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The first time I ran the 300-meter hurdles was a disaster.

I’d been bamboozled by my high school coach, who had convinced me to run track as a sophomore by telling me I’d just be a jumper. “You’ll stay in shape for football,” he said. But when we got off the bus for a meet against Flint Northwestern, he told me I’d be running the hurdles.

I had never run over a hurdle before, but I had eaten two roast beef sandwiches on the bus ride down. What could possibly go wrong?

That day I learned a few things: first, I was a pretty lousy jumper; second, the 300-meter hurdles is just about the hardest race that exists at the high school level; and third, roast beef sandwiches taste a lot better on the way down than they do on the way up. I hope you never have to learn that final lesson the way I did.

I eventually became a decent enough hurdler over the next few years, but that first race was doomed from the start. And while my lack of experience and belly full of beef were certainly contributing factors, there was another: I had no plan.

My experience was not unique. In 16 years of coaching the 300-meter hurdles, I’ve learned that most kids have no plan. They definitely don’t have one that they’ve developed on their own (or, if they do, chances are it’s trash). Some don’t even have one that was given to them by their coaches. Others have been given a plan, but they don’t follow it out of fear of the race, forgetfulness, or the special confidence in their own nonexistent expertise that only a high schooler can have.

I’ve seen kids with gorgeous technique over the hurdles get eaten alive by kids whose form was mediocre at best because they ran the phases with purpose, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

So, let’s talk about plans. I want to share with you a 300-meter hurdle model that has worked for me and for the athletes I have coached. I won’t talk much about hurdling mechanics in this piece. Hurdling technique is certainly important, but not nearly as important in the 300 as it is in the 100/110. But even more than that, I’ve seen kids with gorgeous technique over the hurdles get eaten alive by kids whose form was mediocre at best because they ran the phases with purpose. I saw a kid named Emanuel Sledge from Saginaw Arthur Hill (11.10, 22.75) run 39.05 in the 300 hurdles despite looking like he was long jumping every 35 meters. That was in 2006, and it still sticks with me.

Breaking the Race into Phases

I’m not so arrogant to think that this is the only way to run the 300-meter hurdles, but I’m just arrogant enough to say that if your current advice to athletes is some iteration of “run as hard as you can as long as you can” or mostly a hype-speech littered with the words “heart” and “guts,” this race plan will help your kids get better.

The 300-meter hurdle race has eight hurdles and what I consider to be five distinct phases:

1. The Start (up to and including the first hurdle)
2. The Backstretch (hurdle 2, leading up to hurdle 3)
3. The Curve (hurdles 3, 4, and 5)
4. The Homestretch (hurdles 6, 7, and 8)
5. The Finish (between the final hurdle and the finish line)

Breaking the race into phases is the equivalent of chunking a project. Like many high school coaches, I’m also a teacher. In the classroom, if I assign a project to students without helping them break it into components and without helping them devise a plan for approaching the project effectively, I’m setting them up for failure. Some will become so overwhelmed that they’re unable to even begin; others will dive in blindly and realize halfway through that they’ve been going about things all wrong. While a certain amount of problem-solving on their part is necessary, I need to at least give them a map to follow.

“Run as hard as you can as long as you can” sounds deceptively simple, but it doesn’t put kids in the best position to succeed. A five-phase checklist helps athletes from a psychological perspective in that they can focus on executing one component at a time, rather than facing the daunting task for what it is: a 300-meter sprint with stuff in the way.

For some, the idea of this race is so intimidating they’re beaten before the gun has fired. For others, half the race will pass them by before they realize they’re not in it. Obviously, we want to avoid these things at all costs.

1. The Start

As with any sprint race, the start in the 300-meter hurdles is incredibly important. I’ve heard all kinds of terrible advice as it relates to starting this race, including—I kid you not—go out at about 75% and then kick it in at the end. You should never, under any circumstance, coach athletes this way.

I tell my kids all the time, “You might not be able to win the race with your start, but you can definitely lose the race with it.” If an athlete gets out of the blocks too slowly, the rest of the pack will pass them by. The runner who gets out at 100% and the one who gets out at 75% will both be in pain when they cross the finish line. If you’re going to be in pain regardless, then you may as well get out hard and have something to show for it at the end, right? For these reasons, I cue athletes to try to be the first person to the first hurdle.

I cue athletes to try to be the first person to the first hurdle… It’s much easier to run fast when fresh than it is when tired, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

The beauty of the 300-meter hurdle race is that there is room for full acceleration, something the 100-/110-meter race does not offer. With 45 meters to work with, athletes can cycle through an entire push phase and transition into an upright sprinting position before approaching the first hurdle. Coach kids to use their explosive energy systems early when they’re readily available to the body. It’s much easier to run fast when fresh than it is when tired. Getting out of the blocks with anything less than accelerating to maximum velocity in mind is a guaranteed way to make sure maximum velocity is never attained, because it definitely isn’t going to come in the final 60 meters of the race.

2. The Backstretch

After coming off the first hurdle, we’ve entered what I call the Backstretch phase. Our athletes should already be running fast here because they accelerated to top speed and cleared the first hurdle with technique so beautiful it could make grown men weep. But while speed is still the priority in the Backstretch phase, it’s much looser­: more like the way we coach kids to run the backstretch of the 400.

The main thing I tell my athletes to do here is a phrase I borrowed from Ryan Banta, author of The Sprinter’s Compendium: “run tall and maintain.” If we tell athletes something else—“float the backstretch” or “relax,” for example—they will inevitably slow down. Slowing down is bad, and we want to avoid it for as long as we can.

Telling athletes to run tall reminds them that they should be in an upright sprinting posture between the hurdles; telling them to maintain reminds them that they need to continue to be fast through the second and up to the third hurdle and avoid deceleration.

3. The Curve

As athletes approach the third hurdle, they’re entering the Curve phase. The athletes have now run 100 meters at or near the top speed they can muster, and both speed and mechanics will begin to deteriorate slightly here. Plus, maybe I’ve been uniquely unlucky in my career, but it has been my experience that wind often presents itself most as a factor in the curve. If you coach in a warm-weather state and don’t battle wintery conditions well into April (grumble grumble, mutter mutter), then you might take a different approach here. But for me, I remind kids in the curve of the importance of their forward lean over the hurdle. Even if wind isn’t a factor, there is very little downside to asking athletes to refocus on their technique over the hurdles, so they don’t begin floating or hurdling in an upright position.

There’s very little downside to asking athletes to refocus on their technique over the hurdles so they don’t being floating or hurdling in an upright position, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

The cue that I use is to tell my athletes to “hurdle downhill”—in other words, to imagine themselves not as needing to elevate in order to clear the hurdle, but as running at a decline and staying down on the barrier.

I also want my athletes pressing to the inside of the curve with a slight inward lean, which means controlling their eyeballs, feet, and arms. First, I cue athletes to “look two lines in.” What I mean here is not for them to violently turn their head and stare at the runner two lanes inside of them, but to slightly shift their eyes to the left and choose a new focal point that isn’t directly in front of them. They’re not running straight, so focusing straight ahead doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it causes athletes to end up drifting back toward the middle or outside of the lane.

Next, we need to consider the actual foot strike in the sprinting mechanics. Boo Schexnayder talks about using the feet to apply force outwardly when coaching curve running in the high jump approach, and while this curve is much less dramatic than a high jump curve, the basic principle still applies. Finally, arm action should also be slightly altered in the curve, with the outside arm approaching the chin as opposed to the cheek. These three things done in unison will help keep your athletes positioned where they need to be.

