn’t have a single TRX down in the weight room and that was one of the first pieces of equipment I purchased.  Don’t peg me a complete suspension-bodyweight guy; but for the amount of different things you can do with the TRX, you’d be crazy not to pick one up.

We’ve been using the TRX for different rollout progressions, anti-extension core development, anti-lateral flexion core development, bodyweight rowing progressions, and as implement for teaching hip hinges and single leg deadlifts.   In the future we’ll also use it as a progression for our more advances rollout bodysaw variations and different single-leg RFESS/Lunging patterns.

Sleds/Prowler

I love our two new prowlers and will continue to emphasize sled work for our metabolic conditioning and also our speed work.  For most of our team sports, we’ve been using the sleds as a way to improve the ability to put force into the ground.  If acceleration is a factor of Newton’s Third Law, then using the sleds in short distance “bursts”, should help us develop short duration, high intensity acceleration.  The sleds also help our athletes to work on proper body angels, knee and foot positions for proper foot strikes, and power into the ground.We also have been using our sleds in combination with our plyometric and medicine ball work to develop a baseline aerobic conditioning session made up of several modalities done at an anaerobic tempo.  Confusing?  What we’ve tried to do is tri-set our anaerobic power development in a 15 minute block to create a portion of our workout that forces the athlete’s heart rate response to be elevated.  This 15 minute window during our power work also acts as a baseline aerobic conditioner despite programming proper rest-to-work intervals for our anaerobic work in order to prevent the compromise of our power development.

Conclusion

That’s all gang!  I wanted to quickly give a rundown of the five things I have really been excited about during our summer programming at Wichita State University.  Our athletes have been training incredibly hard to prepare for our upcoming seasons.  The women’s basketball team has been ferociously training for our Italy trip and will carry on that mentality and mindset in preparation for October.

This is a fun time for a strength and conditioning coach because we get to have full attention of our athletes during the summer time.  Of course we have our baseball guys who are playing summer ball and we have our basketball ladies who are playing frequent games of pick-up in preparation for the European trip to Italy.  Let us not forget that we have our great lady golfers and tennis athletes playing frequent tournaments to sharpen their skills for the individual season starting up in August.

Nonetheless, as a strength and conditioning coach in the summer time (at a school without football) I get to focus all my attention on the many athletes who stick around town during the summer knowing that extra time in the weight room will help them achieve their athletic goals during their competitive season.

I wanted to discuss what I do during our workouts and give you a run down of what a typical summer strength and conditioning session would entail for our Shocker athletes.  The X’s and O’s of different exercises typically change and depend entirely on how the athlete is progressing, their experience, past injuries and history, their functional movement screen results, and an onslaught of other behavior, physical, and team-need factors.  However, the run-through or script of our strength and conditioning programming remains fairly consistent throughout.

5 Minutes Before The Lift

Our athletes usually arrive 5-10 minutes before their sessions and immediately grab a foam roller and start working on addressing soft tissue issues.   Our athletes prefer to roll out before all their sessions and I completely embrace the idea and promote it.  If you are unfamiliar with foam rolling, then go ahead and head over to Mike Boyle’s site and read this article.

0-10 Minute In Mark

We begin by either going through a ten minute flexibility circuit or a five minute mobility circuit to address tissue length or joint range of motion/mobility.   At this point, you’re probably cursing at me and citing research regarding static stretching.  I am a big believe of Alwyn Cosgrove’s saying “we over-react in the short term and under-react in the long term.”   I typically like stretching while the athlete is cold simply because I feel like we’re actually having athletes undergo some plastic deformation and increase in tissue length.

10-12 Minute In Mark

I’d be a fool if I didn’t say I was influenced by Mark Verstegen and Athlete’s Performance.  There is a reason they both are so successful and that is likely due to their understanding and attention to the athlete.  What Mark may be famously known for inventing or influencing the spread of; is “Movement Prep”.  What I’m looking for out of these first 2-3 bodyweight exercises is to activate non-functioning synergists in our athletes. I’m trying to integrate proper recruitment patterns established with activation patterns into full ranges of motion.  Essentially, I’m trying to “awaken” or “prepare” lesser used muscles for the demands of the workout.

12-15 Minute In Mark

Our athletes then go through several minutes of a up-tempo dynamic warm-up to get their heart rates elevated and body temperature increased.  During these dynamic warm-ups, we address flexibility movement patterns, mobility patterning, SAQ drills, linear & lateral footwork drills and proprioceptive jumping/landing mechanics.

15-20 Minute In Mark

Our athletes are primed and ready for the workout.  They have addressed tissue density issues, flexibility/mobility issues based off of their FMS screen.  They have all gone through a movement prep/activation section of their workout to cue under-activated muscles of their body’s to function properly.  They have also gone through a dynamic warm-up to physically prepare them for the next 40 minutes of their workout.

