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What I’ve learned over the years is that there is seldom a best way. Even more rare is a right way. And, almost never, is there an only way.

Like most coaches, I struggled to fully understand that early in my career. When you first jump into an industry, you’re eager to prove yourself, show your worth, and earn the respect of your peers by trying to convince others you have the best, the right, or the only way to do something.

As you quickly find out, it doesn’t work like that. This is why I love to operate in those gray areas. This profession is all based on a continuum—we have extremes in every topic. Sure, the extremes will work for some, but not all. The conservative route will also work for some, but not all. Finding the balance between those extremes is what is going to help the most athletes possible, which is what we all want to do at the end of the day.

Finding the balance between those extremes is what is going to help the most athletes possible, which is what we all want to do at the end of the day, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

One gray area that I operate in is blending skill training with general performance training, a combination that many frown upon or outright avoid. It’s often said to keep the sport the sport and keep the training the training; but again, there are some coaches who can do both at a high level and why would we not want to help the athlete in as many ways as possible?

In this article, I’ll share my personal journey of how I now view this gray area and how it has changed in the past decade, as well as dive into some methods that have worked well for me. Although my perspective is from a basketball lens, these principles can be applied to all sports and training.

Defining Skill Training

For a general working definition of what skill training is, I define it as training dedicated to enhancing the technical and tactical skills of the sport. This would include:

• Technical skills, which are the exact movements and physical tasks an athlete needs to compete in the sport.
• Tactical skills, which are the strategic, decision-based demands an athlete needs to compete in the sport.

A simple example of a technical skill in basketball would be the ability to deliver a bounce pass or chest pass to an open teammate. An example of a tactical skill in basketball would be knowing when to perform a bounce pass instead of a chest pass, and why.

Skill development is a crucial piece of the total athletic development puzzle for all sports. This is the foundation an athlete can build on, but also the repertoire that an athlete can constantly refine for the rest of their career.

Defining Performance Training

On the flip side, we can define performance training (aka strength and conditioning) as the general physical preparation of an athlete. This training is dedicated to equipping an athlete with the physical qualities demanded of them by their sport. This training is not only for performance enhancement, but also can serve a role in the mitigation of certain injuries and overall health and safety of an athlete.

Again, this is also a vital piece of an athlete’s development and it is equally important for the athlete’s long term success.

Stay in Your Lane

As coaches, it’s ingrained in us to work within our scope of practice. Strength coaches don’t diagnose medical conditions, athletic trainers don’t conduct a lifting program, physical therapists don’t perform surgery.

As coaches, it’s ingrained in us to work within our scope of practice, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Sure, some individuals have the knowledge to cross these lines—it was never meant to be about the ability to do so, but rather the liability to do so. Each profession is set up with their specific services because that is what they are licensed and/or insured to perform.

I agree with this line of thought, because it keeps the safety of our athletes at the forefront. Somewhere along the lines, we associated scope of practice with staying in our lane. And to me, those are not the same thing.

Many coaches preach to stay in your lane, but the problem is that this is a very subjective line to draw in the sand. How do we even define what our lane is?

My aha moment was that my lane was never about one service to provide, but a solution to provide. My lane is basketball development. It wasn’t only strength training for basketball players. It wasn’t only speed and agility training for basketball players. It wasn’t only skill development for basketball players. It wasn’t only coaching a basketball team.

It is pure, holistic, multi-faceted basketball development.

So, I decided to pursue that and ended up wearing all those hats for the betterment of my athletes. My hope is that reading this is resonating with you right now, especially if you have been holding yourself back from operating in this gray area.

The Methods

Since we defined performance training and skill training separately, let’s look at how we blend the two. This hybrid approach obviously requires some personal experience and background context in multiple facets of the sport in consideration, but by no means do you have to be a former professional athlete in any sport to turn into an effective coach in that sport.

The first box to check would be to make sure you’re continually perfecting your craft and refining your skills in all of the areas you’re coaching in. It’s easy to get comfortable with what you know about a subject and neglect furthering your understanding on a deeper level, especially if you’re having success in it. Lifelong learners are always going to find ways to add value, regardless of what industry we’re talking about. In fact, one of the best parts of the hybrid training approach is that we get to view athletes through multiple lenses, which will give us a range of new perspectives and learning opportunities along the way.

Lifelong learners are always going to find ways to add value, regardless of what industry we’re talking about, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

When you see an athlete in multiple environments, this can also provide a ton of usable coaching information. Even if you don’t use a hybrid training approach, it’s extremely beneficial to watch your athletes play their sport. I’ve previously written about how studying game film can impact programming for performance training, but seeing them play, practice, and train for their sport in-person is even better.

If you’re using a hybrid training model, what you see in sport can dictate some performance-based programming decisions for you in the weight room. On the flip side, what you see in general performance training sessions can help drive decisions for you on the sport side. After all, we want synergy between these two facets of training to give the athlete the most out of both. This is a major upside of the model because all of the info is consistent and streamlined by being run through a single entity.

As with any training, whether skill or performance, it’s always a great idea to begin with an assessment or some form of baseline. We need to collect objective data relevant to the athlete and their sport. We can also collect subjective pieces of info and feedback directly from the athlete. This is a critical step in the training process that many still ignore. I can’t stress enough how important it is to establish a starting point for measuring progress.

As with any training, whether skill or performance, it’s always a great idea to begin with an assessment or some form of baseline, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

For example, objective data for a college basketball player could look like:

Performance

• Vertical Jump
• 20 Yard Sprint (0-10, 0-20 and 10-20)
• Trap Bar Deadlift Load Velocity Profile

Skill

• Field Goal Shooting Percentage (in game or in training)
• 3-Point Shooting Percentage (in game or in training)
• Turnovers Per Game (in game)

We can test the performance portion and we can look at official statistics (or training stats) for the skill portion. These are all things that we can work to improve and objectively measure to see if that training had positive effects.

Examples of subjective data we can utilize could include:

1. The Eye Test: Can we see a difference in any technical, tactical, or performance qualities?
2. Athlete Feedback: Does the athlete see or feel a difference in any technical, tactical, or performance qualities?
3. Outsider Feedback: Do those in the athlete’s network (coach, parents, teammates, etc.) see a difference in any technical, tactical, or performance qualities in that athlete?

My advice is to have a general system in place with some one size fits all key performance indicators and leave some room for individualization that you can sprinkle in on a case-by-case basis, depending on the athlete in front of you. The moral of the story: have something in place and grow it as needed.

Just as a strength and conditioning coach would do after an assessment or a skill development coach would do after an athlete’s first workout, a hybrid coach develops a needs analysis for the athlete and programs for them based on that. The only difference is that a hybrid coach is going to program for both skill and physical preparation simultaneously.

And it’s really all the same.

We begin with the low hanging fruit, use progressions and regressions to get the adaptations we want, track progress, reassess, and repeat the cycle.

Need to improve an athlete’s lower body strength? A healthy dose of squat, lunge, and deadlift variations will do the trick. Need to improve an athlete’s jump shot? A healthy dose of shooting drills will do the trick.

It’s not easy, but it really doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

Below are three hybrid methods that have worked well for me in the basketball world which can be applied to other sports in their own right.

1. Sport Movement Data

One of the most powerful things I’ve used in this hybrid training model is quantifying sport skills or sport movements. This can be done in so many ways, depending on the tools you have.

I am an avid user of the 1080 Sprint, which makes it really easy for me to hook an athlete up to it and have them perform a dribbling sequence or some sort of acceleration-based basketball skill and get immediate feedback on their force, power, and speed outputs.

I’ve even talked to coaches and athletes who are utilizing these same concepts with wearable EMG garments. I’m not quite there yet either financially or, admittedly, in my understanding of the data, but it’s another option that can give really useful data.

Like I said, I love the 1080 Sprint, but it’s not exactly the most common thing to see around a facility. Don’t have one? That’s okay, you can still use timing systems to get a similar result. We’ve used Brower Laser Timers, the Freelap Timing System, Smart Basketballs, Accelerometers, and a good old-fashioned stopwatch to time drills.

Not only does this give us output data on specific, sport-related movements, but in-session it can also gamify things and really bring the intensity of the workout up a notch. It’s amazing to see an athlete’s competitive nature kick-in and turn what was already a really good session into one that gets talked about for weeks to come.

It’s amazing to see an athlete’s competitive nature kick-in and turn what was already a really good session into one that gets talked about for weeks to come, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

A few major things I look for are sport actions that can be quantified and linked with a training option that we can not only use to improve that sport action, but also quantify on its own.

For example, change of pace is a huge component of basketball. We don’t want our players to be flying around the court at top speed and completely out of control: rhythm, pace, balance, and control are vital.

If we want to help an athlete improve their change of pace, we use the 1080 Sprint to quantify that attribute in various attack moves. In training, we need to help them decelerate cleanly, learn to relax, and then turn that small moment of relaxation into violent re-acceleration. All things we can train in the weight room and in our SAQ work, as well as practicing the actual skill.

Video 1. I want to measure change of pace and track progress on it.

Programming may involve box squat variations to overload the eccentric phase. This can help improve an athlete’s deceleration qualities, as well as contribute to acceleration speed due to increased eccentric and isometric strength, which is massively important in early acceleration.

We may also include some box squat variations and concentric-only lifts like pin squats or dead stop trap bar jumps to help the athlete improve their rate of force development, another major factor in that re-acceleration phase.

From an SAQ perspective, we can sprinkle depth jumps, drop jumps, and resistance sprints when possible, based on the athlete’s total workload. On the court, we can practice a lot of hesitation and deceleration moves to fine-tune the pace we’re looking for.

Of course, this changes from athlete to athlete, but this is just a general outline of a potential thought process that you can apply to whatever sport skill you’re focusing on. I really love the system of quantifying a sport skill, finding ways to globally improve the physical qualities relevant to that skill, and then putting it all together with skill training.

2. Contrast Sets

Another concept we can carry from performance training into skill development is the idea of contrast sets. In the weight room, we utilize contrast sets to enhance central nervous system activation and neural drive of a given movement. Using a heavy compound lift followed by a violent ballistic or explosive movement of the same pattern gives us that potentiation effect to help the athlete produce more power. This potentiation can give the athlete both acute and long-term training adaptations, including improved motor unit recruitment, rate of force development, and power output.

Video 2. The idea is that we can load a basketball movement to create a high-intensity muscle contraction, then contrast that with the same movement without load.

I use a ton of contrast sets on the court as well—and these same principles can be applied to all sports. Same concept, different environment. We load a movement with cables, bands, weighted balls, etc. to perform a sport movement, then immediately perform the realistic sport movement to follow.

For example, we can use something like a VertiMax and heavy ball combo to load a jab series. This challenges the athlete’s mobility, control, and ability to perform the technique precisely. In contrast, we can work the moves in on a dummy defender in a drill setting to give the athlete that extra burst to keep all reps at game speed with extreme intent.

Another thing I’ve loved experimenting with is towing an athlete into a deceleration-based basketball movement using the 1080 Sprint. This applies a slight amount of overspeed to the movement, challenging their ability to decelerate and control the movement, as well as exciting the central nervous system. While observing the move immediately after, I noticed insane footwork and stopping on dimes to complete the move.

Note: I would not recommend using this method with a basketball player’s jump shot mechanics. Using a weighted ball to shoot is not going to give us the same training effect as in cuts, sprints, changes of direction due to the delicate nature of an athlete’s individual shooting form and may actually alter mechanics in a negative way.

