This video is why we need more strength coaches sharing what to do and less PTs giving us insight on power. This is not real power. Power is measured and what is being shared (single arm exercises with light loads) can't do anything for increasing power with athletes unless they are truly untrained. I can't imagine a running back at a D1 program going through the hole explosively from the traini [...]

The Arabesque Reach, modified from both shotput glide work and ballet is a warm-up exercise for lifting. It is a screen, a corrective movement, and just an option. From this video I can tell a lot about various strength and posture issues that must be worked on next year after the season is done with her coach as this athlete is not even going to be in the same country for most of the season. Modi [...]

Over the years I have asked questions on what is the truth. This path of questioning comes with a price, since the truth may not be what people want to hear. Doing something wrong for years while shouting everyone else is a fool or arrogantly believing they have all the answers. Since 1998 I have been looking at why things work and ask questions every day. I don't have all the answers but I do kn [...]

Fundamentals or Advanced Training? I don't think drills are bad but they tend to fail to prove that they transfer as much as we think to believe. Some drills may have different effects on various athletes and various times of development. A drill at an early stage may teach a part but at advance levels may hinder change. Some drills are just physical tools to stretch or strengthen parts of the ev [...]

In track training, most of our workouts are centered around distances. Run 6 x 200m, 8 x 150m, etc. This makes good sense and is easy to standardize, make comparisons, and track the progress of training. The problem though is that success in track is judged by time not distance. So I was thinking...what if you made all (or some) of your workouts time based rather than distance based. While I alrea [...]

Many times we are proud as coaches of what we do and use youtube as a way to share with the world our accomplishments. Still, let's focus on every athlete that may not be the star. One of my own coaches made an effort that the slowest person on the team still be a model on how to do things the right way...just a little bit slower. Lesson learned for today is don't post a youtube video of athlete [...]

The cut step is the last stride before the hurdle and the great hurdlers purposely alter the length and stride time in order to set up optimal take off. This is very difficult to teach as the step is so fast it can't be drilled effectively without proper coaching. I am not saying I am the expert on the cut step but many hurdlers need to set up their take off point optimally or they will find them [...]

Summation of forces is simply to time the links of the skeletal segments in an orderly fashion from the ground up. This is a simple concept as many events in sport movement occur this way. Training needs to encourage summation of forces as much as possible as the strength ratios of muscle groups must be cultivated in harmony. Many times athletes will hear working on the posterior chain catch phras [...]

Here's another 5 minute clip from Dan Pfaff from the National Podium Education Project in Las Vegas. This talk was on absolute strength and power development for world class horizontal jumpers. As you may be able to tell, Pfaff is a generalist and many of the themes that he uses for coaching one event group are used in what may appear to be very different event groups. Enjoy. [...]

Stiffness and mobility are often looked as isolated modalities but they are a complex interaction when trained. It would be convenient that one can just do some mobility drills or bridges to become a great athlete but that is far from the truth. Reducing muscle slack at key times and allowing controlled motion requires very good coaching abilities, hence why interns at various performance centers [...]