There seems to be a wide range of opinion on the ability to change running mechanics. I am off the opinion that you change running mechanics. This was reinforced to me yesterday when I was watching the baseball team that I work with do some running. Because of Christmas vacation I had not seen them in awhile, the head coach was doing the running so I was able to stand a little further back and obs [...]

Those are harsh words so when I was channel surfing last week and heard those words I stopped surfing and listened. One of the ESPN pundits, a former pro football player (so of course he must know everything about football and even more about strength training) was expounding on the recent failure and perceived deficiencies of a pro football team. He identified the fact that even though there had [...]

I was sent an article written by Ken Mannie, Strength and Conditioning coach at Michigan State entitled Traditional vs. Functional: Balancing the Scales. What is the difference between traditional training and functional training or traditional strength training and functional strength training? Is there a difference? What scales are we trying to balance? Let start with a definition - Functional [...]

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the Air Force Academy football practice and subsequent strength training session at the invitation of Matt McGettigan, head Football Strength & Conditioning coach. It was an amazing show. If you want to talk about getting a lot done in short period of time, in short efficiency that is what I saw. Not a minute wasted. This scheduled is dictated by the [...]

I just checked out this photo article from Fox Sports. In it, they put out their top 10 list of 2 sport (really multi-sport since some on the list did 3+ sports) athletes of all time. What's the common denominator of the over-whelming majority on that list? They excelled at track. In fact, 8 out of the 10 to make the list were track stars at some level and 4 of the 10 were Olympic Gold medalists [...]

Late last evening, suspended 100m champion Justin Gatlin was granted a ray of hope for competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials that start next week. I don't think this is right and I don't think I want him to be granted the opportunity to compete but I sure am curious to see how he will compete (if he does). I can't imagine he'll run faster than 10.20. For one, he's looked out of shape in recent [...]

As some of you may know, I'm an avid reader of DIGG. I love the semi-random mix of tech, social, and political news that is pushed to the top. Well, I was checking it out this morning and there was a story that caught my eye about steroids gone bad. Given the current spate of drug-related track news that seems to have eclipsed the actual performances on the track, I figured this might be a good d [...]

A couple of years ago I picked up a book called One Great Game by Don Wallace, it was about a game about De la Salle High School from Concord California against Long Beach Ploy high school from Long Beach California. The account of the De La Salle program left me amazed and wanted to know more. For those of you that don’t follow it De La Salle owns the record for consecutive wins at 151 gam [...]

I just obtained a copy of Wrestling Physical Conditioning Encyclopedia by John Jesse. Paddy Mortimer was gracious enough to send it to me in exchange for an East German book that I have that is out is out of print. This book is awesome, full of great practical information. You are probably asking who is John Jesse? John Jesse was an expert on strength training, injury prevention and rehabilitation [...]

I was recently asked to contribute to the "Ask Anything" column in Maxim magazine. In this front-of-the-magazine section, Maxim solicits random questions from readers, thenconsult "real experts for actual, scientific answers." I was asked to answer the question why so many gifted athletes are pigeon-toed? Here's my answer (and a special thanks to CFKA for the ball analogies):While there†[...]