We only work these in once or twice a week for about 20 total reps each time, but the feedback I’ve gotten from athletes regarding these contrast sets has been amazing. When an athlete says they feel the difference, that’s a huge win.

When an athlete says they feel the difference, that’s a huge win, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

3. Movement-Based Programming

I’ve started to use the phrase “Movement > Moves” a lot, meaning that if we can help our athletes move efficiently, we give them the tools they need for any move they want to do.

Lifting-wise, we don’t have a leg day, chest day, back day, etc. We have a push day, pull day, and multi-planar day. Or we have an acceleration-based day, top-end speed day, or change-of-direction day. The skill work we perform on the court is just another puzzle piece in the bigger picture, fitting in perfectly with the off-court work.

We want all of these training sessions to feed each other. Since some athletes may knock it all out in one session and others may split it into two separate sessions or days, we want there to be a common theme and training goal behind each drill, lift, and session.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to experiment and troubleshoot, too. Some days we get off the program and go rogue down a rabbit hole. It’s not a script, it’s just a template to keep us focused on the athlete’s goals.

Video 3. Speed and agility day on the court.

We’re not robotically practicing situations we hope happen in a game the same way they happened in training—we’re equipping athletes with the physical and mental qualities needed to use various concepts from their training in the game without even having to think about it.

We’re equipping athletes with the physical and mental qualities needed to use various concepts from their training in the game without even having to think about it, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Lessons Learned

At the beginning of the article I stated that there is rarely a one way, a right way, or a best way to do anything. I have, however, learned some lessons the hard way. Through trial and error, countless failures, and just flat out being wrong about a lot of things, I’ve been able to put together a pretty solid recipe of things that have worked for me and may also work for others.

Here are the five most notable lessons that failure in the hybrid space has taught me.

1. The Importance of Load/Athlete Management

Yes, we know load management is a crucial element to any kind of training program, but I can’t emphasize this one enough for hybrid coaches. This is the biggest benefit of the hybrid approach, but it can easily be the biggest drawback if not carefully managed.

Rarely do athletes actually overtrain; what typically occurs is an athlete will under-recover. Big difference. Athletes must be taking nutrition, hydration, sleep, mobility, mental health, and all other components of recovery seriously for any of their training to truly pay off.

So while load management is absolutely critical, we can’t forget about athlete management. This means relationships. This means communication. This means we need to go deeper than lifts, drills, and readiness scores. We need to really get in tune with the humans in front of us and see them as people first, athletes second.

So while load management is absolutely critical, we can’t forget about athlete management, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

When we can help manage our athletes and the load or stress they’re under, we can really make our best decisions as to what training we need to apply and in what volumes or intensities.

2. Be Prepared for Push-Back

Bad news about hybrid coaching: you will most definitely get some push-back. People who view you as a performance coach will question your ability to coach the sport. People who see you as a sport coach will question your ability to be a performance coach.

It’s okay.

Many people won’t understand your vision. As long as you have a vision, it’s up to you to bring it to life. There’s no need to worry about what others think. Just become laser-focused on the athletes and people who you need to serve and the results will come.

And when the results come, then people will start to see the vision.

3. High-Impact of Individualization

Again, one of the major benefits of handling an athlete’s programming from sports skill to sports preparation is that you can manipulate so many variables to really fine-tune what the athlete needs. So much of training is general—which is perfectly fine, but the more individualized you can make a program, the better.

Individualization isn’t easy, but it can be simple. It doesn’t mean every single athlete must have a unique program from top to bottom, but rather each athlete can have certain variables adjusted to make their program more focused on their needs.

A common example I see with the basketball players I work with is how they produce force, power, or speed. Some athletes are elastic and bouncy, but may lack pure force production. Others are muscle-dominant and force driven, but lack elasticity. They could have similar RSI, vertical jump, and speed numbers, but their strategies to get there are totally different things.

These athletes can train together and even use the exact same exercise selection in some cases. However, their target bar speeds may be different, their volume may be different, their warm-ups or plyo work may be slightly different. The skeleton of the program doesn’t have to be completely turned upside down to still get really good results.

The skeleton of the program doesn’t have to be completely turned upside down to still get really good results, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

We can use both sport assessment and performance assessments together to build a roadmap for the athlete. If the athlete can’t master a sports skill, maybe it’s due to lack of some sort of physical trait; we can train to enhance that, then apply it directly to the sport skill.

If it works, we know exactly why. If it doesn’t work, we still know exactly why. It’s a win-win.

4. Use a Scale of Specificity

A great deal of what we do as coaches can be measured on a continuum—in terms of the hybrid coaching style, the continuum or scale in this case can be how sport specific to make something, and when.

Do we want athletes turning everything into a sport-mimicking drill? No.

Do we want athletes only doing the 5/3/1 program for the big 3 lifts? No.

We probably want them in the middle somewhere depending on the athlete, the time of year/season, their goals, and their current level of athleticism.

Video 4. A sample of some of the programming decisions we can make when blending general to specific training.

I’ve turned to a scale of specificity to help me organize programming when dealing with athletes in the weight room and in their sport.

I’ve turned to a scale of specificity to help me organize programming when dealing with athletes in the weight room and in their sport, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

From bottom to top:

• General Speed or Strength
• Sport-Relevant Speed or Strength
• Targeted Drill Work
• Sport Skill

We want the bottom levels of the scale to feed the higher levels. This scale can help you properly program and dose athletes with lifts or drills that make the most sense for the stage or training or environment they’re in.

Starting at the bottom, with general speed or strength, this is exactly what it sounds like. These are the basics and fundamentals of speed or strength training that we can use to set a proper foundation for future training. Foundational movements in the weight room include the squat and hip hinge (as well as unilateral variants of both), upper body pull, upper body push, rotational movements, and carrying. On the speed side, we have sprinting, jumping, landing, cutting, shuffling, and throwing, although that could be more of a weight room movement as well.

General speed or strength work casts a wide net and allows athletes to reap numerous benefits of training before focusing too much on minutia and missing out on the low hanging fruit.

General speed or strength work casts a wide net and allows athletes to reap numerous benefits of training, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

Next on the scale comes sport-relevant speed or strength work. With a solid foundation set, we can now start to sprinkle in variations of those foundational movements with a little bit more focus on exactly how it can transfer to the sport. Some of the variables that can be altered to make a general exercise more sport-relevant include posture or body angles, duration of activity, overall volume or intensity, target bar speed, equipment or devices used in the exercise, and training environment or surface just to name a few.

Whether it be strength, power, speed, or even conditioning, the goal here is just to build upon that general baseline and add elements of the actual sport to the program.

Next we can add in specific drills that we think fill any gaps that may exist after the first two layers of training. It could be a purely sport-driven drill, a completely physical preparation drill, or a hybrid of the two.

And then, finally, comes pure sport skill. Just practicing the sport. The most sport-specific training that exists.

The goal is to build a holistic plan that allows the general to feed the specific.

5. Invest in Your Education

Lastly, continue to invest in your continued education. This doesn’t always mean investing financially, but also investing your time and energy into your education in outside-the-box ways. We can get a ton of information from clinics, courses, and certifications, and obviously those are great options for continuing education.

Don’t let those be your only forms of education though—other great forms of continuing education are less formal options such as networking, experimenting on yourself and…I can’t believe I’m about to say this…social media.

Networking and communicating with other coaches, athletes, and professionals in all industries is one of the best ways you can extract successful behavior and apply it to your own life.

Experimenting on yourself is great because you can then scrap all of your bad ideas and protect your athletes from them; the bad news is you may have to deal with the negative consequences of those bad ideas, but that’s okay, it’s kind of heroic in a way.

Experimenting on yourself is great because you can then scrap all of your bad ideas and protect your athletes from them, says @JustinOchoa317. Share on X

In all seriousness, it’s very important to practice what we preach as coaches. Sure, the levels of intensity or activities will change over the years, but at least having some relevant skills similar to the athletes you work with can make a huge positive impact on their buy-in.

And, lastly, social media. This ties into communication and networking, and there’s a ton of great info out there—but also I want to look at the flip side. The most underused benefit of social media is using it to view examples of what you shouldn’t do.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scrolling through my feed, saw a video, and immediately thought, “Wow, I don’t think I would ever need to do that.” That goes into the mental Rolodex and honestly helps create a better organization system for when I go through those experimental phases with new exercises.

Never get comfortable. Never get complacent. Strive to master your skill set and fine-tune it daily so that you and your athletes can have the best experience possible.

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Despite decades of ambiguity and lack of understanding, we are starting to see a new light shine on the fascial system. Our collective understanding of the fascial system has started to expand. From strength and conditioning coaches and physical therapists to researchers and sport scientists, this rise of interest in fascia applies to multiple human performance disciplines.

It’s important to recognize that acknowledging the presence of fascia does not negate the conventional anatomy we’ve all learned. I believe a part of the hesitation we see in coaches who are slow to embrace fascial concepts is rooted in that material being presented in a way that disregards conventional anatomy and dissuades them from learning more. Rather than seeing this as some sort of biological division, I like to emphasize that the constructs of fascia are more so a change in perspective or observation than a change in principles or practice. In other words: it is possible to appreciate and understand the fascial system without denouncing conventional anatomy.

It is possible to appreciate and understand the fascial system without denouncing conventional anatomy, says @danmode_vhp. Share on X

While the revolutionary findings of fascial research are exciting and help to better shape our approach to injury restoration and sport performance, we should remain mindful that there is still an abundance of unknowns regarding the human body and performance optimization. Not only are fascial concepts still largely overlooked in strength and conditioning, but there is still disconnect among experts and governing bodies. For instance, how fascia should be properly defined, what its functions are, and how significant fascia may be in performance are all still being debated and determined.

In this article, I’d like to cover a base understanding of myofascial meridians and how this realization has profoundly influenced my approach to training and my perspective of human movement.

What are Myofascial Meridians?

Myofascial meridians are anatomical descriptors that have been broadly defined as continuous bands of fascial tissue spanning across and throughout the body.¹ The term meridians, specifically, is one of several terminologies used by prominent modern day fascia researchers. This group of researchers includes:

• Luigi, Antonio, and Carla Stecco
• Robert Schleip
• Jan Wilke

Myofascial meridians are anatomical descriptors that have been broadly defined as continuous bands of fascial tissue spanning across and throughout the body, says @danmode_vhp. Share on X

There are other schools of thought, however, that use different terminologies. For instance, another prominent fascia researcher, Tom Myers, uses the term “trains” to classify these fascial vectors. For all intents and purposes, these terms (trains, meridians, lines, and chains) can be viewed as interchangeable and taken to broadly mean the same thing.

Along with the differences in terminology, there is also disconnect among precisely how many meridians or trains there are in the human body. Tom Myers and the Anatomy Trains organization have stated there are 12 identifiable fascia trains in human anatomy.² According to an investigative study conducted by Wilke et al.,³ however, they were able to confirm 3 of 6 fascial lines selected form Myers’ original proposed 12. As for the Steccos, along with several other prominent researchers, they typically recognize about 6 meridians in the body.

Although it is a bit unclear as to specifically why there is disconnect among these experts, a part of the difference in numbers may be due to dissection techniques (or skill) and how the tissue is extracted. Additionally, there is still differentiation between tendinous tissue, about which some researchers have different views on what is a part of the tendon proper and what is identified as fascial tissue.