At this time, we begin to address power development through box jumps and medicine ball throwing patterns.  The reason for both is to simply address lower-body power output and upper-body power development.  We use a combination of different jumping methods (two legs, one leg, linear jumps, lateral jumps, double-bounce jumps, etc) and we also have our athletes do a mix of different throws (overhead, pivot throws, rotational throws, shot-put throws, chest passes, etc).  We vary these movement patterns based on a progression of development that is different for each athlete.  Our new incoming recruits may be doing an “easier” movement pattern than those juniors and seniors who’ve had longer time to develop their skills.

20-55 Minute In Mark

This is where the bulk of the workout happens.  That is not to say that the first 20 minutes are not important.  I honestly think the workout starts from the moment the athletes sit down to eat breakfast.  The workout begins when they are tying their shoes and heading to our weight room.  However, during these 35 minutes, our athletes are doing some mixture of knee or hip dominant movements (single leg or double leg, bent or straight leg), lunging,  pressing, pulling, core development and corrective exercises.

Our athletes keep track of everything, and record every single pound and repetition that they successfully complete with good form.  I’m a stickler about recording every little detail of the lift.  After each session is complete, I look over every single card and make progression recommendations for every athlete under my direction.   This allows for them to successfully progress and have an adaption effect from the progressive overload that occurs from lift to lift.

55-60 Minute Mark

Just when our athletes thought they couldn’t push any farther from the taxing and demanding training for the day, we finish with a bout of metabolic conditioning.  What is metabolic conditioning?

The Tabata study showed some remarkable and extreme benefits of using interval-training methods in relationship to increasing in VO2 Max at a fraction of the time.  Tabata compared moderate intensity endurance training at about 70 percent of VO2 max to high intensity intervals done at 170 percent of VO2 max.  The work to rest ratio for these “sprints” were 20 seconds of work time to 10 seconds of rest; done in seven to eight bouts.  The results from this study were amazing. The “Tabata” protocol improved the VO2 max of the participants and the anaerobic markers more than a “steady state” protocol.

Why is this important to our Wichita State athletes?  Because VO2 Max is thought as “the highest rate of oxygen consumption attainable during maximal or exhaustive exercise”.  Essentially, the greater VO2 Max an athlete has the greater duration that athlete can sustain a “high level of output”.  Think of a great basketball player having the ability to dominate the entire basketball court with their presence and high tempo without ever becoming fatigued.

What we end up doing to finish out our training sessions is a Tabata 20/10 interval of different modalities including; slideboarding, Airdyne biking, spin-biking, treadmill running, sled-pulling or Prowler pushing in a 20 second on and 10 second resting fashion.  Our athletes may not particular enjoy the last 5 minutes of our workouts but they have an euphoric feeling afterwards and will have a greater chance of having the enjoyment of thrusting a championship trophy into their air at the end of their season.

Conclusion

The summer time is a great time to be a strength coach (when is there ever a bad time?) as I get to have the most exposure to our athletes per the regulations of NCAA.  Our athletes work with us a lot, and I believe that says a lot about our strength and conditioning program.  They are training because they love the environment we establish in the weight room and they understand that championships are paths that are paved with hard work and dedication in the summer time.  I want to make sure that I am doing every single thing I can to help our great Wichita State athletes succeed in their competitive arena.

To prepare our athletes to be both physically and mentally tough, we have identified a need to train our athlete’s minds as well as their physical bodies.  We hold many one-on-one meetings to discuss goal setting, challenges, and realistic expectations of training.  It is during these one-on-one meetings that we can begin to build the foundation for the four C’s of mental toughness training.

Challenge

Some athletes consider challenges to be learning growth-opportunity, whereas other athletes may be likely to consider a challenge as a threat.  Those who embrace challenge may have a mindset for self-development whereas those who avoid challenge may do it out of fear of failure or aversion to effort (Dweck, 2007).  During our meetings and training sessions, we setup the environment where athletes embrace challenging scenarios as a “learning opportunity” rather than a “test”.  This allows for athletes who struggle or lose to embrace an ideology that their “learning” from the experience.

Control

Some athletes believe that they can exert influence over their environment or that they can make a difference and change outcomes.  Whereas, other athletes feel helpless and perceive that outcomes of events are fixed and out of their control.  Our staff tries to empower athletes by giving them simple choices over their environment, i.e. the music, exercise selection, or warm-ups.  We do not allow the coaches to direct every single decision where as we want the athlete to take ownership over the control of their workout.

Commitment

Athletes differ in their likelihood to persist with a goal or work task.  Some athletes, in the face of difficulty, will persist till the skill or task is completed.  Other athletes may easily become distracted, bored or divert their attention to competing goals.  We setup environments where we break down goals or commitments to micro-goals.  We coach our athletes to climb Mount Everest “one step at a time”.  Often times, athletes can lose commitment to a goal or task when the result looks too overwhelming or too far away (Goleman, 1998).

Confidence

Athletes that have high confidence have the self-belief to successfully complete tasks which may be considered too difficult by individuals with similar abilities but lower confidence.  At Wichita State, our staff does everything in our power to build the confidence of our athletes through proper progressions and challenges.  As Harter (1981) wrote about in her research titled “A Model of intrinsic mastery motivation in children”, an athlete’s perception of competency or ability to succeed in a task is highly influential on their intrinsic motivation for that particular task.

