Gravity will kick your assGravity wins every timeSo does gravity suck? No way!Gravity can be your friendGravity instructs if you are willing to learn from itGravity can be chanced and enhancedLearn to cheat it and use it to your advantage and you will be great!Run Fast, Jump High and Throw Far! [...]

I spend a lot of time with friends who are coaches. Invariably the topic turns to today’s athletes, and to one question: “Are they different?They certainly are different in many ways from the athletes of 1969, when I started coaching. But the biggest differences are not in the athletes themselves, but in the society we live in.One of those differences has been a breakdown in discipline. Discip [...]

If you are an overhead athlete, a thrower, tennis player, swimmer, volleyball player etc. you need to use strengthening exercises that involve overhead movements. This is another myth that seems to pervade the exercise community and has definitely sprinted in to the athletic development community. You need to pay close attention to how you get overhead. You must get hip to the shoulder. Cheat and [...]

It's the time of year where folks who are doing meaningful indoor seasons have a significant idea of where they are. Certain improvements are maturing and becoming more evident in training and competitive environments. Certain insufficiencies and limiting qualities are also very apparent. Often things that aren't there lack the basic supports to be there. Once you're into the competitive se [...]

I am reading Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin (Really thought provoking so far), he got me thinking of how hard people work at being average. It caused me to reflect on people and situations I have seen throughout my career. He is absolutely correct; people that are average, into job preservation really do work at it. They avoid risk and conflict for fear that someone will notice them. They talk m [...]

"Strength and conditioning will get you lengths and lengths. Technique will get you inches." Karl Adam, German Rowing Coach. I would add my comment to Coach Adams statement, the two must be developed concurrently, not separately. The more they are combined and blended the higher the level of possible performance. They go together like hand in glove as the old saying goes. If you don't have the [...]

Many current gurus provide sample speed/power plans that recommend volumes of speed/power elements that I find paltry for the majority of situations. I think a lot of this bias can be traced back to incomplete backgrounds heavily centered toward the force end of the force/velocity curve (weightroom centric strength and conditioning backgrounds, heavily powerlifting based backgrounds, etc..) If [...]

The concept of continual adaptation is something I have been working to get my arms around since we all met to plan the Michigan Women’s swim dryland program this past September. Jim Richardson, Women’s swim coach at Michigan got me thinking about this. Continual adaptation is not continual improvement. Continual adaptation is a viable concept because different physical qualities adapt at diff [...]

Training is a cumulative process. The workout is one piece of a much bigger picture. Training is not one spectacular or particularly tough workout, rather it is a succession of workouts designed to fit into the overall plan in pursuit of specific training objectives. Anyone can make a workout hard, but the essential element is context. Where does it fit? One workout cannot stand alone. One great w [...]

I was saying hello to one of my former high school athletes the other day (a high school senior) and asked how they were progressing and they were doing just that; progressing. I knew she would be. Not because she has overwhelming talent, perfect facilities, great training plans, any therapy, or great coaching, but because she wanted it. Most athletes, don't want it enough plain and simple. S [...]