Learning the Ropes

Recently we started using ropes in our training. We had an old tug of war rope sitting in the gym and I decided to grab my circular saw and cut it up into 12 different pieces of about 5-6 feet long. That gave us one rope for each rack in our weight room. Now on Monday-Wednesday-Friday we use the ropes for bodyweight rows as part of our warm-up. Our warm-up consists of a circuit of overhead squats (with a doubled up mini-band around the knees), rope rows, and pec/calf stretches. There are a few reasons we decided to use the ropes on a more regular basis.

1. Its really hard to mess up a rope row. When pulling on a stationary object for bodyweight rows, you can get all kinds of arm angles instead of the nice perpendicular angle that you want. With a rope row, this is almost natural.
2. You get a tremendous amount of grip work with the ropes. When we first started using them, almost no one was able to keep their grip for all three sets. Now its not a problem.
3. More bicep work. I know, I know. But we don't have the time to do any "beach work" so it keeps the kids enthusiastic about lifting. Teenagers want more muscular arms and anytime I can help them with that, while keeping it "functional", I will. We especially get good effort when we combine our pushups with rows for super sets during our high rep upper body tier.
4. More upper back work. This is the foremost reason I include these three days per week in our warm-up. I am of the belief that you cannot do too much upper back work. It keeps the shoulders healthy and provides a strong platform for our squats and assists in stabilizing the bar in our overhead lifts.

Sport Specific Training for High School Athletes

First let me say that this issue should be dead. Almost every single high school athlete can still be classified as a relative beginner. Most will have less than 4 years of actual lifting experience and some may have even less because of a lack of effective program design. For that reason, almost all should be trained in the same manner.  I don't really understand why coaches believe there should be a separate program for each sport or that some sports shouldn't do this exercise or that exercise. Now that may have some merit as you get into the college and professional ranks, but every strength and conditioning program should have the emphasis on building explosiveness in the hips and legs and balanced strength in the upper body. The whole point of the program should be to build an athlete who is stronger, more muscular, and more explosive. What sport does not need those attributes? I tell all my athletes when we first start, that I am trying to make them better overall athletes. We want to run faster, jump higher, and be explosive. I'm not trying to make a football player out of a guy who plays baseball year round. If he goes through our program, he will be a better baseball player. Basketball players will be able to jump higher and handle the pounding of playing aggressive defense. Sprinters will have strong hamstrings and starts that enable them to get the most out of their bodies in track. Throwers will have the explosiveness required to propel the implements as far as their technique allows. Pitchers will have strong legs that enable the stress to be taken off of the shoulders and strong upper backs to help decelerate the arm and prevent injury. Football isn't the only sport where the bulk of the off-season (and in-season in my opinion) should be spent in the racks. Here is my basic outline for all sports and the one I use the most often with my athletes.
Monday
Clean
Bench
Single Leg Movement
Upper body superset for volume and muscle mass development
Wednesday
Snatch
Low Box Squat
Overhead Press
Clean Pull/Shrug Pull
Posterior Chain Exercise
Friday
Clean and Jerk
Front Squat
Chinups
Snatch Pull/High Pull
Posterior Chain Exercise

I don't think there are high school athletes that would not benefit from this type of program. We will have a variety of speakers at this year's GSCA clinic. You can learn more about it at http://www.gscaclinic.blogspot.com/.

Structural Balance

Structural balance is a concept that I have been intrigued by for over 10 years. Charles Poliquin, to my knowledge, was the first to popularize this concept. His view is that there is an optimal strength ratio for multiple lifts and muscle groups of the upper and lower body. Charles Poliquin, along with Bill Starr, where the first two guys I really studied when I first started lifting. I still use many of his concepts to this day. Much like movement screening, these tests should reveal where an athlete is weak and what area he needs to bring up in order to be able to perform at his highest level. If an area is severly lacking, it is what is holding the lifter or athlete back.  He based all of the upper body tests on the 14 inch close grip bench press. Here are the ratios...
100%-Close Grip Bench Press
83%-45 degree Incline Bench Press-Medium Grip
81%-Chinups-Bodyweight + added weight
64%-Behind the Neck Press
46%-Preacher Curl with a Straight Bar
30%-Reverse Barbell Curl
9%-External Rotations-Done for 8 reps instead of max single. Search his article for a description on how to do this exercise.

When I ran the numbers on myself, I found that I was weak on preacher curl and external rotations. This wasn't suprising as I have done maybe 10 sets ever of preacher curl and haven't worked my external rotators directly in quite some time.

I know he has one for the lower body but haven't been able to find much about it. The only thing I found is that your front squat should be 85% of your back squat. I am sure that this is a high bar olympic back squat along with a full front squat.

Test yourself and see where you stand.

