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As a strength and conditioning coach, I am well aware of the value of recognizing those experts who not only help propel me forward in my field, but also help me to assist the coaches and athletes who I work with on a daily basis to surpass their personal conditioning goals. For years, SimpliFaster has been bookmarked in my browser.

I have read articles from many trainers that helped inspire me and caused me to feel that tug between what I think I already know and what I undoubtedly want to know more about because my curiosity has been aroused. I appreciate that SimpliFaster offers a repository of articles in a digital society where many people view blogs as an antiquated way to gather information.

SimpliFaster, in my eyes, is a hub for people in the sports medicine field to share their expertise, trials, and successes. The articles that I choose to read provide me with a sense of belonging in my field. I actually told myself last summer that I would aspire to write an article or two for SimpliFaster, and since I have been granted the opportunity to do so, I decided to share seven ways that SimpliFaster has helped me as a coach.

 

1. Providing Access to Other Coaches

There often seems to be a gap between colleagues and between their practices, so a bridge is needed to span this divide. SimpliFaster has given me personal access to coaches through the articles they have written. When you read about other coaches’ training methodologies and recognize similarities with your own, it adds needed confirmation that is sometimes forgotten during the training of others. Confirmation combats the occasional uncertainty of training.

These articles, backed by science, are relatable because of shared experiences and have helped me determine the most efficient way of training for my work at DeKalb High School. This is especially true for me when being charged with changing the athletic interface of a high school through strength and conditioning. Raising a family and training athletes are tasks that keeps me busy and apart from other coaches who are outside of my coach’s circle. SimpliFaster fills that void.

I follow quite a few coaches on Twitter whose articles I first read on SimpliFaster. To say that I have received encouragement through their posts and articles would be an understatement. Iron sharpens iron. A friend sharpens a friend. These are two statements in which I have always believed.

Publications on the SimpliFaster blog keep me sharp by reminding me to adjust training habits and remain current with data, says @__JoshuaCollins. Share on X

Publications on the SimpliFaster blog keep me sharp by reminding me to adjust training habits and remain current with data. Being able to access articles from high school strength and conditioning coaches helps me analyze parallels and differences. After reading his interview, I reached out to Scott Meier, a physical education teacher and strength and conditioning coach at Farmington High School, with questions about testing metrics in his strength and conditioning classes. He was very accessible and answered every question thoroughly.

If you want answers, there are coaches willing to share information and provide research to back up the data. I may not agree with everything, but it is not about my compliance—it is about forming the relationships to have conversations that lead to practical information for the people you train. I use some of the same principles in strength and conditioning training that I learned from other experts in the field. Learn things that are foreign to you to add stimuli and have high intent when trying to help others execute.

2. Supporting Athletics Without the Kill Intent

SimpliFaster has opened the door for trainers to collaborate with each other. In a field that is overshadowed by mainstream glitz and glamour, I found out there are more people in my shoes than not. Many strength coaches who use various social media platforms are linked to SimpliFaster. They are also approachable.

I came across the Twitter page of Mike Whiteman at Hounds Speed. I appreciated his post about the science of movement and how he actually demonstrated what he speaks about throughout the exercise. He used the Probotics Just Jump System, which I own, and made workout videos in his garage similar to what I have done. I directly messaged him to ask where he got his bumper plates and barbells, and those questions later turned into me wanting to learn more about his speed-driven workouts.

In addition, his age is somewhat similar to mine (36), yet he still moves with a high force rate. Usually on breaks from work I arrange times to shadow some coaches, but since COVID-19 happened during my spring break, I thought I would virtually reach out to Mike with additional questions.

Communicating with Mike Whiteman on programming and being “twitchy” has revealed to me the personal passiveness in my workouts. I have been doing a program of his for five weeks now, and I feel great. A fair question here would be, “If things are great, what’s the issue?” The issue is that my intent was not as high as it should have been, and I had been satisfied with just doing the movements. I acknowledge that it is great in terms of the recognition that I completed a workout, but that is only the surface level for force development. My aim would be more efficient with a focus on adaptation through dynamic movement. Intent is a linchpin for adaptation, and I was lacking it.

Whiteman’s program that I have been doing is a five-day split with three intense days. This program, along with the expertise he shared with me, has enabled me to shadow him virtually. Throughout these five weeks, it dawned on me that I would never have realized that my intent was low, and that stress should be bleeding out through these violent movements. Intent can make an objective clear-cut, whereas I might have missed the objective due to my passivity.

Recording workouts has been a way for me to communicate and tweet videos to show others. As I edited my recordings, I watched natural strength with a passive mentality. I sent my rate of force development and ground time for the 4-jump to Mike. He showed me his video of 4-jumps, and his numbers blew mine out of the water. I was not even close. My numbers were rather pitiful in comparison.

In his video, I could see that he was violent during the 4-jump. He was in attack mode; it was the same effort you see in a wild animal chasing its prey. Mike’s arms were in sync with his legs, and his legs were stiff like a jackhammer smashing concrete as he jumped with so much force. Mike is three years older than me, too! As I sulked, two feelings hit me in the gut: I was fired up with competitiveness and wanted to beat Mike (with the utmost respect, of course), and I was also filled with motivation.

I thought back to the first time I spoke to Mike—prolonging Father Time was the topic. People like Justin Gatlin, Lebron James, and Allyson Felix are all professional athletes above 30 years of age who are still able to produce at the elite level. Allyson Felix had a child and still competed eight months later. Those “old athletes,” by society’s standards, are pushing forward whether or not fans notice. The evolution of the athlete is now.

I can tell by Mike’s 4-jumps that he believes he can preserve and maximize what’s left in his athletic tank. As my reflection of that conversation came to an end, I expressed gratitude to Mike and committed myself to continue to reach my personal goals as I work out. I will follow suit by having strong intentions.

3. Embedding in Me the Knowledge of Training

I am doing really well as a trainer at DeKalb High School. I give everything I can to both myself and my athletes each year. Different training programs and protocols have given me a better understanding of when to use different approaches with athletes. I have improved and become a better trainer, and I have seen results, whether in the reduction of injuries or in increased athleticism. SimpliFaster has helped me attain these results.

I have improved and become a better trainer, and I have seen results, whether in the reduction of injuries or in increased athleticism. SimpliFaster has helped me attain these results. Share on X

Athletes fill up my strength and conditioning classes throughout the day. Teams fill the weight room to maximum capacity after school. The community is getting used to my face, and the coaches are starting to trust me. I seem to be doing well but know that at times I can do better. There are training concepts that I still want to learn so I can teach them to my athletes and coaches so that we, in turn, can all become the best competitors in our respective sports.

People in the industry like Max Schmarzo of Strong by Science and Jake Tuura of Youngstown University convinced me to learn more and to spread knowledge widely. I thought I was giving everything I had to DeKalb High School but actually realized I was nowhere near giving them my full potential. I had so much more I could improve upon and share: programming, learning basic physics for data reading, and more.

I have made connections with the athletes, but I want better for them. No—I want the best for them. I understand that not every high school has a strength and conditioning coach. A lot of coaches do not have one either. This realization has made me want to dig deeper and provide more for everyone.

I am excited knowing that there is no cap on what I can learn. There will always be more for me to learn and teach. This ignites my passion even more and causes me to go to SimpliFaster to read more books, talk to more coaches, and reach out to experts in their fields to continue my personal education.

I started becoming smarter by listening to what my colleagues have to say, by watching what they do, and by recognizing what they have their athletes do and why. The “why” is the most important part of doing something; it shows intent of an action. If intent falters, you learn from it versus just having athletes sweat and do a workout because it seems cool. I must admit I have done that before, but I wanted to drift away from the practice because it’s morally wrong in my eyes. If my expectations are to have athletes train wholeheartedly, then my program and instruction must also be up to par for them and at an elevated standard.

I started becoming smarter by listening to what my colleagues have to say, by watching what they do, and by recognizing what they have their athletes do and why, says @__JoshuaCollins. Share on X

4. Sponsoring the Just Fly Performance Podcast

With podcasts being the prevalent go-to for information of personal interest, the Just Fly Performance podcast has been nothing short of essential for me. Host Joel Smith interviews an array of people who have accomplished amazing feats under the strength and conditioning umbrella. I have done case studies from claims by some of his guests, like Keith Barr, Ph.D.; Ebonie Rio, Ph.D.; and many others.

The podcast is great because I can play it through my headphones when I work out and still stimulate my mind with information when I am not able to read. Dr. Keith Barr’s interview about tendon health helped me to understand how tendon tightness is dependent on collagen and that tendon tightness aids in athletic movements. If you’re loading with good nutrition, you will have a high turnover rate and will see the dynamics and functionality of the tendon. I must have listened to that particular interview 50 times. Each time I listen to it, I learn something new, and I am led to research new concepts to try on myself and on the teams that I train.

Hearing theories from the podcast and reading articles about the experiences grew my excitement while challenging me to read. I may not be an athlete anymore, but I use the same competitive qualities to get better at my job. My intention is to level up through training and teaching my classes. I love training athletes and monitoring their adaptations. It has bred a passion to read current research and given me the ability to cite credible sources. SimpliFaster has been a part of that.

As a kid, I despised reading; as an adult, I love it. It is easy to read up on certain topics, and it helps when they are applicable to my job. I’m blessed to be working in a field that I love, and because of that, I have learned to appreciate reading. The podcast is nice and all, but SimpliFaster puts all the content in one hub so that all I have to do is pick a topic of interest to read. The sources are credible because I have read older articles from years ago that are current today. So, for that, I am greatly appreciative of having content in one place that I can rely on for learning.

5. Teaching Me How to Program

Being a student of the game, or in this case, strength and conditioning, has led to other areas in the training paradigm. SimpliFaster publications humbled me. When science can prove that what you’re doing is not as efficient as it should be, something must change. When I began in this field, my programming focused on the exercise and the uniqueness of how it looked. That may be okay for likes on social media, but just because it looks cool does not mean it transfers to athletic development.

SimpliFaster publications humbled me. When science can prove that what you’re doing is not as efficient as it should be, something must change, says @__JoshuaCollins. Share on X

Through reading and listening to others in my field, I have gained an understanding of training concepts and isolated exercises. Training concepts organize training principles into a program that most athletes need and appreciate. Concepts also provide further knowledge on the why and how of movement goals as opposed to just being familiar with how to perform an exercise.

Knowing concepts allows you to determine what exercises to use at a given time. Just knowing an exercise when you work with teams does not determine when you should do it or why. It may look cool, but when you understand concepts, you have the clue to understanding what exercises to use. You can build a program around concepts but not around one exercise movement. As a high school strength and conditioning coach, it is imperative that I program in this conceptual manner to have a better grasp on large groups of different teams.

6. Introducing Technology for Sport

Early in my career, before I became a high school strength and conditioning coach, I was a sports performance coach and I had the opportunity to use the Freelap Timing System. I had heard of it from my frequent visits to SimpliFaster.com and from trying to win a Freelap Timing System on Twitter. As most coaches recognize, the handheld timer is the highest level of technology. Let’s be real, though. A stopwatch is the cream of the crop of timing systems only when it is the only option. It is the “old reliable” way that is not so reliable.

When my place of employment bought four Freelap Timing Systems to train athletes, I was excited to use such elite technology for better accuracy during sprint sessions. It is so simple to use that even someone who is not tech-savvy can learn to use it. It is accurate, and the athletes love it because it is not archaic.

There is something to be said about developing a skill to push a button to start the timer on a stopwatch the moment an athlete moves from a sprint position. I have been around more coaches who missed the button without noticing they were not timing the athlete until the sprint was over. Athletes’ time and energy are then wasted while possibly placing exasperation in their minds because they cannot trust the timing system.

Freelap allows coaches to observe and examine athletes instead of using a handheld stopwatch, says @__JoshuaCollins. Share on X

With the Freelap Timing System, I have never worried about that. There are multiple ways to time someone. Freelap allows coaches to observe and examine athletes instead of using a handheld stopwatch. Athletes can use a start button or sprint through a cone transmitter that connects the analysis of the movement to the free downloadable app. Its simplicity of use makes it a beneficial tool for all parties involved.

I recommend the Freelap Pro Coach BLE 112 to all high school and sports performance coaches. SimpliFaster provided me with the edge I am looking for at this point in my seven-year career. It is a one-stop shop. Whatever you need, the answers always seem to be there.

7. Positively Influencing My Daughter

My last reason for using SimpliFaster is that it has helped me introduce training to my daughter. I was blessed that my daughter developed an interest on her own by watching me train female athletes. There were times when she accompanied me to work, and from the corner of my eye, I watched her mimic movements on her own. Someone once said to me, “Copy the wise and become wise. Keep company with fools, and you will be ruined.” My daughter copied wise movement patterns, and I could not be happier.

I have seen training habits harm kids, especially young ladies who are more susceptible to injuries such as knee ruptures. I am not saying that I am this almighty trainer, but through reading article after article and via the experiences that I have had, I want to make sure that any person who trains with me can transfer force to their sport or wherever they need force to be applied contextually. There are no gimmicks this way. I teach fundamentals and build principles from there. Everything complex derives from basic principles.

As the father of this very active, little 4-year-old girl, it is difficult not to ponder how I would like my daughter to be coached and trained if she decides to participate in sports. Females tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to sports and force development training. During my tenure in sports performance, I have seen that coaches tend to give up on or show partiality when it comes to women’s sports. In my experience with training female athletes, I may have seen the highest levels of improvement when it came to force development. I had the pleasure of seeing monster numbers in the weight room along with increased athleticism.

My daughter has learned fundamental motor skills like getting into an athletic position, jumping, landing, throwing, sprinting, and more. These motor skills will give her an advantage in functionality and build up her confidence. As parents, we should give youth better opportunities and pass down tools they can use. I view athletic training in that same way.

Being able to teach a 4-year-old has helped me teach those who are older. Once you can understand anything that is newly learned and try to explain its complexities in a simple manner to a child, you find out if you absolutely comprehend it yourself. With all that SimpliFaster has helped me to attain, one of the most important things to me personally is being able to train female athletes and being able to show my daughter that she can train like an athlete.

SimpliFaster Is One of My Guides

SimpliFaster is a comprehensive tool for any coach at any level. To sum up, the lessons SimpliFaster has taught me are that the weight room is a lab, and we as strength and conditioning coaches are the mad scientists. We calculate physical data and control velocity through programming. We are more than motivators; we are more than people making others sweat by doing random movements. We are passionate about the sweet science of force production that gives each and every individual a winning edge to compete at the highest applicable level.

To sum up, the lessons SimpliFaster has taught me are that the weight room is a lab, and we as strength and conditioning coaches are the mad scientists, says @__JoshuaCollins. Share on X

The untrained coach’s eye will miss those things and try to imitate without understanding. SimpliFaster is a staple to give reasoning and to guide coaches to better efficiency. Thus, SimpliFaster will always be my personal go-to for everything under the training sun.

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

In 2016, I finished my bachelor’s degree, knowing I wanted to become a collegiate S&C coach. While it was only an idea at that time, I made it a reality when I passed my CSCS in May 2018, and three months later I decided to leave my halfway-decent career to get my master’s degree in strength and conditioning studies.

