I earned every athletic award conceivable and I earned a college scholarship to play football at a small division 1AA school - St. Johns University. If it weren't for the fact that my uncle had taught me how to perform heavy squats, dead lifts, bench presses and box jumps - when I was only 14 years old, I wouldn't’t have achieved ½ of all the success that I did.
I learned at a very young age that the season is won in the off season. I got so strong and fast during the off-season that sometimes I couldn't wait until the season was over so that I could get bigger, stronger and faster - all over again (this was before in-season training was popular)
The best strength coach I ever had...
In college, I lifted like a maniac and destroyed all of the schools strength records. At 230 pounds I ran the fastest 40 on the football team - 4.34 (the coaches made me run it 4 times to make sure that is wasn't a mistake!) This was my freshman year and the strength coach at the time was an ex-power lifter. He designed programs the same way that my uncle did. Heavy squats, dead lifts, bench press and cleans. He knew more about speed development than my uncle, so we did a lot of jumping, bounding and sprinting up stair cases, but as far as sprint training went… that was it. I was the strongest and fastest I had ever been.
The worst strength coach I ever had...
The following year, our university hired a new strength and conditioning coach. This guy was about 150 pounds 'soaking wet' and had a doctorate in exercise physiology. The first thing that our new "strength" coach did, was to add an arsenal of fancy new exercises with yoga balls, rubber bands and wobble boards. We trained a ton of ‘speed technique with cones and latters’. The biggest change he had made to our program was that he reduced the amount of weight that we were lifting… for safety reasons.
That was the first season that I ever got injured.
As I got "smarter", I got weaker!
Question:
Have you ever felt like there is way too much information on strength & conditioning, and that you don’t even know where to begin? Well, that was me.
After graduation, I studied exercise physiology in college and met much of the same type of ‘educated’ students and coaches teaching tons of fancy new ball and band exercises - so called stabilization and core stuff. Because they were all "smarter than me", I figured they knew what they were doing…so I went along with it.
After grad school I interned at a gym with some guys that were the experts in this 'core training'. They “taught” me everything!! Now, I was smart too.
I've amassed a huge library on ‘functional training’, I've taken several courses all over the country and even began training athletes with these new techniques. Long story short, my athletes were not getting stronger and they were not getting faster… although they could stand on a yoga ball and juggle pink, plastic coated dumbbells at the same time! - All in the name of being on the "cutting edge."
I almost gave up.
Needless to say, I was pretty upset and discouraged about the whole sports performance profession - I was almost ready to give up. As a last ditch effort to recover my passion, I spoke with my uncle about the methods he used to transform me into a high school super-star. After our long talk about what it takes to become a championship athlete - and several months of re-researching in a new direction..
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Here are a few things that I discovered.
Most of the new and cutting edge sports and fitness training 'guru's' are great marketers! They understand that in order to sell tickets to their seminars and sell their books - they must devise new and exciting techniques for you to get excited about.
Also, because they must appeal to the parents of young children, who want to see their 'little tigers' doing speed and agility drills that seem safe and fun they spend your time and hard earned money teaching you fancy foot tricks that don't make athletes any faster!
Myth #1:
Athletes can get faster by improving sprint mechanics and speed drills...
Let's face it - athletes today are plain-old weak!
More often than not, parents walk into my gym and demand that I teach their son or daughter to get faster. This is all well and good, but when I simply ask Junior (who is 6'1 - 205lbs) to perform a bodyweight squat and he can't do it without rounding his low back and keeping his chest up - I have to tell mom that it cant be done!
The foundation for all sports movements - including sprinting, is a solid, unshakeable foundation of STRENGTH (and flexibility). Not only must you be strong enough to move your own bodyweight, you've got to be able to do it with other athletes learching themselves at you... and you had better be able to do it quickly!
Relative Body Strength is the single most important quality to develop for increased power and speed.
What this means in a nut shell is that the athlete that can move his own bodyweight with the greatest ease will generally be the faster athlete.
Teaching sprint technique drills speed drills to a weak athlete - is a waste of time!
As far as technique is concerned.. think about this. If you are a running back carrying the ball towards the end zone with 12, 200+ lb. behemoths trying to rip your head off, are you thinking:
A) Keep my elbows "tight" and hands loose.
B) Reach with my heel forwards and pull back against the turf.
C) Grunt!... Ugh, *pant* *pant*... arggg! CRASH!!!
"Get stronger, and the rest will follow!" - This doesn't mean that we don't speed train, it simply means that we begin with the foundations of speed and build from there.
Myth #2:
It is important to build an aerobic base of conditioning before intense weight training.