Movement Screening

Movement Screening is becoming one of my main interests. I believe that Gray Cook leads in this area and most others have followed suit. The information you can get from some of these tests are invaluable for your athletes and for you. The best example I can think of is with my offensive lineman. If you watch the NFL Combine at all, you will hear Mike Mayock say knee-bender and waist-bender one bazillion times. Now I am no movement expert at all. If anything, I am only an expert on how to raise two sets of twins. However, if you look at the ability to bend at the waist, it all begins at the ankle. If athletes are able to properly dorsiflex their ankle joint, then they are more able to keep their upper bodies in a good power position because the center of mass will always seek to stay over the base of support. So if you have someone with tight ankles, they must bend at the waist in order to keep their weight over their base of support. For this reason it is imperative that coaches institute drills and exercises that emphasize dorsiflexion, particularly with the knee flexed. I have found that one of the best ways to do this is with a loaded full squat stretch. We will assume a squat stance with the bar on our back as if we are going to perform full squats. I then instruct our athletes to squat down as far as they are able to go. Most of our dorsiflexion challenged athletes will immediately feel a stretch behind their ankles. We will then sway (think baseball catcher receiving a ball on the black) from side to side to deepen the stretch. I have had one athlete in particular who has totally changed his ability to bend at the knees after about 6 weeks of doing this 3 times per week. He might have acquired the ability earlier, I just didn't notice it until then. He went from having to bend at the waist to keep the bar over the middle of the foot, to being able to sit completely upright with his knees past his toes and the bar over the base of support. This ability in invaluable for all types of athletes and especially my football offensive lineman and defensive lineman.

Other useful drills...
Loaded Duck Walks
Stretches on a Seated Calf Raise
Overhead squats
Overhead duck walks
Not allowing your kids to wear those stupid shoes with the air and bouncy mechanisms in the heal their whole life.

Breakfast of Champions

No I'm not talking about wheaties or Dbol. For me, my breakfast of choice has become coffee mixed with two scoops of whey protein and a pinch of instant chocolate pudding. I love coffee and for 5 years or so I have been getting about 30 grams of sugar in every morning coffee. But recently, I switched to protein powder and instant pudding. I replaced 30 grams of sugar with 52 grams of protein and the amount of carbs from the pudding ends up being less than 6 grams per day. This has been a great way for me to start my day and get some extra protein in my diet. Not to mention how much better it tastes. Since I am a chocoholic, mixing chocolate protein with chocolate pudding gives me a nice treat every morning that should make a difference in how I look and feel. Nothing ground breaking but something that should make a difference in the long run. Over the course of a year, my old coffee routine would have me consume 10,950 grams of extra sugar per year. I have now replaced that with 18,980 grams of protein and only 1800 grams of sugar, give or take.

How I Adapted 5/3/1 Periodization To Our Program

When we first started the 5/3/1 protocol, it took some tinkering to get it suited for our program. First off, to get the full take on the 5/3/1 program you have to get Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 book. It is invaluable. You can pick it up at http://www.elitefts.com/. For us, this set/rep scheme seemed perfect. First off, it fit into our 3 weeks of loading with a 1 week of deloading protocol. Second, it allowed us to set a percentage but still allow flexibility to go off the plan if your having a good day. Third it allowed for intra-workout competition between lifters of different abilities.
In a nutshell, the 5/3/1 program has you work up to near a 5 rep max the first week, a 3 rep max the second week, and a 1 rep max the last week. I say near because our percentages are set so on the last set, the lifter can complete more than the minimum required. On the last set, we encourage our lifters to get as many reps as possible without missing or losing technique. These last two points are imperative. We never sacrifice technique and I discourage missing weights almost all of the time. This even works for our in-season lifters or the guy who just stayed up to 4am doing a project. If its a bad day, only complete the reps that are required. If you feel good, get AMRAP. Many times we also do a back down set with a lesser percentage for 8-10 reps for more volume. This program also picks up where linear periodization leaves off. Many of our younger kids gain strength so fast that the percentages can't keep up with them. By having plus sets, we can get around them not doing enough work to continue to make fast progress.
The following is our protocol for squat and it has worked very well. We test a below parallel squat but we train a low box squat. Most of our lifters squat off of a 12 inch box. This puts them well below parallel. You can see my previous post on the box squat for more information. We also drop our percentages for the box squat to account for a pause and a somewhat deeper range of motion. We normally take off about 10% from the training percents. For example, of we were going to start the first week at 80% on squat, we would use 70% like the example below. Since bench press is tested and trained the same, we would use 80% the first week.
Week 1-up to 70% x 5+
Week 2-up to 76% x 3+
Week 3-up to 82% x 1+
Week 4-70% x 5 with no plus sets. Should be easy.
Week 5-up to 73% x 5+
Week 6-up to 79% x 3+
Week 7-up to 85% x 1+
Week 8-70% x 5 with no plus sets. Should be easy.
Week 9- TEST
Week 10-Start over.

