Training in the college setting

As a strength coach, it's actually very easy to write programs and get results for someone who is the "ideal" client. You know, no injury history, clear-cut goals, no overbearing parent trying to do your job for you, does everything perfectly the first time you describe it to them. However, in the real world, this client is the exception rather than the rule (if not a figment of our imagination). There are many obstacles that you encounter depending on your situation. I think one of the toughest jobs in this industry is on the college campus. It is possible to be responsible for hundreds of kids who all have different issues and have come from different backgrounds of training for 10+ years prior to you getting your hands on them. How would you handle it?

Here's an interview with RPI strength coach, and good friend, Kyle Sottung.

Enjoy.

JH: Standard first open-ended question, tell us a little about yourself…What do you do now and how did you get to this point? So basically give us your entire auto-biography in 3-4 sentences.

KS: I grew up playing all types of sports, and I played football, basketball, and baseball in high school. When I went to Ithaca College to play baseball, I was undecided on a major. Ithaca had an excellent exercise science department, so it was a natural fit for me considering my love of sports. I wanted to continue to be around athletes even after my playing days were finished. After undergraduate and graduate school at Ithaca, I joined Lee Taft in Queensbury for the opening of his new business. I learned from Lee, who I consider my mentor, for two years before taking the strength and conditioning at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

JH: I know some strength coaches at big schools are assigned to individual teams…so the football, or hockey team, may have their own coach. How is RPI set up? What is your situation?

KS: When I first arrived at RPI, they were in a transition period. There was a new Athletic Director, the two previous full-time strength and conditioning coaches had just taken jobs at Division I schools, and Athletics was moving into an amazing new facility. RPI has 21 Division III Varsity sports, and 2 Division I Varsity sports (Men’s and Women’s Hockey). I was put in charge of all of them as the only full-time strength and conditioning coach. Needless to say, I was busy. It has taken a lot of work and creativity to make sure that athletes are not falling through the cracks. I hope to build the program up enough that we have a steady supply of interns and assistants who want to be a part of a really dynamic strength and conditioning program.

JH: You were a great college pitcher at Ithaca, and one of the best overall athletes I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Honestly, other than me owning you at darts I think I’m intimidated to play sports on Playstation against you (not to mention, with your competitiveness, I’m sure you’d be “that guy” to turn off the system if you were going to lose anyway-but I digress). How has your athleticism helped you establish yourself in your setting today?

KS: Wow, that’s a loaded question. First off, I would never turn off the Playstation. But that’s only because I would never turn it on in the first place. My video game skills end at Tetris and Big Buck Hunter Arcade. Second, I feel like I owe the athleticism that I have to my parents unknowingly providing me with the tools to be a good athlete. They took me to gymnastics when I was too young for organized sports, they encouraged me to be outside playing, swimming, and playing all sorts of sports. They put in countless hours driving me to practice and games, and were very supportive. And as we know, it’s those critical younger years where we pick up a lot of our coordination, movement skills, and love for physical activity. As far as how it has helped me in my profession, I think it makes the coaches and athletes more comfortable knowing that I understand the training needs of their sport. The term “Sport Specific” makes coaches and athletes think they need to train a different way than other sports, which is true only to a point. They still need strength, stability, flexibility, and power. If I can physically demonstrate to them how to do an exercise properly, and then demonstrate how this is going to help them perform better on the field, they are more likely to buy in and commit to the program. In addition to that, I think it’s important on some level to practice what you preach. If I tell the athletes to do something, you can guarantee that I’ve done it and understand it. I don’t have to be able to outdo them in everything, but they should know that I’m still an athlete.

JH: You know it’s funny, the first question I often get asked, especially from the high school athletes, is “how much ya bench?” I feel like I’m stuck in a combination twilight zone/Saturday night live skit from the ‘80’s. I’ve always been a poor bencher, but once I am able to demonstrate more complicated lifts a couple times they start to listen a little closer.

That’s a great that you did gymnastics. Coupled with baseball, where you really learn to excel with hand-eye coordination, overhead throwing, and rotational power, you can really see how it would all come together for you down the road. I think it really goes to show the value in an all-encompassing “training program” as a kid. Essentially it’s organized fun that works strength, power, mobility, and coordination and everything in between.

Moving on, What would you say is the biggest challenge you’ve faced at RPI? Is it programming for so many kids, long hours, dealing with demanding coaches, or anything in between?