At Wichita State, our athletes have learned to accept responsibility and not make excuses for performance.  If our roles as coaches is to prepare athletes for the challenges of tomorrow, than a realistic and transferable skill is accountability.

We don’t allow athletes to make excuses for themselves nor their teammates.  We also don’t allow athletes to accept any excuses.  This has created a culture where athletes are consistently honest with each other and everybody is held to the same accountable actions as everybody else.

We receive a lot of athletes who have talent that delivered them division one scholarships.  The downfall of that statement is that these athletes have relied off of their talent versus their work ethic.  We aim to change that continuum in the direction of relying off of their ability to work extremely hard.  Talent gets you to the starting line; work ethic delivers you to the checkered flag.

It is not uncommon for our staff to physically challenge athletes to do what they believe is impossible.  Conditioning sessions are perfect environments for teaching athletes how to work “ruthlessly hard” as a team.

I’m planning on setting a lofty goal of accomplishing 365,000 kettlebell swings within a year.  I’m just looking ahead to see what a good start date would be. Nonetheless, I’ve already did my 100 today but I wanted to take a moment out of my Sunday to share an awesome song.  I’ve been having this one in my rotation for the last few weeks.  It’s a oldie, but it has some filthy bass drops.

What an awesome video of a pitcher who didn’t necessarily have the size but had all the other intangibles.

The Strength of Many is Greater than the Strength of One

Being a leader isn’t a temporary job.  It’s not season position or a typical nine to five.  It isn’t a trait that you can turn on or off at your disposal.  Being a leader is a permanent characteristic that defines a person.  Coaches often ask for my advice when trying to develop leaders out of their athletes and I often admit that there is no better environment to cultivate leadership growth than the strength and conditioning weight room.  I also find it humbling that many other coaches, much my senior, seek my knowledge and expertise about leadership development.  I credit this personal development to expert mentors who’ve groomed and developed world class leadership experiences for myself to foster in.  I only mention this because leadership is not always a natural process.  As humans, our basic mode for survival often predisposes us to selecting the easiest path of least resistance.  The path of least resistance, however, does little to naturally develop leadership qualities that transfer over to the competitive arena.

At Wichita State, we believe in developing leadership qualities through the combined efforts and struggles shared by a team.  There is no better environment for producing natural challenges that test the physical and mental wherewithal, then the strength and conditioning department.  At Wichita State, there are three foundational principles that all Shocker athletes abide by.

1)      We Are Mentally & Physically Tough

2)      We Don’t Make Excuses And We Don’t Let Others Make Excuses For Us

3)      We Work Hard

These are our most basic levels of principles that I expect out of every single one of our shocker athletes.  From the star athlete to the walk-on redshirt, nobody escapes without meeting those expectations.   You would imagine a strength coach to be overly concerned with developing physical strength; however, I am not impressed by amazing increases of physical strength.  I’m concerned and impressed by the increases of mental strength.  Wichita State athletes are bound to become both physically and mentally stronger through systematic training programs.  Shocker athletes will not make excuses for failing to prepare nor will they accept the false excuses given by fellow teammates.  Finally, Wichita State athletes will go above and beyond and work extremely hard to accomplish their goals.

Decisions are made by thinking about the team, rather than oneself.

Those selected individuals who are being groomed as team leaders have even higher expectations from our strength and conditioning department.  It is my belief that successful team leaders lead by doing two things;

1)      Accomplish the mission

2)      Protect The Team

First, without a second of hesitation, successful team leaders accomplish the mission through any adversity that is faced.  What I mean by this is that successful leaders, no matter the circumstances, consistently get the job done.  If a task is given to a leader, it is executed.  If I asked the leader to fulfill a particular role, they do it.  If I ask them to confront a teammate, they confront.  Successful leaders do whatever it takes, to accomplish the mission given to them.

Secondly, successful team leaders protect the team.  Understand the orders of these are absolutely critical. Make no mistake; the most successful leaders will sacrifice feelings and emotions for accomplishing the mission.  At the end of the day, leaders execute in order to accomplish the mission.  Good team leaders, however, also protect the team by saying what others don’t want to, and demanding expectations that others won’t.

Leaders protect the team by several different means.  Successful leader protect the team by demanding nothing but the best out of every single teammate.  They don’t allow for excuses to be made nor do they make excuses for others. Leaders also take responsibility for when a plan does not go smoothly.  We groom our leaders after a defeat, to address the team by taking responsibility for the loss.  A teammate’s failure to follow directions or execute a plan is collectively the responsibility of a team leader.  Leaders also give credit to the team when a plan is properly executed.  They naturally take responsibility and credit for the failures and give credit to the team for victories.  Make no mistake; successful leaders will confront others if they are not carrying out the expectations of their responsibility to the team.  Leading is about being comfortable with being alone.  Having the mental strength to stand alone and carry the pressure and burdens of accepting responsibility for defeat and having the ego and capability of giving away credit in times of victories.

We prepare our Wichita State athletes to be great team leaders and great team mates. Be certain, we prepare our shocker athletes, every single day, to fill either role.