This type program insures that most every body is able to complete their daily reps even if they feel bad and allows the lifter to push himself when he feels good. Here is one example of  a success story. Very good athlete squatted 365 as an incoming freshman. Squatted 505 at the end of his freshman year. Then squatted 565 at the end of football season. He never trained with more than 435 in the gym but because of our plus sets, he was always able to push himself when he felt good. Our average increase on squat is 56lbs. per semester. We use this protocol on the bench press and squat. We program our clean differently but still maintain a 3/1 load to deload.

An Interview with Tony Kunczewski, CSCS, Strength and Conditioning Coach LaGrange College

 

Jay Floyd: Coach Kunczewski thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Can you start out by telling us a little about your background in strength and conditioning?



Coach Kunczewski: I have been a strength coach since 2001 all at small colleges including Allegheny College (PA), Bowdoin College (ME) and now at LaGrange College (GA). I’ve been a head strength and conditioning coach for going on six years now. I also train all of the varsity sports here at LaGrange. I have a masters’ degree in exercise science and health promotion. I’ve also been a C.S.C.S. since 2005. I really got heavily interested in strength and conditioning back in college. I was extremely fortunate to have played and trained under Jon Kolb. Coach Kolb was my defensive coordinator and strength coach in college. He was a self-made man who has four super bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers back in the ‘70’s as their starting left tackle. He got me doing the lifts that most people don’t want to do. To quote him, everybody does the “lifts that make you look good for the coin toss.” He had me doing deadlifts, cleans and overhead squats, the fun stuff.



JF: That’s awesome! I remember watching Jon Kolb on the first World’s Strongest Man competitions. He won the sumo wrestling event if I am not mistaken. I love that quote too. That will have to go up on the wall. From what you have already told us, I can get a feel for what your training beliefs are. Can you go into some more detail?



CK: I’ll readily admit that I’ve stolen our basics from others. This quote is from Chris Carlisle from Southern Cal, “How To-How Fast- How Much. It pretty much sums up the basics for our program. We focus on the proper mechanics of the exercise first. For example, when we teach guys how to squat we talk about getting the top of the thigh parallel to the ground. This is the “How To.” Once we have the form down we’ll turn our attention to how fast the bar is traveling. If you want to be fast you must lift fast. We don’t want the bar to move slowly. Only until we get those two figured out will we focus on how much weight we are putting on the bar. We aren’t too fancy as far as our core lifts. We will utilize the clean, snatch and push jerk as our primary Olympic lifts. The bench press, incline and floor press make up our upper body core lifts. The squat, deadlift, front squat and box squat make up our variations of the lower body core lifts. We use a lot of “max effort” lifting where we are finding a weight we can do for a specified amount of reps on the core lifts. We don’t go off of percentages because we feel that they change too frequently to keep up with. Our guys have a weight and rep goal each week to achieve. You must compete each week to achieve your goal. This should be no different than being out on the football field.



JF: Coach, that sounds great. It seems as if we are right in line with our thinking. The weight room should be no different than the football field. This is more the case in college but in high school many coaches are more focused on the “How Much” instead of the “How To”. If the “How To” is taken care of, many times the rest will fall into place. Coach, do you have any unique aspects to your program? What may be different from other programs?



CK: That is a tough question. I try to focus on the methods that have stood the test of time. There are so many things available out there that carry the mystique of being “cutting edge.” The only problem is do they really improve game performance in the long run? We try to spend more time on our guys working hard and competing than being unique. One way we feel helps accomplish those goals is to have a strongman competition every Friday during spring. Our guys compete within different weight classes in everything from tire flips, keg tosses, farmer’s walks, etc. Those events help teach our guys how to compete and finish. Plus, they look forward to the events each week. Making it fun is important.



JF: We added Strongman into our training this year as a finisher after workouts. The level of competition definitely goes up. It has really taught some of our younger guys to really compete. I am sure this had a huge impact at LaGrange College. For those that do not know, LaGrange College didn’t win a game the first 2 years and then won the conference in the 3rd. That is a huge turn around and I know the Strength Program was at the heart of that change. What were some other things that were key to your success? What obstacles did you have to face.



CK: Guys need to see some progress to help motivate them to continue to work hard. We test three times per year, at the start of the spring semester, at the end of the spring semester and at the beginning of camp. There are many reasons as to why we do that, but I believe the biggest is for them to see the success they can have in their personal numbers when they work hard. When you see progress, it can be a great motivator. You’ll always have guys that are resistant for many reasons from the fact that they just hate being in the gym or that we may do things differently than they did in high school. More guys started to “buy in” when we saw those “tangible” results either by their testing numbers or playing numbers. We’ve also had great leadership by example. When you see others busting their butt it hopefully will start to become contagious. That is something you can’t measure.



