Mike Young did a great interview with Andreas a while ago, and I wanted to get more into detail about why I believe Andreas will be one of the new blood that will trickle down to new coaches. He is perhaps one of the most generous coaches in sharing, and he deserves all the accolades he gets now. He has paid his dues and I am one of his fans. I looked at some of the questions and can only comment [...]

In the late 1990s, I was in college and interning with the then Tampa Bay Devil Rays. During one game against the Texas rangers, Tony Saunders was pitching and I was in the dugout looking down at my bag of sunflower seeds and heard a snap, similar to a bat making contact. It was Tony's arm breaking and he was rolling around in pain. The echo of the snap still haunts me as the dome was empty that [...]

"Athletes evaluated during two seasons showed no changes in their nutritional behavior, consuming similar amounts of energy, calcium and vitamin D at both assessment points."-Dr. Garcia and Dr.Guisado I am not here to place judgement on a gruesome injury, but I think I will look at my blood testing schedule again to ensur [...]

When I was a kid, I was blood tested and had low iron and supplemented to raise my levels. I took the pills and drank orange juice to "help absorption". Ten years later in college, I read Dr. Colgan's Optimum Sports Nutrition and was fascinated with his use of blood testing with athletes. When I had national level athletes in the late 90s, I went on Netscape Navigator (young coaches have it goo [...]

The individual training session is the cornerstone of the entire training plan. The individual training session is the point of implementation of the long-term plan. A long-term plan is a succession of linked individual training sessions in pursuit of specific objectives.The training session should occupy the greatest emphasis in planning and execution.Each session should be carefully evaluated an [...]

I thought it would interesting to share with you a personal approach to the evolution of strength training as I have seen it using my experiences as an athlete and coach who has been involved in strength training for 50 years. When I began weight training in 1963, it was not commonly accepted as a method of training, in fact weight training was discouraged. There were concerns that you would becom [...]

Many of the "hot" concepts in training regard inputs and internal workings of the body, yet for any athlete or performance coach, the most important factor is the outputs... or performance (or attitude/affect or any other outward physical signs). In the athletic setting, results matter, and although the internal workings can give a deeper understanding, ultimately, it rarely dictates outcomes.In [...]

After reading Mladen's blog, I decided that I should share my positive findings with Gymaware, since power is making a comeback in sports. His post on olympic lifting was excellent, and I hope he writes more.Power training and power testing are sometimes not the same, and here is a great way to integrate both monitoring and actual interventions into a good program. I am not against force plates a [...]

How important are letters of recommendation and references? In my opinion they are very important. Seldom, if ever, will a candidate list someone as a reference who would give a negative recommendation. I will often ask a candidate if they would give me someone who would give a negative recommendation and why that person would be negative. I want people who are honest. My concern is a way to find [...]

I'm very proud of the coaches that work for me at Athletic Lab. They've all gone through an extensive internship and mentoring program before being hired and are well qualified in terms of credentials and experience. Professional development is actually a job requirement and one of the things I've encouraged them to do is to write as a means of both teaching others and learning themselves (the [...]