13 Things I've Learned the Hard Way
05/01/2008
Since my good friends Mike Boyle and Brijesh Patel have started the trend of articles and lectures that expound on lessons they have learned over the years, I thought I would throw in my 13 cents. Obviously, I haven’t learned as much as Mike and Brijesh as I can only claim 13 lessons that life has impressed upon me in my journey. However, when you are a slow learner, need repeated lessons and learn best by rote the journey is a slower but more profound process.
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20 Tips From SBCC
05/01/2008
1.Always keep your head in a neutral position while squatting. Dropping your head causes a reflex relaxation of the lumbar muscles, which can predispose your athlete to injury.
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Athlete Needs
05/01/2008
In today’s world of athletic competition there are four areas of need in which athletes must demonstrate some mastery in order to excel on the field, court, track, or ice. These are broad overviews which are common to all sports regardless of gender, age or position.
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Diversifying your Repertoire
05/01/2008
Are you feeling bored and tired from your typical exercise programs? Do you find yourself constantly looking around for new workouts and new exercises? Have no fear, as I have come to the rescue with a plan for expanding your exercise menu that will undoubtedly be a cut-above all of the mindless training programs out there.
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Fitness Fundamentals for Emerging Athletes
05/01/2008
The age of sensitivity is critical to increasing the bio-motor qualities of coordination, rhythm, balance, strength, speed, power and work capacity in children. As they mature, each of these qualities is trainable at different rates as well as varying times as the child ages. There is gender as well as individual differences in children’s ability to acquire these traits in relation to age.
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Got Training?
05/01/2008
Variety is not only the spice of life, but also be the spice of training. Just as everything in life is not the same, everything in training is not the same. With numerous training methods available, the key is identifying the goal you wish to attain and then train accordingly for that goal.
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Move It or Lose It:
05/01/2008
Speed is the most sought after quality in athletics, yet it is also the most misunderstood. In sport, as the level of competition increases, so does the role of speed in determining success. Take a look back at your high school and college teams, and you’ll likely recall that the best players were also the best athletes.
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Move it or Lose it: Creating a Training Platform
05/01/2008
The human body is an intricate matrix of 603 muscles and 206 bones that need to work together to produce optimal, pain free motion. 

When one of these muscles becomes tight due to a loss of flexibility it will have a profound effect on the next muscle or bone in its path. Of course, there are a few muscles out of the 603 that can become tight and weak and barely cause a ripple in the overall picture. But what happens when a larger muscle loses its elasticity?
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Power Development
05/01/2008
Power development is of primary importance for athletes of virtually every sport. The ability to generate force in a short amount of time in order to accelerate the body and/or an implement is central to most sporting endeavors. In designing a program, there are many variables, but only a relative few will create a training effect of power.
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Speed Training: Breaking the Speed Barrier
05/01/2008
When writing a program to enhance speed development in our athletes, we must first take a step back and ask what the demands of the sports are. Most sports require quick stops and starts (deceleration and acceleration) with several changes of direction.
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Starting A Plyometric Program
05/01/2008
Plyometrics have become a buzz word that has players and coaches jumping, both literally and figuratively. Box Jumps, Russian Boxes, Hurdles Hops etc. etc. are recommended to develop speed and power. However, plyometrics can present as many problems as solutions. Numerous questions arise when athletes or coaches ask about plyometrics.
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The Super Bench Program
05/01/2008
This bench training program I was first exposed to by the coaches at the University of Washington Huskies back when they were winning the national championship in football. Rick Huegli and Bill Gillespie were the coaches that were so gracious as to teach me this training cycle and it proved to be wonderful at creating gains as well as providing enough bench press sets and reps for even the most ardent bencher. It was designed to set you up on a four week cycle at the end of which you would either max or add 2.5% to your old max and continue to train.
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Time Efficient Training
05/01/2008
Some individuals use high repetition sets, some use low rep sets, while others may even train one set to failure. These methods are all accepted by those in the strength and conditioning realm, but very few people implement one important element that we experience every day as a training factor…Time!? Let me explain.
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Two Simple Tests to Measure Agility, Quickness and Foot Speed
05/01/2008
There are many tests that are used to measure agility, quickness and foot speed as well as acceleration. I believe that many times we confuse agility with mobility. The difference in my opinion is agility is quick, purposeful movements exhibiting balance, rhythm and coordination but do not cover much ground.