Aerobic training for an anaerobic sport makes as much sense as playing the piano to become a better singer. This is an "apples and oranges" situation. Unfortunately, regardless of all the literature suggesting that running a mile or even a 300 yard shuttle, for that matter - has very little impact on a football players ability to perform his sport, many coaches still train these events and even test their athletes with them.
Football is an anaerobic sport and must be trained as such. If this weren't the case, then Lance Armstrong would be trying out for the Atlanta Falcons next season.
A more productive alternative to jogging or cycling a couple of miles would be to perform multiple anaerobic activities with short rest intervals over a prolonged period of time. For example, performing a GPP (general physical preparedness) workout that consists of bodyweight calisthenics (jumping jacks, bodyweight squats, squat thrusts, etc.), movement skills (power skipping, side shuffling, back pedaling, etc.) and mobility drills, is far superior to linear, slow, long-distance running.
By performing exercises that challenge an athlete’s relative body strength , balance and coordination in a continuous fashion, we’re able to improve their endurance without the loss in muscle mass, and speed that’s associated with the slow distance method. In fact with my program it is not unusual to have athletes gain 20-30 lbs of mass and have improved endurance!!
Myth #3:
"Functional Training" with physio balls, rubber bands and wobble boards will make your athletes stronger.
I don't know about you, but I would like to coach a team of STRONG, Massive and Explosive athletes. The bottom line is that this is only achievable when they are lifting heavy weights, eating a ton of food and sprinting / jumping often.
Athletes can not get STRONG, Massive and Explosive using what has been termed as "Functional Training."
***Please don't make the same mistake that I did, and waste your time and money learning training systems that are suited for old ladies and circus performers. There are many savvy marketers out there disguised as "Strength Coaches" that are tricking coaches and athletes into believing that their techniques will prevent injuries and produce results - this is simply untrue. Also, several of them have fancy tools, toys and machines for sale... remember that I received a college scholarship by training with a few weight plates and 1 barbell in my parents basement.
So-called "functional training" has it's place - but is isn't your weight room.
1) All athletes must perform Max Effort Upper and Lower Exercises weekly.
This means that exercises like the Dead Lift, Squats and Bench Press must be
heavy enough that it can only be lifted a maximum of 3-5 times.
2) All athletes must perform "Jump-Speed" training every week.
This means that building Absolute Strength is only one part of the equation. Athletes must be able to transfer their newly-build strength into explosive POWER. To do this athletes must use exercises like Box Jumps, Speed Squats, Bounding and Vertical Jumping.
3) All athletes must perform "Speed-Flex" training every day.
Being big, strong and powerful is not worth your weight in beans if you are tight and slow. Most high school and college football players spend most of their days seated in a classroom or on a couch. This leads to chronically tight hip flexors, glutes and pec minor. We use a simple 3 step formula that eliminates the most common causes of immobility.
4) All athletes must perform Body Building techniques to build MASS.
I'm sure you've heard the saying "Athletes should not train like bodybuilders." Well, I completely disagree. We all know that bodybuilders are the most massive of all athletes, although they are tight and slow. But if done properly, the techniques used buy these mass monsters can be quite productive for young, skinny athletes. The truth is "You can't flex bone!" If you are skinny or weak and lack real muscle mass you MUST use some form or bodybuilding in your program.
5) All athletes must condition using "Work Capacity" or GPP circuits.
Like I mentioned earlier, football is an anaerobic sport. Conditioning for these athletes must emulate the type of energy demands that will be placed on them during a game-like situation. Short-Hard bursts of energy followed by a rest interval. If you still have your athletes running miles and training like a marathoner, then you'll get what your asking for - a team of kids that look more like Nicole Richie than Richie Anderson (ex- NY Jet).
6) **BONUS** Secret Principle - Use Russian Conjugated Periodization
Here is an example of the often used "Traditional Western" form of periodization used my most football and strength coaches in the USA.
===5-weeks of 'Conditioning' followed by
===5-weeks of 'Strength Training' followed by
===5-weeks of 'Power Training' followed by
===5-weeks of 'Sports Specific' training.
With "Conjugated" periodization we train ALL energy systems and strength qualities AT THE SAME TIME. This make the most sense because when you leave one phase for another you lose the strength / energy system qualities from the preceding phase. Also many high school football players are multi-sport athletes and need to be STRONG, CONDITIONED & FAST - all year round! This form of periodization is a no-brainer but often over looked or ignored in most training programs.
Alright, I can hear you now...
"Elliott, this is all great information, but I need
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Still not sure? Call me at 727-501-6811 or E Mail elliott@strengthcamp.com
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