Pursuing postgraduate studies has transformed my coaching style and afforded me a chance to participate in numerous additional learning opportunities. Through both online and in-person internships, I have learned firsthand from many great coaches and staff at institutions across the country. Based on my unique experience in the field of S&C, here are 10 useful tips for all young coaches trying to navigate their career trajectories.

1. Live Close to Your Internship

You’ll want to be less than a 15-minute drive from your internship. If you plan to be an intern where you did your undergrad, go ahead and jump to tip #2. If you decide to do an internship halfway across the country, pay attention.

During my graduate degree internship, I lived with a close friend of mine who was 45 minutes away from the university. For a standard 9-to-5 job, a 45-minute commute is not bad. For a full-time coach who is potentially on campus from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., it can be brutal. Often, by the time I got home, I had just enough time to shower and pack my lunch before I went to sleep, all so I could wake back up by 4 a.m.

You will likely not have a fixed schedule. You will have breaks during the day, and sometimes you will need to get away. We all got into this field because we want to have a positive impact on young lives, but at the same time, you have to be able to take care of yourself. One thing I did to get out of the “office” was pick up all the orders for the nutrition center. I got to leave the facility, and it made me look good since I always volunteered to do it.

2. Show Up Ready to Work

Other articles might suggest that if you are not the first one there, then you are not hungry enough for this industry. On the first day of my graduate internship, my boss said, “Show up on time, and you will be good to go.” He also said, “Please don’t be that guy waiting at the door at 4:15 a.m.” If the coach says be there by 5:00, be there on time, at the minimum. Five to 10 minutes early is enough. Getting there 45 minutes early just means sitting in your car, since you don’t have a key to the facility.

The moment you walk through that door, be ready to move. This is not the office, where you can relax for a little bit, drink some coffee, and slowly ease into the day. Share on X

The moment you walk through that door, be ready to move. This is not the office, where you can relax for a little bit, drink some coffee, and slowly ease into the day. You are about to have 75 football players come in, and every second of prep time matters. It is far better to get everything set up first and then relax, rather than vice versa.

At one of my internships, coaches were supposed to be there by 5:15. Most of us rolled in by 5:10 at the latest. We started getting set up immediately, and most of the time we were done when athletes started rolling in for pre-workout nutrition.

3. Bring Your Own Pen, Clipboard, and Workouts

I picked this up while I was in grad school: Always have a writing implement, a writing surface, and the day’s workout and warm-up. Nothing makes you look more like a novice than not knowing where you are in the workout. You will always need a pen to write notes and observations from the workout.

For example, at one institution we had an EliteForm system, which measures bar velocity. If an athlete moved 75% of their max at an average velocity of .7 m/s, that showed their training max needed to be bumped in the system we were running. Write that down! You will not remember it at the end of the day. Writing down nuggets of information as they happen will almost certainly answer your questions down the line. Coaches I’ve worked with have all lauded the virtue of paying attention to details as a key to becoming a better coach.

4. Shut Up and Listen (aka Practice “Active Listening”)

At the beginning, go in with an open mind and do what you’re told. Whether this is your first internship or your fourth, I strongly suggest that, in your first week or two, you just sit back and observe the coach’s style with athletes. If you are interning at a D1 or under a Master Strength & Conditioning Coach (MSCC), just listen and learn.

Most places will probably tell you to be on the sidelines anyway. This coincides with the previous tip—by listening and watching, you are bound to pick up some useful information to write down. They are at that level or earned that specific title for a reason. Most important of all, use your observations to generate smart questions.

5. Do Not Be a Robot 

Athletes are people too. And I cannot stress this enough: Do not be so focused on S&C that you forget to talk to and get to know athletes. It is okay to be affable with athletes to an extent, but you should always remember that you are in a position of authority. For me personally, I have found that the more an athlete trusts you, the better their buy-in. Crack jokes with them, be there for them, and just be the voice of reason.

I cannot stress this enough: Do not be so focused on S&C that you forget to talk to and get to know athletes. Share on X

6. Remember, It Is Just Business

The head S&C at one institution said this in the first week of the football off-season: “It’s just business.” What goes on in the weight room is just business, and collectively we are in the business of making athletes better. Coach them hard and love them harder.

At the end of the day, if a student-athlete decides to transfer or quit, it is their decision. For instance, one of the players I got close to chose to transfer mid-semester. I was disappointed that he left, but at the end of the day he did what he thought was best for him. From a business perspective, you move on and focus on the athletes you have and try to make them better.

7. Don’t Forget About Nutrition

I was fortunate at one of my internships to have access to the nutrition center, where I had dinner four nights a week. Suffice to say, I stumbled on a good deal. If you are like me and have a singular focus on your career, you will be there 10-12 hours a day. You need to learn how to meal prep and meal prep for cheap. PB&J, rice & beef, broccoli & chicken—you get the idea. A coach I met during grad school had his weekly grocery plan dialed in at $36.28 a week. He kept it simple and cheap.

You can cook bulk amounts of beef and rice at the beginning of the week, and it will last you several days. Also, throw into your lunch bag more snacks than you think you will need. It is okay if you do not eat all your snacks that day, but at the end of the day you will always wish you had more food rather than not enough.

Try your best to have a balanced diet. The coaching life is grueling, so make sure you keep yourself healthy. Working with athletes will expose you to a lot of potential for illness. Keep your machine running right and you will (hopefully) avoid getting sick.

8. Balance Your Free Time

If this internship is during your final semester, I strongly suggest that you do not take any additional classes with it. I made that mistake while doing my graduate internship. Your weekends end up getting devoted to class, and boom! there goes your free time. If you have a significant other or major family obligations, you will want to communicate with them prior to the internship that you are going to be busy for the next 4-6 months.

On the other hand, if you need to get a part-time job to help with some bills, talk to your supervisor beforehand. They might be able to help you find a position in the university and, based on my past experience, help you balance the responsibilities of classes, internships, and work. You have to be extremely dialed-in to manage all of it, but communication with your coach supervisor is paramount.

9. Do Not Chase Logos

Just because you interned at X University does not mean you are an amazing coach. An internship at X University might look great on a résumé, but the experience you get may be a little different than what you expect. I’ve had friends intern at major universities (football and Olympic), only to end up cleaning for the semester. No coaching, no intern education, nothing. I am not saying all schools are like that, but you need to be cognizant of the type of internship program you are thinking about joining, especially if getting hands-on experience matters to you.

Be cognizant of the type of internship program you are thinking about joining, especially if getting hands-on experience matters to you. Share on X

Some questions to ask during your program interview are:

• What elements does the internship curriculum include?
• What are some of the duties assigned to interns?
• What is the path to working my way up to coaching athletes?
• What are some qualities of past interns that have made them excel?

You have to remember you are there to learn! If you only stand in the corner and clean after every session, and that’s the extent of your internship, you are not really getting much out of it (other than observation and taking notes, to which I would refer to point #4.) If you think chasing a specific logo is how you will become a better coach, you may need to rethink your priorities. Also, just as a side note—go in with the mindset that you will be doing a lot of cleaning, especially given the shifts in our standards during the COVID-19 era.

10. Enjoy the Process

Enjoy the process, learn to accept criticism and feedback, and take the opportunities where they come. If you get to run a warm-up or session or assist with programming, take the opportunity and do it well. The more responsibility you earn, the more likely you will enjoy the process. Above all, consider your internship a test of whether or not this is the career path for you. The barriers of entry into S&C are high, and an internship is absolutely vital if your goal is to become a strength and conditioning coach at any level.

Above all, consider your internship a test of whether or not this is the career path for you. Share on X

I hope these tips will help maximize your experience at any level and throughout your journey in this industry. Even for myself, as I search for my next opportunity, I try to keep all of these in my mind. Our lives were fundamentally altered this year, for better or worse, and our job is to adapt to the changes. Especially for a young coach, being able to adapt to any situation is extremely important. Please feel free to reach out to me—I am always excited to talk S&C with others and expand my network.

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

Explosive weight training movements have become a mainstay in training serious athletes, especially those at the high school and college level. Note that I said weight training and not weightlifting.

Let me be clear. When I say weightlifting, I’m referring to the snatch and the clean and jerk—lifts performed in the Olympic Games. Not power cleans, hang power cleans, snatch pulls, one-arm snatches, and so on. Yes, competitive weightlifters often include such auxiliary exercises in their workouts (well, except for one-arm snatches—those are pretty worthless). Still, the core exercises in their programs are the snatch and the clean and jerk.

A research study about how the power clean affects sprinting or jumping ability is not a study about weightlifting. Share on X

Next, consider that much of the North American research about weightlifting does not involve the full lifts but rather partial variations, primarily the power clean. A research study about how the power clean affects sprinting or jumping ability is not a study about weightlifting. It’s about an inferior variation of one of the two weightlifting exercises; in this case, the clean and jerk. These studies are certainly better than nothing, but not by much, for determining the true value of weightlifting for improving sports performance and preventing injuries.

Video 1. Christian Rivera, an athlete coached by the author, shows the explosive nature of weightlifting. During his third lift, note how Christian’s training and athleticism enabled him to save an out-of-position snatch that was 85 pounds above bodyweight. (Video by Lifting.Life)

Yes, many strength coaches and personal trainers take seminars that cover weightlifting, and among the most popular are those sponsored by USA Weightlifting. A good start, but few coaches take their weightlifting education to the next level by practicing the full lifts, even fewer compete in weightlifting meets, and most prefer to have their athletes perform partial variations.

Many myths about true weightlifting have come from limited hands-on experience coaching the snatch and the clean and jerk. Share on X

This limited hands-on experience and the lack of coaching the lifts are responsible for many myths circulating about real weightlifting. Here are eight of them.

Myth #1: Partial Weightlifting Movements Are Easier on the Knees

I started competitive weightlifting in 1972 after reading about the sport in Strength and Health magazine. It was a time when many health care professionals condemned squats. The most notable opponents were Professor Karl K. Klein and Dr. Fred L. Allman, authors of the controversial book published in 1969, The Knee in Sports.

If an athlete insisted on doing squats, these doctors said they should only perform them through a partial range of motion. Klein and Allman argued that squats—specifically full squats—could cause permanent lower body instability (by stretching the knee ligaments) and, as such, increase the risk of serious injury. They were wrong.

The highest amount of harmful knee stresses during squats occurs with the thighs at or above 90 degrees, not full squats (hamstrings to calves). Share on X

The highest amount of harmful stresses on the knee during squats occurs with the thighs at or above 90 degrees, not full squats, meaning hamstrings touching the calves. Wimpy exercises such as the hang power clean (which starts and finishes with the legs in a quarter-squat position) are not knee-friendly. What’s more, the finished position is horrific because the athlete jams their knees when they abruptly catch the loaded, rapidly moving barbell. Let me take this discussion a step further.

Surgeons have often found that during ACL surgery, the ligament(s) they repaired already showed signs of chronic damage. This means many ACL tears were not a result of a single “supramaximal force” but from cumulative trauma caused by “submaximal forces” that predisposed this ligament to debilitating injury. Like an old rubber band that is frayed and stiff, these ligaments were ready to snap. Incidentally, the recommendations by the authors of one paper on this subject were to limit the number of jumps young athletes performed during training, such as the Little League “pitch count” that limits how many pitches a young baseball player can throw in a game.

Although advances have been made in ACL reconstruction that let many athletes to return to their previous levels, why subject an athlete to such harmful stress in the first place with quarter-squat movements? This advice would be especially wise for female athletes because—depending on the sport—they can be up to 5x more likely to injure this important ligament.

Myth #2: During the Pull, the Feet Should Be Flat on the Floor Until the Knees Fully Extend

The common technique taught in many strength coaching courses is to stay flat-footed during cleans and snatches until the knees fully extend—the so-called “triple extension.” Such advice belongs in the Iron Game history books.

In Russian weightlifting textbooks from the 1970s, coaches promoted staying flat-footed before achieving full knee extension. That was then—this is now. If you study slow-motion video or sequence photos, you’ll see that many of today’s elite lifters perform plantar flexion (i.e., lifting the heels) well before their legs straighten. Doing the triple extension during a weightlifting exercise is equivalent to today’s high jumpers performing the scissor-type jump rather than the Fosbury Flop—it works, but it’s inefficient.

Elite athletes lift their heels before the knees are completely straight, using the Achilles tendon to increase force production dramatically. Share on X

Many strength coaches argue that sports involve triple extension, and therefore we should practice this method in weightlifting. Ah, no. Watch jumping movements by elite athletes in sports, and you’ll see their heels will rise before the knees are completely straight, enabling them to make better use of the Achilles tendon as a biological spring. In effect, they use this powerful tendon to dramatically increase force production, much more than the make-believe triple extension concept.

It follows that performing hang or block movements are also less effective for power production than performing lifts from the floor. I say this because, in every video, article, and book I’ve seen describing how to perform hang cleans and hang snatches, these lifts start with the entire foot on the floor. Further, you often see many non-weightlifting coaches teach these partial variations so the barbell doesn’t move directly upward. Instead, the bar’s initial movement is diagonal, looping back around before violently slamming back into the athlete’s shoulders. Ouch!

Myth #3: The Shoulders Should Move in Front of the Knees During the Pull

Many strength coaches incorrectly teach weightlifting as a jump. They tell their athletes to extend their shoulders far in front of the bar when it passes the knees and then move to a vertical posture and “jump.” Weightlifting scientist Bud Charniga has done extensive research on the training methods of successful Chinese women lifters and says they found a better way.

Chinese coaches have enjoyed tremendous success by having their female athletes start with the shoulders directly on top of the barbell and then pull their shoulders behind the bar after it reaches knee level. This technique reduces the stress on the lower back (a weak link in the Russian method) and positions the bar closer to the center of mass, where athletes can apply more force to the barbell. It also increases the torso’s range of motion, enabling the athletes to use their upper body more effectively to move under the bar faster. If an athlete can move under the bar more quickly, the bar doesn’t have to be pulled as high. And the lower you have to pull the bar, the more weight you can lift.

Some male athletes can reach an elite level using the shoulders-in-front technique, but those who do often need to spend additional time with special exercises to strengthen the lower back. If you study their weightlifting textbooks, you’ll see that Russian weightlifting coaches frequently prescribed exercises like back extensions and good mornings for their athletes in the ’60s and ’70s. These exercises were essential because their pulling technique put excessive and prolonged stress on the lower back.

Video 2. Elastic strength enables athletes to produce more powerful movements than muscle strength alone. Here Christian clean and jerks double bodyweight, a New England record. This is followed by a clip showing that his shoulders don’t extend over the bar at any point in the lift.

Myth #4: The Powerlifts Generate More Power than the Olympic Lifts

Athletic movements are characterized by fast eccentric (muscle lengthening) contractions. You would see such actions when a quarterback cocks their arm back to throw a pass or when a weightlifter dips for a jerk.

