No pain, no gain was a very prevalent attitude when I began coaching in the late Sixties, surprisingly it continues to persist today in certain circles. I have never been able to figure out the appeal of this approach. Proper training in the weight room or on the field demands that the athlete be pushed to test their limits at various times in training. Some workouts are very difficult and other w [...]

Be very wary of coaches who take absolute stances. You see this with many sprint coaches and strength coaches now a days. They are terrified of fiber type conversions, when in reality it is just a gross simplification of the process. Fiber changes are very complex. - Steve MagnessLatif Thomas, a sprint coach offers a structured approach in developing a sprint stable at the HS level with cross coun [...]

Mike Boyle's RFESS (rear foot elevated split squat) has made some serious waves in the strength and conditioning community. I think that is important that he dares say no to back squat or front squat any more. My question now is with olympic lifts being bilateral, can the same be said with the back being a poor transducer (better stated as a coupling agent due to anatomical syntax) with cleans? I [...]

When I picked up the paper and saw that the New York Yankees has won their 27th championship all I could think of was sustained excellence. Literally since I was an athlete in high school and vaguely entertaining the thought of coaching sustained excellence has been a fascination for me. There was a school in our league, Santa Clara High School, that year in year out was dominant in football and b [...]

I enjoyed every minute of University of Oregon's victory over USC on Saturday night. I had a preview last May during a visit with my good friend and colleague Jim Radcliffe. He spoke about the tempo of practices and some of the changes and modifications they had made. It sure showed on the field. Jim is an Athletic Development coach, he gets the big picture, they use Olympic lifting, but the way [...]

I thought we flushed the internet hype and nonsense and it seems that deadlifting for speed is lingering around and infecting messageboards like a "bear flu". After finding out that one guru blew up an had an athlete deadlift 510 pounds with a snatch grip for combine prep and he was unable to attend the tryout I must stop the madness. I have seen world class performances (read faster than any fo [...]

The third leg of the California trip was to the Bay Area to visit friends and family. We visited Jon Haskins, Director of Player Development for Stanford Football. Jon took us on a tour of the changes athletic complex, much of which my wife had not seen. The highlight for her was seeing the new football stadium. We then visited my wife’s roommate/bridesmaid from Stanford. It was fun visiting wit [...]

Preseason, two or three times a day practice is almost here in American football, collegiate soccer and volleyball. Each of the past three years at close to the same I have posted on this. In my 40 years of coaching and my additional four years of enduring six years of two and sometimes three a day practices as a football player I am convinced that this is where more championship are lost than won [...]

Have you ever watched offensive and defensive linemen do so called “form running’ drills? It is the most nonathletic disjointed looking activity you could imagine, certainly the epitome of mindless exercise for this population. I think the players just go through the motions because they intuitively know it has nothing to do with the ability to play their position, it is another task they must [...]

Dr Dave Joyner MD one of our GAIN Faculty members shared with us the Paterno Rule during his presentation. Dave was an All –American lineman played for Paterno. The Paterno rule is simple – You remember the last thing you do, a very simple statement with complex implications for both cognitive and motor learning. My good friend and colleague, Gary Winkler shared with me a similar concept. His [...]