KS: I think the biggest challenge has implementing a different philosophy of training. When I came into the program, there was an established way of doing things, and it’s hard for an athlete to change something after 3 years of training. So I had certain ideas that I waited to implement, just because I didn’t want to overhaul everything at once. I slowly started to implement my style, and as the athletes saw results, they wanted more. The questions started to come, they started to pay closer attention, and in the second year I hope to build on that, especially with a new progression aimed at incoming freshman. I can start to mold them right from the start, with 4 years of development in mind. The second biggest challenge is balancing the work schedule with my personal life. I love what I do, so it’s easy for me to work for very long hours. But I also need to take care of myself. It’s a balance I’m still working on.

JH: I know when we get together we sometimes like to vent…mostly about other peoples’ training techniques or programs, especially with athletes that think they already know it all. How tough is it to overcome that mindset of the college stud who doesn’t need any help from you? Do you chalk it up to a lost cause or try a different approach to bring him over from the dark side?

KS: It’s funny when you start to compare the ideas about strength and conditioning from the general public and the top-tier strength and conditioning coaches. A good example was the other day, when you and I were looking at a video on YouTube of an elite athlete doing a core exercise. The video was posted on YouTube and on StrengthCoach.com. The YouTube comments consisted of “awesome stuff”, “can’t wait to try it”, “what a great exercise”, etc. and the StrengthCoach.com comments were more along the lines of “I would never do this with my athletes because of the risk involved”. There’s so much bad information out there bombarding the public (I have included a picture below), and they are confused.




That being said, it’s certainly our job to get good information in the hands of the misinformed and educate them. If someone asks for my help and won’t follow my advice, then they really didn’t want my help in the first place. If I have an older athlete who is stuck in their ways, I’ll make them explain to me why their way is better. When they are put on the spot, it’s usually “well, this is how my trainer from home told me to do it” or “that’s what I read in a magazine”. Then I’ll explain the physiological or anatomical reason why it should be done a certain way. It’s a gentle way of saying “I know more about this stuff than you do, so why don’t you be quiet and do it my way” without forcing them to do it with no explanation. If you open up a dialogue, you can get a lot more accomplished. By doing this, I’ve actually learned some things from my athletes. Really, the way to get them to come over to your side is with results. If my programs are good and the athletes are increasing their performance, are avoiding injuries, and look and feel great, I don’t have to sell anything.

Thanks for your time and very thorough answers, Kyle, I'm sure we'll be hearing from you soon!

Functional Training?

One of many buzzwords that have been floating around the strength and conditioning world for a while now is "functional training." It sounds good, can catch the attention of potential clients, and can be useful if done correctly. But what exactly is it?

I remember having a discussion in a graduate school class while in Ithaca on the topic. We tried for a solid 20 minutes to come up with a workable definition and I'm not sure we ever came to a consensus. I remember discussing the merits of the bench press vs. exercises like sled pushing for offensive lineman in football. That day, I think we finally accepted the idea that "functional" simply meant "looks a lot like the sport you're training for." So, trainers watch sports and then make their athletes perform the same movements but get creative with it and add resistance. And this is the idea than many coaches, trainers and athletes have run with.

I believe this has led to 2 main problems with training:
1) Adding blind resistance to movement patterns without considering what the actual goals are of the athlete
2) Over emphasis on "gimicky" equipment; wobble boards, stability balls, vibration platforms, etc. (they do have their place-but do you really need your 10th grade running back to perform squats on a stability ball?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTCIA5umib8

I love the music they chose to have on in the background

With the first issue of blindly adding resistance, I personally think this method is a little too simplified. First of all, not all movements in sports need to be made harder with training just because the athlete has become proficient at it. And making a movement harder does not simply mean adding weight to it.

My mentor, Lee Taft, made this clear to me when he made an example with a basketball player (by the way, pretty much all of my information about training has come from him, so if I don't reference you could probably just assume). If you are a 90% shooter from the foul line, should you now practice with a weighted ball? Of course not, but this same logic has been applied to all aspects of training.

With number 2: A positive advancement in the training industry is that more and more people have gone away from fixed machines. Finally. However, many of us have gone to the extreme and really all we have accomplished is a few cool you tube videos and probably countless injuries (avoidable ones at that).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pLkjqBNLQ

The best definition I have heard of Functional Training was at a conference, and I believe it was Gray Cook who was speaking. He definied it as "any training that translates into improved performance in activities of daily living." That's not word for word, but you get the idea. This means that functional carries a different meaning for everybody. The 22 year old baseball player shouldn't train the same as a 50 year old factory worker or a 75 year old woman trying to live independent of outside assistance.

I guess the lesson is to take into account 3 considerations before using a given exercise:

1) What are my goals for using this exercise?
2) Is this exercise accomplishing these goals?
3) What are the risks associated with the exercise vs. the benefits I can gain from doing it?