Strength coach and posturologist Paul Gagné and his colleagues have conducted considerable research on what he calls Velocity Eccentric Overload (VEO) training using flywheel devices that increase the eccentric load at high speeds. Gagné says fast, powerful eccentric movements enable athletes to use the elastic qualities of the connective tissues to produce higher levels of power. Take sprinting, for example.

Sprint speed is not only determined by stride length and stride frequency but also ground contact time. One of the qualities that set Usain Bolt apart from his competitors was that he spent so little time on the ground compared to his competitors. You’re not going to achieve these benefits by performing slow, partial-range powerlifting exercises.

Myth #5: Weightlifting Doesn’t Develop Rotational Strength

I see many workouts for baseball players and other athletes in throwing sports that involve performing horizontal twisting exercises with bands and cables. The idea is to focus on the obliques to develop rotational strength and power. Nice try.

Gagné says the problem with this approach is that few muscle fibers in these core muscles are transverse (aligned horizontally) to the trunk. Instead, most are arranged in a diagonal pattern more suited for producing positive torsion, which is rotation coupled with flexion, such as the downswing in golf.

“Consider the biceps, which has fibers arranged longitudinally,” says Gagné. “You would not work the biceps by pulling your arm across your body because the fibers are not arranged this way. Also, because rotating the spine on a single axis is not a natural movement pattern, and this type of activity, especially when performed seated, creates large shearing forces on the spine that can easily damage the disks.”

There is also the issue of counter-rotation.

“J. P. Roll, the founder of Posturology, found that what occurs to one side of the body will help neurologically ‘code’ what can happen on the other side,” says Gagné. “As such, the ability to rotate in one direction is influenced by how well that individual can create rotation in the opposite direction—this is called ‘counter-rotation.’ In other words, the body will only allow for a certain amount of disproportionate development of the muscles. In working with professional golfers, for example, we found we can increase the ability of a right-handed golfer to generate club speed by having them work with a left-handed club.”

What type of weight training exercises strengthen counter-rotation?

“The late Mel Siff told me about research showing that the snatch is the best way to work on rotation, because to perform it you need a lot of counter-rotation,” says Gagné. “An overhead squat, performed as weightlifters do them, involves a lot of counter-rotation to maintain proper alignment.”

Hmmm…maybe this explains why so many elite discus throwers and shot putters perform weightlifting exercises in their workouts.

Myth #6: Weightlifting Exercises Should Be Performed with Submaximal Weights

Apparently, it’s fine for strength coaches to overload all areas of the strength curve of squats and bench presses with chains and bands because, as they say, “All things being equal, the strongest athlete always wins!” But when it comes to weightlifting, many strength coaches seem to believe that light weights rule. This trend appears to be especially evident with many sprint coaches.

When sprint coaches recommend weightlifting exercises or their variations, I often see workouts focusing on weights that represent about 70 percent of an athlete’s one-repetition maximum. The exercises also are performed for relatively high reps, such as power cleans for sets of five. For example, Bolt can be seen on YouTube doing sloppy hang power cleans for a set of 10 reps with what appears to be between 115 to 135 pounds. His time would be better spent taking a Zumba class. Seriously, my point is that many other sprinters often run super fast despite their weight training workouts, not because of them. By the way, several Chinese female lifters have clean and jerked 2.5x their bodyweight, and a half dozen male lifters have done 3x their bodyweight.

Many sprinters often run super fast despite their weight training workouts, not because of them. Share on X

Light weights may not add muscle mass, which is important. Too much bodyweight, even if it’s muscle, will adversely affect speed because it’s more weight to move—wear a 20-pound weight vest and see what happens to your 40-time. That said, light weights for high reps will do little to develop power because they will not train the powerful, fast twitch muscle fibers. In fact, when I look at many of the published workouts of Russian sports scientists about training programs, often lifts of 70 percent and below are not listed, as these are considered warm-ups and don’t contribute to the training effect.

Light weights for high reps will do little to develop power because they will not train the powerful, fast twitch muscle fibers. Share on X

By focusing on heavier weights, such as 85-100 percent for sets of 1-3 reps, you can develop more powerful muscles with minimal increases in bodyweight (i.e., relative strength). Weightlifters often train for several years and become considerably stronger without adding any additional bodyweight. Further, bodybuilding methods can adversely affect a muscle’s ability to produce high levels of muscle tension quickly.

There also seems to be a prevailing idea among many sprint coaches that it’s possible to reach the highest levels in the sport without ever touching a barbell. Yes, it’s true—sprinters need to sprint. Likewise, baseball players need to throw and hit baseballs, basketball players need to dribble and shoot baskets, and golfers need to hit golf balls and wear ugly pants.

The reason so many athletes don't get much benefit from explosive exercises is that their workouts are designed poorly. Share on X

On this subject, I highly recommend Dr. Harold Klawans’ book, Why Michael Couldn’t Hit. My point is that the reason so many athletes don’t get much benefit from explosive exercises is that their workouts are poorly designed.

Myth #7: Weightlifting Workouts Should Be the Same for Men and Women

Although this is the subject of a more extensive article, the physiology of women is such that they need more warm-up sets to reach maximum results in weightlifting, and they can handle more sets at higher intensities than men. Yes, it’s much easier for a strength coach to have everyone follow the same workouts, but it’s not the most effective way to train female athletes.

Myth #8: Weightlifting Exercises Are Too Difficult to Teach

Many coaches believe the Olympic lifts performed from the floor are too difficult to teach. I guess if we can’t teach a weightlifting exercise in five minutes or less, it’s not worth learning? If this is the case, why practice any sport? Hitting a 90-mile fastball seems like a pretty hard skill to teach, as is sinking a three-point shot and performing a triple axel.

If an athlete does not have the flexibility to do a squat clean, consider that you just identified a mobility problem that may affect athletic performance and increase the risk of injury. Rather than working around the issue with inferior exercises, consider that practicing the lifts, even with light weights, often quickly fixes the problem. And consider that lack of mobility to perform weightlifting exercises is mainly a problem with male athletes—it’s rare to find a woman who can’t achieve the full squat clean position the first time they try.

Certainly, performing a full squat snatch can be difficult for many athletes, and the jerk is even more difficult. However, it’s not that hard to teach a full clean or a push jerk. For those with extreme mobility issues caused by chronic injuries (or just because that’s the way they are), there is the option of the split-style of snatching and cleaning. I would also caution that if a coach is going to teach full lifts, they must have the athlete practice missing the lifts to avoid becoming a highlight for a “Weight Training Fail” video on YouTube.

If a coach is new to lifting, rather than just taking a course, they should try to recruit a weightlifting coach to help them with their teaching. At the very least, call a local weightlifting coach (USA Weightlifting has a directory of clubs nearest you) and ask to sit in on a few training sessions and ask questions. I’ve been in this sport since the ’70s, and I’ve never heard of a weightlifting coach turning down a strength coach or sports coach’s request to stop by and watch their athletes train and ask questions.

Weightlifting and Athletic Fitness

As a weightlifting coach and a former weightlifter, I certainly have a vested interest in dispelling myths about the sport and promoting the snatch and the clean and jerk for athletic fitness. After all, weightlifting is the greatest sport in the world! That doesn’t change the fact that the snatch and the clean and jerk are valuable exercises that can help athletes achieve physical superiority and reduce their risk of injury.

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

Terry, T. “Historical Opinion: Karl Klein and the Squat.” Strength & Conditioning Journal, 1984; 6(3): 26-31.

Hartmann H, Wirth K, Klusemann M. “Analysis of the Load On the Knee Joint and Vertebral Column With Changes in Squatting Depth and Weight Load.” Sports Med, 2013; 43(10): 993-1008.

Junjie Chen, et al. “An Anterior Cruciate Ligament Failure Mechanism.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2019; 47 (9): 2067-2076.

Charniga, A. “Can There Be Such a Thing as an Asian Pull?” EWF Scientific Magazine, 2016; 2(4): 24-32.

Goss, K. What Sprinters Must Know About Elastic Strength.

Meijer, J.P., et al. “Single Muscle Fibre Contractile Properties Differ Between Body‐Builders, Power Athletes and Control Subjects.” Experimental Physiology, 2015; 100(11): 1331-1341.

Klawans, H. Why Michael Couldn’t Hit: And Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports, pp 10-53, W.H. Freeman & Company, 1996.

Charniga, A. “Comparison of Warm Up Protocols of High Class Male and Female Weightlifters.” EWF Scientific Magazine, 2015; 1(1): 56-71.

Buy spikes.

Buy Freelap Pro BT112.

Find your constraints. How many days can you train fresh?

If you have NO constraints, train Monday through Friday. Three speed workouts (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and two X-Factor workouts. Never let today ruin tomorrow. Small doses stimulate, moderate doses inhibit, large doses kill.

(When it comes to workouts), small doses stimulate, moderate doses inhibit, large doses kill, says @pntrack. Share on X

What Is a Speed Workout?

Total time: 25-40 minutes. If you know Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR), do it. If you don’t know RPR, get the online course.

Do “wake-up drills,” aka “speed drills.” I suggest doing fast marches, A-skips, high knees, box jumps (jump over five imaginary boxes), prime times done fast x2 (aka straight-legged bounds), and butt kicks done fast x2 (aka retro sprints), and finish with one acceleration into top speed.

These speed drills need to be done with max intent, max intensity, and 100% effort for 5-6 seconds each.

Never jog.

Try to look like Carl Lewis (run tall, knee up with foot under knee, hand crosses the hips).

Spike up.

Do three sprints with five minutes’ rest. Do two flys (10-yard or 10-meter) and one 40-yard dash. To time the 40 with Freelap, put the start cone 3 feet in front of the starting line. Put the finish cone 3 feet past the finish line.

Flys are max speed sprints, so do a 20- to 30-meter run-in.

Always run with the wind.

Record every time.

For fun, convert your fly times into miles per hour. Mph = 20.45 ÷ 10-yard fly or mph = 22.37 ÷ 10-meter fly.

What Is an X-Factor Workout?

X-Factor workouts are 25-40 minutes of maximum intent, non-sprint work with each effort lasting 6-10 seconds and enough rest to repeat at the same level. Plyometrics are the most common X-Factor exercise. Strength work is fine as long as it doesn’t ruin the next day. Hip mobility work should be done once a week. Med ball work is great.

Wickets are obviously close to sprinting, but since we aren’t timing and aren’t wearing spikes, wickets are done on X-Factor days. Sprint into eight wickets, spaced at 6 feet.

Have fun. Be innovative. There are a lot of X-Factor videos out there. Check out the Twitter accounts of @kyle_edwards32 and @grahamsprints. Even if you do something worthless like speed ladders, the low-dose approach will ensure that no harm is done.

My team doesn’t push or pull anything, but if you are into that kind of thing, this is when you do it.

If You Have Constraints

If you have football workouts for five hours a day on Monday through Thursday and 7on7 tournaments on the weekends, forget about speed training. You are doomed to get slower this summer. Athletes with this schedule will become efficient at playing in third gear. It’s everywhere.

Over-scheduling is an enemy of speed, says @pntrack. Share on X

If you have basketball in the morning and baseball in the evening, you will stay slow. Over-scheduling is an enemy of speed.

I recently set up a speed program for an athlete with the ubiquitous 7-12 football obligation Monday through Thursday. Obviously, this is not conducive to speed work, but there’s a way to at least maintain speed and a slight chance of improving speed.

My program called for a minimum of eight hours of sleep every night. Yes, that’s what’s wrong with 7:00 a.m. workouts. To be at your best, you need to be up by 5:30 a.m., which means you must be sleeping by 9:30 p.m. the previous night. This is NOT optimal for teenagers.

Since sprint training can only be effective when athletes are rested and energetic, Friday must be an off-day (total rest). Saturday and Sunday will be speed days. Pick the best time of the day, the time when you feel the most energized. If you drink coffee, do it before your speed workout.

X-Factor, like speed work, is also rest-dependent. With a grueling schedule Monday through Thursday, it’s highly likely that X-Factor can’t be done. However, with the help of an afternoon nap and some pre-workout caffeine, the athlete might squeeze in some X-Factor work in the evenings.

If you learn nothing else from this article, train speed when fresh.

If you learn nothing else from this article, train speed when fresh, says @pntrack. Share on X

If You Need More

You can find all my courses on CoachTube.

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

 

William of Ockham was a 14^th century English philosopher who is famous for his ideas in the category of metaphysical nominalism. (Please, don’t stop reading. I swear there is some decent content here.) His most famous concept is “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate,” which in English means, “More things should not be used than are necessary.”

While there is no indication that he wrote that exact phrase, he is given credit for the idea of not lending mental bandwidth to something that is not “self-evident, known by experience, or proved by an authority.” These three rules result in a burden-of-proof spectrum ranging from easiest to most challenging to prove. When developing a program (whether you’re periodizing, individualizing, or choosing exercises) or making on-the-fly changes to a program (based on accumulated workloads, players’ daily psychological testing, or undulations based on feedback from VBT or RPE), it’s critical that what you implement is bucketed into one of these categories.

Apply this burden-of-proof spectrum to help navigate data collection, program development, and on-the-fly changes to achieve the outcomes you want. Share on X

If you’re unable to bundle your changes into one of these three categories, then there’s no point in implementing them and expecting the outcome you want. And don’t confuse this with the scientific process!

Self-Evident

I would characterize self-evident as two things:

1. Something obvious: “Hafthor Bjornsson is strong” (yep, that checks out).

2. Something that a person knows about themselves: “My body doesn’t respond well to barbell back squatting.” Okay, then I probably won’t barbell back squat this athlete.

I would describe a self-evident change as something intuitive. Assume, for example, an athlete has a major force production imbalance with one of their legs. Intuitively, as a coach, I would recommend a decrease in bilateral lower body work with an increase in unilateral lower body work. Also, possibly some correctives if the loading pattern for their squat jump is askew. Those of you who are thinking, that’s pretty obvious, my guy—that’s the whole point. Self-evident changes need to be extremely obvious to justify being in this category.

For those of you asking: Why would I make an emphasis on correctives and unilateral training? The athletes I work with squat 2x bodyweight, they don’t need single-leg work. I’m not saying you should inundate an athlete only with corrective exercises to fix the imbalance and never lift heavy. If the athlete is strong, they should continue to train, but with a unilateral emphasis until the imbalance is more manageable.

There’s also something to the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy when working with athletes, and this is what makes coaching tricky. Each athlete has their own psychological makeup that, at the very least, we need to consider. How an athlete appraises a situation is critical to understanding the hormonal cascade that will ensue. If an athlete believes something is good or bad for them, it probably is. This self-evident category is perhaps best used for athletes who are in-tune with their bodies and minds and know how they respond to demands; it’s not very applicable for youth and novice athletes.

Known by Experience

This category is similar to the self-evident classification regarding athletes’ experiences with their bodies. However, I would argue this is based more on a coach’s experience and their relationships with their athletes and can be applied more globally. I think of self-evident responses as a 1:1 ratio. Does the athlete have poor arm swing during a sprint? Work on front side mechanics; you probably won’t fix the problem as effectively if you don’t work on the exact issue. With knowing by experience, there are many different changes you can make based on one problem. The athlete isn’t sleeping well at night and has acquired a 12-hour sleep debt. What do you do? Well, if you don’t know your athlete’s nightly routine, this would be a good place to start. Another example is knowing that collegiate athletes are going to have a tremendous amount of stress during finals week. Having the wherewithal to program a de-load week or to schedule optional activities is knowing from experience.