Beyond the meridians themselves, myofascial unit (MFU) is another fascia-specific term that coaches should be adept with. Myofascial units are defined as regionalized compartments of the body that include a group of motor units that activate adjacent muscle fibers that move a body segment in a unidirectional manner.⁴ This also includes the joint, soft tissue, neurovascular components, and the connecting fascia.⁴ To simplify that, MFUs represent a localized compartment of the body (i.e., shoulder girdle, posterior hip).

MFUs represent a localized compartment of the body (i.e., shoulder girdle, posterior hip), says @danmode_vhp. Share on X

Myofascial units largely speak to the agonist–antagonist relationships, and intermuscular coordination of the muscles and structures in working proximity to coordinate multidirectional movements. And, according to the Steccos, there are 78 identifiable MFUs found in the body. These MFUs can then be broken down and organized into 14 body segments that move in 6 directions across 3 cardinal planes.

I see the myofascial meridians as vectors of kinetic continuity that represent empirical force channels promoting the most efficient pathways for force to be transmitted and directed. These meridians represent lines of chronic stress or critical load vectors whereby the meridians overlay specific regions of anatomy that are activated during common everyday life and sport activities (i.e., walking, twisting, and bending). I can’t reinforce enough that there is no separation between fascia and the musculoskeletal system—everything is working in tandem to produce outcomes.

However, when we modify the perspective from which we analyze movement, it can create an invigorating observation. A great example of this is watching a baseball pitcher throw, which is one of the most beautiful displays of human biomechanics. From the fascial point of view, we can see a sophisticated sequence of shifting center of mass, redirecting vectors, and a “dance” between compression and tension throughout the body.

Meridians & Trains > Cardinal Planes

The deeper I investigate into the fascial system, the more I see it as filling in the gaps where conventional anatomy seems to fall short. Moreover, I’m able to recognize the extreme sophistication of human anatomy and movement—and while oversimplification can be effective for introducing concepts, we cannot shy away from the depth of details. A common example of this reductionist nature can be found in the observation of movement through the lens of three cardinal planes. The body, segmentally and collectively, simply does not move in a purely linear fashion—there is rotation and angulation that makes it all seamless.

Applying this to the baseball pitcher above, make note of the anatomical relationships occurring, not only the independent components. Along with the angles and positions of the body, consider how momentum is transferred and the tremendous amounts of torque that are placed on certain joints. While isolated items like glenohumeral internal/external rotation ratios do have significance for a baseball pitcher, I would argue the kinetic function of the anterior/posterior meridians could be more relative to play and performance.

The fascial term for this collective integration is what’s known as biotensegrity. In a nutshell, biotensegrity can be understood as the complex balance of compression and tension forces throughout the body.⁵ This balancing act is predominantly undertaken by the global fascial net encasing the body, whereby changes in position, speed, or expressions of force alter the localized fascial compartments. Collectively, this distribution of force, although produced by the bones and muscles, is mediated by the global fascial net.

In a nutshell, biotensegrity can be understood as the complex balance of compression and tension forces throughout the body, says @danmode_vhp. Share on X

Perceiving the body from the biotensegrity viewpoint as opposed to the three cardinal planes has helped my coaching immensely. The way I observe and analyze movement has become more focused on a global framework, rather than emphasizing the body as being a summation of independent parts. This has helped prevent me from being unnecessarily siloed into one segment or specific joint, instead focusing on understanding the kinetic relationships of the area with the rest of the body. The biotensegrity perspective has also dramatically shifted my approach for exercise selection and training parameters. In a broad sense, this has evolved into more emphasis on global patterns, utilizing more omnidirectional movements, and emphasizing open chain variations with fewer constraints.

There can be an appropriate time and place for just about anything in training, so again, don’t mistake this for completely doing away with foundational lifts or using isolation exercises. However, these have become much less frequent options for me, and in my opinion do not have as much benefit as we’ve been led to believe. We need to be clear in understanding that the goals of performance training are ultimately to improve the athlete’s ability in sport and minimize the likelihood of injury occurrence.

It should not be an inherent priority to improve numbers on bench, squat, or clean just for the sake of doing so. Rather, we want to look at how we can improve force expression and tolerance across a wide spectrum of positions, vectors, and under varying speeds as they relate to sport.

Aligning Conventional & Contemporary Perspectives

Suggesting that our conventional framework for anatomy and biomechanics is incomplete does not imply we need to tear the whole framework down and start from scratch. But if we have been working from a model that has not been telling us the full story of human biology, I would argue it should put some sense of urgency on us to continuously evaluate our practice. The root of this belief stems from recognizing the process of cadaver research in America, which involves embalming the bodies and using an array of chemicals to preserve the body for research trials and investigation.

The embalming and chemicalization process for cadaver research dramatically changes the biological landscape as it is in living humans. Among these changes, and most prominent for the sake of this article, is the erosion of fascial tissue due to the presence of embalming fluid. As a result, the majority of cadaver research involves bodies that do not have intact fascial tissue, other tissues that have been dehydrated, and drained of most blood volume creating a biological environment that does not properly illustrate the reality. So again, the framework for our understanding of anatomy may be prudent, but it is still not giving us the full scope.

The embalming and chemicalization process for cadaver research dramatically changes the biological landscape as it is in living humans, says @danmode_vhp. Share on X

There will always be disconnect between coaches/practitioners regarding optimal human performance practices and applications: everything from academic background, formative development, and even just geographic location. Fascia concepts are a prominent example of this divide, and understandably so. I will be the first to admit these theories and concepts can be radical to digest, especially for those who have extensive experience in the field.

Nevertheless, I do believe we will be able to establish common ground in the near future. And as more definitive research continues to grow, the more likely we can come to terms with the symbiotic function of both fascial and conventional anatomy. But in the short term, I encourage you to simply suspend your disbelief. Give an honestly open window for being impressionable and see how these concepts make sense to you and apply to your setting.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

1. Findley, T.; Chaudry, H.; Stecco, A.; and Roman, M. “Fascia research: A narrative review.” J Bodywork & Mvmt Thera. 2012;16, 67-75.

2. Myers, T. Anatomy Trains: Myofascial meridians for manual and movement therapists. 2^ND ed. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 2009.

3. Wilke, J.; Krause, F.; Vogt, L.; and Banzer, W. “What is evidence-based about myofascial chains: a systematic review.” Arch Phys Med & Rehab. 2016;97:454-461.

4. Maas, H.; Sandercock, TG. “Force transmission between synergistic skeletal muscles through connective tissue linkages.” J Biomed and Biotech. 2010.

5. Scarr, G. Biotensegrity: The structural basis of life. United Kingdom, Handspring Publishers, 2014.

6. Adstrum, S. Nicholson, H., 2019. A history of fascia. Clinical Anatomy, 23(7):862-870.

7. Krause, F. Wilke, J. Vogt, L. Banzer, W., 2016. Intermuscular force transmission along myofascial chains: a systematic review. J Anat., 228:910-918.

8. Wilke, J. Krause, F. Vogt, L. Banzer, W., 2016. What is evidence-based about myofascial chains: a systematic review. Arch Phys Med & Rehab, 97:454-461.

9. Myers, T. Anatomy Trains: Myofascial meridians for manual and movement therapists- 2^ND ed. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 2009.

Think back to those days in elementary school gym class. Chances are, if you had a good teacher, you probably did some form of the above pictured movement during class—it’s called the crab. Young children love doing novel crawling exercises like crab walks, but that’s not the only reason they are done so often in elementary P.E. Smart physical education teachers know that crab walks are a great activity to help develop coordination and total body strength. It’s unfortunate that this little gem of an exercise is not continued in middle school on through adulthood, because it serves as an effective exercise to improve many elements of athletic development and coordination.

It’s unfortunate that the crab walk isn’t continued in middle school and into adulthood because it serves as an effective exercise to improve many elements of athletic development & coordination. Share on X

This article will take a deep dive into everything involving the “crab” exercise. We’ll look at:

• What exactly the basic crab exercise is, including the well-known “crab walk.”
• The athletic benefits of the movement.
• The many variations that athletes can play with in a training program.

The Basic Crab Position

In my work as a youth athletic development coach, the crab is a staple in our programs. For some older athletes it may be a small part of a warm-up, whereas for younger athletes it may serve as a total body strength exercise. For even younger kids, crab work may come in the form of a game or challenge. As you can probably guess, the crab exercise has a wide range of uses for different ages and abilities.

Let’s take a look at the basic crab tabletop position and talk about why it’s a fantastic tool for the developing human/athlete. The basic crab position finds the athlete in supine (or facing up) position:

• Knees are bent.
• Feet are flat on the floor.
• Hands are on the ground underneath the shoulders and slightly behind the hips.

Prior to lifting the hips off the ground, we always cue the athletes to push their hands into the ground and squeeze their shoulder blades together. Then the athlete starts the exercise by lifting their hips all the way off the ground, so their hips are in line with the knees and shoulders—almost resembling a flat tabletop. We have the athletes hold this position for a certain amount of time, focusing on getting their chest and hips to “touch the sky.”

The crab walk finds the athlete in a similar position, with hips elevated a few inches off the floor. Instead of lifting the hips as high as possible, the hips stay a few inches off the floor, and the athlete then tries to walk on hands and feet in the desired direction. Athlete can walk feet first or hands first, and even sideways.

This basic exercise is highly valuable for today’s athletes—particularly based on the amount of sitting many of them do when they are not playing sports:

• Sitting in school.
• Sitting on their phones.
• Sitting playing video games.
• Sitting while driving to their next destination.

Lots of sitting with passive recreation. As physical therapist Todd Hargrove said: “Modern culture can make you forget that life has a physical dimension. Our attention is focused so often on computers and cell phones there is little left for our bodies.”

Lack of physical activity and the movement issues associated with sitting and being sedentary used to be an adult issue, especially in the older population, but now we’re seeing childhood obesity pushing almost 20%. Throw in a pandemic and a six-month lockdown, and it’s plainly obvious that when it comes to movement, many children are struggling right now.

Screen time and sedentary activity are way up, and overall general physical movement is way down. I’m seeing the negative effects of this even in so-called “athletic” kids. Many parents think that more sports is the answer, but the truth is that sports skills do little to arm the young athlete with appropriate levels of general strength, general mobility, and coordination needed to navigate the sporting environment. If the only physical activity a young athlete does is highly specific (for example, they just play basketball), it’s easy for the body to get used to moving in only those certain ways.

Strength and conditioning coach Pat Davidson said it best: “The human body is a marvel of energy conservation. It will always seek the path of least resistance. When you combine that with the modern world that doesn’t force you to go out and move a lot in a lot of different ways, you get habitually stuck in certain patterns and positions.”

Since return to play after the pandemic, there have been high numbers of youth sports injuries—many of these injuries stem from too much too soon on bodies that are not prepared. This why it’s important to always cover your athletic basics, even with the best athletes.

According to strength and conditioning coach Max Shank, some of the movement problems associated with extensive sitting are:

1. Decreased thoracic mobility (specifically excessive kyphosis, or forward curvature).
2. Decreased shoulder mobility (rounded forward and drawn inward).
3. Lack of shoulder stability due to lack of scapular movement.
4. Poor core coordination and hip strength.
5. Gluteal amnesia (the glutes stop working).
6. Head-forward posture (really bad for your neck).

In short, chronic sitting and lack of physical activity is an athleticism killer.

Video 1. Over time, too much sitting can really take away from being a highly functioning athlete. So, when I work with groups of young athletes, I try to nip this in the bud as quickly as I can.

The Antidote: Enter the Crab Hip Lift

At its most basic level, the crab hip lift does everything the opposite of sitting. Sitting is a passive, lazy activity with little or no movement. The crab, on the other hand, is an aggressive activity that involves the entire body.

