Never sacrifice movement for load. That mantra forms the foundation of my approach to training. This is a ‘hot topic’ in some coaching circles. Coaches, especially those in gyms, like big numbers. Lifting heavier weights each week shows progress and is easily measured. But at what cost? Read more
On Thursday we hosted our most recent HMMR Member Hangout on core strength and trunk stability. Hangouts are one of the benefits of being a HMMR Plus member, they give you a chance to talk shop with some of the best in the business. This month Vern Gambetta, James Marshall, Mike Bahn, Steve Myrland and several more guest members joined in the conversation and here are a few of the things I learned. Read more
Functional training is training that incorporates a full spectrum of training methods, designed to elicit optimum adaptive response appropriate for the sport or activity being trained for. Read more
Racks, benches, bars and platforms dominate the space in most high school and collegiate weight rooms. The iron temple arms race is alive and well. Read more
Perhaps the most persistent blunder athletes and coaches make in training to compete is regularly mistaking “strength” for “athleticism,” so let’s clear this up right away: Athleticism—the ability to express one’s physical self with optimal speed, agility, strength, balance, suppleness, stamina and grace while avoiding injury—is the goal. Strength, as you will note by re-reading the sentence, above, is a single element of the collective term: athleticism. You cannot be athletic without being strong; but you can be strong without being athletic. Read more
Mike Boyle sparked an online debate when he called out sports specific training last month. In his opinion, no matter the sport, 90% of training doesn’t change. As an elite coach who has worked with dozens of professional sports, he has seen first hand what needs to be tailored to the sport, and what applies to all sports. On this week’s episode he joins us to talk shop about his approach to sport specific training and where it often goes wrong. Read more
Throughout the year we’ve had the pleasure of hosting 34 guests on the HMMR Podcast, including coaches of Olympic champions and world record holders. On this week’s podcast we’ve pulled together some of our favorite moments with athletic development coaches that think different. We cover a wide range of topics such as the art of coaching, individualization, circuit training, transfer of training and more with guests Michael Lepp, Jerome Simian, Boo Schexnayder, Steve Myrland, Dan Noble, JB Morin, and James Marshall.
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It’s that time of year where young athletes are about to go on vacation. Over the next few weeks, most high school and college athletes will be away from their coaches during the holidays. This can be challenging for the strength coach because athletes are traveling out of town, may not have transportation to a training facility, and may just flat out not be motivated to train over the break partly because their normal schedule is thrown off. For a number of years I have tried many different remedies to counter this break and make sure all the improvements that were made over the course of the fall and part of winter were not lost. Here are my ideas and opinions on how we got the job done. Read more
It’s cliche to say that the warm up is the most overlooked part of training, but despite hearing more and more share creative ideas for warming up over the past few years, I still see more bad warmups than good warmups. Running a few laps and stretching is still more the rule than the exception. Read more
As a coach, particularly as a conditioning coach, following the functional path has at times been frustrating but ultimately a very satisfying experience. The path has been narrow and very winding at times and clear and well-paved at others. Beginning on the path there were more questions than answers. I found there were not a lot of sources to go to initially. But the farther I got down the path the more I found signs that many people had been there before. I would see a concept here, a training method there, hear a presentation or read an article. All of them were on the track, but there was no unified direction. I realized that in athlete development there were commonalities that had to occur to achieve successful development. Read more