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10 Things I Used to Think Were True
I am certain of only one thing. I will never be certain about anything again. I’m known for being opinionated. What I am doing at the time is always what I think is best for my athletes or clients. With that said, I am often criticized for changing as the research or information available changes. Sounds like I have multiple personality disorder or some other personality defect. Not sure if I do but, ADD is a strong possibility. With that in mind I want to go over ten things I used to think were true.
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1st Annual Basketball Strength and Conditioning Symposium Review
Strength and Conditioning was often overlooked for the sport of basketball. Many coaches thought that weight training would make you bulky, slow and affect a player’s jump shot. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The role of the strength and conditioning coach in basketball has greatly expanded over the years as coach’s have finally realized that strength and conditioning coach’s can do more for their players than just lift weights. My good friend, Ray Eady, wrote a great piece of how basketball players can benefit from a balanced strength and conditioning program.
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20 Basic Training Tips for Basketball Players
Why is it important for a basketball player to weight train? Simple, basketball is a physically demanding sport in which the player must be a complete athlete: strong and explosive while exhibiting fine motor skills when shooting, passing, rebounding, and dribbling. Basketball players must be conditioned to the demands of the sport. Weight training has been shown to increase the strength of muscular contractions, speed, and flexibility. The result is a stronger and faster player. Unfortunately, some players (high school and collegiate) do not understand the importance of strength training. In addition, those who do train seem to ignore the importance of lower body and core strength focusing entirely on upper body aesthetics. A basketball player must be able to efficiently run, shuffle, jump, and cut. All of these movements are performed primarily through the use of the ankles, knees, hips and core. In reality, players should possess the proper strength, power, flexibility, balance, coordination, and quickness to effectively compete on the court.
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A Practical Approach to Torso Training Part I
If there was an area of the body that we could train that could result in faster throws, hitting farther, throwing farther, running faster, would you use it? Of course you would, it would only make sense. The torso is the area that I’m referring to, and can help you maximize your performance on the field, court, or ice. The term torso refers to the middle area of the body. Other terms that are commonly used to describe this region are core, abdominals, abs, or the trunk. There are many muscles that are located in this region. We will break the muscles down into two main categories, global muscles and local muscles.
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A Practical Approach to Torso Training Part II
In Part I of this series, I discussed the different muscles that make up the core or torso region and highlighted those most important to proper function, health and peak performance. As mentioned in Part I, all movement is initiated with the core musculature. The deep (local) abdominals are recruited first to help stabilize the spine and make the subsequent movements – those with your limbs - more efficient (no wasted energy).
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Agility Loads and Progressions
In my experience of training high level collegiate and professional athletes the need for a progression of individual agility/mobility drills as well as a generalized load progression is very apparent. Garrett Giemont was the first individual that enlightened me to the concept of agility drill progressions. Mike Arthur and Bryan Bailey of the University of Nebraska also helped shaped my thoughts as they felt that agility/mobility drill for sport are nothing more than multi-directional plyometrics. Melding these concepts with the experience of observing literally thousands of athletes executing millions of reps have created the following progressions.
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Athlete Needs
In today’s world of athletic competition there are four areas of need in which athletes must demonstrate some mastery in order to excel on the field, court, track, or ice. These are broad overviews which are common to all sports regardless of gender, age or position.
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Basic Hip Mobility
The knee is a slave to the hip and ankle. When there is knee discomfort or pain, it is generally better to focus above and/or below the joint affected and address that dysfunction than to focus on the knee itself and attempt to solve the symptom. Once the ankle or hip dysfunction is remedied, then the knee will be free to move as designed and the symptom of discomfort or pain will disappear. Many times the problem that is causing the knee to have discomfort or pain is just the loss of general mobility in the hip or ankle. With just a couple of very basic exercises, it is relatively easy to remedy this problem most problems that occur in the hip which lead to knee pain.
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Basketball: Contact or Collision
Current medical terminology has sports classified into three different subcategories. First there are Non Contact sports. Non Contact sports have a low intensity and a low static demand, meaning there is no physical contact with another athlete. Golf is an example of a non contact sport. Unless you happen to pair Happy Gilmore and Bob Barker together!
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Bringing Back the Shoulders
Peak performance in competition should always be the primary goal of training. The unfortunate and sometimes unavoidable consequences of sport are fatigue, breakdown and, ultimately, injury. In contact and non-contact sports, the shoulder girdle is highly essential for performance. It is also a very vulnerable area. Injuries that occur here may become chronic and debilitating. For this reason, we cannot overlook the importance of the shoulder girdle in our training programs.
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Combat To The Core
In this recent news story, Combat to the Core, Staff Sgt. Carlos Diaz discusses strengthening of our service men and women discusses a comprehensive approach to their abdominal training.
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