At its most basic level, the crab hip lift does everything the opposite of sitting, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

Some of the benefits of the crab hip lift are:

• Strength and mobility through hip extension.
• Isometric strength of glutes/hamstring/low back.
• Scapular strength and stability.
• Shoulder mobility/arm strength.
• Core strength.
• Coordination with more advanced drills.
• Wrist strength and mobility.
• Static and dynamic balance.
• Spatial awareness.

This great movement challenges balance, stability, and coordination and develops strength from toenails to fingernails—particularly in the more advanced versions, when the athlete is asked to reach or rotate with their arms and legs in a variety of directions crossing the midline of the body. This crossing of the midline of the body is very similar to the act of crawling. “The closed chain crawling position uses bodyweight to stimulate the scapular muscles along with the abdominal wall and involves the stability of the spine with cross coordination when moving.” According to Vern Gambetta, crawling is the basis of reciprocal movement that underlies most sport skills.

Having covered what athletes need and why they need it, let’s look at the basic crab hip lift and its many variations.

Video 2. In this video, we can see the crab hip lift in its most basic form. The movement is very easy to learn and well-tolerated by most athletes.

I try not to give too much coaching on these movements because I want the athletes to feel them out. However, it’s okay to offer some suggestions. Usually, I encourage an athlete to get the hips to the sky or ceiling, and the other cue I tell them is to squish their shoulder blades together as hard as possible.

Progressing can be pretty straightforward. You can do straight reps up and down, then transition to short holds for something like 10 seconds on 10 seconds off, finally moving to the much more challenging long-duration holds, which can be done for 30 seconds up to a few minutes.

My friend and fellow coach Austin Jochum has some of his athletes attempt to hold this basic crab position for five minutes straight. For anyone who may think a five-minute crab hold is easy, I encourage you to give it an honest try and see for yourself. It’s a tremendous effort of isometric strength, endurance, and mental toughness to stay engaged.

A five-minute crab hold is a tremendous effort of isometric strength, endurance, and mental toughness to stay engaged, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

Moving a bit further down the rabbit hole, let’s take a look at some fun and challenging crab variations that require a bit more motor control, coordination, dynamic balance, strength, and spatial awareness.

Videos 3 & 4. I call these variations “crab reaches.” They are challenging because we limit our base of support by holding ourselves with three and then two points of contact.

The first version is a one-arm crab reach. We’re simply lifting the hips and reaching one arm straight up into the air. For you kettlebell fans out there, this may look very similar to the Turkish get-up. I would say that this is a great foundational exercise for learning the Turkish get-up without having to worry about holding a weight overhead.

For a little bit more range of motion through the spine and hips instead of reaching straight up, the athlete can also attempt to reach behind their body or rotate across their body. This gives the athlete quality rotation though the mid-portion of the spine—and that area is of particular importance because it is the rounded area we see when athletes are slumped over their cell phones.

Similarly, instead of reaching an arm, we can attempt to lift a leg up as high as possible. This obviously places more strain on the push leg on the floor, helping develop those important and often neglected muscles of the posterior chain.

Taking it one step further, we can have the athlete attempt to reach both an arm and the opposite leg at the same time. This is very challenging for the developing athlete because they will now find themselves balancing on two points of contact instead of three or four, increasing the balance component as well as the strength component (having to hold more body weight off the ground).

Video 5. My favorite version of this challenging variation is to simultaneously lift the hips while grabbing the foot with the opposite hand. This requires a nice combination of strength, mobility, and balance.

Crab Rotations

The next step in the crab progression is combining the hip lift with a reach and then a rotational component. Of all the crab exercises, this version is the most difficult to perform. Does the athlete have the strength and balance to hold themselves off the ground with one arm and one leg to control themselves as they slowly rotate their bodies around those two pivot points? This activity challenges even the best athlete’s spatial awareness, having to coordinate their limbs to move under control.

Video 6. Of all the crab exercises, this version if the most difficult to perform.

Crab Walking Variations

Although I use the in-place crab variations more often than crab walks, these definitely have their place in an all-around athletic development program. The best thing about crab walks is that they require virtually zero coaching: most young athletes can simply get on the ground and go without a lengthy explanation of the movement. It may look a little sloppy and awkward at first, but with a little practice, things tighten up nicely. Although they can be very difficult for bigger athletes, most people can handle 5–10 yards of a crab walk without a problem.

The crab walk is what I call a coordinated strength exercise. To move efficiently, the opposite arm and leg must work together. Since you have to hold yourself off the ground for the duration of the walk, the upper body—particularly the wrists, shoulders, and scapula—get some serious strength work at various awkward angles. The same goes for the glutes and hamstrings, particularly on the forward crab walk.

The crab walk is a coordinated strength exercise—to move efficiently, the opposite arm and leg must work together, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

While the glutes hold the hips off the ground, the hamstrings basically pull the body forward. This is great general strength work, while at the same time challenging the athlete to move forward in a rhythmic, coordinated manner. The crab walk can be done moving forward, backward, and side-to-side.

We make sure that we keep our movements efficient by doing crab walks for very short durations, usually 5­–10 yards. It’s not an endurance event or punishment—it’s training to be efficient, strong, and resilient.

Programming the Crab

The age group I most like to use crab walks with are athletes ages 5–12. Their smaller bodies move a bit more efficiently and don’t seem to tire as easily. Also, because it’s such a novel activity, kids tend to really enjoy it. Two of my favorite variations to use with kids are crab soccer and crab walks on planks.

Crab soccer is, as you might guess, exactly what it sounds like. We play 1v1, where each player is in an active crab position (hips off the ground). Both players try to kick a ball past their opponent’s goal. This is a fantastic warm-up activity that most kids love to play—five minutes of crab soccer and kids are warmed-up and fired up for the rest of the training session.

Plank crab walks are a great challenge for younger kids. The key is to elevate the 2×4 planks a few feet off the floor to provide that fear of falling off. This little trick works great, as the kids really have to slow down and concentrate on the movement. We often play a game where if you slip off, you have to to start over. The kids in our youth program love this challenge—once they make it across going forward, we try going sideways and backward.

Crab movements can be hugely beneficial for all levels of athletes—it’s one of those unique exercises that trains the entire body, from the toes to the fingers. The variations can allow for beginners all the way to advanced-level movement. They can be used as part of a prep/warm-up for older athletes, part of a youth athletic training program, or a novel challenge for kids.

Crab work is a simple and equipment-free bodyweight activity that can check a lot of boxes when it comes to all-around athletic development, says @JeremyFrisch. Share on X

We know that the environment many young athletes are growing up in today is not very movement-centric. Just because kids play a sport, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting exposed to enough movement variation that develops strength, resists injury, and improves performance. Crab work is a simple and equipment-free bodyweight activity that can check a lot of boxes when it comes to all-around athletic development.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

Deen, JC. “How to Do the Crab Walk.” GMB Fitness. 3/22/22.

Gambetta, Vern. Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning. Human Kinetics: 2006.

Hargrove , Todd. Better Movement.

Hurst, Ryan. “Movement Checkup: 5 Fundamental Movement Patterns to Focus Training.” GMB Fitness. 11/5/19.

Shank, Max. “The 30 Second Mobility Cure.” T-Nation. 6/26/13.

I recently attended the National High School Strength Coaches Association national conference in Nashville, Tennessee—the first in-person conference I’ve attended since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

During this three-day conference (coaches’ social included), I had the opportunity to hear and meet a phenomenal number of coaches from all ranks of performance enhancement—public school, private school, physical education teachers, and college and professional coaches. I’d had social media interactions with many of them but had never before met them in person.

One of the coaches I’ve had frequent interactions with via social media was the final presenter for the weekend: Cody Hughes, from Madison Academy in Alabama. Finally having the opportunity to speak with Cody in person during the coaches’ social, we touched on the topic of his presentation titled “Slow Down to Speed Up: Training Strategies for Robustness.” The underlying concept of Cody’s presentation, and our brief talk, was utilizing and extending time through movements (tempos) to improve the functionality, abilities, and durability of athletes by improving the physiological make-up of ligaments and tendons, which in turn will improve athlete health and availability for performance.

While all the scientific information he presented was great, the point he made that stuck with me the most was his last.

Paraphrasing Cody, if we as coaches are tasked with developing and coordinating plans that enable athletes to perform better, perform longer, and have the skills and information to live healthier lives, we too as coaches have to take care of ourselves: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Prior to the week of the conference, I made a knee-jerk decision to remove all social media platforms (excluding YouTube) from my cellphone.

This article is about why I did it, and why you should consider it too.

“Comparison Is the Thief of Joy” – Theodore Roosevelt

As a young Black sports performance coach and small business owner, much of what I do via my social media presence is showing:

• What I do with athletes and clients.
• Why we do it.
• How it’s beneficial to performance (i.e., context).

I touched on this in a podcast I am grateful to have been a guest on, sharing my experience as a Black person in the fitness/strength and conditioning field. People have preconceived notions about what I do—cones and ladder “quick feet” drills, burpees, moderate-intensity long-duration cardio, etc.—in the name of sports performance.

With the opportunities I’ve had as an athlete and young coach, combined with the people I’ve been able to network with over the years, I’ve discovered that it is quite the task to get the average person to understand what actual strength and conditioning for sports performance is. More times than not, I’ve found myself in arguments and “debates” with those who don’t understand those concepts or contextual parameters.

Even worse, I’ve caught myself scrolling through social media comparing my business—and training strategies—to other coaches and trainers who have more followers, more athletes/clients, better equipment, etc.

“Why do they have so many athletes, and that’s all they do?”

“Where did they get the money for this space/equipment?”

“I would never do that with an athlete.”

“When would [insert drill] be useful for [insert sport]?”

“How do I reach [gym/trainers] athletes to get them in my facility?” 

“That’s not how this works.”

These are some of the thoughts and questions that regularly flooded my mind when I scrolled through Instagram, Facebook, and other social media outlets that physical preparation professionals occupied.

I made a conscious effort to avoid using my cellphone before getting to work in order to avoid creating any premature anxiety before accomplishing my morning routines and responsibilities. Share on X

I made a conscious effort to avoid using my cellphone—the outlet through which I consumed all social media—before getting to work in order to avoid creating any premature anxiety before accomplishing my morning routines and responsibilities. However, after my day’s work officially began, it was essentially a matter of just finding time between clients to get a fix. Any new engagements, new client leads, likes on an old tweet—anything.

That only did two things, neither of them positive nor productive:

1. It removed me from my current reality of what was already in front of me.
2. It created anxiety and drive to control something totally outside my power.

“Be Where Your Feet Are” – Scott O’Neil

As a business owner, it is my ultimate goal to help every individual I can. That being said, a realization I came to relatively early into my career was “you can’t save everyone.” In the area I work, there are currently nine elementary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools (one in the same city but a different county).

In and around my geographical radius, there are enough youth athletes (and adults) I can be of assistance to that I don’t need to become a “poacher” coach. I don’t need to look for ways to “compete” with or attempt to acquire (steal) the interests of other individuals or recruit teams to leave their current training situation to join mine.

Some athletes choose to come into my facility regularly and trust me to deliver strategies to improve their performance…and, in some cases, their lives. If I had continued to try to keep up with the Joneses or searched for ways to increase gym engagement, I could possibly have left these athletes feeling neglected, less valuable, or not worthy of my full attention.