The 3rd question is most important. If you can't justify the risk (a la squatting on a stability ball-is the possibily of a broken neck really worth the slightly increased demand on hip adductors that you can get in a multitude of different ways while grounded?) then DON'T DO THE EXERCISE!

Happy Track Season to Upstate NY'ers!
Jon

LSD Kills

It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm taking a break from working on a big project for a high school PE curriculum to write this post.

The project I am working on is a year-long training program for an Advanced PE class. Needless to say, it can turn into a rather daunting task.

Given the goals of the class, along with the limited time and days available there are many questions that need to be answered.

What type of periodization scheme is best?
Which exercises should I include to maximize performance and injury prevention benefits, while still hitting all major movement patterns?

What do I do for multi-sport athletes who are inseason almost all year-round?

Are all students participating going to be experienced lifters?

These are just a few of the considerations I have to take into account, and none of those questions are easily answered or addressed.

As I am working I have the Yankee game on in the background and I overheard Al Leiter discussing training modalities for in-between starts. I heard him say how obvious the benefits are for running 30-45 minutes at a steady state to "flush the system" and get a "great workout for the legs."

This brings up the only question easily answered: How do I include "cardiovascular" conditioning into the program? Now, I use cardiovascular in quotation marks because I know most people reading this will immediately think of going out and pounding the pavement (or treadmill-yikes). My answer to this question was easy, simply because I will not be including any type of Long, Slow, distance training into this training program (or any other for that matter).

I don't consider myself anti-running as much as I am Pro-research. And the research is very one-sided. Any benefits you can gain from distance running can be accomplished with high-intensity interval type training. It sacrifices lean muscle-mass and therefore strength. Throw in the overuse injuries that invariably happen with distance running, and the subsequent time off from training (I love Mike Boyle's "distance runner conversation": Runner 1: Are you injured or training? Runner 2: I just got over _____itis and have started training again), and what argument is there left? I'd love to hear the other side of the argument, but the only defense seems to be, "it's what was always done," or "how bad can it really be?" If that's the best you can do when either designing a training program, or training yourself, do you think it's really worth the time?

The funny thing is, among trainers the argument is considered over. Yet throughout high school, college, and professional athletics (not to mention weekend warriors) running is still the status quo. Hopefully before you make your argument, whichever side you are on, you at least do your research first!

Who would you rather your athletes resemble?

Left Pic: Marathoner

Right Pic: Sprinter

I'm not sure what this picture has to do with this post, but when I typed in "Sprinter" into Google Images, it came up. So why not?

To sum up, sprint more, run less, and find a good strength training program and you're on the right track.

Love to hear your thoughts,
Jon

Summer training outdoors

One of the challenges strength coaches can come across is a lack of equipment. There’s a few reasons this can be problematic. For starters, how do you convince potential clients, who don’t know anything about you, that you can get them a good workout without the use of plates, bars, dumbbells and every shiny piece of new-fangled machinery that all the big gyms are using these days? Then even if you do convince them to give you a try, are you creative enough to give them that good strength workout on a limited budget?

Here’s a small sample of what I've done with some athletes I’m working with this summer. I chose to use an outdoor park so we have plenty of space, but not much for weights. I picked up a couple of sand bags and cement bags (50 and 75 lbs) and have had the good fortune of having athletes capable of handling these for complex lifts.

Another issue I've had is with giving the athletes a training effect knowing full well that they are training outside of my sessions and in addition to sometimes multiple summer leagues and camps. I need to give them a different stimulus that they aren't already getting, without fatiguing them to the point of hindering the rest of their training.

This is not a beginner's exercise. The athlete in the video has a lot of experience lifting and even he struggled on one of his reps. This was ok, as he self-corrected right after.

Let me know your thoughts,
Jon

Welcome!

Hi everyone and welcome to the inaugural post of my new blog. What I hope to do with my postings is shed some light on different training techniques, philosophies and ideas; make a few random observations about everyday life; and even throw in the occasional rant to blow off some steam.

My name is Jonathan Hudak, and I have been a strength and conditioning coach in the area since 2009. I have been out on my own (sort of) for about 9 months and am loving every minute of it. My goal is to learn as much as I possibly can about my field, and life, and pass it on to whoever is willing to listen!

Hopefully I can bring a unique perspective to the table (although let’s be honest everything I use will have been stolen from someone at some point). What makes me think I can be unique? I don’t know really. I am a ginger, so I think a different outlook comes with the territory.
So that’s my brief story, if anyone has any suggestions for topics don’t hesitate to let me know.

I’m out,
Jon