Essentially, this means knowing that uncontrollable stressors—sport performance stress, school stress, family stress, financial stress, sleep stress—all affect athletes in a similar way as the stressors you program in the weight room or on the field. These uncontrollable stressors compound the acute stresses in your program because they are chronic and affect athletes continuously throughout the week(s). Knowing when individual athletes are more stressed (academic tests, a poor run of form, continuous weekly sleep debt, etc.) and responding appropriately based on your experience and your relationship with the athletes are what makes knowing by experience effective, though more challenging than self-evident responses.

Proved by an Authority

This category has the highest burden of proof and is mostly reserved for the hard sciences and using the scientific method to prove cause and effect. For example, HIT training can yield similar aerobic adaptation when compared to moderate-intensity training and can do so with less training volume (shameless plug). Having a proven, accurate, and reliable way to measure performance outcomes is the most effective way to achieve this category. For example, I wanted to improve my vertical jump, so I embedded more plyometrics and jump training into my program. My LBM and fat mass stayed the same, and my vertical jump increased. I can prove the program caused the change.

So, how do these philosophical tenets reflect where strength and conditioning coaches and sports scientists are now in the 21^st century? Great question!

Our Data Obsession

Currently, our industry is obsessed with data, linear regression models, correlations, and statistical significance. We search for these things as if they will tell us exactly when our athletes will be sick or injured or what exercise will make inferior athletes better than the genetically gifted athletes. We attempt to find correlations with random data points to all good and bad outcomes (Good God! We’ve had ten soft tissue injuries on Tuesdays this year, therefore to limit soft tissue injuries, we shouldn’t train on Tuesdays). We don’t remember the first thing we learned in Stats 101: correlation does not imply causation. Now, before I get too carried away and make every sport science department in the country scream at their computer screens in disgust, data in athletic development is necessary.

However, we’ve been ignoring the simple principle that Ockham described over 700 years ago. In the same vein, Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” The more screens, tests, and data collected during a year, the more noise there is, and the harder it can be to find the signal you’re looking for. The key is the data needs to have (data analytics people say it with me…) actionable insight. So how does this bring us to programming? Another excellent question.

The three most important programming steps:

1. Data Collection. Accurate and reliable testing of athletes on specific characteristics that are important to the sport they play or the goals you want them to accomplish (these play a varying role, but are required by all sports).

• Sufficient mobility: ROM testing, mobility screens, etc.
• Adequate motor control: OH squat testing, dissociation testing, etc.
• Aerobic capacity: HR recovery testing, VO₂ max, etc.
• General strength: Repetition max testing, force plate testing, etc.
• Power: Vertical jump testing, broad jump testing, force plate testing, etc.
• Speed: 40-yard dash, 5-10-5, etc.

2. Periodized Program. A well thought out plan that varies based on the test results of each athlete.

• Attacking weaknesses while solidifying strengths

3. Retesting. This ensures the program accomplishes the athletes’ goals.

• Our actionable insights and Ockham’s razor come into play here. If the data you collect does not change the way you program, coach, or interact with an athlete or if the changes you make don’t alter the data or outcome, is the data worth collecting?
• If the data you’re collecting causes a change in the way you program, then I would argue yes, it is worth collecting—it’s causing actionable changes to the way you’re programming for an athlete. However, if these changes do not show results, is the test viable for the athletic characteristic?

With these three programming steps in place, how can Ockham’s razor and actionable insight help us design effective programs?

Avoid Death by Data Collection

Just as Ockham described, “More things should not be used than are necessary.” So, if you’re collecting data on athletes and don’t take any actions after you collect data, what is the point of gathering it in the first place? For example, if you monitor an athlete’s power output on a force plate and don’t make changes to the program based on their data, why do you have them jump in the first place? Don’t just check the box to say that you monitor athletes. You’re wasting your time and, more importantly, the athlete’s time.

Attack Their Weakness and Solidify Their Strengths

In a well-designed program, each athlete will most likely perform similar movements with modifications based on training age, mobility deficiencies, and movement preferences. Particularly in professional sports, athletes do have a say in their program. If they don’t want to do the movement you have programmed, you need to explain why you included that exercise and then give them a choice on modifications that are similar to the original plan.

If an athlete needs to improve their force production based on force plate measures, there are hundreds of ways to accomplish this, and it becomes increasingly specific when you have other data points to consider for the athlete. Knowing by experience comes into play here. We need to consider many factors, and having the experience and the knowledge of the athlete’s future goal will be critical in the decision-making process. If this same athlete has an excellent rate of force development, adding additional mass could hinder their RFD. Therefore, it would be best if the athlete added as much LBM and as little FFM as possible. Making sure that the athlete is aware of the goal—and giving examples of how they can achieve that goal nutritionally—is critical. However, if the athlete doesn’t need an extremely high RFD (think of offensive lineman in football), adding any kind of mass takes precedence. The key is to monitor progress and change course when the data you collect indicates it’s time to do so.

Monitor Adaptations with a Test and Retest Method

As stated earlier, we need to test and retest athletes to ensure that desired adaptations are occurring. The testing methods you choose must be self-evident or proved by an authority. You can effectively program for teams based on the goals set forth by the on-field coaching staff and then individualize the program based on the desires and needs of each athlete. When you’re initially testing your athletes, the tests must be reliable and accurate. If changing body composition is a goal, make sure you use a properly calibrated machine (underwater weighing and Bod Pod are the gold standards). If the initial testing is wrong or if force plate numbers were inflated, there is no way to show changes resulting from the program. Or, even worse, you reveal that your athletes got worse because of some incorrect numbers you initially gathered. Being able to show that adaptations occurred not only proves that the programming was effective but also demonstrates your inherent value as a practitioner.

You display even more value when you show that you accomplished the overall goal for the team (increasing team power output via force plate measures, for example) while also improving individual imbalances measured by the force plate, all while improving cardiovascular fitness demonstrated via a fitness test. (I’ll take the bonus in a lump sum, thanks!)

What Now?

As a coach, if you ever find yourself saying, “This is the way that we have always done it,” take a step back and listen. Take an unbiased look at what someone is suggesting. See what their evidence suggests and try to understand why they think a change could be helpful. The best way to implement Ockham’s razor in your programming is to use it as a lens to analyze your current program, “Know yourself and seek self-improvement.” See where you can make improvements as a coach, whether it’s the data collection process, the implementation of individual training, or showing adaptations to on-field staff or even athletes. No competitive athlete I’ve worked with has ever been disappointed by seeing improvements in the data.

As with anything, Bruce Lee’s quote “absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, add what is uniquely your own” remains true. If something is useful, use it. If a training method comes out that shows improvement in every athletic quality at the same time, you best believe I’m going try it out for myself. If something isn’t useful, discard it. If a test doesn’t measure what it says it measures, get rid of it—it’s a waste of time. Add what is uniquely your own. If an athlete believes something will improve their performance, let them have their placebo effect. Just remember, “More things should not be used than are necessary.”

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

One day I served some fish to an older man. He asked me: “Are you grieving?” Or at least I thought he did. Grieving for what? I wondered. My perplexed looked spurred him to repeat his question, and he slowed his cadence to let the words be understood even with his accent and the muffling of his mask: “How’s your breathing?”

I guess my mask was a dead giveaway. He then asked, “How much longer?” and I replied, “I’ll have your order right up, sir!” “No! No! How much longer like this?” he said, meaning the social distancing rules, the pandemic, the quarantine. I optimistically replied, “I’m hoping our governor gives us some leeway come June.”

“Are you praying for it?” he asked.

“Sir,” I answered. “I don’t pray. I prepare.”

I didn’t intend to belittle him, nor do I have anything against praying in general. My statement was a verbal confirmation of how I am currently dealing with the world around me. During situations like this, I think it best to reflect on how good we still have it. As someone who has been fortunate enough to make a living in the fitness and training industry for nearly 20 years, I’d say I (and we all) have it pretty good.

Why We All Should

The story above is an account of an interaction I had with a customer in my new job in the meat market of a local grocery store. You may ask why would I be working at a grocery store during a pandemic? Because I can! In fact, most of us in this industry can! We are all able-bodied, supposedly service-driven, and currently have the time.

It has almost become cliché these days to hear many of us in this industry speak or write about “serving others” or “impacting the community.” What better way to act than to help a local “essential” business provide for the community? Is it hard work? Yes! Do you get paid comparably? Not even close! But do you get the opportunity to serve the community and keep them safe? Absolutely!

Initially, the quarantine downtime was much needed and not all bad. But for me, the routine of waking up and preparing for nothing got old quickly. Share on X

Initially, the quarantine downtime was much needed and not all bad. Taking some time to step back and regroup was probably a great thing for all of us. But for me, the routine of waking up and preparing for nothing got old quickly. Leave it to watching a few old-school Dusty Rhodes promos to get me going:

Times like these will reveal who we really are. Are we the ones who pray for better times…wishing that things get better? Or are we the ones that prepare to make things better? Are we the ones to go out there and do what we can, given the hand we are dealt? THIS IS A GREAT TIME to find out who we really are! Find out what we are made of! Find out what we are capable of!

For those of us who approach our daily sessions as providing “the best part of our client’s day,” the approach is the same but in a fraction of the time. Let’s face it, our service in private sector is a luxury for most people who can afford us. The service provided by grocery store clerks, staff, and management, on the other hand, is an everyday necessity for most (exacerbated by the current situation).

This meat market job required getting back to basics both physically and mentally. It specifically called for lifting and transporting heavy boxes of meat, handling heavy-duty cleaning equipment, and moving and positioning non-ergonomic landscapes.

For example, the counter is meant for customer presentation without regard for the comfort of the worker. Those big, plexiglass-covered cases look great from the front, but our access to safely get your order is not always easy. A small sliding glass door that sometimes gets stuck from semi-frozen meat juices serves as the only way in to access misaligned display trays. Getting the tray out was sometimes an effort in grace and balance, and you didn’t want to spill any chicken juices on the pork or beef…yikes! Flashbacks of working in tightly packed rooms, weaving in and out of forests of racks and bodies, came to mind—avoiding hazards while not infringing on personal space.

After my first few weeks of on-the-job-training, I was put in charge of “the pier.” Depending on my shift, this entailed setting (opening shift) or breaking (closing shift) the day’s catch with a combined focus on presentation, safety, and shelf-life preservation. I cannot understate the attention to detail needed for setting and breaking, as well as its tediousness. The cooked, raw, and live products needed to be assessed for freshness and separated. Avoiding cross-contamination while maintaining freshness were the key goals.

Comparably, the skill sets of area setup and incoming athlete assessment will become equally tedious and focused tasks moving forward. As we return to our work settings, preparing workspaces for safety (and the clear perception of it) will be paramount. Properly spacing small groups, applying surface barriers, and checking temperatures will now be our new normal.

Dealing with the pier, on top of the monumental efforts of cleanliness and dealing with shortages of both product and overall customer confidence, added to the pressure of the job. Even during pre-COVID times, customer interaction is the key to driving sales. Add the mental stress, emotional pendulum, and panic of a pandemic, and you have an exercise in futility on some days.

To start, market clerks must undergo double the safety training of any other employee in the store. What I thought were just regular sanitary procedures were amplified: constant handwashing, cleaning of surfaces, and avoiding cross-contamination became a lesson in obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Checking fridge/freezer temps, the stock of items, and when the fresh load was coming kept my senses on high alert during my entire shift.

Our initiatives to keep our athletes safe need to be visible to set their minds at ease as well as reflect our level of care for them. Share on X

This was especially important for customers to witness: The heightened level of care became habits in good “selling.” Setting minds at ease and maintaining customer confidence became an art form, as our everyday behaviors became our path to increasing store sales. Likewise, some of our clients may not want to return to our facilities immediately. As every sound business uses word of mouth to drive their sales, our initiatives to keep our athletes safe need to be visible to set their minds at ease as well as reflect our level of care for them.

Closing Is Crucial

Closing is the job that no one wants, but it was the most crucial to our success. It was clear to me how loathed this duty was when the two other guys that started at the same time I did in mid-April—both of whom had similar shift times—only lasted a combined total of two days. My first night closing was a lesson in humility and what hard work truly is. Breaking down the grinder, saw, and tenderizer correctly—followed by the most thorough cleaning process I have ever experienced—left my body sore, my clothes stinking, and the taste of sanitizer in my nostrils every single night.

As much as we all hate late-night gym checks, we need to take the time to leave our facilities as if we are opening on Day 1—not only to give us pride in our ownership, but also to tell our clients everything they need to know about our programs.

Closing the back room was made much easier due to a younger co-worker, Rich, who trained me. I cannot say enough about him: This young man displayed more patience than he should have and allowed me to learn by screwing a few things up. He did what every good coach does in that regard and taught me the road to perfection is littered with failure. For myself (as a coach), I found value in taking a step back and being less vocal, which allowed for more concise instruction in the spaces of time in-between. I must thank Rich for showing me what that looks like.

The first couple of times I closed, I had to do it on my own since the woman who was supposed to operate the front never showed up (and quit a few days later). Closing is a two-person job, where one cleans the back room and the other tends to customers and keeps up with other general duties. In this case, I was doing two jobs at once, and the effectiveness of each was marred by my attendance to the other.

You know the old saying about chasing two rabbits? If any of us have had staff no-show at our facilities, we know the havoc it wreaks on our plans. Well, in this case, just take a deep breath and do the best you can, even if it breaks you a couple of times. Those nights were rough, but as I gained experience, I mentally planned to do this job alone and developed a routine that made things easier.

Much like any new job environment, the learning curve depends on your level of attention and desire to do the job better and better. This is also imperative for all of you younger coaches breaking in: Develop your routines and contingency plans immediately! At the very least, it will keep you aware and ready for the worst.

Lessons and Customer Stories

The kicker with cleaning the back room in this store was that it did not have a central drain, which made the finishing touch a royal pain in the butt. As the machines were sprayed down, leftover meat particles sluiced with standing water bogged the area.

Video 1. Coach Pete Arroyo in action during the backroom closing and sanitizing process.

We rigged a Shop-Vac to suck up all this standing water. Every time it backed up, I had to stop the rinse and allow it to empty into a sink compartment. Any of us who have worked in or near bigger cities know the frustrations that come with stop-and-go traffic—in this case, my flow (no pun intended) was interrupted several times, making a long job even longer and wetter. But, hey, I signed up for this after all.

The lesson here is that even when situations and settings are less than ideal, there is always a tool available to get the job done, no matter how “primitive.” Share on X

The lesson here is that even when situations and settings are less than ideal, there is always a tool available to get the job done, no matter how “primitive.” Most coaches have many high-tech tools at their disposal these days, but if that OFF button was ever hit, what would you do? What if that fancy software program decides not to cooperate or the Wi-Fi crashes? Do you still know how to use a notebook? This actually did happen to me the week upon returning to my training facility.