If I had continued to try to keep up with the Joneses or searched for ways to increase gym engagement, I could’ve left the athletes in my gym feeling neglected or less valuable, says @KoachGreen_. Share on X

I have a senior client who possesses a wealth of knowledge and served in the United States Navy for several years. He has mentioned a shipmate who often said, “the best ship I’ve ever been on is the one I just left and the one I’m going to next.” This implies that their current circumstances are unsatisfactory, and the one they travel to next will likely be better—a “grass is greener on the other side” outlook.

This is an ugly lie we all face regularly.

Should we be complacent with where we are and what we have? Probably not.

Should we be content with where we are and what we have? Emphatically yes.

If you’ve read other articles I’ve written, then you know I’m a definitions guy:

Complacence: “The quality or state of being self-satisfied.”

Synonyms: conceit, ego, pride, self-importance, etc.

Content: “Having desires limited to whatever one has.”

Synonyms: happy, pleased, joyful, etc.

Having the mental and emotional ability to be fully satisfied where we currently reside, making it the absolute best we possibly can while simultaneously being willing, able, and ready to move forward (or backward) when possible—or necessary—is a skill and tool we should all develop.

The book Make the Big Time Where You Are by Frosty Westering rings true.

Control What You Can Control

In the same vein, it is a fool’s errand to try to compete with another coach or trainer who, at the end of the day, is essentially in business to do the same thing as I am business-wise—regardless of how misleading I believe their approach is to the overarching idea of sports performance.

The individuals and teams I work with choose my services for a reason, and the same can be said for those who choose other options. That’s a challenging part of the business. The customer (client) decides whose products and services they will invest in for a plethora of reasons: convenience, location, the information provided (or not), perception of need, reputation, familiarity, etc. There is a very limited amount of control I can wield over any of those variables. But for those things I can control, I must do so with passion, creativity, and transparency.

Twitter Fingers

As mentioned in the introduction, before June 2022 (since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic), nearly all of the networking, “talking shop,” and professional development I’d done had taken place virtually via social media—primarily on Twitter.

Since May 2020, my Twitter account has had a decent increase in engagement (negative and positive), and my following has grown accordingly.

Having some form of influence on the internet—being able to express my ideas, philosophies, systems, circumstances, and general personality—has an addicting effect, especially when it’s among your peers. And I fell victim to it.

Having some form of influence on the internet has an addicting effect, especially when it’s among your peers. And I fell victim to it, says @KoachGreen_. Share on X

Along with the potential for virtual addiction, the easiest thing to do on social media is to create or engage in a frivolous, out-of-context argument or debate with people you’ve never met (and probably never will).

Again, I’m guilty.

While I can honestly say I never began with ill intent, it is hard to ignore the thrill of engaging in online banter with someone for the sole purpose of “proving your point.” From Olympic lifts for athletes to off-season track & field practice for non-track athletes, I ran the gambit in the span of probably 18 months with multiple people of varying degrees of expertise.

These arguments did absolutely nothing in terms of self-improvement and didn’t help further the profession as a whole or my place within it.

What it did do, however, was enhance the desire to proclaim my values and opinions publicly and die on a proverbial hill despite the perception I may have given of who I am as a person and a coach.

While Twitter can be used as an extremely valuable professional resource, taking a step back and focusing on where my feet are—giving my full attention to those directly in front of me—has been one of the best decisions of my professional career thus far.

While Twitter can be an extremely valuable professional resource, stepping back and focusing on those directly in front of me has been one of the best decisions of my professional career thus far. Share on X

I had to take stock even in my personal life. I have a wife and a dog, and I realized in hindsight that I’d neglected both on many occasions. Ironically, I was introduced to both of them via social media.

I’m a relatively introverted person but had seen my (now) wife on almost a regular basis and would wave, smile, and give a quick “what’s up.” From those brief conversations during my first semester in college, she took the initiative and sent me a message on Facebook. That simple online conversation blossomed into a great friendship and, eventually, our present-day marriage.

After being engaged for a while, my wife and I started talking about getting a dog. Growing up, I never had a pet other than the occasional fish that would inevitably depart this life prematurely, but I always wanted a dog. Although Craigslist isn’t social media per se, it still has all the attributes of what social media has become. After several days of searching I found a new litter of “American Bully” puppies that turned out to be an “accident” after the seven-year-old son of the owners of an American Bully male and APBT female let them out together by accident.

And now we have a little family, all thanks to the internet.

Having just turned 30 this spring, I came to another recent revelation: I was born and raised in a time when the internet was barely a thing (let alone social media), but I’ve also been old enough to watch social media be born and raised.

Social media has been, for more years than not, a part of my life—for better and for worse.

And I honestly think that’s a problem.

The internet—and social media in particular—has manipulated the human experience through devices that haven’t even been in mass circulation for a full generation (30 years).

The use of the internet and social media may be a significant factor in the progression of the profession and distribution of information, but we can’t neglect our physical or mental selves. Share on X

As time goes on, it’s becoming more evident that the use of the internet and social media will be a significant factor in the progression of the profession and the distribution of information. But, as Cody Hughes mentioned in his presentation, we cannot neglect our physical or mental selves at the expense of another like or retweet.

Before my exodus from social media, there was a trend of young (younger than me at least) strength and performance coaches aggressively and obnoxiously bombarding more experienced and tenured professionals with all the newest data points and findings. These were not even attempts to prove themselves right, but seemingly, to prove a veteran coach erroneous and obsolete—to begin accumulating belt notches and battle scars.

Not only does that behavior detract from actual professional development, but it also continues the stereotype about “type A” egotistical strength coaches and coaches.

Red Pill

The Matrix (the first one) is one of the greatest movies produced in my lifetime, and just like in that movie, we must be cognizant of how our perspective and worldview are being skewed due to the nature of social media.

The social interaction and engagement with like-minded individuals, and the opportunity to reach out and communicate with coaches with whom I could have never imagined I would have the chance to converse, is such a remarkable thing to be able to do.

But if the virtual engagement becomes greater than, or equal to, that of being in the present moment…is it even worth it?

I don’t think so, in the slightest.

And that’s why I left social media.

I’ll return as @KoachGreen_ eventually—it’s mildly difficult to run a business without it—but until then, I’ll be enjoying what the real world has to offer.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Yes, sprinting at max speed is the most common use for timing lasers, but it’s not the only use—not every run with the systems needs to be at 100% effort/speed or in a straight line.

Timing lasers (such as Dashr, Brower, VALD, Swift, etc.) provide an objective, repeatable, and reliable way of measuring speed. Personally, I’ve found a lot of value in programming and coaching with the VALD SmartSpeed timers. With that simple premise of timing from when the athlete crosses through the first laser to when they cross the last one, there are a variety of valuable uses for multiple aspects of speed training.

Sprinting at max speed is the most common use for timing lasers, but it’s not the only use—not every run with the systems needs to be at 100% effort/speed or in a straight line, says @CoachBigToe. Share on X

I’m here to highlight a trio of uses for timing lasers that include all aspects of preparing for sport and game speed (not just sprinting):

• Timing any type of run you can imagine.
• Building into top-speed sprinting.
• Return to play. 

Timing Any Type of Run You Can Imagine

Going back to the simplicity of timing lasers, measuring how long it takes the athlete to run through the first laser and consequently the second one, anything done in between the lasers is up to you:

1. Example: curve running. Determine how big you want the circle’s radius, set up the cones/rope/whatever you want the boundaries to be, and tell your athletes to run fast. They’ll have extra motivation and objective feedback on whether the rep was better or worse than the previous one.

Video 1: Athlete performing a timed curve run of a full circle.

2. Example: change of direction test. Besides the standard pro-shuttle/pro-agility/5-10-5 (can we figure out an official name for it, please?), how else do you assess your athlete’s ability to change direction? Below is an example of what you could do if the setup is precise and consistent. Sprint 5 yards, unilateral cut using left foot turning to the right, sprint 5 yards, unilateral cut using right foot turning to the left, sprint 5 yards, bilateral cut touching one foot on the line to turn around, sprint 10 yards through the finish.

Video 2: Athletes performing a 180-degree cut test to assess change of direction bilateral cutting.

Here’s another example of a change of direction test you can do. The 180-degree cut test uses a simple premise: the athlete crosses the beam to start the time and has to cross it again to stop the time. The athlete starts at the 0-yard line, runs and touches their foot 10 yards away, and runs back, with the laser on the 5-yard line.

Building into Top-Speed Sprinting

Athletes getting back into top-speed sprinting after extended time off can make coaches nervous (not because it’s immediately dangerous, but if done haphazardly, it can be). Using timing lasers can help objectively guide the progression from time off back into max effort sprints.

For example, here’s how you could build up to top-speed sprinting over the course of multiple weeks. Let’s say the athlete’s best fly 10 is 1.00 seconds:

• Session 1: Fly 10s with a 20-yard build-in at 90%, should be around 1.10 seconds.
• Session 2: Fly 10s with a 25-yard build-in at 90%, should be around 1.10 seconds.
• Session 3: Fly 10s with a 25-yard build-in at 95%, should be around 1.05 seconds.
• Session 4: Fly 10s with a 30-yard build-in at 95%, should be around 1.05 seconds.
• Session 5: Fly 10s with a 30-yard build-in at 100%, should be around 1.00 seconds.

If you know an athlete’s best, you can calculate the percentages and give them something to shoot for to drive progress objectively. But coaching with percentages like that can be challenging for some athletes to understand. With the example above, if the athlete is sprinting their fly 10s at a 1.20 pace, will that prepare them for 100% in the following weeks? Probably not.

Is the athlete actually at 90% of their previous best? Is the following session of 95% faster than the previous session at 90%? How else do you know if they’re hitting the speed they’re supposed to hit? Say the athlete’s “90%” is actually 80% speed and you need them to add some speed and intensity. Or, your athlete is excited, comes out at 1.04 when it should be a 1.10, and you need them to dial it back a little. Either way, it’s easier to do so with objective justification and being able to SHOW them their speed. Even if it’s telling them to hit the same speed again, it adds that much more reassurance to the athlete with the numbers to back it up.

Return to Play

Besides progressing through the typical return to play rehabilitation protocols—and eventually regaining the ability to sprint at 100% effort—how else do you evaluate progress? Timing lasers are an effective way to get objective feedback about how an athlete is progressing through rehab. I’ve used objective measurements like this by prompting the athlete “sprint 10 yards as fast as you feel comfortable” and tracking it over time. It might not always be pretty, and it might not be near their best speed pre-injury, but it’s another tool you have to provide even more information about an athlete’s progress.

Timing lasers are an effective way to get objective feedback about how an athlete is progressing through rehab… It’s the most direct way to compare if they’re at 100% of what they used to be. Share on X

Rehab can be a long, frustrating, and discouraging process. But how impactful would it be to show your athlete that they’re making improvements in the right direction toward their goals, even if those improvements aren’t drastic? How impactful would it be for you to justify calling an audible and modifying your protocols if progress objectively stalls after multiple sessions/weeks? Are athletes done with rehab because they progressed through the exercises or because they can consistently hit the same times as they could pre-injury? It’s the most direct way to compare if they’re at 100% of what they used to be.

Assuming you regularly time sprints in your speed training, you should take “pre-injury” or “baseline” data for your athletes. It’s not the timing lasers themselves but what you do with them and what they help justify that takes your return to play to the next level.

Bonus: Motivation

Not everything that is timed needs to be written down, and sometimes timing lasers can just be used as motivating feedback. You can make up a drill on the spot and instantly draw out more effort just by setting up timing lasers. Make it competitive, make it fun, and watch your athletes run that much faster.

