All posts tagged Training

Shocker Summer Strength & Conditioning Programming

by AdamRingler on June 27, 2011 in Blog, Training with No comments

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.

Coaching & Training Mental Toughness

by AdamRingler on June 19, 2011 in Blog, Training with No comments

Factors determining Mental Toughness development

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.

We never accept excuses

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.

Teaching athletes how to work “ruthlessly hard”

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.

Dubstep Kettlebell Swings

by AdamRingler on June 5, 2011 in Blog with No comments

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.

Tim Lincecum Slow-Mo Pitching

by AdamRingler on April 13, 2011 in Blog, Training with No comments

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

Leadership. It’s a 24/7 Responsibility

by AdamRingler on February 15, 2011 in Uncategorized with No comments

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.

All posts tagged Training

Shocker Summer Strength & Conditioning Programming

Coaching & Training Mental Toughness