One day I had a gentleman (or so I thought) ask for a few pounds of shrimp, but it had to be the Argentinian shrimp. “Don’t give me that Chinese s**t!” he demanded. “You can’t trust nuttin’ from there!” I was caught a bit off-guard that his reason for requesting the Argentinian shrimp wasn’t due to flavor or a particular recipe, but instead reflected some of the hysteria of the pandemic. I gladly directed him to the bagged shrimp in aisle eight, and I told him it was what we have in the display anyway (it’s the dirty little secret of the fish counter).

He told me he would wait instead for a fresh load another day. Did I not just tell him this was what we had on display? I was slightly entertained because his line was in one of my favorite movies of all time, “The Wrestler,” when Randy “The Ram” Robinson was placing an order of his own with the big guy in the gym. I won’t elaborate what that means. In this job, you interact with all types, and dealing with the stupid in a classy way becomes a skill.

You may have experienced this in dealing with well-to-do parents or ignorant sport coaches giving you “advice” on what they want their athlete to do. The best secret you can tell them is that there are no secrets.

Another older gentleman ordered some salmon one day and then asked: “Is that salmon fresh?” Quickly remembering my prior interaction with the Argentinian shrimp-shopper, I saw it as high time to use another line from “The Wrestler.” “Fresh as monkey’s breath, brother!” I replied. At first, he looked perplexed, but my subsequent giggle set him at ease, and he chuckled slightly when he realized I was joking. We have to keep things fun in dark and uncertain times!

Another day, an older woman came to the block and said, “I want three pounds of beef, freezer-wrapped, and I want it now.” At that point, we just happened to be out of the ground beef she wanted, and the butchers had to grind it fresh. This wasn’t a good start—she sighed loudly in disappointment, and I then had to turn my attention to other customers.

What made it a bit rougher was the fact that I wasn’t yet coached on how to freezer-wrap—after doing what I thought was right, I asked a more experienced cutter, only to have him point at the brown paper and tell me, “Use that.” Okay, I took my time and wrapped to the best of my ability (which, looking back, was not particularly good). And—you guessed it—she used that time to loudly complain, “Hurry up! Don’t you know what you are doing?” All this with a decent line of customers behind her.

Thankfully, the manager popped up, stepped in, and wrapped it, but when I turned around to give the customer her order, she had disappeared. I tracked her down and gave her the package, only to have her slam it into her cart without any verbal response. A few minutes later, a front-end worker brought it back to the market counter and said the customer didn’t want it. Man, was I angry…and the lesson here is you cannot please everyone (nor be everything to everyone), no matter the lengths you go to. For some, it will never be enough, and those are usually the ones who point fingers when they fail.

Continuing to Serve

In retrospect, taking a part-time job in the meat market at a local grocery chain was my way of preparing as opposed to praying. As anyone in our line of work can attest to, this pandemic situation has been rough on many fronts. Many of us in this field have businesses or jobs at schools and need our income to support our families. The financial, mental, and physical toll of having our livelihoods stripped away without foresight of “if” or “when” we could return goes without saying.

The anxiety from the idle time can wreak havoc on our bodies, minds, and souls. The best remedy for me was to continue to serve the best way I possible could. Share on X

I am lucky: I do not have anyone I am solely responsible for. The only responsibility I have in that regard is taking care of those in the world around me (clients) and my reputation. The anxiety from the idle time can wreak havoc on our bodies, minds, and souls. For myself, the best remedy was continuing to serve the best way I possibly could. I’m certainly not a spring chicken anymore, but am able-bodied, have nothing but time, and love making an impact anywhere I can.

“Isolation is not desperation.” –Unknown

Whether professional or collegiate organization sport coach, strength and conditioning (S&C) coach, medical staff, executive, senior administrator, department director, etc., the role of somebody in a position of authority is to consistently establish and introduce the strategic platforms and advances that will result in successful team outcomes. A career in athletics also necessitates an obligation to foster a high standard for the positive development of the organization’s administration, workforce, and athletes both on and off the field of play.

Many opportunities are available to continually improve one’s professional craft, including educational seminars, internet searches, reviews of scientific and non-scientific literature, webinars, travels to successful athletic programs, discussions with successful professional peers—the list goes on and on. Improvement also requires persistent professional practice, the experiences that occur over a career, and of course, positive outcomes.

A sports organization’s pursuit of the “Holy Grail” of sustained success appears to be limitless as well. This includes the relentless search for renowned professionals for executive administration, department heads, coaching, medical care, S&C, nutrition, “specialty” staff, and technology, to name a few. During the many conversations that have occurred throughout my career with various medical, professional sport, and collegiate peers, the topic of creating a strong organization and team culture was rarely discussed. When these infrequent “culture” conversations do arise, they usually contain limited substance as to the specifics of achievement versus the often-stated theoretical attainment of a resilient culture.

Whether currently occupying or desiring a future role of authority (e.g., head coach, department head, executive management, etc.), the realization of success is very unlikely without the presence of a strong organizational and team culture. Culture is essential to ensure the frequent and effective desired achievements that lead to success or to transform the kiss of failure into one of triumph.

The realization of success is very unlikely without the presence of a strong organizational and team culture. Share on X

The following summation is founded upon my various experiences as a corporate CEO, department head, head S&C coach, athletic trainer, and practicing sports physical therapist. Also included in the content of this article are my experiences and relationships with prominent professionals, including corporate CEOs and senior-level business executives, nationally recognized medical and healthcare providers, and Hall of Fame sport and S&C coaches.

What Is the Cause of a Once Successful Organization’s Demise?

When placed in a position of authority to establish a resilient culture within an organization, one should recognize that a strong correlation exists between the operations of a sports organization/sports team and that of a corporate business entity, and vice versa. As significant financial revenue is produced from TV contracts, season ticket sales, playoff games, bowl games and national tournaments, team apparel sales, concessions, parking, marketing and advertising, etc., isn’t a team sport organization in reality a business enterprise?

There are various explanations for an organization/athletic team’s decline from its once successful ways, and one significant reason is the deterioration of a strong culture. The demise of any business organization often transpires in a progression of “stages,” as described by business CEO and author Les McKeown. A sports organization and sports team are no exception. The following is a representation of each particular stage founded upon my experiences as applied to a sports organization, department, team, etc. that is failing and perhaps hostile as well.

Having Fun Stage

Once the sport organization, collegiate institution, or sports team has surpassed the initial early struggle stage (a phase omitted from this discussion) of building and establishing a consistent level of success, the organization enters what is deemed the fun stage. During this period of sustained success, the organization has likely assimilated exceptional personnel with the utmost proven ability and skill level into their senior management, administration, work force, medical staff, spectrum of coaches, and team athletes. This is also where all previous efforts result in on-the-field “wins.” As these wins continue to accumulate, the “big dogs” of the organization will now emerge. There is also a persistent exemplary presence of the organization’s vision, processes, policies, systems, education and skill training, accountability, and, of course, culture.

Whitewater Stage

Over time, if the sports organization does not adhere to the established details and culture that have provided persistent success, these accomplishments will be jeopardized to eventually enter the whitewater stage. This is the period where the established processes, policies, systems, and culture are brought into the spotlight and questioned. An attitude of complacency may also ensue, with an evolving mindset of “Why do I have to work so hard now that we’re winning? Haven’t we achieved our objectives?” It is imperative to avert this apathy, as it is vital for the organization to endure in its vision and continue to enhance the platforms, commitments, operations, and culture that achieved initial success.

The phrase “success breeds success” only becomes real with an unrelenting work ethic, a fierce determination for continued advancement, and a thirst for competitive success. The whitewater stage is a very difficult one to endure, and it is here where organizations and leaders may begin to suffer a lack of confidence.

The phrase “success breeds success” only becomes real with an unrelenting work ethic, a fierce determination for continued advancement, and a thirst for competitive success. Share on X

Personnel may plateau and perhaps even regress in their role, requiring reevaluation and possible replacement. As staff and player contracts terminate, renewals may or may not be renegotiated. Staff as well as athletes may vacate, trades are made, and competing organizations may poach executives, administrators, coaches, and athletes in an attempt to reverse their own particular failures. These deleterious circumstances now place unfamiliar stress upon the organization, resulting in a consequential repetitive restarting of the personnel process. The restarting process will likely resemble something similar to the following:

• Identify the new personnel or athlete.
• Acquire the new personnel or athlete.
• Develop (education and train) the new personnel or athlete.
• Replace the personnel or athlete.

Each new member of the organization must adapt and adhere to the cultural mindset of the organization. Without the sustainment and, if necessary, reestablishment of a strong culture, the reoccurring restarting personnel process cycle will likely become persistent.

Predictable Success Stage

This stage follows the whitewater stage, and it is during this period that all members of the organization must continue to work in unity for the same common cause in accordance with the established organizational objectives. Due to the fluctuating environment, the adjusted strategic objectives must be achieved. At times there may be a hesitation in vision, creativity, risk-taking, and initiative; however, with the continued establishment and maintenance of the ideal foundation of organization personnel, processes, accountability, and culture, success is usually predictable. Predictable success also allows for the addressing and correction of the most recent risks, dangers, and threats that may arise as a possible disruption to the organization’s success.

Treadmill Stage

If the sports organization enters the treadmill phase of this continuum, the organization has probably begun its preliminary demise. Personnel at all levels have continued to become too “comfortable” with their level of sustained success and consequently create an attitude of daily “routine.” The new mindset of “routine” brings with it the consequences of persistent amplified mediocrity and apathy.

NFL Hall of Fame Coach Bill Parcells has taught me that there is a big difference between routine and commitment. When entering the treadmill stage, the workforce becomes less “committed” and is stuck in a repetitive daily performance of “routine,” as little if any positive progress is established. Those still expending a great deal of energy and effort find little if any forward momentum. The organizational culture wavers to place too much emphasis on policy, process, and data, thus reducing the emphasis on direct operational contact, communication, and especially action. Procedures and methods are executed as always but with a corresponding lack of advancement and subsequent poor accountability.

The Big Rut Stage

This stage is the final chance for the organization to avoid a dismal environment; however, for many entering the big rut stage, it may already be too late, as the organization has regressed to its previous losing ways. The ability to be self-aware is lost as animosity now develops between management, coaches, and athletes. Attitude, performance, and culture spiral downward. A rectification is desperately sought as staff is terminated, athletes are released, and new staff and players enter the organization, reinforcing the repetitive restarting process. The restarting process becomes a vicious cycle that initiates time and time again, as failure is now almost certain.

Many professional sport franchises, collegiate sport teams, and business organizations have gone through this unfortunate process of failure to eventually take the appropriate steps to properly reorganize and reestablish themselves as a successful organization. The revival of a once dismal situation is not just an emotional touch, it’s a comprehensive takeover of mediocrity, apathy, and poor culture, and, depending upon the severity of the situation, the filling of empty hearts as well.

The following are recommendations to consider when attempting to reverse a deteriorating sports organization, department, or team into one of sustained success.

Determine the Strategic Platform and Objectives

A successful makeover in organizational culture will require the executive management team, along with the senior administration and head coach, to collectively devise a new organization platform strategy. The foundation of this new platform is based upon the four “P” pillars identified as follows:

• Position – where to go
• Perspective – what is seen
• Plan – what to do
• Projects – what to prioritize

A successful makeover in organizational culture will require a new organization platform strategy based upon the four “P” pillars: position, perspective, plan, and projects. Share on X

Strategic platform objectives should be established for the parent organization, each department, and the athletic team, as the achievement of these planned objectives will give rise to the overall success of the organization. The strategic objectives should also be achievable, measurable, and specific, and not generalizations such as “Our goal is to win a championship,” as isn’t that every organization’s aspiration? The preliminary objectives may also not be intended for the achievement of an immediate championship, but instead present a fragment of staged objectives with noted timelines of achievement.

The staging of objectives is also instituted with the intention to rapidly change an “unstable” situation to one of “stability.” An example of such a staging may comprise a progressive plan of action to eliminate a lengthy playoff drought, attain success in the playoffs, and progress to win championships. The transformation plan should be specific to the circumstances presented, as a “cookie cutter” or “cut and paste” approach will likely not attain the success desired.

New leadership will plan enhancements for the existing processes, procedures, informative data, and other vital information. There may also be a need to fill the organization’s voids—i.e., additional specific skill-set staff, establishment of departments and/or programs, collection and distribution of new information for attaining the desired objectives, and a new culture to warrant the achievement of the strategic plan objectives to ensure a successful transformation.

Unfortunately, there are also events that happen where the initial planned objectives may be prioritized to steer the organization from disaster to stability, including a defined role to assist in restoring stability to the surrounding community as well. Such ominous circumstances include an organization on the verge of financial and emotional disaster as realized during the somber events of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attack on New York City, the 2008 financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the present COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, my professional experiences include all of the above-mentioned events. Whether the objectives are to achieve a gold medal, hoist the championship trophy, or reverse a crisis, the odds of achievement increase dramatically when the organization establishes, and conforms to, an appropriate and strong culture.

Who to Hire?

Only when the organization’s new platform and objectives are determined can the selection of the most suitable candidates to lead this campaign transpire. During arduous times, the current leadership is likely to be removed, and candidates then vie for these newly vacant positions. These candidates will arrive from “within” the organization or from “outside” the organization. Each of these scenarios has advantages as well as disadvantages.

Promoting from within the organization is often appropriate. It is beneficial to have someone at the helm who the organization is familiar with and deems trustworthy—someone acquainted with the organization, as well as the former objectives and present operations, and who has established relationships within the workforce and team athletes. These candidates must also display confidence in their demonstrated ability to reverse the organization’s current undesirable performance.

However, “in-house” candidates may also be limited in “outside” experiences. Some may be restricted by their lone prolonged experiences within the same organization, placing a possible constraint upon their abilities. Candidates from within the organization may also be regarded as “guilty by association” and perceived as partially responsible for the current organization/athletic team demise.

There is an old saying that an “expert” is defined as someone from out of town. “Outside” candidates do provide some advantages for the new leadership roles. These include, but are not limited to, proven unique experiences in present or former leadership roles, the familiarity with proven strategic platforms, planned processes, and the establishment of organizational culture. Many “outside” professionals present a proven “resume” for turning dismal organizations into successful ones. Coach Bill Parcells was well respected for his proven ability to accomplish this task.

Outside candidates are able to make informed unbiased decisions because they lack personal relationships within the organization. These candidates also lead to an opportunity for additional “outside” relationships, staffing, and athletes to now be available to the organization. It is recommended that if an outside candidate is selected to lead the organization, a department within the organization, or the team itself, they should be allowed to employ some of their relationships as well. Newly hired leadership should not be expected to remain isolated on their own island without familiar professional peers who will both conform and believe in the new strategy plan and culture to be implemented. The addition of familiar workforce staff and athletes will contribute to the acceleration of a successful transformation.