JF: What are your thoughts on speed and agility training?



CK: We are always careful to train the movement in our specific sport and not to get carried away by doing drills we will never replicate out on the field of play. We love doing any type of cone drill where you’re teaching them to react and not to move in a specific pattern. In most situations in sports, you must be able to change direction on the fly and not in a set pattern. As for speed, the one thing that we try to do is to make sure we are getting full recovery in between sets. If you are tired and trying to train speed than you are no longer training for speed, you are conditioning. At least a 10-12:1 ratio of rest to work is what we use.



JF: Coach I couldn’t agree more. Too many times, coaches think they are training for speed when their guys are over on the side puking. Just working hard isn’t good enough. That leads me to my next question. What are your thoughts on conditioning for football?



CK: Training the correct energy system is vital. Like anything else we want to make it relevant for what they are going to be doing out in the field of play. We won’t run long distances. We won’t run really any further than 110 yards at a time. We will simply cut down on the rest to work ratios. Our conditioning test at the beginning of every camp is the 300 yard shuttle using 25 yard increments.



JF: You have already mentioned a couple of guys who have had an impact on your professionally. Who else as been a good source for you?



CK: As I already mentioned, Jon Kolb got me started in coaching and strength and conditioning specifically. I recently saw a video that he made and he’s doing exercises in his early 60’s that most college age kids couldn’t even imagine being able to perform. Mark Watts, who is the strength coach at Denison University (OH), has been my expert in the field since I started coaching. In small college athletics you have to wear many hats. My primary job is to be the Defensive Coordinator at LaGrange College. It is extremely difficult to attempt to be an expert in two fields. Mark is my “go to” guy in strength and conditioning. Over half of my year is spent working on football. Recruiting takes up a lot of the time as well. I miss some opportunities to expand my knowledge in the strength field. He is a great resource for me personally. I’ve also been fortunate to be located very close to Auburn University and Coach Kevin Yoxall is one of the best in the business. He’s been gracious enough to open up his doors to me on numerous occasions.



JF: What resources do you recommend for strength coaches who are looking to learn more about our profession?



CK: The best book I’ve read by far on the “How To” part of teaching the main lifts is Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore.



Three websites have been very helpful to me and I’d highly recommend them:



Elite Fitness Systems (www.elitefts.com)

DeFranco’s Training (www.defrancostraining.com)

Parisi Speed School (www.parisisquarespace.com)



JF: I am a huge Mark Rippetoe fan. I haven’t read Starting Strength but I have read Practical Programming. His information is top notch. Coach thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. I hope next season goes well for you.

Alleviating Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain is something that many individuals have to deal with on a daily basis whether they train or not. There are many causes and I am of the opinion that the problem is rarely the lower back itself. Instead, the problem lies in the surrounding muscles which can get too tight or too weak. The usual suspects are the hamstrings, glutes, piriformis, and hip flexors. The first thing I always check on an athlete complaining of low back pain or stiffness is the piriformis. The piriformis is an external rotator of the hip and can easily become tight just from daily activities. The best stretch I have found for the piriformis is a stretch which I have no name for. Stand in front of a stable object like a squat rack pin or table that is about waist high. The height of the object will vary depending on flexibility. Take your leg to be stretched and flex the knee at 90 degrees, rotate the hip, and place the outside of the lower leg across your rack or table. The goal is to get the lower leg to lay completely flat. Hold for 20-30 seconds and repeat with the other leg. It is natural for one leg to be tighter than the other so spend more time on the tight leg as that is usually what is causing the pain. The next most popular in my experience is the hamstrings. Almost everyone in America has tight hamstrings from sitting down all day. The best way to stretch the hamstrings is to bring the leg up and not to bend over. I prefer to find something to place the heal on  (like your aforementioned stable object) and stretch on there. Be sure to keep the hips square and the toe straight up. Hold the stretch for 20-30 seconds. The last is the hip flexors. For me, the best hip flexor stretch is partner assisted. Lie on a table with your hips hanging off the end of the table. Flex one knee and pull it to your chest while your partner pushes the other knee down. Again hold for 20-30 seconds concentrating most on the tighter leg.

Tips for increasing flexibility...
1. Stretch often, as in, all day long. Every chance you get, stretch. You don't have to hold it forever. Stretching multiple times per day for short durations is much better and will yield far greater results than stretching for a concentrated block of time. I have experienced this with my flexibility and shorter, more often is better.
2. Use PNF techniques if you can. This can lessen the time it takes to stretch. Search for some PNF techniques if you have no idea what I am talking about.
3. Commit to it! I finally commited myself to stretching multiple times per day and it took about a week for my lower back stiffness that I have been dealing with for 10 years to go away. Kinda makes you wonder why I didn't do it sooner.
4. If you feel raditiating or shooting pain, or you have numbness and tingling, chances are that you do have some sort of disc issue and stretching might not be enough. It may help, but probably won't get rid of the pain completely.