Be creative in new applications of your timing lasers to level up your coaching. This is a different way to think about a tool you might already have to complement what you’re already doing. Whether it’s supporting drawing more effort out of your change of direction drills, helping build back into sprinting more safely, or helping your return to play process and decisions, the only limit is your imagination.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

At bigger schools with large staffs, the strength coach with only two or three teams is available to attend staff meetings and work practices and competitions. And they can usually find time to meet regularly with coaches and athletic trainers without much trouble. But how can strength coaches at smaller schools with smaller staffs provide similar high performance value? When three of your teams are practicing at the same time that you’re lifting another group, it can be tough to stay on top of the daily goings-on for any given program.

Here at Lee University, my assistant and I work with about 300 kids. Between team lifts and open-hours sessions where we roll kids through seven half-racks (not to mention typical administrative work), unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to regularly attend as many practices or sports staff meetings as we’d like. To approximate a high-performance model in our context, we use technology to track some key performance indicators to create athlete data profiles that give actionable information to sports coaches, athletic trainers, and the strength staff.

This past fall, I used women’s volleyball as the guinea pig for our new Vitruve VBT units since it was the team whose practices I could attend the most. (The first few weeks were busy, as I was elevated to the head role just prior to school starting. I tried to average about one practice a week during the back half of the semester.) Being able to watch your team practice is such a benefit for the strength coach. You learn:

• What positions do they regularly find themselves moving into and out of?
• Can I learn some of the lingo to link our training with the language of their sport?
• What is the practice tempo—sure, reverse-engineering the work:rest ratios of competition is important, but they have to get through practice to make it to game day.

During breaks, I ask our coaches and athletic trainer how the girls have been looking, and it’s a good chance to quickly discuss how training has recently translated to the court. Luckily, with this team, our coaching staff is at every single lift. Some strength coaches may be wary of that, but I truly appreciate it—their presence shows that the weight room is important and keeps us connected as a staff since I can’t be at every practice. Regardless, a little face time at practice (and games, especially) goes a long way—you can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to be there.

The kids and coaches eat it up when you can link your training exercises to a drill from practice or a sport-specific scenario, says wla_21. Share on X

As much as possible, maintaining a presence outside the weight room walls is also one of the easiest ways to get buy-in from administrators, coaches, and athletes. The kids and coaches eat it up when you can link your training exercises to a drill from practice or a sport-specific scenario. And the relationship factor obviously gets them to trust you quicker and more deeply. Often, the most effective staff meetings can occur in informal situations, like during practice breaks or passing by each other in the dining hall.

Technology Used

We use Google Sheets, TeamBuildr, the Just Jump mat, and the Vitruve VBT unit as our main pieces of technology.

To begin each session, the girls enter their body weight into TeamBuildr, and early into the lift, we get a four-jump RSI score and a vertical jump as a readiness method, both of which they enter into Google Sheets on one of our two laptops. A short questionnaire in TeamBuildr on stress, sleep, and nutrition reminds athletes of their ownership in “the other 20 hours” and can paint a picture for S&C and athletic training as the stresses of the in-season phase pile up. Fortunately, the Vitruve app is synced with TeamBuildr to automatically record tonnage, velocity, and power for selected lifts.

Peak power is the primary key performance metric we track for our weight work in-season—obviously, you have to move yourself with some suddenness to meet and contact the ball out on the court effectively. Grinding heavy weight for the sake of heavy weight doesn’t make much sense when factoring in mid-week games, travel, school stressors, etc. If a player’s power is slipping over the course of the semester, you need to manipulate your tonnage schemes, as power loss will show during competition.

There’s a balance: last year, our single leg power dropped a bit despite our other lower body metrics improving. I may have gone a little light in our weight selection there, although we only had one session for that lift in November, so the data is limited compared to the other months.

The athletes’ lift numbers are tracked each session, so we can compare them across time to their position group and team. Again, peak power is the figure I’m most interested in, and you can also prescribe lifts within velocity ranges if you’re so inclined.

In Google Sheets, the data validation function allows you to select an athlete from a drop-down menu, enabling us to rotate through each player’s profile quickly; all the numbers are copied from TeamBuildr into a separate “Roster” sheet that is referenced within the data profile sheet formulas. That “Roster” sheet also tracks changes over time for the assessments, while the data profile serves as a snapshot of a given testing week. In the future, we’ll be able to compare any given point of the season to the same point in time from previous years. Likewise, we can see the typical peak power for a particular position. With Vitruve and TeamBuildr’s combined tracking, I can get an idea of how set, rep, and tonnage variables affect power on both the micro and macro scales.

With Vitruve and TeamBuildr’s combined tracking, I can get an idea of how set, rep, and tonnage variables affect power on both the micro and macro scales, says wla_21. Share on X

By the end of the semester, I logged all their peak power numbers that Vitruve and TeamBuildr saved—I chose to track hang power cleans, squat, a split squat, bench press, a 1-arm landmine press, and split jumps. This range of exercises shows a total body, lower body, and upper body effort, as well as unilateral lower and upper body efforts. This weight room data is referenced in the master “Roster” sheet, which is then referenced to build their player profile. Color-coded charts show their (hopeful) growth as the semester progresses.

Varying your exercise selection allows you to improve the athletes’ KPIs with more specified lifts (e.g., moving from full to half to quarter squats, a strict landmine press to a push press to a jerk, etc.) without the training growing stale and progress stalling as you build a tolerance to exercises that don’t change. Did I try to cheat the system with my exercise selection choices to make our power trend upward as the season progressed? Absolutely—that is the entire point of periodization and hoping to achieve something of a peak in the team sport setting.

For example, the coaching staff felt that blocking was the skill that improved the most through the season; the vertical jump average increased 1.3 inches for our frontline rotation girls from August to November. The coaches and girls all felt that they were also striking the ball harder as the season progressed.

Integrating with Coaching Staff and Athletic Trainers

Comparing key sports statistics alongside the weight room numbers can provide good talking points with your coaching staff. Do a player’s stats match up with their athleticism? That question can start a conversation on the Four Coactive performance model (physical, tactical, technical, and psychological factors).

Might an explosive player be too slow reacting to visual patterns on the court? Are there any limiting factors keeping a girl with a high volleyball IQ from expressing it on the court?

Assessment lets us know exactly how each player compares to their teammates physically and in competition. If any area needs addressing, we know what we can work on. Particularly in team sports—where it can be tough to empirically quantify the effect size of drills/exercises/etc.—why guess in the few instances where you do have the ability to assess some factors?

Particularly in team sports—where it can be tough to empirically quantify the effect size of drills/exercises/etc.—why guess in the few instances where you do have the ability to assess some factors? Share on X

And we can’t forget our athletic trainers! Since we track their athleticism numbers, ATs can have a baseline for return-to-play protocols. We might not have GPS/heart rate monitors or force plates lying around, but knowing an RSI jump or a 5-10-5 time gives us a reference for criterion-based reconditioning when making sure kids are ready to return to full-intensity drills. If a cluster of injuries pops up randomly, the acute:chronic ratio could be a good place to check.

In the past, we’ve done some questionnaires and monitored acute:chronic ratios by combining practice duration and RPE with tonnages in the weight room, but we’re gotten away from these more subjective measures in favor of tracking power throughout. Accounting for the systemic load of accessory movements can be challenging, and starting every session on the jump mat serves as a quick readiness test, anyway. It can be interesting to compare the kids’ practice RPE to a coach’s RPE, though—if the range is always wide, that can lead to some questions.

Obviously, a coach may think that a given practice should feel easy, but players could feel otherwise if it involves a lot of time on their feet or lots of landing at the wrong time of the year. Much like we periodize our workouts, coaches can mix factors like time, intensity, skill drills versus scrimmaging, etc., to keep practices productive and efficient.

At the start of every practice, the girls mark on a whiteboard how they’re feeling physically and mentally; this is an excellent way for our coaches to holistically see how both the team and individuals are doing daily. There’s a trust factor required on both ends. For the players—do I believe I won’t get punished if I say I don’t feel so great today? For me—can I trust what my team wrote on the board? If they say they’re fresh, then we can practice as scheduled.

Smaller schools, or those with smaller budgets, may have to get creative to implement a high-performance model, but it can be done. If our job is to support our coaches and athletes, we need to use everything at our disposal to make a positive impact, no matter our budget.

If our job is to support our coaches and athletes, we need to use everything at our disposal to make a positive impact, no matter our budget, says @wla_21. Share on X

Choosing to train during the competitive period only makes sense if we’re increasing KPIs and giving the players a better capacity to express their sports skills. Tracking our power and trying to manipulate it upward through the season is a good way to feel confident that our training positively impacts performance. Technology can be a great supplement to the power of the conversations and the coach’s eye in a high-performance model.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

At the collegiate level, my fellow strength and conditioning coaches and I are able to see our working environment and teams’ culture from a bird’s-eye view. We sit at the back of the meeting room for film and game day walk-throughs, and while we play a role in practice, we are certainly not at the center of it all (at least, we shouldn’t be!).

With this bird’s-eye view, we can offer honest, 360-degree feedback to our head coach on what we see and how this may be of good or of harm to the culture they are trying to uphold. Providing this feedback is important, and we must be brave as support staff to communicate with the head coach things we see that might be a blind spot for them.

If I am to provide this feedback, I’d better be in a self-reflective mood when assessing my role within the program as well. At the start of each off-season and in-season phase, I write a new “interventions” list and a daily checklist that hang above my desk as reminders of what I need to do to provide the best S&C program I can with the knowledge and experience I’ve accumulated.

I’m in my fifth off-season with Furman—working with men’s basketball and men’s golf—and the longer I’m in this profession, the more I value and make time to reflect on my previous years’ work and how I can improve it for the next macrocycle. Over the last couple of years at Furman, my biggest bird’s-eye view reflection was that I needed to incorporate technology into my S&C program to take it to the next level. Technology was an area I didn’t have any experience in, but I knew it would make a huge impact in providing the most holistic S&C program possible for my teams.

Adding technology systems to an already busy workload, like anything new, requires time and effort. It also requires us as coaches to be brave when communicating with the coaching staff about what the data is telling us, how we have assessed it, and what practical steps we should take to improve based on the data insight.

You’ll save time if you use technology correctly and get a deeper, more wide-reaching picture of many things that contribute significantly to your athletes’ health & performance, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

This article aims to show you that with the right systems in place, technology doesn’t have to add hours to your already busy day. In fact, the opposite is true. You will save time if you use technology correctly, and you will get a deeper, more wide-reaching picture of many things that contribute significantly to your athletes’ health and performance. And this, at the end of the day, is how our jobs are assessed.

Good to Great

To clarify something before we move on, I know from discussions and various social media posts that this question is being asked a lot:

Do I need technology (force plates, GPS, heart rate, etc.) to run an S&C program and get good results in the weight room and on the field/court/pool?

I can hear us all saying to ourselves, “My days are already busy, my program is already good, I’ve had good results in the past; I don’t need technology to be a great S&C coach.” I don’t want to contest you on what you’ve done in the past. My challenge is to get us all into a proactive mindset with our thinking. What else can I do that will raise the level of my S&C program? How can I take it from good to great? What could move the performance needle if I added it into my program?

Following on from this, I want to propose some questions.

• • Is the team high-performing? How do you define and quantify high-performing?

