It’s June, so that means another edition of random thoughts for the month. Here are a few thoughts that have been going through my head. Enjoy!

1. “Our responsibility as coaches is to close gaps that limit performance not create them. Give athletes what they need not what we like/want.” – Ryan Horn

2. We as coaches are often too worried about numbers in the weight room, rather then the effect the training is having on the athlete.

3. Hip extension is very important for athletes…but we need to make sure how glutes are the ones driving hip extension. Far too often you will find athletes substituting lumbar extension instead of hip extension which will lead to various other issues.

4. Athletes must be strong, but only to the extent that it can benefit them in their sport.

5. A question to ponder: Does it matter how much weight we can lift slow?

6. Piggybacking off the two previous thoughts, generally speaking, I think for team sports power is the most important, most crucial quality we can help develop. But you can’t have power without strength. The goal should be to get athletes strong enough to benefit them as much as possible in their sport and then make them as powerful as we can.

7. The two biggest issues in our field are stupidity and ego. Simply pull up some YouTube training videos and you’ll soon realize that a lot of programs are doing a lot of stupid things. Ego, on the other hand, may be the reason coaches/programs continue to do stupid things and are slow to evolve. I firmly believe people would rather continue to do what they’ve always done then make changes because they would look ‘wrong’. You don’t know what you don’t know. There is nothing wrong with changing, change means you are evolving and getting better…change is a good thing.

8. The weight room needs to be a fun, exciting, positive atmosphere. You catch more flies with honey then you do with vinegar.

9. I am without a doubt, a generalist when it comes to programming. I would say that 85-90% of what I do is the same across all teams. The differences from sport to sport come in that other 10-15%, but the big rocks are the big rocks no matter what team I am programming for.
10. Great strength coaches adapt to the needs of the players they coach and the coaches they work for.