On Friday, Jake and I attended the All Sports Strength Clinic being held at A&M Consolidated High School. This was a smaller clinic with only four speakers. While the length of the clinic was short the quality of the speakers were very high. The clinic started off with A&M Consolidated head strength and coach John Mitchell. Coach Mitchell spoke on creating the six-year athlete. I agreed a lot with how John has set up his program model. Being a middle school coach for three and half years, I feel that the high school sports performance model must start there. Well, it should start in the elementary schools, but that is another topic all together. Mitchell's middle school athletes rotate between a two day and three day lifting schedule The days his athletes are not in the weight room they are outside running/saq/plyos, etc... Coach Mitchell's main goals for his middle school performance program are to evaluate his athletes, make sure all of his athletes are "bought in" to their program, and develop proper proprioception and movement patterns. I liked the fact that he starts his 7th graders off with the front squat. That is some that I do with my middle school athletes and I feel it is a great teaching tool for developing proper squatting technique. I also liked the fact the Mitchell was big on mastering body weight exercises in addition to the barbell lifts. It is my opinion that athletes today can lift all the weight in the world, but can't perform basic body weight movements such as squats, push ups, pull up, and planks. Finally, I liked Coach Mitchell's use of micro loading with his athletes. This is something I have been wanting to try with my athletes and after hearing him speak, it is definitely something I am going to incorporate into our next block of training.
Next up to speak was Coach Vince Anderson, assistant track coach (sprints) at Texas A&M University. Coach Anderson was an intense coach. You could feel his passion for sprints as he talked about his coaching philosophy. The big take away from his talk was correct running posture will fix a lot of running technical problems. Athletes must learn to run tall. Also, Anderson talked about coaching the sprints from a holistic point of view rather than breaking it up into the various phases (drive, accel, max velocity, etc...) He stated that too many times athletes take too many steps out of the blocks resembling Fred Flinstone. Athletes to have big displacement at the start of the sprint. One of his main coaching objectives was to teach all of his athletes the same acceleration pattern and also to utilize a common coaching language. That way everyone was on the same page. One comment he made was that running really fast feels exactly like marching in place. He paralleled sprinting to marching. Athletes must simply step down when they run. Thus running becomes like marching. Anderson also made it very clear to never coach the stride. Striding is the sworn enemy of sprinting. Anderson mentioned that the purpose of the start is to, "violently push the athlete into tall sprint posture instantly. You can't develop speed in a state of fatigue. I feel that sometimes as coaches we are under the time gun and can quickly forget that speed development must be done when the athlete is fresh and can perform maximally. Best quote of the day, "Great athletes achieve full range of motion faster than other athletes do."
It was now time for Coach Dan Burk, head football coach/athletic coordinator from Bay City, TX to speak. Coach Burk had been a collegiate strength and conditioning coach for many years, most notably at University of Arizona. Once he got rolling you could tell Coach Burk was from the old school. I don't mean that negatively, just that there weren't many bells and whistles to his program for his athletes. They perform some type of Olympic movement everyday, which I really liked. He also talked about a plate circuit that he did for toughness at the end of each workout. I liked that idea a lot too. Brought back memories of my playing days at Baker University. Burk stated that he wants his athletes to be Durable (I like that word), Strong, and Tough. He had a good open field agility circuit that he showed that I really liked and will probably implement into either our summer program or next off season.
Last, but certainly not least was Coach John Janacek head strength and conditioning coach at Longview High School. I first met John several years ago at a middle school track meet. After talking that day I found out that we knew some of the same people, which was pretty cool. When the Longview job came open, I was really interested in it because I have family out there. I didn't pursue it and when I found out John got the job I was very excited for him. Before Longview, John was the strength and conditioning coach for powerhouse Trinity High School in Euless. Janacek has a very simple, yet very effective, way to train his athletes. For the most part they train two lifts each session and they train those lifts very heavy. His training sessions are not based on sets and reps, rather, they are based on time. He gives his athletes a certain amount of time with each lift and then allows the athletes to work up to a max weight for the day. It's a little more complicated than that, wait, no it's not. That's it. If an athlete reaches his max weight before the time is completed, then he will lower the weight and perform the required rep scheme until the time expires. Janacek also squats his athletes four times a week as well. If you haven't figured out by now John is also an avid Olympic weightlifter who competes regularly. The biggest take away from this lecture was that you can get a lot done with very bare bones materials. All you need is a bar and some weights.
For the short amount of time and low cost (25$) this was a very informative clinic. I am planning on attending next year. Hats off to Coach Mitchell and A&M Consolidated High School for a job well done.
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