At the final hurdle of the Curve, the hurdles are nearly even with one another. At this point, I like using the “slingshot” terminology, not because I actually think kids are going to somehow magically get faster coming out of the turn, but because I want them to think about themselves as re-accelerating, resuming their standard upright, eyes-forward posture, and believing that they can be fast going into the final 100 meters of the race. I want them to think of themselves as getting faster here, even if it’s not actually true, rather than letting negative self-talk creep in and convince them of their own slowness and imminent demise.

4. The Homestretch

I love watching the 300-meter hurdles. There’s something beautiful about the spacing of the hurdles and being able to see exactly where each runner stands each time they go over them. In a 400 or a 200 we can eyeball the stagger and estimate who has made up the most ground, but in the 300-meter hurdles there is a visual marker every 35 meters that lets us know exactly who is in front of whom and by how much.

There might be no more beautiful moment than when the stagger has been completed and all the hurdles line up for the first time in the straightaway of the homestretch. There are right around 80 meters to go, and the sixth hurdle tells the tale of how successful your first five were.

For most athletes, the homestretch is the hardest part of the race, and with good reason. With every second that passes, it becomes harder for the body to coordinate explosive movement and overall stability, and technique is often the first thing to go when fatigue sets in. At this point, I prompt athletes to focus on that coordination.

What I cue will depend on what I see my athlete doing at this phase of the race, and it may even change from day to day when we work on the different phases in practice. I might tell them “tall!” or “fast hands!” as they sprint between the hurdles. I might remind them “down!” over the hurdle to keep them from elevating and to remind them that they’re faster when they’re on the track than when they’re sailing over the barrier. I want trail legs snapping “back to the middle and down” so they can continue sprinting.

Speaking of sprinting, the way we coach our athletes’ sprinting technique and how we train speed endurance matters more in the Homestretch than anywhere else in the race, largely because of how it directly impacts hurdling technique. Simply put, if kids are too slow and their force production has diminished too greatly, they will not have enough speed to carry them through the barrier efficiently. This can manifest as:

1. The athlete slowing down even more as they approach the hurdle because they’re afraid they might not have enough speed to get over.
2. Jumping over the hurdle and landing in a near standstill while other athletes pass them by.

Hurdle technique matters, but if they don’t maintain sprinting technique, then optimal hurdle technique isn’t going to happen anyway.

Hurdle technique matters, but if they don’t maintain sprinting technique, then optimal hurdle technique isn’t going to happen anyway, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

The last hurdle seems like it’s a foot taller than the others. It has always been this way, it always will be, and I’m still not sure it isn’t taller than the others. There is nothing I can tell you to offset this phenomenon. Good luck.

5. The Finish

There are only eight physical hurdles in this race, but there is one last mental hurdle that needs to be cleared: After touchdown on the final hurdle, there are still 10 meters to go before the finish line. Every hurdle coach in the world has watched a kid get passed in the final 10 meters of the race because they did not sprint off the final hurdle. They’re exhausted. They’re in pain. In their mind, the race is over. We cannot let this happen.

Every point matters, and sometimes the final 10 meters is the difference between winning and coming in second, or scoring a point in eighth and not scoring at all. Sometimes it’s the difference between a PR and coming up short. These are 10 important meters.

In my practices, we never finish at the finish line. When we work on the final phase of the race, I put cones another 5–10 meters beyond the finish line, and athletes need to sprint through the cones. I coach my athletes to “catch one!” after touchdown on the final hurdle—meaning, pick the closest person and try to beat them through the line. If they’re in the lead, well, they have to finish hard to avoid getting caught.

After touchdown on the final hurdle, there are still 10 meters to go before the finish line…Drill this phase until it becomes second nature to kids, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

Here’s the thing. All of this seems so obvious that it almost feels silly to mention it. Maybe you haven’t mentioned it to your kids for that very reason: Of course athletes need to sprint through the line in every race. But it has been my observation that in the 300-meter hurdles more than any other race, kids don’t do it. And if we don’t convince them of it in practice and teach the finish as a distinct phase that isn’t bound by a white line on a track, but as a final, 15-meter, all-out, everything-they’ve-got (heart! guts!) sprint, we can almost guarantee that some day they will experience being passed because, in their mind, they were done.

Drill this phase until it becomes second nature to kids. Show them video of athletes who didn’t finish and cost themselves because of it (see at the 5:25 mark here). The last hurdle is not the finish line.

Taking It to the Track

So, there you have it: a plan you can put in place today that will give your 300-meter hurdlers a tangible strategy for success in the hardest race on the track. To recap, here are the phases and their cues:

• The Start—Be the first person to the first hurdle
• The Backstretch—Run tall and maintain
• The Curve—Look two lines in; hurdle downhill; slingshot
• The Homestretch—Run tall; fast hands; stay down
• The Finish—Catch one, sprint, through the line

Just make sure they don’t eat any roast beef sandwiches on the bus.

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 of the first lessons that Marines learn in Basic Training is the art of falling. It wasn’t until I got into strength and conditioning that I realized how versatile and vital that lesson proved to be. I have fallen with a fully loaded rifle when rolling to cover from enemy fire. I have fallen in a soccer game with a “friendly” assist from an opponent. I’ve slipped on a patch of ice outside of a local watering hole during the dead of winter. Knowing how to fall saved me from a potentially catastrophic injury in each circumstance.

Teaching athletes the proper ways to fall can simultaneously train their vestibular systems, their coordination, and their proprioception. Share on X

The ability to fall correctly, however, goes beyond injury prevention. Teaching athletes the proper ways to fall can simultaneously train their vestibular systems, their coordination, and their proprioception. Consider a parkour athlete’s ability to jump and roll out of extreme heights without injury. This isn’t some genetic gift—it’s a set of skills that allows them to walk away unscathed.

Teaching athletes the proper skills to fall will set them up for success for a lifetime—the athlete’s parents will instantly realize their child’s health is your top concern. This article will be a short, concise way on how to implement various falls into your training.

The Falling Epidemic

Falls cause 37.3 million injuries each year¹, and if that doesn’t alarm you, falls are also the second greatest cause of unintentional deaths globally—exceeded only by motor vehicle collisions². One fall-related injury is so common that it has earned an acronym, FOOSH (Fall on an Outstretched Hand): “A FOOSH type of injury is the second most common type of sports injury.”

Preventing injuries is a top priority for parents and coaches alike, and rightly so. The quest for injury prevention, however, is often launched without first scouting for low-hanging fruits. Given the frequency and magnitude of injuries from falls, learning to fall properly can be a first step in injury prevention that will pay dividends long after the athlete retires from competitive sports. Furthermore, mastering falling skills will improve athletic performance and translate quickly to the court or the field.

Mastering falling skills will improve athletic performance and translate quickly to the court or the field. Share on X

Many of my athletes come to me barely able to stand after a somersault. Within a few short weeks of training, however, they are capable of popping up off the ground and continuing a play. As we age, the ability to fall in an athletic fashion becomes harder and harder. Practicing falling skills will not only help with coordination but also with longevity. In the elderly population, even those falls that are due to low-energy mechanisms are associated with higher hospitalization rates, longer lengths of hospital stays, and higher rates of mortality.³ Ten to fifteen percent of emergency room visits are attributed to falls.⁴ Injury prevention strategies should start with learning how to properly fall.