 

• • How do you quantify your job performance? Wins and losses are tricky ones that we would all do well to tread lightly over. Program-best winning season, “it all starts in the weight room”; sub-500 record, “it all starts in the weight room.” My advice here would be to check yourself in the mirror, don’t take the bait, and just continue to add value where you can. Learn from the wins and the losses from a physical preparation standpoint and remember that a strength coach has never made a winning play (or any play!) in any game. We are support staff, not student-athletes.

 

• • What data do you have that you can show an athlete so they can see their progress, both in the weight room and on the field/court?

 

• • What data do you have that can show a coach their practice loads and work to periodize this better? After all, games are truly won and lost on the field/court, not in the weight room. Keep the number 1 thing as the number 1 thing: the sport the athlete is at the university to play. Your lifting sessions are just a mandatory add-on to that sport.

 

• What data do you have that can show a coach the team’s game loads? If we are to reverse-engineer the sport to best program and prepare the team to compete, we need game data/loads to work from and prepare for in the following pre-season period. Wins and losses don’t help you program a pre-season conditioning session. Having game data with a tracking system that shows game intensity and average work/rest periods does.

Wins and losses don’t help you program a pre-season conditioning session. Having game data with a tracking system that shows game intensity and average work/rest periods does, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

• • What training program feedback are you getting? In this power block of training, how do you know if the athlete got more explosive? Does a 1RM power clean improvement equal an improvement in their force production? Did they get stronger, enabling them to get a new 1RM? Did the programming to work on the power clean lead to an increase in power?

 

• • Do you have a yearlong readiness and fatigue monitoring system in place? Wellness questionnaires are great but subjective; athletes can manipulate their answers (shocking, I know!). Do you have a quantitative way of tracking their fatigue/readiness throughout the season?

 

• • Can you provide the freshman with normative data that they can work toward to match the performance level of older athletes in the program?

 

• When assessing NBA/NFL talent and using these examples to motivate your athletes, do you look at their combine scores? Do you work toward improving your athletes’ combine scores? Isn’t this considered a test and retest using data to show progression and performance gaps? I assume you use some equipment, maybe even technology (speed gates), to run these combines—if you use technology and data to help your athletes reach the next level, why wouldn’t you incorporate it into your daily work to ensure more accurate, detailed, and player-specific programming?

You will get better results with the use of technology within your S&C program. Answering these questions without data, without evidence of improvements, and without quantifiable results is near impossible. You can turn a good program into a great one with technology because you are now getting player-specific feedback—internal and external load—that can help your decision-making as an S&C coach.

Data Reporting

With all sports technology systems, there is a range of different metrics collected and made available for analysis. The first few conversations with the tech company’s sports scientist are crucial in establishing what they perceive to be important within your sport and what you were looking to track and monitor (which is hopefully what led you to buy the product, not pressure to do so just to say you have “X” product).

After you have used the system for a few weeks, the analysis and subsequent interpretation of the data is the next, and arguably the most important, step. (It has been said that to get the most from the data, a full yearly training cycle should first be recorded before assessment.) As strength and conditioning coaches, it is highly likely that we are the ones who really like, care for, and are heavily invested in the data, not the coaching staff. It is our job to present this data so that our coaching staff understands, cares about, and can make practical decisions. Often, this involves adding context to the data—such as showing which drills produced the highest load or highlighting which players stood out in terms of high or low exertion during the session.

It is the S&C coach’s job to present the data so our coaching staff understands, cares about, and can make practical decisions. Often, this involves adding context to the data, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

For example, as you can see with the slide below, I can describe some training recommendations that are in easy-to-understand terms and simple to apply practically. It requires no data analysis or extra work for the sports coach; they can tweak practice plans easily based on your detail and prior work.

Take ownership of the data and do a deep dive into what you find interesting and what could help the team prepare/recover and optimize game performance. These may be bigger projects to work on, but they’re likely important questions to find answers to. Only share with the coaching staff the crucial data sets that can answer specific questions you have been asked to report back on or proactively seek to improve. For example:

1. How you want to structure the pre-season differently this year compared to last year.
2. How your day-before-a-game practice load could potentially contribute to a fast start in the game or not.
3. How player X has been trending recently in practice/games.
4. How player X is working through their return to play protocol efficiently.

Practical Reporting Examples

When using Hawkin Dynamics force plates in the weight room, I will clean the data after every lift session and compare the latest jumps to the athlete’s previous session and total data set. We jump on the plates whenever the athletes are in the weight room to train. The more data points I have for them here, the better, both from a fatigue monitoring perspective and a training response perspective.

The picture below highlights a player’s jump height during their freshman year. Jump height is the main metric I look at and track with the countermovement jump, with time to takeoff and L/R average braking force. When players perform the drop jump, the focus is on seeing changes in their reactive strength: RSI and mRSI.

I like to share with the coaching staff via text when a player gets a PR jump. I’ll let my head coach know when the team average is very high above the average or very low below the average. I do this to create a conversation around the team’s upcoming training and how best we can program to ensure the team stays healthy and high-performing.

Reporting good news to the coaching staff from the weight room is always fun; if the team’s energy is good and their jumps are above average, it’s productive to reinforce the staff’s desire to have an intense practice. What makes a coaching staff impressive is their ability to use their eye and know when to pull back on intensity or duration of practice (or sometimes both). Even when the jump heights have been well below average, it’s been interesting to report this to the staff and see that the plan for that day or the next day was for a lighter court session or no practice anyway, which is a great connection between their instinct and the data. This isn’t always the case, of course, but this is where we have to be brave to report what we see and trust that the information is received and some training modifications, even if they are small, are made.

I am also very selective with what I share with the coaching staff about the on-court training. I no longer send out post-practice reports (Kinexon), as that wasn’t an effective way for me to communicate training loads to the coaching staff. I found that sending an email wasn’t adequate for sharing the sessions with them; texting them or printing out the data with context and putting it on their desks led to much greater conversation around Kinexon and our use of the system.

I look at the week as a whole and create a slide on Friday of each training week that shows the team practice loads for that week. I print this out and put it on my coach’s desk so that he can see what days were more intense than others. It can be a discussion starter for us on how to best plan for the following week. Using extra features on these reports to present the data in the coaching terms and vocabulary that we use as a program has also proven to be an effective way of data reporting (for example, changing the term “accumulated acceleration load per minute” into “high-intensity effort per minute”).

Producing work with a high level of detail will go a long way when presenting data to staff and wanting the desired outcome, says @SCoach_Aldo. Share on X

For bigger-picture questions, such as comparing in-game intensity from this past season to the previous season, I print out some slides and put these on the staff’s desks. I then text the group chat some background on what I have given them, my conclusions, and how to get a better result next time with some practical application points. Producing work with a high level of detail will go a long way when presenting data to staff and wanting the desired outcome.

Here to Stay

Whether you currently use technology in your program or not, one thing is for sure—sports technology isn’t going anywhere! To provide my athletes with the most holistic strength and conditioning program possible, I must integrate performance tech. The information these products provide is game-changing compared to not having it.

It’s 2022. There will continue to be more and more products on the market that will help us do our jobs as S&C coaches. There’s never been a better time to be in this profession, given what we have available to us to help program and coach our athletes to higher levels of performance.

Kinexon first started working with college basketball teams in 2018, and Hawkin Dynamics did as well. Both companies are market leaders in the service they provide, and yet they are only four years old in the basketball strength and conditioning world. Yes, technology may be harder for older coaches to get behind, as many have had good success without using any, but for me, if you’re in this profession now, the future path is clear. It involves great sports technology products that make our jobs easier and allow us to reach new levels of insight and performance.

Lead photo by John Byrum/Icon Sportswire

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

If you’re in the army, one of the standards to remain in the organization is the ability to pass their physical fitness test. For many years, soldiers performed the Army Physical Fitness Test (or APFT), which included push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2-mile run. Officially rolling out in October 2022, the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) will replace the APFT, and this updated test better matches the demands on soldiers to get a more accurate idea of their fitness levels.

The new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) will replace the APFT, and this updated test better matches the demands on soldiers to get a more accurate idea of their fitness levels, says @Mccharles187. Share on X

To prepare for this test, we will go over programming considerations including:

• Exercise choices
• Sets and reps
• Weekly program structure to improve in the ACFT

The ACFT encompasses five major pillars of soldier fitness that the test measures to ensure a well-rounded, physically fit soldier as referenced in the FM7-22, which details definitions of Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) and programming considerations for the army. You can check it out here:

The five pillars are:

1. Strength
2. Power
3. Muscular endurance
4. Anaerobic endurance
5. Aerobic endurance

The ACFT uses measurements from the following six events to measure the pillars:

1. Three-repetition maximum trap bar deadlift (strength)
2. Standing power throw (power)
3. Hand release push-ups (muscular endurance)
4. Planks (muscular endurance)
5. Sprint-drag-carry (anaerobic endurance)
6. Two-mile run (aerobic endurance)

Each event has a minimum requirement and maximum score based on gender and age. You can learn more about the ACFT and how each event is performed here.

After so many years of those in the army mostly running and doing sit-ups and push-ups, this new test required them to update their training methodologies with the help of the H2F team. My job is to teach my battalion at Fort Bragg how to train smarter to ensure they can stay injury free and exceed a passing score in the ACFT. The strength and conditioning coaches at H2F have collectively agreed upon the following six movement patterns (in no particular order) to include in their strength training two to three times per week to help improve each of the five pillars of soldier fitness:

1. Squat
2. Hinge
3. Upper press
4. Upper pull
5. Lunge/single leg
6. Carry/drag

After so many years of those in the army mostly running and doing sit-ups and push-ups, this new test required them to update their training methodologies, says @Mccharles187. Share on X

Squat

The squat can include a number of squat variations including back squats, front squats, kettlebell goblet squats, trap bar deadlift, land-mine squats, etc. This and the hinge pattern will be the best movements to perform to increase the three-rep max trap bar deadlift as well as keep the legs strong and healthy for running and performing other tasks required of the soldier.

Hinge

Hinge patterns include barbell/kettle bell (KB) Romanian deadlifts, deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts, hip bridges, KB swings, and more. Primarily, we are aiming to work on the glutes and the hamstrings for resiliency and to assist in improving the three-rep max trap bar deadlift. I also like to do single leg variations to work on body control so they can feel which side is weaker and work on bridging the gap.

Upper Press

I like to split upper press movements into horizontal, incline, and vertical presses to ensure we are training various areas of the shoulder, arms, and chest to avoid overuse and to strengthen weak areas a soldier hasn’t trained before.

I like to split upper press movements into horizontal, incline, and vertical presses…to avoid overuse and to strengthen weak areas a soldier hasn’t trained before, says @Mccharles187. Share on X

The army has used push-ups for a long time as a main exercise, so I tend to use horizontal presses the least and focus more on vertical and incline presses to work on neglected muscle areas; I throw in horizontal presses once in a blue moon (meaning we don’t use the Barbell Bench Press exercise very much). Exercises in this category can include barbell/KB incline press, barbell/KB military press, KB upright presses, barbell bench press, land-mine press (single or double arm), weighted push-ups, and banded push-ups.

Upper Pull

For shoulder and back health, I think this movement pattern matters the most compared to the upper press, only because the army has been doing push-ups since the dawn of time and many have neglected training their back—which may have contributed to shoulder and back injuries while training or out in the field. I include as many different back exercises as I can in both horizontal and vertical patterns to strengthen the rotator cuff and overall back strength. Exercises can include rows in their various forms, chin-ups, pull-ups, band pull-aparts, and band no monies.