One last thought on organization employment. When assembling this new workforce, it is important to not lose focus on the concept of “team.” Many organizations may hire the “best” executives, department heads, staff, and coaches, as well as sign the “best” athletes, yet never achieve the success desired. Although all personnel must possess both the knowledge and skill proficiency to perform their responsibilities admirably, it is not required that they all be regarded as the “best” professionals in their field. However, this new workforce must demonstrate the ability to provide 100% of their skills and efforts each and every day. Therefore, the accretion of such talent may not necessarily include individual “world-renowned” professionals, but on the contrary, the organization will now embrace the best team of professionals in the sport league or conference. There are also occasions for the preference of a hire or signing who displays a bit less talent, but who presents the right fit in an organization’s culture.

Have a Comprehensive and Precise Plan of Action

It is important to remember that hope is not a plan of action. It would be very disingenuous to believe that the reversal of a dismal culture will happen arbitrarily. I am also not aware of any head coach or business executive who has access to a crystal ball. Therefore, at the time of the initiation of this transformation process, an “absolute” prediction of the future is unfounded. Nevertheless, a strong and concise detailed plan of action—one that specifically correlates to the achievement of the new and measurable objectives—is always favorable for implementation.

It is important to remember that hope is not a plan of action. It would be very disingenuous to believe that the reversal of a dismal culture will happen arbitrarily. Share on X

The new strategy must address the role, expectations, and accountability of all in senior management, the workforce, the spectrum of coaches, and athletes. The components of the prescribed plan of action should include, but not be limited to, the following:

• Identify the current state of the organization and how it measures up to other successful competitive organizations in the sport league or conference.
• Identify the immediate as well as any significant problems and/or conditions to be resolved along with the corresponding achievable and measurable objectives to ensure this correction.
• Identify the primary organization departments and personnel best suited to assist with this campaign of culture transformation.
• Provide the details of the processes, as well as any and all “staging” of this new strategy, including timelines for anticipated achievements.
• Provide all additional financial costs and structure necessary for the implementation of this strategic plan of action.
• Provide in detail how this new strategy will reverse the present breakdown in culture and attain success.
• Describe the advantages of this new strategy and how it positions the organization when compared to other similar competitive organizations.

Culture

Culture is the foundation and backbone of any organization. When a change in leadership takes place, there will likely be an associated change in culture as well. It is important to point out that culture changes through a process of transformation. This transformation is necessary, as the greatest threat to the organization is not the present-day downward spiral but addressing the crisis with yesterday’s logic.

Changing culture requires an acknowledgement of what a strong culture is. With regard to team sports, the physical qualities necessary for athletic success—i.e., strength, power, speed, etc.—are not considered a culture, as these physical qualities are beliefs for athletic achievement. A strong culture encompasses the entire organization and workforce, not just a few segregated departments.

Changing culture requires an acknowledgement of what a strong culture is. Share on X

As an example, how would the enhancement of physical qualities assist the departments of human resources, accounting, legal and compliance, marketing, and technology? Culture necessitates the resilient attributes of cooperation and effort from the entire organization to lead to the appropriate self-accountability (more on this later) of all departments and members of the workforce. This commitment ensures that the obligations and contributions of all departments within the organization will cooperatively assist the team athletes to become stronger, more powerful, and faster.

Culture is also considered the character and personality of the organization. It provides a feeling of unity that positively impacts the organization by solidifying values and objectives while also increasing morale. As Henry Ford stated, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” An individual commitment to a group effort is essential to establish a strong culture and result in success.

The following 10 behaviors require no talent and will assist in a positive transformation of an organization’s culture.

1. Be on time.
2. Bring a strong work ethic.
3. Provide your best effort daily.
4. Exhibit positive body language.
5. Exhibit positive energy.
6. Have a positive attitude.
7. Exhibit passion in your work efforts.
8. Be coachable.
9. Do the extra.
10. Always be prepared.

Establishing a strong culture encompasses many parts. To keep this dialogue brief, I will highlight the importance of organizational communication and accountability.

Communication

The practice of good communication lays the groundwork for a strong and resilient organizational culture. When a change in leadership occurs, the various workforce members who have had experiences with a change of leadership versus those who have not should be acknowledged. People react differently to perceived stressful situations, and some individuals may require an altered approach in the communication of the new expectations now placed upon them.

Everyone in the organization is to be informed of the organizational operations. Regardless of the operational methods of the past, this new strategy will now be the precedent moving forward. That stated, those in positions of authority should be open to input from all colleagues and staff for whom they are responsible. These opinions and assessments should be respected and acknowledged; however, these discussions should not alter the foundation of the strategic plan moving forward.

As changes transpire within the organization, some individuals may not have an affinity toward these new adjustments. However, change is the only mechanism that will ensure the transformation of culture and success. It is important to keep the workforce and athletes constantly informed, as daily communication will eventually eliminate the distrust that may be present at the initiation of this cultural transformation.

Change is the only mechanism that will ensure the transformation of culture and success. Share on X

Be explicit and clear with all expectations placed upon each member of the organization, as nobody should have to guess at their role and expected accountabilities. Every associate should understand that their energies are for the greater good of the organization. Inquire each week, “What did your staff love, and what did they loathe?” Employ this information wisely and appropriately.

It is natural for people to want to know why they are unique, why are they special. Everyone in a position of authority should encourage, acknowledge, reward, and reinforce positive achievements, exceptional performances, and especially results. The appreciation and recognition of these achievements should occur in a “public” manner.

Acknowledgement should not be limited to a single department or the athletic team alone, but involve all departments and workforce within the organization, including senior management. It is also significant to recognize that communication frequency trumps quality. Superior culture, work proficiency, and desired outcomes are achieved via the frequency of daily communication versus a single “high quality” end-of-year review.

Accountability

“The single most powerful characteristic of the Predictable Success organization is the existence of a culture of self-accountability.” –Les McKeown

To successfully achieve the desired transformation in workforce culture, every person must be held accountable for their specific role and achievable objective responsibilities. As culture is always evolving, accountability must then advance to a level of self-accountability, an environment where each person is acceptingly accountable to themselves. Self-accountability transforms the perspective of a job as solely a source of income to an opportunity of enthusiasm for the relaying of messages of importance to peers. As each workforce member realizes their own self-accountability, success will come about more easily and rapidly.

Self-accountability also acknowledges all efforts are for the “good of the whole” and not individual accolades. Then again, the success of the whole will also bring forth the individual accolades that many desire. During my time as the head S&C coach at St. John’s University of New York, Hall of Fame Head Basketball Coach Lou Carnesecca often reminded our teams, “Athletes who play the game for fame and fortune will likely achieve neither, but players who strive for championships will likely achieve both.” Everyone in the organization must work in unity for a common vision of success, as none of us is as smart as all of us.

Everyone in the organization must work in unity for a common vision of success, as none of us is as smart as all of us. Share on X

The advancement of self-accountability also leads to trust. The establishment of trust within an organization is imperative to ensure the success of any sports or business entity. Trust can’t be bought, traded for, or spoken about in passing—trust is earned. Trust demonstrates the steadfast dependability of an individual’s contribution of consistency of performance.

As new leadership continues to evolve, additional circumstances may arise that require attention. As previously conveyed, certain individuals in the workforce may not be comfortable or may even contest organizational change. Those refuting the planned organization transformation will require a direct conversation to reinforce the new strategic system presently in place.

As these discussions take place, personalities who may be “stuck in their old ways,” not onboard, and perhaps even disruptive may be exposed. Those who are noncompliant will need to determine if they can conform and remain or leave the organization, informing their direct report accordingly. If a particular individual is regarded as an esteemed member of the organization with a valued skill set, an additional consideration may be a reevaluation for a possible amicable adjustment in organizational role and responsibilities for which they are still held accountable.

Most individuals likely have aspirations for their present and future careers. Those not conforming to the new strategic plan and culture should be confronted with a focused discussion on the effect of their unsuitable and/or defiant behavior upon their personal career opportunities. These opportunities include, but are not limited to, remaining on the team roster or within the organization; playing time; draft status; professional advancement including executive, senior administrative, department head, head or assistant coaching opportunities; future job references; and a poor overall professional reputation, to name a few.

A more positive result for culture “buy-in” will likely take place with an appropriate and respectful conversation based upon an individual’s personal opportunities versus their poor conduct and its effects upon the organization. Although the latter should also be acknowledged, expressed personal interest in the individual emphasizes a sincere appreciation of concern that is often acknowledged with gratitude at the time of these discussions.

Accountability not only correlates to rewards for outstanding performances but consequences for those failing to meet their communicated roles and expectations. Expectations are placed upon the achievement of objective responsibilities. These objectives are to be measured, as quantifying ensures fairness, accuracy, and accomplishment; affords accessibility to pertinent information; and, of course, reinforces the old adage that states: “What gets measured gets done!” Objectives are measured with the purpose of the achievement of progression as well as the attainment of valid and useful information, and not simply for the sake of measuring. Individual popularity, length of tenure, etc. do not allow for “modifications” in accountability, as all in the workforce are expected to conform to the newly recognized standards of the organization.

There are other possible causes for poor individual performance. Absent organization divisions/departments, obsolete equipment and processes, limited number of skilled staff, absent or inadequate education/training methods, poor communication, etc. should also be appraised as contributors to poor performance versus a lack of an individual’s effort or ability to achieve their assigned responsibilities. When these organizational inadequacies are realized, they should be rectified as soon as possible.

Conversations with my peers from various business and sport organizations also reveal an opinion that the enforcement of accountability includes treating all personnel as equals. As this point of view is acknowledged, it should also be recognized that individual backgrounds and personalities vary, the severity of “violations” is wide-ranging, and repeat violations do not materialize from each person within the organization. Therefore, when addressing accountability, there’s no obligation to be fair, there’s an obligation to be right. Each violation of accountability should be addressed based upon the individual and each distinct incident.

It should also be noted that there is a significant difference between discipline and rules. A good friend of mine, now retired, was previously employed on a professional sport team coaching staff that had just gone through a change at the head coach position. The new head coach asked my friend to remain on his new coaching staff, to which he agreed. On one particular occasion, the new head coach called my friend to his office and stated, “I’ve kept all of our players’ fines and records from the time of the previous head coach until now. I’ve fined our players three times more than the previous head coach. Why do you think these problems are still occurring?” The response was simple and direct, “Coach, that’s because you have rules, the previous head coach had discipline.”

The presence of self-accountability also correlates directly to an awareness of self-discipline, resulting in the requirement for very few rules. Share on X

The presence of self-accountability also correlates directly to an awareness of self-discipline, resulting in the requirement for very few rules. Hall of Fame Basketball Coach Bobby Knight, considered one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time, had one rule for his basketball teams and one rule only: “Don’t do anything that you think I might not like.” The genius of that one statement is that it covered an enormous amount of territory. Coach Bill Parcells places the “discipline” versus “rules” conversation in the proper perspective: “Discipline isn’t about punishing people. It’s about creating an atmosphere where you don’t have to.”

Accountability also correlates to the athletic team’s anticipated performance. I have witnessed athletes being awakened by the coaching staff to confirm class attendance and coaches pursuing athletes to attend team mealtimes even though these meals are provided free of charge, as well as other absurd scenarios. When inquiring why this conduct is tolerated, one implied concern was if the athlete becomes “disgruntled” because they are held accountable, they may transfer to a different institution. The concerns that arise from such scenarios are as follows:

• Coaches have more appropriate uses of their time than ensuring their athletes attend class or eat meals.
• Athletes who attend class, attend team meals, etc. demonstrate self-discipline, responsibility, and the willingness to prepare. They earn the trust to be depended upon and the expectation of consistency for their best efforts during team training, practice, and crucial game situations. Can the same be said of an athlete who needs to be “hunted” to attend class, team meals, etc.?
• If the noncompliant athlete is fairly popular, their inappropriate behavior may spread to their teammates, potentially making a bad situation even worse.
• All of the team athletes will eventually see through the facade of accountability and no longer tolerate the expected team culture. Such a large setback will eventually establish a large team divide. The cultural foundation is now severely compromised, placing the team at high risk for failure with any additional episodes of adversity or high-pressure situations.

To reflect upon this type of situation from a different perspective, let’s assume that there are staff and team athletes who deliberately violate an organization’s culture and are not held accountable for their actions. As the organization and locker room becomes segregated, the cultural foundation will begin to crumble. The team may win a few games, but it will likely never achieve the level of anticipated success. This state of affairs will likely result in the termination of some combination of senior administrators, head coach, staff, and athletes.

However, the situation won’t end there. There will be an assessment of the organization and team landscape by the newly hired personnel. Upon review of the state of affairs, the new authority will likely release all of the remaining members of the organization and team who continue with their nonconforming conduct, while also questioning how these individuals were ever allowed to remain. Therefore, the accountability that should have initially transpired eventually does transpire, unfortunately at the cost of employment, scholarship, or position on the athletic team.

Successful sports organizations usually have one factor in common—the recognition of and adherence to a strong organizational culture. Share on X

The sustained success demonstrated by some sport organizations is not established by coincidence. Successful sports organizations usually have one factor in common—the recognition of and adherence to a strong organizational culture. During the stressful occurrences of an organization’s demise, the establishment of a new strategic platform that includes measurable objectives, leading to a workforce and athletic team environment of self-accountability and self-discipline, will result in the reestablishment of a strong organizational culture and the eventual return to sustained success.

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

Taste is a weird thing. Defined as “a homeostatic function that aids in deciding what to eat,” it can vary quite substantially among people. For example, I find marmite, the often-polarizing food, absolutely repulsive; meanwhile, my wife enjoys it on toast. Conversely, she has a strong dislike for parsnips, while I like nothing better than a couple roasted up and eaten along with a side of beef. The ability to detect different tastants—chemicals that drive flavor—can also differ in the magnitude by which it occurs, leading some people to be labeled as supertasters (and tending to dislike coffee and Brussel sprouts). What we taste is subject to a variety of different influences, including smell and visual stimuli, and also social and cultural factors.

In recent years, those involved in sport have become increasingly interested in the effects a variety of tastes can have on performance. A couple of years ago, I wrote a post for SimpliFaster about how strong spicy flavors might act as a treatment for muscle cramps. Other research demonstrates how both sweet and bitter tastes, as well as cooling sensations mediated through taste, may help improve performance.

Based on this research, I recently co-authored a really interesting paper published in the European Journal of Nutrition, which asked, “Can taste be ergogenic?” We explored the influences of sweet and bitter tastants on performance, how thermal tastants (both hot and cold) can influence our capacity to exercise, and whether these performance-enhancing effects were due to taste itself or placebo or expectancy mechanisms. Here, I’ll share the key points with you.

Sweet and Bitter Tastes

In day-to-day life, the main sweet taste we’re exposed to comes from simple carbohydrates—essentially, sugar. We’ve long known that carbohydrates positively influence exercise performance, especially in endurance activities where athletes often consume carbohydrate-containing drinks, gels, and bars during competitions. Over the last couple of decades, however, researchers have started to notice something interesting: we see an improvement in performance when we consume carbohydrates during exercise, but only around 25% of the carbohydrate consumed during exercise enters our bloodstream to be used as energy.