How to Teach Falling the Right Way

With new athletes, I incorporate falls into my first few sessions and then review them periodically. I aim to give the athlete the proper tools to utilize in various off-balance situations rather than preaching one specific way to fall.

Once my athletes are comfortable with rolling, they typically do that more than any break fall. I implement rolls as reactionary drills by having athletes roll, recover, and react to a stimulus (colored agility dot, ball, number, etc.).  The athlete learns to stay in the play rather than lying there helplessly. These drills mimic in-game scenarios and randomize training. The drill is effective and enjoyable for the athlete as well.

Key Concepts to Building Falling Skills:

1. DO NOT have athletes plant hand or elbow during any point of the fall.
2. ALWAYS have athletes keep their chin tucked away from ground when falling.
3. Have athletes start these movements as close as possible to the floor and progress by adding height/speed.

Lying > Seated > Squatting > Kneeling > Standing > Walking > Jogging > Running

Front-Break Fall from a Kneeling Position

Video 1. Front-Break Fall. Key situations: pushed from behind trying to head the ball in soccer; pushed in football; diving back to a base in baseball to avoid pickoff.

1. Athlete kneels down with a mat in front of them. Cue the athlete to raise their chin to the sky.
2. Athlete bends their elbows close to their body and has palms facing the direction they will fall. This allows the athlete to displace the force from the fall.
3. Have athletes begin to fall forward and then break their fall with their forearms and palms, which should strike the ground simultaneously. Fingers should be extended.
4. Ensure that the athlete keeps their chin high to avoid striking the floor with their head.

Side-Break Fall from a Kneeling Position:

Video 2. Side Break Fall. Key situations: FOOSH most commonly occurs in this fall; Football player being pushed out of bounds; attempting to remain upright.

1. Athlete assumes a single-leg kneeling position.
2. They look to the opposite shoulder of the falling direction.
3. They begin to fall to the deck and break their fall with their arm slapping the floor, with their forearm and hand hitting simultaneously.
4. Their break arm should land under the head, or at a 45° angle toward their feet.
5. Have athlete stretch out the falling side leg and allow the other leg to bend, allowing their foot to contact the ground.

Rear-Break Fall from Squatted Position:

Video 3. Rear-Break Fall. Key situations: quarterback being pushed to the ground; basketball player taking a hard foul.

1. Athlete gets down to a low squat position and tucks their chin into their chest.
2. They roll backward to begin the fall.
3. Keeping the chin tucked to their chest, have them slap the floor with both arms extended and palms facing down to disperse the force. Arms should hit at a 45° angle from the body.
4. Keeping head tucked forward will protect head and neck areas from injury.

Front Roll from Squatted Position

Video 4. Front Roll. Key situations: any fall with forward momentum; being tripped during running on a play.

1. Athlete gets down to a low squat position and tucks their chin into their chest.
2. They distribute weight onto the balls of their feet and ensure hips are higher than shoulders (think frog stance or position).
3. Have athlete begin roll and ensure their head does not contact the floor during the roll.
4. Have athlete maintain a flexed spine in order to transition out of the roll.
5. This movement is very similar to the side roll and many times can be adjusted on the fly if the athlete is capable.

Backward Roll from Squatted Position

Video 5. Backward Roll. Key situations: Any fall with backward momentum; being pushed over on a kickoff when the play is continuing on.

1. Have athlete get down to a low squat position and tuck their chin into their chest.
2. Athlete places hands on shoulders with palms facing up.
3. They begin by rolling back, being sure to keep a tucked chin.
4. Athlete plants their hands and pushes themselves up to complete the roll.
5. They land on feet and extend arms to stand up.

Reactive Falling Drills

Video 6. Reactive Falling Drills. Key situations: makes athletes use their fall skills in sport environments to gain a comfort level, reactivity, and awareness to the play.

1. Use an external stimulus to create an environment where the athlete must roll, recover, and react.
2. Start by having an athlete perform a roll.
3. Use colored agility dots, cones, balls, people, numbers, etc. and have athletes react to this cue after completing the roll.
4. This helps with in-game transitions and keeps the athlete in the play.

A Valuable Lesson

Never assume an athlete has the ability to carry out a well-executed fall. I learned this when I first began teaching one of my athletes how to fall—I asked a high school football player (QB1) if he could perform a simple somersault. With a raised eyebrow, he replied with a cocky, “Are you serious? Of course, I can.”

Never assume an athlete has the ability to carry out a well-executed fall. Share on X

What ensued next was a horrific display of exactly what you don’t want to do. This athlete began his somersault by placing the full weight of his body on the neck/head area. When he rolled over, the neck and spine were placed in an extremely compromising position. I was immediately overcome with anxiety at the potential spinal injury I had just allowed to happen and wondered if I needed to grab my C-collar and spine board (just kidding). Luckily, that particular athlete ultimately finished the somersault unscathed.

That circumstance, however, taught me a valuable lesson to not assume the abilities of any athlete, especially pertaining to falling. Previously, this athlete had broken his wrist from a FOOSH mechanism, so he was eager to continue to learn how to fall properly. Now he is confident in his ability to fall and to properly protect himself from future injury. He has grown to love the falling drills we practice on a weekly basis, and it became a significant buy-in factor for both him and his parents.

Today, when I explain to parents that their son/daughter can expect to learn how to fall, they instantly love the idea and question why others haven’t taught this skill. It immediately shows that we (the coaches) care about an athlete’s well-being and injuries caused by falling. As coaches, we have the ability to change the falling narrative by introducing these falls into every athlete’s repertoire.

References

1. “Falls.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls.

2. Granhed H, Altgarde E, Akyurek LM, David P (2017) Injuries Sustained by Falls – A Review. Trauma Acute Care 2:38. doi: 10.21767/2476-2105.100038

3. Lee, Hyeji et al. “Severe Injuries from Low-height Falls in the Elderly Population.” Journal of Korean medical sciencevol. 33,36 e221. 5 Jul. 2018, doi:10.3346/jkms.2018.33.e221

4. Spaniolas, Konstantinos, et al. “Ground Level Falls Are Associated with Significant Mortality in Elderly Patients.” The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, vol. 69, no. 4, 2010, pp. 821–825., doi:10.1097/ta.0b013e3181efc6c6.

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

Strength and conditioning coaches are under the spotlight more than ever. The field is under more scrutiny than ever—as it should be. The media-driven world we live in gives us the ability to see a snapshot of many different strength training programs around the country. This can be a trap for a lot of coaches out there running programs in many different leagues and levels.

As the old adage says, “Never judge a book by its cover,” right? Well, this is not a reality. We make judgments every single second of our lives. Coaches make judgments the second they see an athlete move. Great coaches have protocols in place once they identify gaps in movement patterns. We must understand that judging a book by its cover is not always a bad thing. It can go one of two ways.

First, a young coach may see a snapshot of a training session and think it’s a missing piece to their program or that it may take their athletes to the next level. This can be dangerous because of the lack of context in which it was prescribed. Second, the same mistake can be made by the experienced coach who sees that same snapshot and proclaims that it’s inappropriate programming or coaching. Unfortunately, this happens every single day on social media.