Posterior Chain Development

The posterior chain has become the go to area over the past ten years or so and it deserves the attention it receives. I also firmly believe that non-contact ACL tears can be nearly eliminated by proper training of the hamstrings. For those that are not familiar, the posterior chain consists of the hamstrings, glutes, and low back muscles. These muscles are responsible for most jumping and sprinting ability. For the reason it is crucial for this area to be attacked if you want to succeed in your chosen sport. It needs to be hit fast, heavy, and for conditioning. I will give a few of my favorite exercises today.

Deadlifts
Nothing quite compares to a deadlift when it comes to posterior chain development. There is not another exercise around that allows you to load the PC with anything amount of weight close to a bent knee deadlift. I also feel deadlifts are superior for gaining over all muscle mass. One of my favorite variations of the deadlift is the deadlift standing on plates or mats. This added range of motion is wonderful for building strength and mass in the PC. I prefer reps in the 3-5 range although more or less can be beneficial. We do the deadlift as an assistance exercise and base our percentages off of our 1RM on the squat and usually stay between 67% and 91% of our squat for 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps.

Romanian Deadlift
The RDL is another wonderful exercise for building strength in the PC. The proper technique is an arched back, shoulder blades together, knees slightly bent, weight on the heels, and bending at the waist and not through the back. Once the back starts to lose the arch, its time to come up. This exercise also has the ability to deliver and intense stretch to the hamstrings if done properly. We base our percentages off of the clean and usually stay between 61% and 76% for 6-10 reps.

Band Good Mornings
I have always loved band good mornings. We do high reps at the end of our training session, usually up to 20-25 reps for multiple sets. During extra workouts, we have guys do a set number like 75-100 in as many sets as it takes. You can do these straight legged, bent legged, squatting, etc. It doesn't really matter and you can change within a set if you like.

Barbell Good Mornings
To this day this is about the only thing that I can count on to make my deadlift go up. For young athletes it can be very frustrating to teach them to keep an arch. The technique is basically the same as the RDL except the bar is on the traps. We keep the reps to 6-10 and base it off of our snatch so lighter weights can be used although I am not against going heavier when proper technique is achieved. To me, this may still be the king of PC exercises when done correctly.

Below Parallel Squats
Whether you do these on a low box or free, low squats are still a great exercise for posterior chain development and to me more so for the low back and glutes although much of that depends on body structure.

Sled Drags
Walking with a weight sled is wonderful for bulding the hamstrings and contributing to recovery. The most absolute awful variation of sled dragging is walking holding the straps between your legs. You will be bent over the entire time, and the hamstrings get destroyed. This is very uncomfortable and makes you look rather ridiculous.

Band Pullthroughs
This is another of my favorites. Take a large jumpstretch band and choke it around something sturdy, preferably a squat rack. Face away from it and place the band around your traps like a band good morning. Walk out a few feet, let the band pull you through your legs for a stretch and then stand up. You will have to lean out to keep from falling back and this usually takes some learning to be able to perform correctly. Reallly squeeze the glutes hard and be sure to achieve full hip extension. We also teach a wide stance but this is more for stability than anything. It probably doesn't matter. We keep reps on this in 8-15 range, also.

These are just a few of the exercises that we use on a weekly basis. Our staples are pullthrough, band good mornings, and of course we squat and clean every week. The other things we rotate in and there are some I didn't mention that are worth while. We use a full body program three days per week and we hit the PC chain at some point on every one of those days.

Why I Love and Used to Hate The Olympic Lifts

My Dad was the Head Football Coach at Pike County in the late 70’s and early 80’s. During those days, the Head Coach took on all the responsibilities of the team. Cutting grass, rounding up equipment, raising money, getting players to practice, and even running the weight room. My Dad didn’t know a lot about lifting weights but he was smart enough to latch on to a system that had some success. He used Bigger, Faster, Stronger with his athletes and taught me from an early age that the Power Clean was the most important lift for football. I can remember his exact words. “If you could only do one lift, it would have to be the power clean.” Now my Dad was and still is the smartest person I have ever met. So I took his words to heart. About the only thing I cared about in high school was the Squat and Power Clean. I was the exact opposite of almost every high school student in America. Add in the fact that I have the body type that is conducive to a good power clean, I quickly found out that I was pretty good at it as well. Around this time, I also read an article by Alan Headrick from the Air Force Academy. He said that the #1 predictor of the starters on the Offensive Line was the Power Clean. Since I was an Offensive Lineman that was all I needed to hear. After my senior year of high school football I was able to power clean 305x4 with pretty good technique. I also had a 30 inch vertical jump at 250 lbs. This made me even more of a believer of the BFS concept of transfer.