This is much less than expected, given the performance-boost carbohydrate delivers. The finding led other researchers to speculate that—when consumed during exercise—carbohydrates might stimulate pathways within the brain and central nervous system. Two main proposed pathways are thought to be activated:

• Those associated with reward
• Those associated with feelings of energy availability

On the latter point, when we exercise, our brain consistently makes calculations between how much energy we have left and how long the exercise is due to carry on and uses the results of these calculations to regulate effort. When our brain senses that our energy stores are running low, it subconsciously drives us to slow down. When we consume carbohydrates during exercise, the sweetness activates taste receptors that tell our brain “energy is coming,” allowing it to modify the effort we’re putting in.

When we consume carbohydrates during exercise, our brain loans us the energy we're expecting to digest soon, says @craig100m. Share on X

Essentially, we’re loaning the energy from the carbohydrate we expect to digest in the next short period of time. We know this happens because we can trick the brain into thinking energy is coming by rinsing a carbohydrate around the mouth and spitting it out; when we do this, exercise performance is still enhanced.

The relationship between carbohydrates, sweet taste, and performance is somewhat complicated. Carbohydrates that don’t have a strong sweet taste, such as maltodextrin, have performance-enhancing effects when rinsed around the mouth. In contrast, very sweet flavors that have no energetic value—such as artificial sweeteners—don’t exhibit an ergogenic effect. Overall, this suggests that taste per se does not enhance performance. Instead, the carbohydrate molecules bind to some as-of-yet-unidentified receptors in the mouth. A further important area to consider here is that carbohydrate mouth rinses could lead to oral health issues, which commonly affect athletes and have important impacts on performance—something we should consider before using them.

Bitter tastes appear to activate similar regions of the brain as sweet tastes, leading researchers to wonder whether they could enhance performance similar to carbohydrate mouth rinses. The idea has been most well-explored by an Australian research group. In one study, the authors gave a group of male cyclists a solution made to taste bitter by adding quinine—the compound that gives tonic water its bitter taste. When the cyclists rinsed the solution around their mouths and then ingested it, they experienced an almost 4% performance improvement compared to when they rinsed and swallowed water. When a similar bitter solution was swilled around the mouth and not ingested, performance did not improve—which suggests that ingesting the bitter solution is what’s important. The researchers proposed this reason: there are a large number of bitter taste receptors situated in the upper gastrointestinal tract, and swallowing the solution activates these receptors and, hence, performance enhancement.

Like quinine, caffeine is a bitter tastant that activates bitter taste receptors in the mouth. Caffeine is also exceptionally well-established as an ergogenic aid, which begs the question: Are some of caffeine’s ergogenic effects due to its bitter taste? I explored this in detail in a separate paper published in 2019; a key difficulty with this suggestion is that caffeine mouth rinses don’t seem to enhance performance when the caffeine is not swallowed.

Thermal Tastants

As anyone who enjoys a tasty curry will know, humans have used spices in their diet for years, including those that cause sensations of heat. The main chemical compound that drives these feelings is capsicum, which we find in foods such as chili. Creams and ointments that contain capsicum give a sensation of heat when rubbed on the skin, demonstrating the potentially broad use of this compound. Using capsicum as an oral pre-exercise supplement has received increased attention over the last couple of years, with a few studies exploring capsicum’s effects on exercise performance. Capsicum supplementation improved 1500m time trial performance, total reps in a reps-to-failure protocol carried out at 70% 1RM in the back squat exercise, and time to exhaustion in a repeated treadmill running exercise. Importantly, capsicum consumed as part of a meal doesn’t appear to elicit the same effects, so it’s likely that specific, targeted capsicum consumption in tablets is required.

However, before we all rush off and start purchasing—and taking—capsicum supplements, it’s important to consider that side effects are very common. The most common of these is gastrointestinal (GI) distress. Consuming this very spicy compound is associated with GI pain and diarrhea, as many people can attest to from experience. These effects have the very real potential to limit performance, which presents the main limitation of capsicum supplementation.

Conversely, menthol—a common flavor in toothpaste and mouthwash—elicits a cooling sensation. These sensations can have important implications when it comes to exercise performance, as feelings of overheating are linked to reduced performance. Early studies have demonstrated the somewhat minor effectiveness of menthol mouth rinses on endurance performance, which appear to be largely mediated through improvements in thermal comfort. However, no change in body temperature occurs.

The Important Role of Placebo

The placebo effect refers to the “desirable outcome resulting from a person’s expected and/or learned response to a treatment or situation.” This is crucial from a taste perspective; if an athlete consumes an ergogenic aid with a strong taste, and then sees a performance improvement, they will associate that taste with the improvement. And when they consume the same supplement on a different occasion, they will expect their performance to improve. Given that the effects of placebos on exercise performance are real and replicable, there is the potential that some of the ergogenic effects of any supplement are due partly to the athlete recognizing a taste they expect will improve performance and perform better as a result.

If this sounds implausible, consider the results of this case study, in which a child with an autoimmune disease received medication along with a strong taste and smell. After a period of time, the medication was removed from the cocktail, with only the taste and smell remaining; after consumption, the new “medicine” improved the patient’s symptoms. This isn’t to say the placebo effect exclusively mediates the potential ergogenic effects of taste but that it’s at least a contributor.

Summary

In summary, we found that taste has the potential to improve performance. It can be difficult, however, to separate the effects of taste per se and the stimulation of specific receptors in the mouth and gastrointestinal tract that provide signals to the brain regarding aspects such as energy availability. At present, it appears that carbohydrate and menthol mouth rinses have the potential to enhance performance. And ingesting bitter tastants and capsicum may also improve performance, although not because they stimulate the taste receptors.

Carbohydrate & menthol mouth rinses as well as bitter tastants and capsicum may enhance performance, though the mechanisms by which they work differ. Share on X

As the research in this area expands, we should get a better idea of how strong tastes enhance performance, and how we can harness this knowledge for athletes. An important part of using any ergogenic aid is that of placebo and expectancy; if the athlete believes something will improve performance, it likely will, and so strong, recognizable tastes form a part of this—and might be something for supplement manufacturers to consider in the future!

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

A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We have transitioned in this country from static stretching to dynamic mobility for our warm-up, and I was right there as most coaches balked at the dynamic warm-up. The change reduced soft tissue injuries, but we still faced an abnormal amount of odd injuries—non-contact injuries in particular. Often, return-to-play protocols look fantastic on paper but ultimately fail as athletes go on to get hurt again.

We’ve developed all kinds of programs that help athletes get stronger and faster with the hopes of becoming bulletproof.  When we enter the robust, unpredictable world of sport, we tend to fall short in keeping our athletes in the game, on the field, or on the track, and we keep doing the same things we’ve done in the past. We haven’t learned our lesson. More strength! More mobility! More power! More and more does not equal a more resilient athlete. It may be part of the performance puzzle, but major pieces are missing.

Neurology and Performance

A long time ago, I heard a famous strength coach talk about asking each athlete how they had trained prior to working with him. After they completed a form listing what they’d done, he tried everything they hadn’t done yet to get them better. If we want changes, we may have to look at what we are not doing. We train muscles. We train fast-twitch explosive capabilities. We do the best soft tissue therapies and the best conditioning, yet we still don’t always get the results we want.

In recent years, neurology (addressing your brain) has evolved to take a place at the forefront of our training world. What was once considered voodoo or pseudoscience now leads the way for the most “in the know” movement-based practices. The days of neglecting an athlete’s neurology are over. I hope. If you haven’t started implementing neural-based movement protocols in your warm-up, you’re missing major pieces of the performance puzzle.

If you haven't implemented neural-based movement protocols in your warm-up, you're missing major pieces of the performance puzzle, says @WGF1. Share on X

Neural warm-ups are a great way to stimulate all of your body’s major subsystems quickly and efficiently. These major subsystems include—but are not limited to—the vestibular system and the visual system. As John Iams would say, “Changes happen at the speed of the nervous system.”

Addressing these subsystems in sports performance is important because most of these pathways are under-stimulated with conventional training means. Complexity and novelty drive brain function. The more novel the stimulus, the more the brain pays attention to what you are doing—and you can’t go broke paying attention. As these subsystems begin to provide accurate and improved signals, they allow the athlete to create optimal movement strategies. In other words, we create more robustness in the performance world.

Most athletes have a sub-clinical vestibular or visual issue and addressing it can pay huge dividends in reflexive movement patterns, says @WGF1. Share on X

When I say the word neural, I’m talking about sensory avenues that the brain uses to feel, see, and predict where you are in space and how to navigate through it without hitting your head.  Most athletes will present with some type of sub-clinical vestibular or visual issue that—when addressed in a general way—will pay huge dividends in reflexive movement patterns. Improving the parts of the brain involved in spatial awareness, vision, balance, and coordination allows athletes to see more of what’s coming at them and increases awareness of their surroundings. This is paramount in sport not only for preventing concussions (head trauma) but also for preventing accidents that may cause other injuries in general.

In the real world, the brain is wired for survival. Read that again: wired for survival, not for performance. Your brain is constantly working on, against, and with gravity every second of every day. In future articles, we’ll discuss the many modes the brain uses to serve and protect our noggins. This article tells you three reasons not to neglect your neurology. These are non-negotiables! I explain very easy ways to access these parts of your brain to free tissue, increase mobility, potentiate movement, reduce potential injury stressors, work on coordination, and just become a better mover. And it ain’t hard. You probably haven’t been doing it, so this would be a good time to start.

1. “You Cannot Move What You Cannot Feel”

In the world of neurology, tactile sensation and cortical body maps are critical pieces of improved high functioning neurology. If we are truly movement experts—or at least wish to be­­—we have to address each area of real estate in the brain. If you want to move it, feel it. Know where the heck it is.

If we are truly movement experts—or at least wish to be—we have to address each area of real estate in the brain, says @WGF1. Share on X

We take information from the body, and we implement a plan. These maps, which are built based on specific information that’s constantly provided by the three important subsystems, continue to interact to make intelligent decisions and predictions on your next move (proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular). If the athlete’s map or spatial awareness is off due to an issue within one or multiple subsystems, many potential problems could arise (and certainly, we won’t be at our highest state of preparedness).

2. Train Your Eyes—Not Just to See Clearly

The peripheral vision fields close down as threat increases. You read it right. Want to move better? Train your eyes. Too often, we look straight ahead in training and develop lazy peripheral fields.

Video 1. Football players incorporate a visual component in their warm-up.

As movement compensations creep into our everyday training life, so goes our peripheral vision. If we overlook the visual system, many imbalances throughout the body can become increasingly less than optimal.

3. Rocking and Rolling

Rocking and rolling should take the place of your core training. Your inner ear is the single most important sensory function that your brain and body need to function at a high level. If your vestibular system is compromised, it becomes a major threat to your movement world. When there is a threat, your vision changes, and the wheels begin to focus more on not crashing than on robust athletic movement.

Video 2. Rocking and rolling movements to warm-up the vestibular system.

Please don’t neglect the vestibular system. After all, if you don’t know which way is up—or where you are—it will be tough to express anything that resembles elite athletic ability. By stimulating this major system, you’ll quickly realize changes in postural recruitment strategies.

The part of the brain that is getting the most hits on Twitter and Instagram seems to be the cerebellum. Why is that? The cerebellum is responsible for maintenance of balance and posture/postural adjustment—and has a great working relationship with the vestibular system. So all the aspects of the above “what not to neglect” can be reached through training the cerebellum. In multiple videos and lectures, I’ve laid out how we can impact this area of the brain and get what I call motor returns: cleaned up movement, better accuracy, and better timing.

After all, isn’t this the essence of all sports? Notice I didn’t mention squatting, sprinting, fast twitch or slow twitch, eccentric or concentric. Let’s not neglect what helps those muscles contract, what creates that movement, and how we may do it more efficiently without pain: your brain.

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

Sprinting is unique because it’s the greatest plyometric and motor skill around. I often see plyometrics and motor skill learning rushed or abandoned in favor of just running fast. Doing so cheats athletes of valuable time to train their nervous system and muscles to crave proper technique and speed. No doubt, an athlete must frequently run fast to lay the framework for moving swiftly. Still, motor learning is a necessary support that provides context and allows athletes to self-organize all movement. Sprinting is, after all, a hind-brain activity that occurs very quickly.

The more good movements we expose our athletes to, the more experience their brain has to draw from. Researchers at McGill University found that:

To learn a new motor skill, the brain makes an estimate of the expected sensory inflow that it should get from your sensory system, and the cerebellum uses this prediction to compute the difference between what you intended to do and what you actually did. Elite athletes are not only better at coordinating their movements, their brains are also better at making these kinds of rapid predictions and readjustments.

Two exercises we use a lot in our program that go a long way in helping our athletes learn are prancing and galloping.  While admittedly funny looking, the variety and long term development they provide build robust athletes and sprinters alike.

Prancing Benefits

So what is prancing? Prancing is an exercise that requires tremendous amounts of coordination, rhythm, and ability to use the lower limbs and feet reflexively. It functions as a low level plyometric than can be used as an extensive option to build a base not just in volume but also in an athlete’s general motor skill learning. This movement is a needed precursor to true plyometrics and gives athletes a fighting chance to run well at peak velocity.

Prancing gives a reference point for plyometrics & teaches rhythm in upright sprinting to support running well at peak velocity, says @grahamsprints. Share on X
Prancing is a fun movement that appeals to athletes of all ages. However, it is not just fluff. It serves as a reference point for plyometrics and teaching rhythm in upright sprinting. Using prancing with my developmental athletes, I’ve seen marked improvements in all of the following:

1. Exploring and Finding Optimal Forward Lean with Great Posture

Studies have shown that the body’s lean while sprinting is between 2-4 degrees (Bruce, 1994; Hoskisson and Korchemny, 1991). Simply put, if an athlete is too upright or inclined too far forward, they will lack vertical force and appropriate dorsiflexion.

Try it: Stand upright. Now lean forward until you feel your Achilles get an elastic loading sensation. That’s how I cue my athletes. If you lean too far forward, you fall off-balance. Such is the balance of posture. It’s also a nice submax rehearsal of head position and gaze. If an athlete is not popping away from the ground, perhaps their posture is the issue, and it is much easier to correct here than at top speed. Make them feel the why behind “Posture, posture, posture.”

2. Teaching the Body Proper Co-Contractions and SSC Strategies

The prance is also great for allowing an athlete to find the sweet spot for proper foot strike with good GRF and loading ankles and Achilles like a spring for future plyometrics. Prancing creates enough air time for the athlete to prepare for the next ground contact. Using it in this manner makes it a great extensive plyometric with a maximum velocity theme. I call this pre-tensing, although I’m not sure if this is the correct terminology. When an athlete is having trouble with plyometrics, most times it’s not just a strength issue. They often have not learned how to load and unload properly.

3. Arms that Work Together and Contribute to Rhythm and Vertical Forces

My stance on arm action has always been that good arms help less than bad arm action hurts. Arms contribute about 10% to vertical force during sprinting. Not insignificant even in professionals. We often see high school athletes doing an array of things with their arms that often work against them.