Because we live in a world of instant information, I want to shed some light on the steps that performance coaches must take before ever writing an exercise, volume, or intensity prescription. I hope this post gives perspective for every young coach out there looking for guidance on programming and why everything in training, and in life, is relative.

We must address five main categories in every program before we write it. We often speak of how powerful the basics of training can be and why being a principle-driven programmer is more effective than an exercise-driven programmer. Before we can even get to training principles, we must first address our uncontrollable circumstances: population, time, resources, manpower, and relational dynamics.

Population

No matter where you coach, always understand that the logo is not what drives the organization—the people do. We must dive deep to understand the people we work for and the people we serve. The strength coach’s responsibility is to progress the physical capabilities of athletes while minimizing injury risk.

Assessing Your Athletes

When coming into a program, the coach must first assess the athletes’ current abilities so they can have an idea of where to start. How do we do this? Some coaches like to begin with a movement assessment, such as the FMS. I find that the FMS is not a great use of time. Instead, when I began at my new position at Madison Academy, we simply began to train. Watching my athletes move was enough for me to gain that context. As long as you base your initial program on basic movement patterns (squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, brace, jump, land), you’ll see where you need to go.

This may look different from the professional to the college level. It may look different from the college to the high school level. This may even look different from one team to another at the same level. It may look different on the same team from year to year! Shocker, right? Programs should not be written before you consider and analyze the specific needs of your athletes fully.

What does this look like? When I was responsible for the baseball and softball programs at Division 1 McNeese State University, I decided to stay away from the Olympic movements in training. I based this decision on the risks and rewards and the importance of the wrist and hand. I also believe the demands of a predominantly rotational sport will not see as much benefit from a primary movement in the vertical sagittal plane. Some coaches may disagree, but it’s my stance on this specific parameter.

In my current position at the high school level, I’m implementing a primarily developmental model that uses the same basic movements across all students and athletes. Everyone cleans, everyone squats, everyone deadlifts. While I make some individual modifications, this model looks different in my current population than the ones I served before. The outlook for my high school athletes is not the same as the outlook I had for my college athletes playing one sport.

Number of Athletes

Next, consider the number of people you’re serving. Some coaches, especially at the high school level, are serving 300+ athletes every week. Some coaches are managing 60-80 athletes in a weight room in a single session. We must consider these factors before programming begins. If the schedule and circumstances happen to give you no choice but to train a large number of athletes at once, you must keep things as simple as possible. This has more to do with the coach-to-athlete ratio, which I’ll touch on later in this article.

Movement Ability and Training Age

The last consideration is the movement competency and training age of the population you’re training. Before executing the training program to progress the athletes properly, we must perform determining assessments and evaluations that give a clear picture of how to begin. One of the simplest ways to do this is to use a movement-based standard training template that allows for enough volume to assess and light enough intensity to be safe and work from there.

Time

The next factors to consider before programming are time and schedule. In the majority of strength and conditioning settings, we cannot control these. In the high school setting, for example, the schedule is usually set in stone due to the class structure during the day. On the other hand, some high-level college sports, such as men’s basketball, may have their own facility and only 16 guys on the roster. Scheduling training can have more flexibility with a schedule like that. When scheduling is more flexible, programming strategies can be as well.

My current schedule is 85 minutes in a “block” high school schedule. We designate ten minutes before and after class for dressing in and out. We have a total of 65 minutes to complete our training. Because we function on an alternating schedule (set of four classes on one day and a different set of four classes the next), we only get in two days of training per week. This is a major component of my programming template, selections, and protocols. Many high schools get to train every single day, but with less time to train.

The majority of training is scheduled by team based on weight room availability, practice time, time of year, and other variables. In the high school setting, you often see an entire football team training at the same time in a facility that’s not built for it. This can be unsafe and also inconducive to sound programming and coaching. I’ve seen programs train their football team with 80+ guys at once and only 2-3 coaches coaching or “supervising.” It’s economical from a scheduling and time standpoint, but not at all from a quality standpoint. Lots of these variables are out of our control, and we need to analyze them fully before program creation begins.

If you’re pushed into this circumstance, I recommend being a savage at the simple movements, such as a primary squat movement, primary hinge movement, a single-leg movement, an upper-body push, and an upper-body pull. Having a large number of athletes makes it difficult to coach technique at a high level. Sometimes you have to do the best you can with the hand you’re dealt, but make sure your athletes are getting the best out of the situation they’re in.

Resources

Resources may be the biggest variable affecting programming capabilities. Every school and team have different resources available to them to use for training. Some of the best facilities in the country have a large weight room with many racks and lots of space, which often is attached to an indoor turf area where athletes can do a lot more than they could inside a weight room. You also must consider weight room exercise equipment. How many racks are available? Do you have bumper plates? Do you have bands? Do you have dumbbells? What barbell types do you have? We must consider all of these things in our programming. Weight rooms across the country all look different. Here are a few examples from my experience.

As a volunteer intern at Mississippi State, I was fortunate to be a part of the strength staff for Nick Savage and company. Before the summer began, the first thing we did as interns was to rearrange the room for how Coach Savage and his staff wanted it based on their programming that summer. He wanted to work in primary training blocks, then work accessories and auxiliary work off a rotation. After the main training blocks were finished, one coach and his guys would go to a station that would involve anything from neck training, shoulder care, back work, and even some arm farm. This type of training would not have been possible without the number of machine resources and weight room space.

When I moved on from MSU to West Alabama as a graduate assistant, the resources were drastically different. Going from a 12,000 square foot facility to a 2,000 square foot facility can change things quickly. Keep in mind, having fewer resources is not an excuse for bad programming or bad training. At West Alabama, we had racks, bumper plates, barbells, and a few dumbbells. I had the privilege to work for my mentor Joseph Boyd who got better results with those items than most coaches get with much more. The team was two wins away from a national championship appearance.

You may have to simplify your training program due to weight room resources, but that's no excuse to program poorly. Share on X

Resources may not be things you can control initially, but they’re something that every strength coach should strive to build. The best coaches can get results with athletes using less. I hear many young coaches complain most about weight room resources. You may have to simplify things, but that’s no excuse to program poorly.

Many coaches overlook the management, workflow, and logistics of training execution when designing a training program. Share on X

One of the biggest factors that many coaches, especially young coaches, don’t consider is the management, workflow, and logistics of training execution. Lots of coaches put down a training program that will maximize power output but may not be possible to execute due to logistical complications and population size. For example, a coach may have read about Triphasic Training or French Contrast training and want to implement it into their current training program. What if the coach does not have the space to allow for a logistical flow to go from the strength movement to the power movement to the speed/overspeed movement? It’s not good to force a round peg into a square hole. A better strategy is to get very good at a few things than to be mediocre at many things.

Manpower

The athlete-to-coach ratio is important in training sessions. Many places have only one strength coach, and they have to take care of all training duties and coaching by themselves. At the highest level of college football, five full-time coaches are allowed. Most programs add up to 5-10 interns to aid in many things, such as setup and breakdown. At the highest level, the programming capabilities are endless because they have the manpower to execute the plan.

Training and Coaching

First, the manpower allows for more athletes to train and receive proper coaching. When there are too many athletes per coach, the training session becomes more of a managerial role than a coaching role when specific systems and routines are not in place.

In a weight room, most coaches are concerned with safety. This is common sense. The higher the coach-to-athlete ratio, the higher the risk. To keep order and flow intact, the strength coach may use an on-the-whistle pacing strategy. This may be done rep by rep, set by set, or block by block. To do this, you must have someone responsible for keeping up the pace. I don’t recommend pacing rep by rep. It will turn your athletes into robots. It may be a good method to evaluate if your athletes are completing every rep, but at what cost? You may be counting reps, but are the reps quality reps in the first place? These are questions you must ask.

I like to work off a block-to-block or tier-to-tier pacing strategy. After studying movement types, volumes, and intensities over time, I developed a good feel for how long a block should last in my system. In my current system, I have 2-3 athletes working per rack. No more, no less. For our primary movements, it takes anywhere from 10-13 minutes to complete our first block or tier of the day. This allows some freedom to coach up individuals while making sure everyone is training at the correct pace. I use a visual clock that athletes can see. Some coaches use software such as Rack Performance to help pace their training. Whatever you decide to use, it’s best to use a pacing guide that fits your training parameters. Observe how long training tiers take, decide if that’s too fast, too slow, or just right, and then create your pace.

Setup and Breakdown

Second, the manpower allows for quicker setup and breakdown of the room. Staff with more members can be more efficient during training sessions, especially if transitions or rotations are involved. I’ve even seen interns changing weight for athletes so training sessions can go smoother and faster. This is only possible if you have the manpower available to do so. If you don’t, implementing things such as barbell loading references can help speed up transitions. I have charts posted around my weight room that tell what plates belong on each side for barbell loads from 45 lbs to 500 lbs. They’ve been a huge help to our efficiency.

Relational Dynamics

The art of communication and coaching comes into play in this last category of programming precursors. The relationship dynamic between a strength coach and sport coach is a major variable when programming. Many coaches are fortunate to have the full backing of their sport coach to allow them to do what they are professionally trained and educated to do. What most people don’t see is the groundwork of trust that was laid before that happened. Whether the trust is earned from working with that sport coach over time or the strength coach receives a high recommendation from someone the sport coach trusts, full support comes from the strength coach consistently getting results over time.

Lots of strength coaches in the industry complain a lot about the leverage the sport coach has over them. I don’t believe that a sport coach has much business building training sessions that are impractical but, at the end of the day, they are responsible for their team. It’s the strength coach’s job to communicate on a high level to gain the sport coach’s trust to get the job done.

It's the strength coach’s job to communicate to gain the sport coach's trust. And it's up to both to communicate with private coaches. Share on X

The sport-strength coach dynamic will always exist in team sports. Unfortunately, this fails most at the high school level and the communication with private sector coaches. Lots of athletes are looking to “outwork” their opponents and train with private trainers on top of their school training. This can be really beneficial or detrimental. It’s up to the sport and strength coaches to communicate with the athlete and their private trainer to create the most holistic approach possible. This is not the norm. If used properly, private training can help an athlete develop to their highest level much quicker. This is what we want for our athletes, right? It has to be about the athlete, not ourselves.

Want things to get better? Invest in relationships. Reach out to the private sector coach to learn what they’re doing and establish a communication line. Sit down with your sport coaches to explain everything behind your program and why it will make the team better. This doesn’t happen overnight, but if you commit to the pursuit of a healthy relationship with these individuals, your training program will go to a whole new level.

Conclusion

There are other factors we should consider before prescribing an exercise, volume, or intensity. Some of these are the athletes’ sports demands, injury history, and practice plan implementation. We must do a better job as strength coaches to apply stimulus that makes the most sense for the environment our athletes are living in. We often get caught up in our own world of the weight room and do not consider the stressors that are happening outside of it. The next time you write a program, consider the above categories to put together the most appropriate training stimulus for your athletes to continue to develop and remain healthy.

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

Aside from what a sprinter wears as they report to the starting line for a race, there is no piece of equipment they carry out to the track that’s more important than a set of starting blocks. Yet, despite blocks being used in the Olympics for more than 70 years, how best to set these blocks remains a conundrum. Just go to any junior high­ school meet—or even many high school meets—and you are sure to find athletes completely perplexed by how best to set up two angled pedals attached to a single metal rail.

Besides what a sprinter wears to the starting line for a race, there is no piece of equipment they carry out to the track that’s more important than a set of starting blocks, says @Zoom1Ken. Share on X

Many sprinters simply look to the athletes next to them, set their blocks the same way, and hope they don’t stumble on the start. If they do stumble, their coaches get upset, point out that their poor start cost them a good time, and feel obligated to give them some kind of quick lesson—not just how to place their blocks, but how to slide the pedals to their proper locations along the rail.

Then, right when athletes appear to figure it out, they go to meets where the pedals are not locked into the rail and, sure enough, at least one of those pedals falls out of its slot and bounces on the track (or on the sprinter’s foot). Or course, the sprinter can’t remember what slot the pedal came out of. Watching the perplexed sprinters trying to figure it out, you’d think they were being asked to line up colors on a Rubik’s Cube!

History of the Starting Block

But that wasn’t always the case. There were no starting blocks when Harold Abrahams won the 100-meter gold medal in the 1924 Olympics. Back then, the only piece of equipment sprinters carried onto the track was a trowel for digging two holes to place their feet in. Sprinters took meticulous care making those starting holes, concerned about precisely where their first foot out of the holes would place them. In fact, Abrahams once mentioned how he also carried a piece of string cut to the length of his first stride, put the string down on the track, extended it forward, and then made a mark in the track where he focused his eyes when he heard the “set” command.

George Simpson, a 20-year-old star from Ohio State, set the 100-yard world record at 9.4 in 1929, but the IAAF did not recognize that mark because Simpson had used a piece of equipment: starting blocks. Until 1948, the best “carry on” item sprinters brought to the track remained that trowel for digging holes at the spots where they wanted to place their feet. Such holes were not only unstable, but they were also a “groundskeeper’s nightmare” on dirt, grass, or cinder tracks. Track and field historians believe that the trowel was still in use in the 1970s and early ’80s before the newer, rubberized surfaces became more affordable.

Even though starting blocks were used in the ’48 Olympics for the first time, sprinters still struggled with them. In the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, U.S. sprinter Thane Baker put down his starting blocks pointing in the wrong direction. In yet another piece of bizarre starting block trivia, 1980 Olympic gold medalist Alan Wells of Britain didn’t want to use starting blocks, but they were then required by the IAAF for the Olympic Games. Just three months before the Moscow Games, Wells had not even used blocks in competition because he “preferred to start with his feet firmly on the track.”

Finding the Right Positioning

Starting blocks have evolved over the years, but not without controversy. In the 1930s, the generally accepted orthodox position was often called the “Duffy” start because that’s the way Georgetown champion Arthur Duffy set his blocks. His feet were 17 inches apart, and his front foot 8 inches from the starting line. Duffy believed this position resulted in a primary push from both legs and not just the front leg.

Much of the thinking at the time centered on the belief that it was best to place the feet as close to the starting line as possible. For example, Coach Larry Snyder noted that if an athlete’s foot is 8 inches from the starting line, that athlete would be ahead of the sprinter whose front foot was 18 or more inches behind the line. This is one of the reasons why the Australian or “kangaroo” style start was not accepted at first. The front pedal was set 17–19 inches behind the starting line, with the back foot pedal 10–12 inches behind the front one. Coaches believed this position put the feet too far behind the starting line. Again, this notion of sprinters losing too much ground to sprinters who crowded the line was a major concern.

Sprinters like the great Jesse Owens did not do much to change coaches’ minds. Owens moved both feet closer to the line, believing that being nearer to the starting line put him nearer to the finish line. Larry Snyder’s insights clearly had an influence on Owens, but he never crowded the line by the 2 or 3 inches that Snyder believed optimal.

Research in the early ’50s cast some doubt on the benefit of “hugging the line” as much as coaches had advocated. The highly respected Franklin Henry noted that a 16- to 21-inch difference from toe to toe is the best distance, and that the 11-inch bunch start was the poorest. Though the bunch was effective at getting the sprinter off the blocks quickly, slower times were the result because the spacing did not put sprinters in a good running position. With a bunch start, Henry believed that sprinters would not be able to recover from that disadvantage.

Though the bunch start was effective at getting the sprinter off the blocks quickly, slower times were the result because the spacing didn’t put sprinters in a good running position. Share on X

Ken Doherty said it best: “Undoubtedly, in the United States since 1890, there have been more speeches, more arguments, more try-this-try-that, and more research on the placement of starting blocks than on any other track and field problem.”

What about the blocks themselves? Some have pedals fixed in the rails; other designs have easily detachable pedals. Many blocks now allow the sprinters to adjust the angle of each of the pedals. Doherty notes that “there are numerous papers discussing the optimum position for creating maximum drive from power generated, but using blocks is much more about comfort and control than exact science.”

However, thanks to a rather unique Excel file created by Brian Mackenzie, a Level 4 performance coach with British Athletics, coaches and athletes can take five specific measurements and then plug them into his chart to determine the most effective pedal angles and spacing.

With Mackenzie’s easy-to-use (and free) formula, sprinters can set their blocks based on the numbers that are provided after they have inputted their limb segment data. Mackenzie doesn’t try to “sell” the benefits of his formula. In fact, he begins by explaining that block setting is really a simple process. “Place the front block two foot-lengths from the starting line and the rear block another foot length between the front and rear block. From that point, spacing can be adjusted based on performance over the first several strides.” In other words, athletes can try this simple method to see if the setting feels good or, more importantly, results in faster starts.

This is really how most sprinters approach block setting, and that’s probably all they need to do. In terms of ideal angles of the leg in the “set” position, Mackenzie notes that the leading knee angle should be 90–110 degrees, and the rear knee angle 120–135 degrees. Again, nothing controversial here, but for those who follow the old carpenter’s rule of “measure twice, cut once,” there is value in a personal assessment like the one Mackenzie presents.

Each sprinter gets a personalized sheet, which serves as a simple instruction manual. This means they adjust the blocks on their own without a coach hovering over them, says @Zoom1Ken. Share on X

I have had assistant coaches ask if taking these measurements was really necessary, and if the recommendation from the data actually suggested a placement that would be much different from what the athlete would have determined on their own, just based on the above simple guidelines—or “trial and error” based on feel. My response is always the same: Each sprinter gets a personalized sheet, and that sheet serves as a simple instruction manual. This means they adjust the blocks on their own without a coach hovering over them.

Unconventional Blocks and Starts

So, an interesting question: Why are they even called “blocks”? This may have been related to the 1927 starting block patent that George Bresnahan of Iowa filed as a “foot support,” which he then described as “what might be termed a starting block.” As you can see in this image of the patent, they are basically hinged blocks of wood with butterfly screws to create a solid base of support and angle.

In general, starting blocks have evolved slowly. The rail or platform for the angled pedals has been progressively shortened, but some manufacturers have had to modify their design to accommodate sprinters and hurdlers with longer legs. It makes you wonder if they should have used Mackenzie’s formula with various sprinters before determining that a shorter rail length was better.

Blocks were actually approved by the IAAF in 1937, but because of World War II, they were not used in competition until the ’48 Games.

A final note: What inspired me to take block setting this seriously? It was an image of the starting technique of ’72 Olympic champion Valery Borzov. His start so impressed Ken Doherty that he developed a sketch just to make Borzov’s start a point of special analysis in his Track and Field Omnibook. Borzov’s block spacing appears to be as little as 10 inches apart—what would be considered more like the questionable “bunch” spacing in standard block setting terms. His front block was 25 inches to the starting line. His eyes are straight down, hands spread wide, and arms above 110 degrees. This position placed his center of gravity low and far ahead of his feet.

This position was intended to aid forward drive, but it appeared problematic because of the increased risk of stumbling and causing a much shorter first step. But note how Borzov compensated. His foot is placed low in the front pedal, and the front of his spikes is actually on the track and not against the block itself. This allowed for greater flexion and extension, and that front-of-the-foot contact with the track apparently increased his application of force and basically prevented him from stumbling.

This prompted Doherty to claim that the result, “may well be an improvement over the best possible on-your-marks placement.” Jimson Lee, in an excellent blog post on Borzov’s mechanics, said something similar: “He has one of the greatest sprinting techniques out of the blocks and running at top speed.”

Interesting in that, competing indoors following his gold-medal Olympic performance in Munich, Borzov was seen starting indoor races from a three-point stance. This prompted many coaches to wonder if the Ukrainian Express had developed an even faster technique for block starting. It turned out he had a hand injury painful enough for him to avoid taking a risk with his typical “unconventional” start!

More Than a Thought: The Best Possible Block Setting

Give Brian Mackenzie’s calculator a try. The five measurements he recommends that we take of a sprinter while in the “set” position give us another way to test what we assume may be the best possible block setting for each of our athletes. It gives us something more to think about during our thinking process.

In “Hamlet,” when a probing Rosencrantz disagrees with Hamlet about Denmark being a prison, Hamlet says, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

In the debate over what is the best block setting for sprinters, I offer a somewhat different twist on Hamlet’s insight: There is nothing like good data from sound research to cure what might be bad thinking.

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

Doherty, Ken. Track and Field Omnibook; a Complete Guide for Coach and Athlete. Tafmop Publishers, 1976.

Mackenzie, B. (2001) Sprint Starting Block Settings [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/sprints/blockset.htm [Accessed 11/9/2019].

Duncanson, N. The Fastest Men on Earth: The Story of the Men’s 100 Metre Champions. Andre Deutsch Publishers, 2011.

Brewer, John. Running Science: Optimizing Training and Performance. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Everyone has another side in performance that allows them to turn up the aggression, increase their intensity, and lock into the task at hand. Everyone has the ability to flip the switch and become “a beast” when they step into their performance environment. It’s called the alter ego—everyone has one, yet very few people tap into it. It’s a place that allows you to break free of any self-doubt and limitations and completely dominate the task at hand.

It’s simple: As a repercussion of not tapping into this mental skill, you leave results on the table. Think about how many athletes you have on your roster who you know can bring more, but don’t. How many athletes do you know who have this amazing side to themselves that they don’t utilize?

As a repercussion of not tapping into the mental skill known as the alter ego, you leave results on the table, says @mattcaldaroni. Share on X

If you’re a strength coach who’s not helping your athletes tap into this mental skill, then you’re doing them a disservice. In this article, I’m going to teach you about the alter ego and how you can help your athletes truly empty the tank, be fully locked in, and dominate the task at hand.

Kobe Bryant’s Alter Ego

If you’re involved in sports at any level, then you’ve seen the power of the alter ego fully activated and utilized by one of the world’s most iconic athletes: Kobe Bryant, aka, the Black Mamba. While the majority of people thought it was just a good marketing tool, the truth is—as Kobe stated in his documentary “Muse”—he utilized his alter ego as a mental skill in performance.

It gave him the ability to turn off his personal life and the biosocial behaviors that came with it and turn on his true competitive nature in his professional life. It allowed him to be an easygoing guy outside of performance and a dominant force within performance. It allowed him to raise his standards and comply with what he was given while raising the standards of others around him as well. It made him a pleasure to work with in the weight room and turned him into an iconic individual in the sport of basketball.

He was able to take control and not just “think different” or focus on his breathing, like the majority of the “mental gurus” suggest, but instead fully embody a different being on the court. He dropped the personal drama, blocked out the noise, locked into the task at hand, and turned up the aggression and intensity. From 2004 on, Kobe didn’t stop dominating: At home he was Kobe Bryant, the soft, easygoing father, but at basketball he was the aggressive and intense Black Mamba—the leader of L.A.

I know that you’ve had athletes similar to Kobe before; ones who deal with personal issues at home and have to be able to block out the noise. Or ones who are naturally softer as a person and don’t often push their limits. How about the ones on the opposite end of the spectrum—the ones who are too engaged and can’t turn it off, often burning out, or ones who are too aggressive and out of control?

When you utilize the alter ego, you’re able to have your athletes push buttons that they didn’t even realize they had, says @mattcaldaroni. Share on X

The brilliance of this coaching tool is that it allows you to eliminate both of these issues within the athletes you work with; when you utilize the alter ego, you’re able to have your athletes push buttons that they didn’t even realize they had. You’re able to get them to lock into what you’re coaching them on, bring the most effort possible, and retain it when they’re finished by keeping them hungry for the next session. If you’re not utilizing the alter ego in your coaching, then you’re not truly serving the athletes you work with.

What Is the Alter Ego?

An alter ego is more than just a “change/separation of thinking,” and it’s more than just a self-talk or deep breathing mechanism. Truth be told, these “block out the noise” techniques commonly referred to aren’t extremely effective. Everyone who works with elite-level athletes knows that there’s too much going on for the athlete to be consciously thinking about “blocking things out.” It has to be instinctive; there has to be a tool that allows the athlete to stay locked in on one thing and focus on the task at hand, bringing the most compliance and effort during the session, and allowing them to retain after the session.

An alter ego does just that. It’s about embodying another being that gets turned on during performance, allowing an individual to drop all the noise, self-doubt, and negativity in performance and dominate the task at hand. It allows them to become the person who their team or performance needs them to be and get the results consistently. There’s no need to “cancel out thinking”; when you fully commit to identifying as a different being, you take on the characteristics of that individual. There’s no more thinking. Instead, there’s just taking action, which is ultimately what we want our athletes to do.

An alter ego, in its literal term, is a person’s secondary or alternative personality; it’s who they are in their performance environment. It’s who they choose to be when they’re performing at their sport. It contains mental, physical, and social traits that are ignited internally as a reaction to their environment. It’s turned on during performance but turned off after it. Some athletes choose to be an animal like Kobe did, while others choose to be a superhero or heightened version of themselves like Brian Dawkins, or “the X-Factor.” In short, they identify as something more aggressive that allows them to fully comply with the task at hand, bringing a strong effort to whatever it is that they have to do.

An alter ego is when an athlete identifies as something more aggressive that allows them to fully comply with a task, bringing a strong effort to whatever it is that they have to do. Share on X

Now here’s the most important part: your job as a strength coach is not to help your players find their alter ego—that’s my job as a resilience coach. Instead, your job is to pull this alter ego out of them; to help your athlete find that extra gear by creating an environment that fosters the alter ego to come out and communicating in ways that allows the individual to internally trigger themselves. If you want to get the most out of your athletes, if you truly want to serve them and take them to the next level, then you must add the alter ego into your coaching toolbox.

Why Every Athlete Needs an Alter Ego

Plain and simple: If you’re a strength and conditioning coach who’s not helping your athlete build their alter ego, then you’re leaving a lot on the table and forgetting about some of your responsibilities. The motivational aspect of strength coaching is a true art that I’m frequently asked to consult on. It’s a sticky topic with a lot of grey areas, and I always suggest utilizing the alter ego for this exact reason.

When you have a framework with proven results that allows you to play to the needs of both the individual and the group, then you’re taking care of all of your responsibilities. If you’re not using the alter ego, then you’re not giving your athletes the best chance to succeed. And more importantly, you’re not seeing their true competitive nature.

To keep things simple, and to provide the framework, I will talk about two case studies where I actively worked with strength and skills coaches to bring out the alter ego in their athletes. I will cover specific aspects in the comply, effort, and retain model and provide solutions for how to activate each portion in many different ways. The main methodologies for carrying out the alter ego for a strength coach are focusing on the communication and words utilized and tampering with the performance environment.

Case 1: Turn It Up

This past year, I’ve been working with an elite-level hockey skills coach. The two of us were given the task of working together to help an upcoming prospect break through to his fullest potential. The athlete lacked compliance to what was being asked of him, and in turn he lacked both effort and retention of the team’s requests. Outside of performance this athlete is a “nice guy”—he’s extremely intellectual, lets very few people in, doesn’t say too much, and is very methodical in his thinking.

This type of athlete is common. We deal with them on a regular basis: loaded with lots of talent and potential but doesn’t turn it up enough to be their best. As a result, he’d overanalyze a lot of situations, question methodologies, rein in effort, and have extremely slow starts. He left a lot on the table; he wasn’t at his absolute best in the weight room or on the ice. As a result, his job was in jeopardy, and he had to be dealt with immediately.

I carried out my work of finding out what made the athlete tick and worked with him to build an alter ego. It was now up to the skills coach to foster the right kind of communication and environment to pull the most out of the athlete and activate his alter ego. Within three weeks, cooperatively, we helped this athlete not only become a menace on the ice, but also a menace in the weight room. He was more social, intense, and compliant. The coach created an extremely strong environment to bring out the athlete’s alter ego, while I worked independently with the athlete to strengthen this mental skill behind the scenes. As a result, he brought a stronger effort into his on- and off-ice sessions. His compliance, effort, and retention all increased—here’s how.

Once I was able to understand the athlete and what made him tick (aka triggers), I relayed the information to the skills coach. He created an environment to turn these triggers on, or Step 1 to the alter ego, which I call “Turn On.” Before the session started, if time permitted, he focused on having an intense one-on-one conversation with the athlete about why he was here.

He focused on the pain (dark triggers) that the athlete would experience, like a missed opportunity to further his career, if he didn’t take action and be his best. He also focused on the pleasure (light triggers) that the athlete would experience if he did take action and comply fully; he spoke to him about how he’d take a step closer to helping his family financially. He’d also speak about the importance of making sure others were up to par; he’d mention to the athlete the importance of others in his environment being at their best as well, and why it was so important for the athlete to raise the level of others through his own personal work.

There were also days where the skills coach couldn’t catch the player before the training session started, so he’d just use the verbiage with the entire group during their warm-ups. He spoke aloud about connecting their current session to the rest of their careers; while the athletes warmed up, he spoke about them imagining how much pain would occur if they didn’t fully comply and take action during the session. He spoke about the importance of each rep and connected it to the rest of their lives.

The skills coach made it a point to force them to turn off the drama from their personal lives and turn on the intensity of their professional lives by speaking about it. He got them selfish and focused on themselves—he mentally warmed them up to be in a state of pain, or pleasure, lighting up their light or dark triggers and preparing the athletes, whether they consciously had one or not, to turn on their alter ego.

This is the mental warm-up you must put your athletes through, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: warming up the athlete mentally to turn on the alter ego. It works because it puts the athlete in a selfish state of mind; one of the best ways to get someone to comply is by helping them see how the current task helps them personally. Think: You’re dealing with the egos of elite individuals—they didn’t get to where they are by thinking only of others; they focused on themselves.

Mentally warm up an athlete to put them in a selfish state of mind. One of the best ways to get someone to comply is by helping them see how the current task helps them personally. Share on X

When you’re warming up an athlete mentally to turn on their alter ego and get them to comply, then you have to get the athlete selfish. It’s your job as a strength coach to light up the triggers of the individual and get them focused on seeing the connection of how the current task impacts their personal future. Like my friend from St. Louis, a strength and conditioning coach for elite level football, soccer, and hockey players, always says: “The guys who I’ve worked with who are the most locked in are the ones who are selfish.”

The importance of this is that there’s no “step back and breathe” portion to it. I often hear mental professionals speak about “taking the time to reflect before a performance with the group.” Let’s get real for a second: At the elite level, that should be something athletes do beforehand because they work with a professional like myself to build it into their day-to-day routine. When they get to their performance environment, it’s all business.

As a strength coach in elite environments, you often try to find ways to make the short amounts of time you’re given work. This is all about adapting on the fly to the fast-paced world of elite sports. Being able to pull someone aside for 60 seconds to mentally warm them up and turn on their alter ego is a rare bonus that this skills coach didn’t often come by. That’s why he had to learn the skill of being able to turn on the group versus just turn on the individual.

For the majority of this practice, you will have to be able to light up the triggers of the entire group you’re coaching to create a more competitive environment where every athlete will want to lock in and bring it. When you’re able to home in on the mental warm-up, you take that first step to alter ego: “turn on.” The amazing thing about this was that he not only got positive results out of the individual athlete he was trying to work with, he was able to get more results out of the group as a whole. Eventually, I worked with him to better understand each player that he was dealing with and consulted with him on how to pull the alter ego out of each and every one so that he could get the most out of them, creating a better compliance, effort, and retention rate out of all of them.

During the training session, the coach focused on Step 2: Maintain and Heighten. He actively shouted out directions and instructions to keep the performance environment in what I call “hunting mode.” He tailored his verbiage to become more about the team and less about the individual, and he got them to connect every single repetition to beating the upcoming opponent. This is where everything starts to change; Instead of making it “just another training session” for the team, he made it another day closer to winning against the opponent. Now he not only turned on the alter ego of the majority of his athletes, he was keeping it on.

He praised the positive repetitions of the athletes and spoke about how it was a “winning rep.” He talked about how the team was now “hunting together” instead of just going through the motions. He pulled out collaborative efforts and motivated the team in ways that they hadn’t been motivated before. More importantly, he pulled out the true competitive nature in each athlete without having to waste any time. He kept them locked in and focused, raising the standards of the environment and getting the majority to stay on the same page.

After the training session was done, the coach focused on Step 3: Turn Off. Whether during a cooldown or when he prepared them to go into the weight room after their on-ice session, the coach would speak with the team about how well they “hunted” during the session, and whether it truly resembled the results that the group was after collectively. He also asked the group to reflect on whether they sincerely gave an effort that was worthy of serving their dark and light triggers well. He used that time to speak to how good the group felt now that they’d taken care of business and what they had to do outside of the session. He got them to retain what they just did and focus on what they had to do next.

This is when that individual turned off their alter ego and prepared for what was next. This was a player who previously had been questioned whether he could perform at an elite level consistently, and now they’re speaking about him as the future of an organization. Imagine if this was untouched; imagine if this was left alone. The coach would’ve done a disservice to this high-potential talent, and there would’ve been a career left on the table.

Case 2: Get Relevant

In the second case study, I saw the same results with an elite-level strength coach who had to get more effort and retention out of an athlete who he and I had worked with. The organization had tried to get the most out of the elite-level goaltender for four years. They tried everything from turning it up, to backing off, to outright trying to scare the athlete into working harder and complying. We followed the exact same process with the athlete to help the strength coach pull the alter ego out of the individual.

I figured out the individual’s triggers and created an alter ego for him, and then the strength coach followed the same protocol. He took a bit of a different approach before each training session, however. He made it a point to show up early and speak with the athlete to get him selfish (Turn On and comply). During the training sessions, he made it a point to connect the repetitions and effort rate to the desired team results that the athlete was after (Maintain and Heighten and effort). After the training session, he helped the athlete understand if the effort matched his personal, and the team’s, desired results and helped him focus on what he had to do next (Turn Off and retain).

I was able to consult with the coach on the athlete because I was working with him individually to continue to find the triggers and make sure that he would turn off once the sessions were complete. We started working together on this athlete in September 2018, when the organization viewed him almost as a liability. To date, we have helped this athlete not only break performance barriers in the gym, but also on the ice—making the athlete one of the organization’s most valuable assets to date.

The Danger of Winging It and Doing It Alone

Here’s the thing: Being the “Samurai” in performance is cool, until you don’t know how to turn that Samurai off, and then it starts to disrupt your performance and personal and social lives. How many stories have we heard about athletes who go home and have abusive relationships because they can’t “turn it off”? Or the athletes who become extremely anxious or burnt out because they aren’t able to shut it down?

In both cases that I shared, the coaches had success because I was able to consult with them and teach them about when to shut it down and when to turn it up. Without proper guidance of this coaching tool, you’re playing with fire. I say this because I’m the individual who the athletes call to deal with the issues they face when they can’t turn it off.

It’s important to turn things up, but even more important to shut it down. If you don’t treat this tool (the alter ego) with seriousness and care, then you run the risk of burnout. Share on X

It’s important to turn things up, but it’s even more important to shut it down. What good does it do your athlete if they can only bring it for a day, but are then completely burnt out of the rest of the week? Forget about comply, effort, and retain—if you don’t treat this tool with seriousness and care, then you run the risk of burnout. The reason the first case I mentioned was successful was because the elite-level skills coach was able to receive intel from me on how the athlete was doing outside of performance. The reason that the second case I mentioned with the elite-level strength coach was successful was because he was able to understand how the athlete was feeling before he came into performance.

Both coaches were able to tame the beast that came out in performance, as well as pull it out of the individuals they worked with. In no way did they try to create the alter ego of the individual on their own. This is something that has to be handled with extreme caution and care, as you’re dealing with the identity of an individual both in and out of performance. As much as this can be one of your greatest coaching tools with guidance, it also can be one of your worst enemies without the proper understanding and guidance. Please don’t take chances with this tool.

Ensure Its Effective Use

Everyone has an alter ego. In order to effectively do your job as a strength coach and pull the most out of your athletes, you need to activate this alter ego. It’s your responsibility to motivate the athlete effectively, but most importantly, to do so in a way that doesn’t harm the well-being of the athlete.

The alter ego is an extremely strong coaching tool that’s replicable and viable across many different environments, but to properly utilize this tool you must have the right guidance and care to do so effectively. Again, you are doing your athletes a disservice if you know this coaching tool is here, but don’t take advantage of it. Don’t just wing it—empty the tank.

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