A Few Random Thoughts

In my travels and I get the opportunity to observe a lot of different things. Here are some random thoughts based on things that I have seen over the past few months.

Rethink the use and role of strength coaches – Ultimately the responsibility lies with the sport coach for the athlete’s performance. The strength coach does not have that same responsibility or stake in the athlete’s performance. Often they are chasing numbers with no connection to performance. I think sport coaches should take command of Strength & Conditioning/Athletic development. They need to know what is going on, everything MUST be integrated to achieve optimum performance.

Heart rate by itself is not a very meaningful measure. It must be in context with other measures. Impossible to base training on heart rate, too many variables affect it. 99% of the time RPE is a great window into stress and adaptation.

Olympic euphoria sometimes blinds us. Look into the medals, how were they achieved? Who achieved them? Who were the coaches? What kind of support was necessary? Was it the product of a system?

Strength Training – Don’t try to fit it into a program – build around it. Use it for a foundation.

It is much more important to know how to think than it is to know what to think.

Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do. Think about what is probable and possible, not what is impossible and improbable.

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Comment by John Weatherly on June 18, 2012 at 7:34am: As an outsider looking in (I'm a fundraiser for health nonprofits who started out wanting to be a strength and conditioning coach), I see both of your points. The "meathead" strength coach is something that has hurt the field. It really turned me off of strength coaching when Boyd Epley hired an ex Nebraska and NFL player who had used steroids and didn't have any formal education at all in the exercise/sport sciences as "Coordinator of Performance Education" in the mid-late 90's. Just a complete scam. If I were in Craig's shoes, I certainly wouldn't want a sport coach without my background controlling the conditioning program. And strength coaches at a lot of places still don't seem to get paid much at all. I just saw an ad for a Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Stetson University in Deland, FL that listed a yearly salary of $39K. Who are you going to get for that? A median salary for a mid-career elementary school teacher is over 50K.

Comment by Craig Cheek on June 11, 2012 at 3:58pm: when i say same, i mean at least a high level background in training athletes. not just diagramming x's and o's.

Comment by Craig Cheek on June 11, 2012 at 3:57pm: If a sport coach has the same training backgrond that I do, then I see no problem having them actively involved in the programming. Problem is, most coaches dont give a shit. I'll get out of the profession before I let sport coaches who think the mile run is the ultimate test of mental fortitude and fitness determine which direction the training program should go.

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