Lunge

Exercises can include KB, barbell, or landmine lunges (forward, reverse, or lateral), split-squats, rear-elevated split squats, front-elevated split squats, and pistol squats. Similar to doing single leg hinge movements, these help strengthen the legs for body control and work on the weaker leg individually to bridge the gap from the stronger leg. For me, these are more focused on injury prevention, tendon health, and balance/stability.

Carry/Drag

In the sprint-drag-carry event, the soldiers have to drag a nylon sled loaded at 90lbs then later carry two 40lb kettlebells for a 25-meter shuttle each. So, we include variations of carries and drags to adapt to the demands of the test. Exercises can include farmer’s carry, waiters carry, KB upright carry, forward sled drags, reverse sled drags, and lateral sled drags.

Weekly Program Structure

Within a 5-day period, my goal is to be able to train each of the five pillars at least one to two times to drive consistent progress and avoid soldiers running excessively and to reduce overuse injuries. Each company I assist with programs a month at a time sends me their PT plans or has me in the room to guide how the week should look.

Within a 5-day period, my goal is to be able to train each of the five pillars at least one to two times to drive consistent progress, says @Mccharles187. Share on X

My general recommendation is that we strength train two times per week, do a long run one time per week, and do a speed and anaerobic conditioning session one time per week. Thursdays are an enforced “warrior/tactical PT” day led by our Division Commander, so the soldiers have to either go on a ruck (carrying a 25-35lb ruck sack with full gear and hike/walk for 2-6 miles) or do a tactical PT session using logs, tires, battle ropes, sleds, etc. in a circuit or competition-based event.

Bear in mind that we strength train in a small, Beaverfit gym-in-a-box that has four squat racks with five barbells, 10-20lb medballs, 6-24kg kettlebells, four metal sleds, and some bands—and this is shared by three companies (in my battalion, each company has about 25 soldiers). We can only have two companies training at the box at a time, so each company has a similar training schedule with all the elements in the table but the workouts are moved around to different days. For example, my Alpha Company strength trains at the box Monday and Wednesday, while my Head Quarters and Bravo Company strength train at the box Tuesday and Friday.

Normally, I would like to have the long run on Fridays since I consider that a high volume day, but that’s just how the schedule worked out. The army jokingly likes to call Monday a “detox” day anyway after the weekend’s shenanigans, so they don’t mind running on Mondays.

Strength Workout Example/Sets and Reps

From the table, you can probably tell that, outside the strength training days, the workouts are more endurance/high volume. Because of this set up, my workout volume when we strength train is extremely low because they are getting plenty of volume from the other days. Often, they come in to training with some level of fatigue from the day before, so I do my best to account for that to keep the effort and quality of movements high.

Often, athletes come in to training with some level of fatigue from the day before, so I do my best to account for that to keep the effort and quality of movements high, says @Mccharles187. Share on X

After a dynamic warm-up, we’ll do 3-5 sprints at 20-40 meters on Tuesdays and do 1-3 agility/change of direction drills on Fridays to wake them up and get the nervous system firing before we lift. When we are training the squat and hinge movements, I tend to stay under 25 total reps, as their legs are pre-fatigued from running/rucking. I’ll lean the upper press toward the higher volume side on the Prilipen chart, in the 70-85% range. The upper pull I’ll do very high volume and do >24 total reps, as most soldiers back muscles are very weak and underactive unless it’s a chin-up or pull-up and give a range of 3-10 reps depending on strength ability.

I’ll stick to 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps at a moderate weight for lunges/single legs to target strength/hypertrophy. Finally, we’ll do drags/carries from 25-50 meters to adapt to the demands of the sprint-drag-carry test. Below is an example workout we’re doing in the month of July on Tuesdays. Keep in mind that I have been training with these soldiers for seven months and have progressed movements and exercises slowly and safely to get to this point and do not recommend doing this on Day 1 of training.

Dynamic Warm-Up

3-5 Sprints at 20-40 Meters resting 1-min for every 10 meters of sprinting

A1. 5s Eccentric Back Squat 5×3

A2. Depth Jumps for height 5×3

A3. Kettle Squat Jumps for height 5×3

A4. Band Assisted Drop Jumps 5×3

B1. Land-Mine Explosive Pull to Press 4x4e

B2. Med Ball Alt Slam to Single Arm Chest Pass 4x4e

B3. Incline Plyo Push-Ups 4×4

C1. Kettlebell Front Elevated Split-Squat 3×8-12e

C2. 5s Isometric Pull-Up 3×3-8

C3. Barbell Zercher Carry’s (with elbow padding) 3×25 meters down and back

Mobility/Stretch

Our Brigade alone has 14 total strength coaches working down to the company level and every coach sets up their weekly schedule and workouts differently based on equipment, number of soldiers per session, schedule, etc., but we all strive to train each of the five pillars throughout the week and stick to the six main movement patterns when we are strength training.

Evidence of Effectiveness

Below is a before and after ACFT data sheet from one of my companies from Jan/Feb to March of 2022. For reference, I started working with this battalion in January. In short, they improved in every category and are sitting better than they were before, going from approximately 80% passing to 100% passing the test. On the second test, they replaced the leg tucks with planks so I was only able to look at the plank scores compared to the leg tuck.

Each event is given a score from 0 to 100 based on how you perform in each event that is adjusted for gender and age. You can look at a copy of the score sheet for each event here (need a minimum of 60 points in each event to pass).

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

This installment of Facility Finders is unique because it is not about the biggest or the newest facility. Instead, we’ll be looking at a facility that was perfectly redesigned for its athletic population through a process that didn’t miss any necessary aspects.

Coach Pat Doyle is the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Grand Island Senior High School in Grand Island, Nebraska. While in his third year at Grand Island, Coach Doyle is in his fifth year at the high school level after previously working at Riverton High School in Riverton, Kansas. When he took over at Grand Island, the space was heavily designed around machines, as that was the priority with training at the time it was built. To adapt the space for his high school groups, he wanted a design where space was king.

Coach Doyle wanted to change the training space from one heavily designed around machines to one where space was king. Share on X

Video 1. Virtual tour of the Grand Island training facility.

Facility Design

This renovation was completed this past May—before the remodel, the space was original to its 1996 construction. The old facility had too many single-use machines, which Coach Doyle said made training youth athletes very difficult in a short amount of time and with limited space. He was able to get rid of the machines they had, allowing him to open up the area a lot more so he could add in power racks and other types of multi-use machines.

“When adding new equipment, the only ‘machines’ I bought were pit shark belt squats (HUGE FAN), posterior chain developers, and lat pulls,” Doyle said. “The posterior chain developers allow us to do so many variations of different exercises—really a universal machine.”

Flow is always critical in facility design, and Coach Doyle prioritized this with the renovation. To maximize the space around the racks and be able to move around, Coach Doyle decided on 10 double-sided racks and five half racks that athletes can use in their training. This enables him to keep his young athletes in one area for safety and better coaching; he was able to do this because of the choice to create an auxiliary space to house the non-rack exercise equipment.

“The combo racks saved some space and money and allowed us more room for an auxiliary lane for the pit sharks, posterior chain developers, dumbbells, and lat pulls and a turf strip running the length of the room into an entirely turfed area in the back of our room,” Coach Doyle said. “The turf allows us to do a lot of different things year round without having to rely on our football field for turf—pushing sleds in the snow in single-digit weather isn’t the greatest—and also to do some more sprints and change of direction drills inside our room without having to rely on gym space as much.”

Equipment

To me, choosing equipment is the hardest part of the whole process because the right company will make everything else easier on you so you can focus on COACHING. Power Lift did just that for Coach Doyle; they were involved in advising on the design for the space based on how he coaches and on his budget. Coach Doyle believes in the racks being where the athletes do all of their training, so those need to have everything there—with large groups of 14- to 17-year-olds, keeping them focused on what’s in front of them is the best way he saw to train his athletes.

The actual budget ultimately plays the biggest part in design—sometimes, it doesn’t come down to what the athletes need but what the program can afford. (This is okay because, as coaches, we can still get done what we need to do.) Longevity was a huge piece of why Doyle decided to use Power Lift again for this project. Power Lift outfitted the original building, and the equipment survived almost 30 years of use by Grand Island athletes. Y’all will love the response when I asked Coach what ultimately led him to pick Power Lift over everyone else.

“You obviously want to get high-quality equipment, and Power Lift is notorious for that, and their reputation confirms it,” Coach Doyle said, adding, “along with [it] being a great small-town company right here in the heartland of America. (Still… Nebraska > Iowa).”

Specialty Equipment

In terms of specialty equipment, Power Lift offers a range of attachments that allow Grand Island athletes to do A LOT at their rack station without creating more congestion by needing to move around the room. Each rack is outfitted with rotating utility pads, band pegs, dip stations, landmines, chains, bands, 10-, 25-, and 45-pound bumpers, an extra bar, and physio balls. Plus, there are almost enough trap bars for each rack.

“We also purchased safety squat bars for the ability to load a squat with poor mobility/injured upper limbs if necessary or to even do the hand-supported variations, which I am super excited about,” Coach Doyle said. “Our flooring is all custom inlaid platforms as well, which tops it all off. The auxiliary space houses pit sharks, lat pulls, glute ham machines, and a large turf strip, all of which were made possible with one phone call to Power Lift.”

Purpose

With the redesigned strength facility, Coach Doyle ‘ultimately wanted to create an environment that got kids excited about training and make it a spot they WANTED to come to every day.’ Share on X

“Ultimately, I wanted to create an environment that got kids excited about training and make it a spot they WANTED to come to every day,” Coach Doyle said. “I personalized as much as I could with Grand Island’s logo, ‘ISLANDER POWER,’ and our core values to really make it a home for our athletes. I still have plans in the works for adding some artwork to the walls and hanging some flags and banners from the ceiling to highlight all of our athletic teams.”

I think the core value personalization is really special because it allows the athletes to see what the fundamental goal of training is. The easy stuff is getting stronger and faster—the more challenging part is teaching young kids about stewardship or how important communication is because it is something they will need for the rest of their lives. So, seeing that every day was a stroke of genius from Coach Doyle.

Tips from Coach Doyle

Projects like this are more and more common because we have to find a way to make our current space work. This is sometimes harder because there’s an odd post in the middle of the room or the shape of the space is impossible to work with. New builds can be easier because you’re building that space to fit your needs, but with projects like this, you are really retrofitting the space with new equipment. A few key suggestions:

• Get an accurate budget and see how much wiggle room you have—then maximize what you can get with it.
• Create a list of needs and wants for your room and be able to recognize the difference between the two.
• Space is king.
• Brainstorm a lot of the common problems you see with your current training and reverse-engineer your weight room design to solve a lot of those problems.
• If you’re going to do it, do it right. Buy it nice or buy it twice, essentially.
• Flooring gets really dirty quickly once you get a lot of traffic going through, so pick your floor colors wisely. Black shows a lot that other colors don’t, so decide what you can tolerate and what you can’t.
• At the end of the day, make it a place where athletes want to spend their time and put a lot of value into as a part of their overall athletic experience.

When redesigning your gym facility, create a list of needs and wants and be able to recognize the difference between the two. Share on X

Projects like this are becoming more and more common because we have to find a way to make our current space work. Sometimes this is harder than starting from scratch because of things like that odd post in the middle of the room or, like Coach Doyle, you may have a weight room designed for the popular training methods of the 1990s that don’t match the training styles now. New builds can be easier because you’re building that space to fit your needs, but with projects like this, you are retrofitting the space with new equipment. It may be more difficult, but it’s entirely doable.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF