The mic is hot and the game is on. You're listening
to News for the Nation podcast by Aces Nation
where we talk about nutrition, sports performance,
the journey of a student athlete and more. I'm
Claire. I'm Zach. Time to level up. Welcome back
sports fans. Today we're covering part two, I
guess you could say of our case study where today
I'll be going over a couple of unique cases that
I've dealt with and what that progress looks
like. So I'm going to take you in depth as to
improvements that were made from testing perspective
and some of the things we focused on from strength
training in the weight room and how we evolved
as they went through the respective time of the
competitive season for both of these athletes.
So, but first things first, Claire, you've been
watching the Olympics. I have too. What are some
of your favorite moments so far? Gosh, I feel
like there have been a lot. Gymnastics has been
fun to watch on the men's and women's side. So
I think one would be both teams meddling at the
Olympics in the team. So that's awesome. I'm
trying to think swimming wise. What's happened
one thing that surprised me was Katie Ledecky
in the 800? Getting bronze But that's okay. I
know But she like holds the best 20 times from
one of their races was a 1500. Yeah, it was ridiculous
to see that stat. Yeah Ridiculous So that was
interesting but a lot of other great things with
swimming the men won the four by 100 won gold
I think women got silver in the 4x100. I can't
remember what race it was, but I think we went
1 -2 in maybe the women's 400 IM. I think that
was it. I don't remember, but a lot of great
swimming. I can't remember exactly the the placing
and stuff, but it's just been really cool to
watch and just cheer for USA. Yeah, so I've been
watching Obviously we did the Six Nations podcast
series, but I definitely watched the rugby, right?
I'm really upset that the men's rugby sevens
was so early. Like I missed all of it except
for one match. Yeah, because it was before the
opening ceremonies. Yeah, right. So they did
it so early that I missed it. And I was a little
upset because DuPont From the 11 squad their
national team who was on six nations He was on
the the seven squad here and they won the gold
Wow, and he was a big part of it, too He was
incredible. I saw some highlights. I didn't watch
a match with France, but So yeah, I was upset
that that happened so early, but man that USA
women's bronze medal finish Oh incredible because
Australia had a great uh they had a great try
like 12 seconds before we did that at the end
oh it was incredible that finish so uh that was
one of the ones that I was really impressed with
um and I've seen some soccer um watch USA men's
and women's right now men doing really well I
mean doing better than they have I think at any
Olympics as far as scoring goes I'm taking that
with a grain of salt because I don't feel like
there are a lot of like top international guys
playing soccer for their country in the Olympics
because I feel like Euro Cup, World Cup, those
things are probably more important to those players
because we don't even have some of our top players
playing for our Olympic team. So I'm taking it
with a grain of salt, but it's good to see that,
you know, men's team is doing well and women's
teams continue to roll. So that's nice. Same
with basketball. I've watched some basketball.
I've watched some games that weren't even USA
basketball that have been pretty good. So it's
been been an interesting game so far. Yeah. Two,
I guess a couple of other interesting things
with field hockey I was watching earlier today.
USA is not very good. Oh, I mean, I hate ranked
women's field hockey, which is so interesting
because I feel like it's a very popular sport
here. I know, I hate to say it. I did watch them
play against Argentina maybe like last week.
We did not look very good, but interesting. I
think they were playing Great Britain this morning.
Not great. Yeah. Well, on a positive note though,
didn't Men's Rowing, one of their groups won
gold for the first time in like 60 years, something
like that. I don't know if they won gold. No,
but first time and since 1962 or something I
believe was something like that. Yeah, I Don't
know if you heard anything about the triathlon
but I heard it got postponed Yeah, I they they
postponed it and then it happened and apparently
the water quality still wasn't great. So I don't
remember where he's from, but one of the athletes
finished and was, he got sick like 10 times right
after. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I can only imagine.
I mean, how much water you're ingesting swim.
Yeah. So, yeah. Oh, not great. Apparently the
level, the E. coli levels were quite high. Yeah,
so what I saw was just from notifications that
I've gotten was the day it was supposed to happen,
they postponed it and then they had it the very
next day. So I guess the levels had changed enough
for them to continue on. But anyways, I mean,
it's been it's been pretty good so far. The boat
entrance was pretty unique, you know, I guess.
I think it was the first time they've ever done
something like that as an opening ceremony. Some
of the artistic pieces that they had set around
the scene were pretty good. Lady Gaga performance,
I was impressed. I didn't see her performance.
Oh yeah, yeah. She was like one of the first
ones. She came out, she was singing in French
for a while too, so it was nice. Interesting.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, let's get into
these case studies. I'm going to cover women's
soccer player and a men's basketball player.
I'm going to do a couple of different seasons
here. So women's soccer, I'm going to talk about
what we do, what we did off season. So it would
have been in the springtime because their competitive
season is in the fall and men's basketball. I'm
going to talk about work that we did right before
the season and then into the season throughout.
So a lot of times Just to give you some backstory
here, general backstory. A lot of times when
research articles are put out, normally they're
done on recreationally active people because
they can't get athletes or whatever to participate.
It's hard to get that inclusion there. So I'm
going to give you people who are like my highest.
Some of the highest like athletes I guess like
highest level people that we had on the team
and probably in the school at the time Just because
I feel like it's important to know that even
though you're already one of the top people you
can still make improvements and these individuals
definitely work hard at their craft in their
sport and they also Invested a lot in themselves
In training physical training. So anyways, let's
let's get into soccer here. So again to preface
these are college athletes at the time and This
is all supervised and programmed by me. So I
was in charge of these people So taking into
account we did a lot of testing on the front
end of these so I've got numbers to compare it
to Let's get into the soccer one first This is
the spring before her senior season. So this
is her junior spring, important time to develop
as a player. Really some of the things that we
focused on in a lot of our pre -lifts. So we
would do general warm up, get blood flow going,
kind of wake yourself up, get your system ready
to move, go through different ranges of motion.
What I like to focus on are elements of core,
maybe some glute elements if that's important
to your sport, maybe a rotational movement if
that's important, maybe a stability movement,
some type of posterior shoulder because it's
great for posture and to protect our shoulders
and any type of pressing that we do, especially
if you're an overhead athlete, someone who throws
a lot or hits the ball overhead. And then I usually
do a little bit more specific type of movements
at the end to actually get you prepared for that
first big movement that we're gonna do. So all
the pre lifts are gonna be like that, but really
I'll focus on kind of generally what the area
of focus is through these different phases. So.
What we wanted to do early on after we did our
initial assessment is we wanted to kind of build
up some Tolerance and move into a type of training
that's called triphasic At the time I did a lot
of Olympic weightlifting movements So I have
got hang power clean in here. We did hang power
snatch. I was still doing catching at this point
Hadn't learned what I did later on after moving
on from this place. So We did a lot of clean,
some snatches, really our main emphasis movements.
If it wasn't an Olympic lifting variation, we
had a back squat. I also focused on rear foot
elevated squat or Bulgarian split squat, as some
people may call it, and then a bench press as
well. So those were kind of my main timed movements.
So the first thing we did was focus on eccentric.
So we're focusing on different elements of like
an exercise. In a squat, for instance, you go
down. That's the eccentric component. There's
the part at the bottom where you're changing
from down to up. That's called amortization.
A lot of people do ISOs in that little element
before you go up from going down. And then we
focused on the concentric movement part of it,
which is us just executing the movement at a
normal speed or a fast speed. So really, those
are some of the things I decided our women's
soccer team, we needed to increase the force
that we could produce on the eccentric side.
So we did a lot of eccentric work on the front
end. So we spent two weeks doing some sub max
eccentric work in our main movements, really
focusing on three seconds down early on. A lot
of our accessories at that point were upper body,
hip dominant or glute dominant type of movements.
some type of single leg and anything we could
get from a pulling perspective to increase the
upper body. I also focused on the hamstrings
a little bit just to build up some strength in
those areas. I also have some mobility in this
post lift and then some upper body work. So I
don't want to bore you with a lot of this intricate
stuff here like going through sheet by sheet.
But yeah, so the first two weeks we did go submaximal
eccentric, which means we weren't at max we were
i think the highest we went with 70 percent of
their uh one rm and that was from testing the
week before and then we went a week of sub our
um super maximal so we went above we had spotters
for this so it was easy for us to do uh the only
place i didn't go above 100 percent was uh Instead
of doing Bulgarian split squat we moved to split
squat a little more stability and the ability
to get out of it We kept the percentage low,
but still focused on eccentric Back squat we
had spotters on the side and a person behind
so we had three people ready to help this person
Get up to the top so they weren't Bringing the
entire weight up himself Similar with bench press,
we had spotters ready to help on the way up.
So a lot of communication was happening here.
Mainly the spotter behind was giving the down
call, giving the one, two, three count, and then
the up call for everyone to engage the bar as
a unit. Continued on the same with my accessories
from that. And then we moved into after our ISO
phase, holding for three seconds, we moved into
More of our just concept your faith getting back
to training kind of a normal speed. So Same pre
-lift emphasis now we're throwing in a couple
different elements of our Olympic weightlifting
Variations here. We did clean we did snatch.
We also did a pull so we weren't catching and
that was probably our heaviest one Because we
could smaller range of motion we could do more
right now. We're getting into a phase called
APRE so What we're doing is trying to maximize
the body's readiness in that day and see where
we are and use that as a driver for development.
So we use the same movements across for those
three main ones. And then my accessories, I stayed
with the same focus, whether that was a hip hinge,
single legwork, like lunging, some type of range
of motion, maybe some adductor. for groin strengthening
and then some upper body push and pull to balance
us out and keep us strong when we're trying to
get pushed off the ball. So I spent three weeks
actually in APRE and worked my way down as we
were getting into our mid semester test. Then
we retested, took a deload week. I think it was
a week I called competition week. So we had We
had different stuff going on. We got outside
of the weight room to kind of de -load from what
we had been doing because that eccentric work,
the isometric work, and then the APRE stuff,
I mean, that's a tough task for them to be able
to handle. So it was definitely, it was good
for us to get outside of the weight room for
a little while, for just that one week. And then
we jumped back into APRE. Because I had a week
where there was an optional phase coming on so
I just switched some emphasis there Following
that we really loaded up on the Concentric phase
of it. So we contrasted and what that means is
we took a heavier weighted movement such as a
back squat and then we move that into an unweighted
movement. So we did a French contrast. This really
what's called type of style. Like I've got back
squat. We immediately went to some hurdle jumps.
And then our next one was like a hang power clean
where it's a little bit lighter than what we're
doing for back squat. Range of motion is different.
And then the last one, we did an assisted movement
where we're not creating the force, but we're
getting moved faster as we jump, right? So it's
taking weight off of us at the bottom so that
we can increase the rate at which we're jumping,
not necessarily increasing the force which would
have been achieved to the hurdle jump. So we
did some different contrast training to mix it
up and get exposure from high force movements,
high velocity movements, weighted, unweighted,
all those things together to try to create a
stimulus that was going to be beneficial for
power or force development. We spent a few weeks
there Moved into a little more volume training
after we got out of spring ball. So our contrast
was mostly during their spring ball Component
where they played a few few matches and then
we got into a little bit of a pyramid scheme
still trying to keep the rate of force development
high in our first block with our Olympic variations.
Maybe we had some jump squats that I added in.
So changing it up a little bit for us on the
development side. But then our more volume focused
movement was where our main lifts were. And then
our accessories, even though the exercise may
have changed and evolved a little bit, they still
came with the same purpose of what I had mentioned
earlier. And really, after we hit this pyramid
phase here, we were into our final testing block
of the semester to kind of solidify our one rep
maxes for the summer program they were going
to do and to see what our improvement was overall
throughout that semester. So then we hit summertime.
I know that was quite a bit right there before
I get into these testing numbers. Did you have
any thoughts pop up during any of that? I think
the main thing, so you mentioned what type of
athlete this person is, and you kind of mentioned
it sporadically, but going into this program,
what were her and your specific goals by the
end of it? So my goal for the entire program
for her was to be able to create greater force,
which to get stronger and then to be able to
do it faster, right? So I wanted to see her performance
metrics go up, right? So I wanted to see her
be able to jump higher, but also run faster.
And really I wanted her lower body strength to
body weight ratio increase. And those things
were what I felt was important. Her change of
direction ability was also something we wanted
to see improve as well. really kind of can you
exert more force let's say jump higher or lift
more right and can you while achieving those
things can you run faster change direction better
and maintain or improve your strength the body
weight ratio so those are some of the things
that I was looking forward to and I know that
she was just ready to keep improving her strength
as she went along and just continue to be the
top person amongst our peers on the team. So
a lot of those things really showed the rest
of the time. So I'll go over a couple of final
test results. So the numbers I'm going to give
the difference, the improvements, or yeah, it'll
be the improvements even if it's a negative in
the time. It'll be from the first test, right?
So remember, I had an initial test at the beginning
of the semester. I had a mid semester test right
before they started playing spring games. And
then we had the final one a couple of weeks after
that. So. Body mass doesn't necessarily matter
because we'll get into the strength of body weight
ratio later. Vertical jump over this period right
here increased by 3 .4 inches. So really nice
to see that she was able to increase her vertical
output. Broad jump increased by five inches.
So horizontal force production definitely increased.
10 yard sprint the same. 40 yard sprint is what
was probably the her biggest improvement went
down three tenths of a second. So That was a
big deal for her because her position, she played
wingback. So sometimes she has to make really
far runs and maintain speed. So that's important.
Also for her position, the ability to change
direction efficiently. Her change of direction
test went down almost four tenths of a second.
So that was a big deal as well for her to be
able to change direction more efficiently. But
even though those Numbers went up Where was it
here hang power clean number went up so her Olympic
lifting capabilities Technique wise sure got
better through practice, but also the amount
that she was able to withhold or withstand Back
squat numbers increased not necessarily It was
based on the APRE number that we had so it wasn't
just that her overall max calculated went up.
It was the fact that she was able to have more
load on the bar and be able to be successful.
So her bones get the benefit of that force, her
muscles get the, and tendons get the benefit
of that force. So it's not only that she was
like, it's not like she was doing lightweight,
a lot of reps and it calculated to this giant
numbers. The fact that she was able to take on
more on the bar, and do it, lift more. So bench,
deadlift, those numbers all went up. But what
we really were wanting was her strength to body
weight ratio to go up. And that increased both
times. So from mid -test to the final test, it
continued to increase from the very beginning.
And that's what we wanted. She maintained the
highest on the team. And to be fair, rivaled
the top guys or somewhere in that top layer of
men's soccer players that we had at the school
as well. So that was a big deal, probably one
of the most powerful people that we had on campus
at the time. And I'll say to her credit, going
into that next season, her senior season, never
missed a game, able to play. 90 plus minutes
for the entirety of the season. So really a credit
to her capabilities as an athlete and then her
dedication and intentional activity as an athlete.
So really that was impressive to me that she
was able to improve even though You got soccer
practice. We're doing conditioning on top of
that. We're really not even talking about the
days where we would start on the field and do
sprint technique, do change direction mechanics
or something, do plyometrics. And then we've
got lifting. You've got academics on top of that.
This is someone who actually is now a doctor.
So somebody who was higher up in the pressures
of academia So just really impressive what we
got here. That's hard. I was going to ask too,
since you mentioned obviously starting this at
the beginning of the semester, there wasn't necessarily
spring ball games. But if there would, there
have been anything that you would have done differently
if you had maybe started this with her in the
summer after spring ball versus starting when
she was still playing games. Probably. If she
would have been on campus and we would have done
summer training. Probably would have started
something similar and gone a little bit longer
in each phase because I mean in the semester
were limited to a certain amount of weeks that
we can use for the NCAA. So you have to kind
of pick and choose your battles and do what you
think is best for your team at the right time
so. I think we did a pretty good job of like
what the dose doses were. Yeah, I would probably
just extend some of the phases. But really, the
power phase as we got towards the end, like you're
talking about summer training, they come back
in August, my whole July, maybe even maybe even
the last part of June, we're probably been more
focused towards How fast we're producing force
so more like a power model maybe even see and
I might have taken down The I might have taken
down some of the load like reduce some of my
percentages as we get into more of a fitness
component because Although fitness was important
for matches and practice at this point in time
It wasn't like they were coming back and having
to perform a fitness assessment at the beginning
of preseason camp. Right. Yeah. So I think we
would have moved our focus a little bit towards
the halfway point instead of like at this point,
I was able to focus on those short power moments
more than fitness. Right. And at some point there's
there's a shift between the two. You still need
to maintain Your speed capabilities and that's
why it's important to continue sprinting even
as you're trying to get ready for your fitness
assessment But yeah, I think we were allowed
to do a little bit more Higher load in the weight
room because we weren't about to come back into
a fitness assessment So and to be to be fair,
that's all my experience has been is that when
people are coming back to a fitness assessment
Whether it's men's or women's soccer For some
reason that's all they seem to do is like I'm
just gonna run because I need to be ready for
this fitness assessment, right? Yeah, no Probably.
Yeah, I think things would have probably changed
for me. Maybe moving from Just do a back squat,
you know as my main lift to moving to more of
a single leg strength as we were getting Into
that closer to preseason camp type of thing Just
change the focus a little bit. But yeah, good
question. Yeah, that's interesting. I think Mainly
I also ask because I think when you look at it
from a nutrition perspective to sometimes we
almost depending on the goal want to wait for
a particular point in the season to work on certain
goals. And sometimes that'll change things. So
it's interesting to kind of see. I would say
if anything, that goal of like getting stronger
and faster, you could probably do most of the
time whenever, especially again, from a nutrition
perspective, that just means eating more. So
you could definitely do that in season versus
if we're trying to really focus on body composition.
We usually recommend waiting until off season
or summer, sometime when you're not necessarily
having to maintain. a specific level of performance.
Yeah. And I think that would be probably is the
best time to do that because you're not playing
any games. You're not necessarily worried about
so much sports skill technicalities. You're pretty
much just training at that point and trying to
recover from training. So yeah, it makes sense.
And that's really a time where a lot of athletes,
whether it's the summer or like this long off
season that you have, like Those are times that
they try to focus on. This is where I need to
gain mass. Right. Hard to do that. Hard to do
that when you're in the season. Right. So I think
that does change. If you're trying to gain mass,
you're going to lift a certain way and you're
going to recover or eat, I guess you would say
a certain way. Right. Right. Exactly. So to finish
off the soccer one this year. was really unique.
The time frame that I talked about because I
had the opportunity to collaborate with another
strength coach who was at the division one level
and I was at the division two level at the time
and we were able to compare soccer numbers of
like our assessments. So it's really cool to
to see those numbers go back and forth and the
person that I'm actually talking about who worked
really hard and you know all this She actually
had higher numbers than most of the the girls
on the division one team So I feel pretty confident
in her work ethic not anything really that I
had to do But like just her ability to perform
at a high level is what I'm seeing from the numbers
You know definitely higher than the people we
had on our team, but higher than almost everyone
with the Exception of a couple of players on
division one level team. So I thought that that
was interesting and Great job on her part. Yeah
So let's shift to men's basketball now again
college athlete I'm gonna go through preseason
and in season try to keep it as as short as possible.
So Just give you that the high notes of everything
I should say like the last one who had training
experience working with me coming into it, this
athlete that I'm talking about here also had
at least two years of working with me up to this
point. So had made improvements already, but
again, to say that we can continue to make those
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A lot of my focus early on with this men's basketball
team was to introduce volume, get our technique
down for certain movements that needed it. Like
I did, like I said, used Olympic weightlifting
variations. So to get our technique down with
that, granted, I also had some technology. We
use force plates here. So some of the stuff that
we did was specific to what their force plate
jumps said about that player. So we may have
changed the range of motion that the athlete
did, or we may change the speed at which they
executed a movement, or we may have had an athlete
doing a lower body exercise, but two different
lower body exercises just based on their needs
from the jumps that we got. So my pre -lift for
them was pretty much the same. I do like to focus
on a lot of ankle mobility for them. We got hip
mobility. Do some type of hip strengthening as
well. Probably you would just consider that glute,
some type of core activation and something specific
to what we're about to do in our first block
of exercise. So really arm four days here. Sorry,
I didn't mention the last one. Women's soccer
only lifted three days a week. I did mention
what they did each of those days, but they did.
This men's basketball team at the very early
on we lifted four days. So I had single leg squat
as one of my builders for volume, incline press,
horizontal dumbbell bench press, and then I did
a lateral squat and a hip bridge combo as another
thing we did as well. So, posterior or like accessory
stuff, focused on hamstrings or hip dominant
movements. Again, did some single leg work, a
lot of upper posterior shoulder to protect their
shoulders from grabbing a rebound or Defending
and maybe you know reaching for something, you
know and getting your arm hit or For shooting
or blocking or you know any any type of movement
that can happen overhead Just trying to protect
that there And we also did some low back work
Again some more glute posterior like reverse
hyper type of work post lift Did some like easy
mobility You could say it was hinging on some
type of balance. It does some overhead squat
movements. So just trying to work on some T spine
movement whether that was stability or whether
that was not moving and functionally staying
stacked or we were actually Rotating and then
some upper body as well early on in our prep.
So focused on this whole prep phase for about
four weeks using the same things, working percentages,
if we had percentages with the guys, or if with
our new guys, we were just kind of seeing where
they were and, and letting them self select at
that point. So for basketball, it's a little
bit different, like they play until hopefully
you play until March, right? Late March. And
then you get like a couple of weeks off and then
you come back and you may have two weeks, you
may have one week. to do some workouts before
it's finals and you're out of here, right? So
not a lot of time to do assessments, a lot of
assessments in that spring semester. So we did
one before they left. When they come back, it's
kind of a phase where you like to get going as
much as possible. For this particular year, we
got to work as soon as possible. We did do the
force plate testing and that was about it at
the very beginning. But before we got into preseason
practice, we went into a testing session where
we just focused on movements that we have been
doing and Also our jumping and sprinting and
change direction mechanics as well So that leads
us into preseason where I really decided to take
a lot of the load off So as they get into that
first couple of weeks of practice where it's
really heavy very intense for our team at this
point where we were a very fast -paced team I
took out all my Olympic weightlifting variations,
but I kept the supersets that were with them.
Most of them were either a med ball movement,
posterior shoulder, some type of mobility, probably
T spine. I kept all of those after our pre lifts.
So it's basically an extended part. And then
we went into our main accessory lifts, but reduced
the volume quite a bit. I also in men's basketball
and women's basketball use a type of training
that incorporates contraction of the muscles
on different sides of the body, upper and lower
body at the same time. Just something that gets
blood flow moving. You accumulate some type of
fatigue and it really trains your heart to be
efficient in pumping. It's a pretty good form
of what I would say conditioning without running
reps. So we're still training, getting some tissue
exposure. So we're doing a lot of reps like you
may be going through a squat or a lunge or a
single leg bridge. And you're also doing a push
or a pull at the same time. So your body is going
through ranges of motion and contracting and
your heart is having to pump a lot and there's
a science behind whether you're standing or whether
you're laying on your back to do some of the
exercises but to keep it brief like we did this
escalating density type of training in this first
block a bit of preseason because it was really
not low maintenance but it was a low fatiguing
type of exercise and we were able to set ourselves
up for we were going to use it late in the season
so So we saw that continue We got into the season
things got pretty specific pretty quick. So we
still focus on our Olympic weightlifting variation
our Back squat starts to become a little more
specific to guys based on their force plate number
And then we're just slowly working in this escalating
density training at the end And then any areas
we need to in between we do it had a lot of check
boards at the end What that means is I would
have something on the board for a different groups
whether they were someone who needed to work
on their quad strengthening or their ankle mobility
they would have something to do or I got guys
who need to work on their hamstring strength
or their full body range of motion they would
work on something else completely so As we get
further into the season, it's even more specific
and this kind of just continues on the way down.
So we've got a group that's working on one thing
and a group that's working on another thing.
And the exercise is buried just a little bit.
So for instance, on the same week, I got a group
working on front squat and push press on different
days. Then the other group would be working on
rear foot elevated squat and overhead squat on
different days. And this continued to go on throughout
the season where some points I worked on strength.
Then I moved into some different power work.
Almost like in a linear fashion, we did some
strength, some power before going back to strength
and then back to power. And as we got into later
in the year, we worked more on speed. This team,
at this point in time, we were able to use velocity
tracking devices. So we were able to program
a lot of our movements like back squat or our
hang clean pulls, even our bench press off of
velocity. So we were able to just. kind of take
it to the next level, I guess, with what our
output was and where we were focused. So I could
give the guys a range of a back squat. We're
trying to be between this and this and they're
going to be able to see it on the monitor or
have the guy spotting them, tell them, hey, you're
not in that zone. You know, you need to go faster
or great. You're great right there. Let's let's
keep going. So I think that really kind of, you
know, drives the output and the intent behind
every single lift. Crazy thing is about this
team here, this was the year that COVID happened.
So into my last programmed phase, I believe we
got shut down. So we didn't finish that phase,
which ended up being my first day. The main focus
was the two different. Things that that you know,
we were set on we're doing specific and then
my second day was more of just a this day's for
everyone our focus is the same type of thing
but Really we worked our way into moving as fast
as we can and we kind of just bounced back and
forth from we picked our spots right where We
had the opportunity to work on strength and our
schedule was going to be pretty consistent It
wasn't like going up to a time of high competition
or like high stakes moment where it was like
conference tournament or something like that
or first conference game we picked our spots
to really focus on strength for a while because
they're getting a lot of that power and speed
and practice like I said there was a fast -paced
team and the practice was incredibly intense
so we just kind of worked that and really stayed
on top of our jumps. We continued to jump on
the force plate throughout the season to see
where we were, how we were improving. Do we need
to make any adjustments? Does a guy need to move
from this group to the other group based on where
his jumps were? Did somehow his mechanics change
or his body's capabilities are allowing him to
do a little bit more? Really, it doesn't happen
very often, but it allows us to see details that
I can't see from my eye. I can see how these
guys are actually producing sports. So that was
really great. But all that to say, we went into
the very end of this season before COVID hit,
being number five in the nation, won our conference
tournament, and we're hosting regional. So we're
really on the uptick. My personal opinion was
that we were loaded and set to win the national
championship that year obviously nobody did because
they didn't hold it right so yeah so anyways
um yeah so that was kind of our our uh go through
the end there and and really i brought this basketball
example to light because one of our athletes
on this team who went through this program um
in the group that needed to focus a little bit
more on range of motion was national player of
the year that year. And so having the opportunity
to work with him and again, another guy who is
best on the team, best in the nation and someone
who was just really dedicated every day to like
what he did in there and had a great time with
his teammates. I mean, this guy was a senior
this year. So I had seen him from a freshman
develop all the way into national player of the
year. from all the hard work that he put in on
and off the court. So I know I could take you
through some numbers that he definitely improved
in. Gosh, he improved his vert, I think, over
the time that he was with me, at least seven
inches probably. His 10 yard sprint time went
way down Probably one of the fastest guys in
the school coming off the line change direction
Was like well below the test we were doing at
the time was a little bit longer than what normally
was but Well below any any standard that we had
strength to body weight ratio almost to I mean
just just a That's like a really good point like
we had another guy who was Over to in the strength
of body weight ratio these two guys completely
different in the way that their body operates
and they played two different positions, but
The other guy that had the higher strength of
body weight ratio was like defensive player Of
the year in the conference. He also they both
went to go play international basketball professionally,
so Yeah, these guys incredible incredible was
had the opportunity this year to work with a
lot of people who played professionally Overseas
some of them still do to this day. So this year
was definitely a year that I wanted to highlight
not just for our national player of the year,
but a lot of other guys who took care of their
bodies and took everything we did seriously and
it definitely shows in their chemistry and their
respect for each other and just the results that
they had off the court as well Yeah That's awesome.