Then as I grew older, I started reading more about the Westside Methods and Louie Simmons. Westside is almost anti-olympic lifts (even if they are not, it comes off that way) and I fell right in line with their thinking. They believed that any lift could be explosive, not just the Olympic lifts and they do have a point. Many times Weightlifting coaches will talk about the 2nd pull and how explosive it is and will compare it to a max or near max effort squat. That is not a fair assessment. It would be more rightly compared to a dynamic effort box squat, deadlift, or bench press. That is comparing apples to apples. No one is going to argue that a snatch generates more force than a slow max effort squat. But comparing the snatch to the dynamic box squat gets much closer. What Westside said made sense to me. Many from the Westside methodology also like to say that doing box jumps, medicine ball throws, etc. more effectively trains the triple extension. And they might be right. And after all, the triple extension is the most important thing, right? More on this later. Westside also likes to say that the lifts are hard to teach and it is easier to teach a deadlift or box squat. I almost agree there. I also started to believe that maybe the reason the starters in football Power Clean more is because they are the better athletes. So I started believing that “Good athletes power clean well, but the Power Clean doesn’t make better athletes.”

But during my transition to Westside I noticed a few things about myself that changed. I eventually added 400 lbs. to my squat and 150 to my deadlift. I power cleaned 315 easy after not doing a power clean for over 3 years. Anybody who saw me squat or deadlift, knew I was an explosive squatter. Everything measured up. Except I could no longer jump. When I was in college I could dunk a basketball from a standing position under the basket. Now I could barely grab the rim. Granted I had gained some weight, but the increase in strength and explosiveness should have at least held me stable. I could dunk at 250 lbs. but could barely grab the rim at 265 even though my strength and explosiveness increased exponentially. Something was wrong and I was starting to see what it was.

During this time I also had an opportunity to hear Bill Gillespie at Liberty University speak. He talked about the Power Clean and deadlift and how they were summation lifts. Summations lifts are lifts that are better built by doing other lifts instead of the lift itself. I fell hook, line, and sinker. I felt it was better to spend time doing the pull versions of the Olympic Lifts instead of focusing on the full lift themselves. This led me in the right direction but wasn’t where I needed to be. Around this time, I started having my kids perform more and more cleans. I noticed that as we performed the clean we improved our athleticism, coordination, and explosiveness. I have no numbers to back this up, but if I noticed it, it must be happening.

Then in July, I attended a USA Weightlifting Club Coach Certification Class. I will never be the same. The first thing I learned was that the Olympic Lifts are not hard to teach. I just didn’t know how to teach them. I also learned that there are more reasons to do the Olympic Lifts other than to train triple extension. Here is my short list.

1. Manipulation of your body around external forces-When you perform a full clean or snatch, you actually pull yourself under the bar after the second pull. This helps build athleticism with each repetition.

2. Catching and Absorbing External Forces-In the full versions of the Clean and Snatch you learn to catch and absorb weights. This happens in sports all the time and not just with our own bodies but with other bodies in sports like football and wrestling. I also believe that this can contribute to agility by building deceleration ability.

3. Functionality-You say you can’t do a perfect Power Clean? That’s fine. The fact that you pull and catch and then struggle with the weight is going to build more functional strength than just doing a squat or deadlift or even the pull version of the clean.

4. Flexibility-Repeated stretching of the wrists, elbows, and hips occur on every rep. This is something most of our kids need desperately.

5. Teachability-Most of the Olympic Lifts can be made easier to teach by knowing where to start and by progressing slowly.

I highly recommend that every coach take the USAW Club Coach Course. I learned more about weightlifting that weekend than nearly my whole life put together. Even if you don’t jump right into an Olympic lifting program, you can learn things about technique that totally change the way you run your weight room.

Strongman Training

Strongman training is quickly becoming a popular way to train and condition athletes. There are quite a few exercises you can do in your weight room with equipment that you already have. You just have to be creative and the benefits are numerous. First and foremost it creates a competitive environment. Because you usually only have a few implements, your athletes will have to compete in front of others and this always makes them work harder. Second it is a change from the traditional weight room exercises. Many times just changing up your program can foster more effort from your athletes. Third, you can train your athletes in an unstable environment. Now I am not talking about bouncing around on some ball although that may have its place. I am talking about moving real weights really fast and explosive. This is more like sport competition than traditional lifting. And best of all, its fun. Our kids absolutely love strongman training and constantly want to try more weight, go longer distances, and beat their old times. I will go through a few exercises we have used with some success.




Implements You Already Have

There are many things you already have and don’t even know it. You just have to be creative. Almost every school has a few of the following: trap bars, curl bars, and medicine balls. Here are a few exercises you can do with stuff you already have available.

