You have an athlete that repeatedly falls out of control with her body every time she does a shuffle change of direction or a shuttle run change of direction. As she plants her outside foot to change the direction, her shoulders rotate toward the plant leg, and she shifts her upper body in that direction …
Isn’t it funny how we typically look at the feet, legs, and hips when we talk about speed and ignore the upper body, arms, and especially the head and eyes? I’m not going to talk about the upper body (arms, thorax, core…); however, I will dive into the influence of the head and eyes. When …
I can’t tell you how much I love watching old clips of the great lateral movers in sports- Barry Sanders, Roger Federer, Steffi Graff, Mia Hamm… Of course, I love watching today’s younger athletes, as well! The ability to create space for themselves or get to the ball quickly with one or two quick lateral …
Many of us are stuck in a world of quick access and immediate results. It’s so bad that high-level collegiate and professional strength coaches are looking at YouTube before a training session to “get more drills.” We are just not being thoughtful enough as a profession to understand why we have to follow a system …
Thoughts on Program Design Here are my thoughts on program design. Please understand these thoughts are not standards, but simply additional concepts that can make your programming more thoughtful. Remember, training is not just a science; it is an art. Program design may be the single most important area when it comes to training athletes. …
This is a topic that has been hot for years… Why should kids play at the park, or with friends, in an unorganized play structure versus having all their sports and activities organized by a coach? Have you ever watched a 30 for 30 on ESPN or a documentary about star athletes? Without fail, it …
A Guide On How To Use Skipping Coaches need to stop and think before they speak! People often say things because we’ve heard them told before. We regurgitate words as we’ve listened to them—an all too common strategy in coaching. How many times have you heard your coach say, “Well, that’s the way my coach …
If you want to convince me to have my child train with you, come to me with more than shiny new equipment and a tee shirt. Those are what we call features, and these features are not going to sell me. If you are trying to convince parents, athletes, coaches, you are the place to …
Bells and Whistles Versus Concepts and Principles Read More »
The Coaches “Cueing” Cheat Sheet! Man does it helps when you have a cheat sheet. It allows you to peek to know what cue goes with what mechanics. Take a closer look… Let’s say our athletes are running a staggered stance acceleration for 5-yards. What are some valuable cues? Cue: “Chase Your Shoulders”! This cue …
In typical programming, we want to start using light weights or bodyweight as the maximal intensity. This makes sense in certain aspects of training, especially for strength training. We can gain great performance in lateral speed development by loading early and reducing load later in the training phase. When placing a band around an athlete …