Are you questions here? Do you have any thoughts
as we went through that? No, I think that was
pretty straightforward. I think overall kind
of summing things up and looking at both of these
case studies as a whole, if a high school athlete
or youth athlete or even a collegiate athlete,
whoever came to you and just wanted your like
top tips or your kind of cliff notes of what
they should be doing to get stronger and faster.
What maybe three things would you tell them?
I mean, honestly, honestly, the first two things
that I would tell them have nothing to do with
with lifting or with like what exercise to choose.
I would tell them you have to be intentional,
but you have to go in with a purpose every day.
And you have to come back often, right? You have
to be consistent. So if you don't have those
two things, doesn't matter. If it's lifting,
if it's a nutrition goal, you're not going to
get the result that you want if you're just coming
in every so often when you feel like it and you're
not even doing it all the way. I've seen so many
people who expect to come in for one week and
train and be like, top notch athlete, like you
have no idea. Even these people that are in the
Olympics, they train their whole life for this,
right? At least four years at a time, they're
focused on trying to win a gold medal, you know?
Yeah. And the people, if you hear about comebacks,
like I think, who was it? Suni Lee, Caleb Dressel,
even Simone Biles, they took an extended period
of time off of their sport. to recover, get better,
come back from injury, or just kind of find their
passion for it again. But these people also have
to remember that they were Olympic gold medalists
before that. Right, right. I mean, you look at
Usain Bolt, I know he's got a quote out there,
but he trained four years to run less than 10
seconds. Crazy. But you have to. You have to.
You think that that guy has less than 10 seconds
to be great. He doesn't. He didn't have time
for anything like that, right? I mean, even our
women's rugby team, they trained not just four
years because they're trying to make a name for
themselves, like in rugby, many years to get
to this point. And, you know, they got a bronze
medal out of it. And so that's to be commended.
So the first thing is, yeah, you have to be intentional
with what you're doing and you also have to be
consistent. And then after that. It's whatever
is important for your sport or what your goal
is. If you want to get faster, you need to sprint.
If you want to get stronger, you need to lift.
You need to get some type of resistance to your
body. So those is be specific, I guess, at the
end point there. But if you don't have the first
two, it doesn't even matter what you pick. You're
not going anywhere. No, I think that's great
because I think a lot of times people or athletes,
especially younger athletes look up to maybe
these older athletes and just want like, okay,
what exactly do I need to do? But they can have
the best or the most well thought out written
program. But if they're not doing it consistent,
consistently or with the right intent, like you
mentioned, it's not going to work. I know, I
know. I guess one thing that I would say to kind
of close this out here, if you're somebody who
looks at a role model, As someone you aspire
to be in athletics Don't look at their highlights,
right? Like go read about times that they had
to overcome or watch a whole training monologue
because Their highlights don't tell you all the
stuff that they went through to get to that point.
It just shows you the result of all those things,
right? Like they're that great because of some
other stuff that's not in the highlight and a
lot of time that it took to develop those qualities.
So don't just be stuck on the highlights, right?
You need to be dedicated to the ins and outs
of every moment of training that it takes to
get to that point, you know, training and recovery,
because you can't, if you haven't learned that
recovery is a big deal by now, You need to read
up on it, right? It's not just how hard you train.
It's how great you recover so Thanks for everybody
for listening. It's been great. Hope you continue
to watch the Olympics Exciting moments happening.
Yeah, go USA and we will catch you on the next
one. See ya