Trap Bar Farmer’s Walk-Load up a trap bar and walk. Seems pretty simple but it’s extremely effective. One draw back is that it is not as unstable as traditional Farmer’s Walk implements, but the on the plus side you can use more weight. Our weight room is about 18 yards long and we do trips of 2, 3, 4, and 6. The hardest part is the turn. You really have to work to keep the bar from spinning you into the ground. We have enough room for 3 people to go at a time and usually will race each other and log the best times from one group to another. This movement really hammers the grip, traps, and entire lower body.

Curl Bar Farmer’s Walk-Almost everybody has old curl bars lying around. The good thing is that they do not have to be in good shape. Each person needs two, one for each hand. With these, the weight has to be lower because they are more unstable. But that’s ok. The parameters for the walks can be the same as with the Trap Bar. This movement also hammers the grip, traps, and lower body.

Zercher Walks-Most people have never heard of Zercher squats. This is a squat where you hold the bar in the crook of your elbows instead of on your back or clavicles. Zercher walks require you to hold the bar in the crook of your elbows and walk. It may be beneficial to fold up a big towel to pad the bar. It can become quite uncomfortable for the elbows if you don’t. You will feel this one all over. It will work your upper back, lower back, traps, biceps, and abs. Of course, all the walks will increase lower body strength.

Stone Load and Carry-You probably don't have strongman stones and don't have the means to make them. What you do probably have is an old broken bar that has one of the sleeves detached. This may be hard to imagine so try to follow me. Set the broken sleeve on its end. Load bumper plates up until you are satisfied with the load. Put a solid collar on the end to keep all the weights in place. Now pick it up and walk. This can be excruciating.

Implements You Can Easily Find

Items in the category are things you might not readily have but you can easily find for free. Or you may have to go deep into storage to find them.

Cooler Pushes-I believe that I invented these. After a game this year, we brought back a load of Pepsi’s in a large cooler. We arrived home late so we put the cooler by the door. On Monday morning I tried to move them into my office. Loaded with water and drinks it was very hard to move. I had to get low and drive to get it to my office. When I got finished the light bulb went off. Every school I have been to has old coolers lying around with broken handles and/or holes. We had 3. So we loaded them up and pushed them. It is very similar to the Prowler Sled but for free. Because the cooler is so low to the ground, you have to stay really low. It simulates the start in sprints and driving off the ball for offensive and defensive lineman. We call it the goal line drill. Of course if you have a sled you can add weight to and drive, by all means use it.

Tug-of-War-This one is easy. The hard part is finding a good rope. These ropes are invaluable because there are many things you can do with them. For Tug-of-War it is best to do one-on-one competitions but you can also do team competitions.

Cooler Pulls-This is a variation of the cooler push. We attach our rope to the cooler, sit and pull hand over hand. This really works the upper back, grip, and biceps. The trick here is to find a way to attach the rope where you do not have to use a handle because it will most certainly pull the handle right off.

Cooler Push/Pull-This is one event that we time every week. We start with pulling the cooler the length of the weight room. We then immediately get up and push the cooler back to the starting point. You wouldn’t believe the competition that this builds. Not to mention that every single muscle in your body gets exhausted.

Medicine Ball Throws-For this exercise, just throw any size medicine ball. You can do one throw for distance, multiple throws for distance, throwing the length of the field for time, or just use your imagination. You can also try and throw over the field goal posts from varying distances.

Medicine Ball Wrestling-This event is simple. Get a large medicine ball and have two athletes try and wrestle it away from each other. This will work the arms, grip, and back in addition to teaching leverage and balance.



Implements A Little Harder To Get

This category involves things a little harder to get. Mainly I am speaking of tractor tires. But all you really have to do is search around and somebody will give them to you for free. They have to pay to get rid of the old tires so they will be more than willing to give them up.

Tire Flips-This is probably the King of Strongman training. There are multiple variations you can use. I have done relay flips, multiple flips for time, explosive flips, etc. You can pretty much do anything you want to do. This most closely simulates the hip drive that all offensive and defensive linemen need to compete.

Tire Fights-Turn your big tractor tire on one end. Have two athletes on opposite sides of the tire. They push the tire back and forth until the tire hits the ground. This movement forces them to absorb force and reverse the tire in an explosive manner. This is also a total body effort similar to a Jerk and gets very competitive.



Ideas I Haven’t Tried

There are multiple things you can come up with that go beyond the scope of this article. Sand bag training has become quite popular and you can do sand bag carries, squats, cleans, overhead squats, throws, and heavy loads (onto a truck bed or high plyometric box). I read an article the other day from a strength coach who loads a bunch of weights, heavy dummies, and anything else he can find into the end zone. The athlete’s job is to move all the “stuff” from one side of the end zone to the other. Every week he adds more “stuff”.

You can see that by just using your imagination and some ingenuity, you can come up with an endless arrangement to help train your athletes. You will be hard pressed to find a method of training that fosters the excitement and effort of strongman training.

Training the Squat

For years I have been a dedicated advocate of box squatting. My own personal experience with the box squat really cemented my philosophy and it has worked well with all of my athletes. I have refined my view on the box squat, however. We used to only parallel box squat much like what Westside Barbell does or used to do. We used a wide stance and a box that put us right at or slightly above parallel. Over the last two years we moved to a low box and took a more moderate stance. The results have been phenomenal. Our standard box is 12 inches high and we require our athletes to sit and pause while remaining tight and then explode up as fast as possible. Only a few of our athletes need a different height box. 12 inches seems to work for most. What we ended up getting was all of our athletes squatting way below parallel on a regular basis. We also continue to break up the eccentric/concentric chain thus allowing us to increase starting strength. Some key points...
1. Always "land soft" on the box. I shouldn't see any fat jiggle when you sit.
2. Don't rock back when you are on the box. Just sit, pause, and get up.
3. Even though we are using a moderate stance, we still start the squat by breaking the hips and not the knees.
4. Have good spots at all times. Dumping a box squat will ruin your bar. We always say that nobody should miss and if you do, the bar should never touch anything. Spotting is key!
5. You must pause completely on the box in order to get the benefits. I can't emphasize this enough. I said pause not relax!

Another advantage of the low box squat is that you can use about 15% lower weights than you would for a free squat. Our experience is that a 1RM low box squat is about 10-16% lower than a 1RM free squat. The discrepency is caused by the length of pause and depth of squat. The 12inch box is much lower for some than others so it represents a much tougher exercise. The advantages are still the same.

To emphasize this point, let me show you how one of our athletes progressed on the squat this year. He squatted 505 this summer so the most weight he used in our program was 430. That represents 85% of his 1RM on the free squat. When we tested, he squatted 565. We have others that have similar results. The guys who get the worst results are the guys who try and cheat the pause. If you cheat the pause, you won't be happy come max time!

One word of warning...I do not believe that you should rely solely on the box squat as your major means for squatting. I have done this in the past and I feel like it led to a reduction in reactive strength. In addition to our box squat, we do full front squats, overhead squats, full cleans, one leg squats, and lunges all during our cycles.

Training the Olympic Lifts

Until recently we followed a pretty standard approach to training the clean and snatch. I love 3 week waves with a 4th deload. It has been my experience that training results start to dimish after 4 weeks so we take a step back before that happens. So we have always started with working up to something like 79% for 2 sets of 4 the first week, 3 sets of 3 with 85% the 2nd week, and 4 sets of 1-2 with 91% the 3rd week. But I got sick and tired of seeing the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rep looking horrible because of fatigue. There is a time and place for training under fatigue but not with the clean and snatch. We do the clean and snatch to be explosive and you can't be explosive after 2 or 3 reps. So what we did was change all our reps to singles. I'm sure that I'm not the first person to do this so I'm not claiming to be a brainiac. We switched to 4 sets of 2 the 1st week, 9 sets of 1 the second week, and 5-6 sets of 1 the 3rd week. I feel like this allows for more quality reps which is what we are always after. Our rest between sets is always around 45-60 seconds so it is comparable somewhat to conditioning for football although this is not our intent. Our intent is quality explosive reps.

Introduction

My name is Jay Floyd and I am the co-founder along with Clay Livingston of the Georgia Strength Coaches Association. I am going to start keeping a blog with a few ideas and notes from me and maybe some other strength coaches to help spread some knowledge around. First a little background on me. I have a BS in Exercise Science and a Masters in PE. I am a certified USAW Club Coach or whatever it is they call it now. I competed in powerlifting from 2002-2006 and totaled elite in the 275's in the American Powerlifting Federation. My best lifts were an 845 squat, 535 bench, 640 deadlift, and 2000 total. I made it into the Powerlifting USA top 100 in total and squat in the 308 division and into the top 39 and 50 in the squat and total respectively in the 275 class. I have also been a high school strength and conditioning coach and offensive line coach for 7 years. I feel like I have a unique perspective having competed in powerlifting yet believing in the Olympic Lifts. I still use many Westside principles in our training even though we base our program on the explosive lifts. As far as my family goes, I am married with two sets of twins, both being boys and girls. My first set were born on Dec 22nd 2008 and my second set were born on Dec 20th 2010. I like to brag that I am the only person in the history of the world to have squatted 800lbs, fathered 2 sets of fraternal twins, and caught a foul ball at a Braves game. I hope this blog can be useful for someone and in turn I can keep on stealing knowledge from other people in the industry.