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.
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