When doing the prance, it’s critical that the timing of the arms is on point. Again, the elbow flexion, etc. of a prance is not the same as a max speed sprint. It is not as fast. What matters is that they’re optimizing it to learn and apply. I’ve had the best success cueing arms by saying, “elbows down and back.” This seems to create a contralateral action, or cross-extensor reflex with the leg to deliver an effective ground strike. The prance is a tremendous entry point for this. I often tell my prancing athletes to focus on “arms up” on one rep. On the next rep, “arms down.” What feels better? Whether the athlete is a pusher or puller, they get feedback here.

4. Acceleration Context

While having enough strength is important for acceleration, so is the ability to contract and relax (psoas and quads) and flex and extend opposite sides of the body. Even though prancing is done upright, it teaches general timing and provides context on thigh switching seen during a start with low heel recovery. Using the ground as a reference system, you can see the similarities in timing, but the differences in foot strike and horizontal projection don’t make this a guarantee.

How to Prance

The prance mixes a thigh drive with a “pogo bounce” off the ground as the reset position. The athlete must use each powerful thigh drive with the simultaneous pogo to be ready for the next ground contact before they get there.  Some athletes can pick this up right away, and this may tell you something during the early season about who has lots of general movement experience to pull from. Doing a tough drill motivates young athletes, and prancing is something novel you can use in many ways during a practice. For the initial introduction, it’s best to teach it as part of a warmup, and within a week they should be ready to prance at a moment’s notice.

The following is a progression plan I usually roll with to push my athletes to prancing proficiency safely.

1. Fence Drill Foot Pop/Assisted Pogo

The athlete should land stiff and aim for where the back row of spikes would be to maximize the reflexes of the feet and ankles. This is the landing position when prancing. The ankle and Achilles must load and unload.

Video 1. Mastering the basics allows coaches the freedom to use variations later. Don’t skip the boring and simple but be confident to allow athletes to move quicker through progressions.

2. Unassisted Pogo

Same thing as above but now without the fence to help control the downward velocity. They must do the same thing as #1, but quicker. If an athlete does not dorsiflex or get their ankle to a neutral position, it’s not possible to prance.

Video 2. Pogos and Prancing go hand and hand. Learn to bounce first, then add alternating switches.

3. Paused Standing Thigh Drive with Double-Foot Pogo Landing

Drive one thigh up aggressively using the arms to split and rip. Immediately relax and get the ankles and feet in position for a stiff pogo position landing that includes an elastic rebound.

Video 3. The leg drive of prancing is moving quickly from relaxing what needs to shut off quickly. Prancing is quickness, not power, so don’t have athletes punch their knee too forcefully.

4. In-Place Prance

It gets harder here. Now we begin driving the thigh and executing a double-leg pogo upon landing into another thigh drive on the opposite leg. It has to occur simultaneously. I usually have my athletes focus on landing with both feet together. Getting the arms down and back is key for delivering enough force to pop away from the ground.

5. Alternating Prance (Rhythm)

Same thing as #4, but the thigh drive has to come up closer to parallel. This will start the horizontal locomotion. Place the premium on rhythm, slight forward lean, and good hard double-foot contacts close to midfoot. Feel the elastic reflex contribution.

Video 4. Rhythm is tricky, as you want to be even to the flow of the exercise but not get tight from being too strict. Use a beat that works for your athletes and foster rhythms that develop good positioning.

6. Alternate Prance (Quick + Long)

The thigh drive and arms control the length of time on the ground. To go quickly, the athlete will use short coupling times, small leg drive, and quick arm action at the expense of GRF. To prance long, the athlete will use a longer coupling time and slightly more horizontal orientation with powerful arms and thigh drive.

This progression could have huge value for field athletes and athletes who specialize in multiple events. Discovering how to manipulate ground contact length for quickness and power is a terrific learning experience.

Video 5. Experimenting with speed encourages athletes to find a landing pattern that suits them. Due to the low impact of the exercise, risks are low so feel free to push athletes to uncomfortable rates of speed.

Other Variations

1. Lateral 45-Degree Prance

This is performed like a traditional prance, but the leg closest to the dividing line drives out at a 45-degree angle. Again, both feet land together. The same variations of quick and long are possible here.

Video 6. Lateral prancing is awesome as it takes a simple exercise and makes it more exploratory without resorting to being silly. Lateral hops and lateral prancing are very similar, and should be mastered by all athletes.

2. Big and Small Asymmetrical Prance

This is the same as a regular prance, but I cue the athlete to go big on one side and use a smaller setup bounce on the other. The knee drive and arm action are more aggressive when going “big.” This helps you see imbalances.

3. Single-Leg Prance

This variation probably has the most aggressive thigh drive and knee punch of all. The power arm action contributes to the jump and is a great option for teaching “violence” during acceleration.

Video 7. Single-leg prancing sometimes is a rehab or regression, depending on the athlete. Coach Valle is a huge prancing fan for athletes who need to work on recovery mechanics (and actually commissioned this article).

Benefits of Galloping

The gallop is another staple movement in our track program. It’s essentially a series of repeated single-leg jumps using rolling or flat foot contacts. Like the prance, there are endless variations and applications if coaches don’t limit their imagination. There are many benefits to galloping, and it’s great to see coaches I respect like John Garrish, Rob Assise, and Carl Valle lobby for including gallops in programs.

1. Gallops Are Fun

Gallops might be one of the most fun motor skill activities to teach and progress. Gallops have an air of harmlessness about them that other drills, jumps, and plyos simply don’t have. If feeling elated were an exercise, this would be it. Often kids are afraid of being wrong or looking silly when sprinting or jumping, but this creates an atmosphere where fun movement is the foundation.

2. Perfect for Single-Leg Jumpers

Long jumpers, high jumpers, and athletes whose goal it is to dunk will have a lot of options here. The experimentation alone will make them more aware of their bodies. When I discuss variations in the upcoming section, you’ll see why. This is a great way to give athletes extensive submaximal repetitions. Single-leg jumping requires more horizontal braking than bounding, which has more of a vertical braking component. I think all jumpers have different solutions for expressing and redirecting force via speed (faster run, shorter GCT) or power jumping (slower run, longer GCT). Although the cliché “self-organization” feels like a lazy buzzword, gallops can help athletes and coaches decide how to maximize the single-leg takeoff and support with other plyometrics. The gallop checks a lot of boxes for the multi-event athlete, including some hurdling.

3. Training Maximum Velocity Postures

In examining two stills from one of my gallop videos, I can’t help but draw some similarities between the “toe-off” and “full support” positions of maximum velocity running. In the second image, the swing leg recovers high and tight to the glute and steps over the opposite knee while the stance leg lands close to under the center of mass. The posture involves a slight forward lean that allows for a fluid transition to the next gallop. I would say that the “figure 4” position without a gap between the knees slowly gives the athlete feedback on how to best position their limbs.

4. Varied and Easy to Teach in Large Groups

The best part is that you can do these anywhere. I can get kids galloping in one practice, and we can even do them on a grass field. I can have high jumpers do curvilinear gallops while long jumpers do distance gallops and hurdlers do hurdle gallops over wickets spaced 10 feet apart on the turf as a warmup before their main practice. You can gallop high, far, in a rhythm, and use single or double arms. 

How to Gallop

In some videos below, I’m galloping on the track, which is not optimal because grass or turf limits pounding. I was merely using the facility available to me on a given day. Some of the progressions are slow and quite easy, and it’s up to you to decide where to start. I’ve started at the beginning with some, and some athletes can progress quite rapidly. I’m a single-arm galloper, but double arms can be used as well in any of the exercises.

1. Walking Rolling Contacts with and Without Arms

I start by teaching an athlete to walk while rolling through the heel and pushing off with the big toe joint. I then add arms and ask them to imagine a lifting sensation while getting one arm down and the other up simultaneously.

Video 8. Walking and rolling contacts are excellent for fundamental galloping and other locomotive methods. The speed of walking is much slower than running, so understand that much of the remedial drills don’t transfer until later variants are prescribed.

2. Horse Gallop

This is pretty silly. You can use a hurdle top or PVC. I have the athlete imagine they are a kid pretending to be a cowboy or cowgirl. I often add a “baddum, baddum…” noise for a rhythm. They execute with small, flat foot contacts. Occasionally with gallops, kids will perform an alternating left-right skip for distance. If they do this, I remind them to focus on one leg at a time and only to express force with that leg. The other leg is effectively a dummy, setup leg.

Video 9. Galloping is inspired by horses, so spend some time observing equine sports and nature. Galloping is not just used to add variety, it helps athletes problem-solve foreign motions that are sometimes improvements in movement quality.

3. Quick Gallop

I like starting with a quick gallop because it’s an easy way to let athletes feel the contributions of their arms. When galloping quickly, the elbows flex more, close less on the backswing, and block below the head level. I find it helpful to have the athletes pop their arm down and focus on that to set a quick rhythm. The low height of a quick gallop lets you do a more extensive volume of reps. I typically use more of a flat takeoff myself, since the takeoff is quick, and the shin drops less—like when preparing for a big horizontal displacement.

Video 10. Galloping quick is excellent for athletes who need to explore frontside mechanics. Teaching galloping doesn’t promise excellent frontside mechanics directly, but it could help athletes be aware of their frontside mechanics in general.

4. Gallop Buildup

I love using this variation to see who is ready for more intensive galloping and is beginning to change their speed and direction of force. I’m not what I’d call a speed jumper, so I typically start flat-footed with short contacts on the first gallop and progress to heel-toe takeoffs with longer ground contact. My arm blocks at about chest height on the first rep, and by the fifth rep, it’s up by my eyes and head.

Video 11. Building up speed or motion in different ways is valuable for LTAD and teaching. This video is useful for sprinting and other athletic tasks.

5. Gallop for Distance

Once the athlete has the quickness and rhythm down, we begin talking about going for distance. I cue them to be heel-toe or flat and experiment, ultimately paying attention to what feels better. I like them to think about accelerating and pushing off the joint under the big toe. When doing these, lots of athletes will begin to gather and rock and drop their hips excessively rather than patiently rolling through the foot. They need to keep their posture, which will put them in a better position for the next jump. I’m beginning to think about tracking galloping distances over five hurdles. In one of the videos, I’ve spaced five wickets at 12 feet. With any distance further than that, I was not able to complete the last wicket.

Video 12. Galloping for distance can turn ugly if you don’t look at landing positions, since technically it’s not similar to sprinting. Make sure the athlete is graceful, feels light, and doesn’t overwork their hamstrings.

6. Randomly Spaced Gallops

These are the holy grail of galloping. On each rep, I remove a wicket, adding or playing around with the distance of each. There is definitely an agility component here since every rep is a different set of distances, and the athlete has to organize on the fly to best complete the row of wickets via gallops. In one of the reps below, I have wickets spaced as close as five feet and as far as 15 feet. In another spacing, I gallop more like a hurdler who is one-stepping. The randomness leads to awesome results, especially when an athlete blows out of a quick gallop with a powerful gallop. Slowing it down on slow-motion video, you can see how an athlete uses varied foot contacts and arm blocks to get the job done.

Randomly spaced gallops have huge value for field sport & multi-event track athletes who need a variety of movement solutions to execute successfully. Share on X

I’ve never had an athlete who could not do a successful rep as long as they were ready for this variation, and the spacings were not too ambitious. This holds tremendous value for field sport and multi-event track athletes (especially athletes who do all three jumps or hurdles) who will need a variety of movement solutions to execute successfully.

Video 13. Galloping with broken rhythms are necessary to improve the ability to create rhythms due to transition patterns. Here is a common example of the exercise used for all sports.

Other Variations

1. Hurdle Gallops

These essentially are an imaginary “one-step” hurdle drill. I cue the athletes with the traditional, “check the wallet and watch” cue, with the trailing arm stopping on the hip, and the lead arm blocking in front. I have them keep the slight downward lean (not just flexing at the waist) that would be seen over the top of the hurdle throughout the entire rep. This is an excellent way to teach an active lead leg that craves being back on the track without any interruption of flow between each push-off. Once they have a rhythm, I ask them to think about making their parabola slightly higher and more arced to clear a higher imaginary hurdle. This is great prep for a novice hurdler and provides more context as to why we don’t jump hurdles. They can take this with them as they progress to less hurdling discounts in both height and distance.

Video 14. Gallop hurdles are not just for long jumpers, they are for everyone who is on their feet. In addition to speeds, learn to play with spacings and heights to explore movement strategies.

2. Curve Gallops

Let me start by saying that turf fields have way too many curved lines and circles to not take advantage of them. Running and jumping on a curve is different than doing them linearly. The circle run is a high jump staple, but I don’t see many people doing curved gallops. It does feel a little awkward when using two arms since there is no actual bar to clear, and the body wants to rotate as such. This drill is a must to let the athlete understand that the lean during the “J” in the high jump comes from the inward rotation of the ankles and the feet using crossover steps. It’s important to cue the athlete to stay on the line during a curved gallop.

Video 15. Adding a curve to galloping breaks the monotony of linear galloping and creates variety with a purpose. Curved running is a skill that is great for enhancing other motor skills down the road.

3. Run-Run-Jumps/ Long Jump Gallops

We’ve all seen athletes barrel down the runway and throw their arms forward or leave them behind at take off. The run-run-jump with windmill arms helps athletes who use a “run in the air” to land with better orientation. Perhaps a run-run-jump with a conventional two-armed takeoff would be more suitable for a hang jumper. Either way, variability is a good thing. Adding the two runs between jumps adds a layer of complexity to the penultimate step, forcing the athlete to keep their posture through the two runs while rocking through the heel to the toe.

Video 16. The “Run-Run-Jump” drill is timeless. Coaches who use it will see improvements in jumping technique and reacceleration if coached properly.

Endless Options

Between prancing and galloping, a coach has many options when trying to help their athletes learn. On maximum velocity days, powerful prances with a big pop are more suited as a warmup tool or as an entry-level plyometric. Quick prances function almost as dribbles with a reduced ground reactive force to get reps in without the fatigue. As a whole, prancing goes a long way with teaching foot strike and proper postures.

Gallops help teach hurdling, jumping, and maximum velocity postures to large groups of athletes, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Likewise, gallops are a means to teach hurdling, jumping, and maximum velocity postures to large groups of athletes. My head is already swimming with ideas on how to use hurdle gallops as a part of a completion run rep with long hurdlers. Or maybe as a complex with a hurdler’s reduced spacing acceleration work between hurdles. I envision using gallops for distance as part of a jump complex with full approaches and gallop buildups on short approach days. The random-spaced gallops can shift motor learning into high gear by letting athletes, such as hurdlers, figure out where to be and how to get there.

Prancing & galloping, two funny looking exercises, can help shift focus back to long-term athletic development in the speed world, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

We see lots of jump testing, but I wonder if tracking gallop distance would be a refreshing way to motivate athletes without getting overly specific this summer. The athlete could use both static start reps in which they have to overcome inertia on acceleration-themed days and use a 5- to 10-yard run on maximum velocity days. Moving forward, I’ll be playing around with this. These two funny named and looking exercises are a way to shift the focus back to long-term athletic development in the speed world.

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