Another month, another post with all the random thoughts that have been going through my head as I make my way through more books, listen to more podcasts, and spend time on the training floor training both athletes and general pop clients.

Enjoy!

1. Other coaches preach about this all the time, but athletes and general population clients need more work, both power and strength, out of the sagittal plane. I still think we as a profession do way to much in the sagittal plane. There aren’t any field sports, court sports or anything other sports that won’t benefit from moving stronger and more powerful outside the sagittal plane.
2. Piggybacking off the previous thought, athletes should not be card carrying members of team sagittal or team bilateral. Get in various planes of movement. Do it on one leg or use one arm. This is injury prevention 101. This is how to improve movement quality. This is how athletes should train. This stuff should be common sense but unfortunately I think its far from it.
3. I think we need to add slightly more plane specific power work as the season approaches. For example, I hang clean and hang snatch our women’s hockey program for power work close to year round and perform various plyo’s to improve power – but I don’t think either of these activities improve sport specific power, the ability to shoot a puck or produce greater force during the hockey stride. Eric Cressey always talks about power being plane specific – that hang clean won’t do much when it comes to throwing a baseball harder. Movements like med ball side tosses, lateral bounds, band resisted lateral bound and other frontal plane power work is probably need to fully develop the athlete.
4. Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. – Jimi Hendrix
5. If every athlete on a team is doing the same exact program, you are either doing them a disservice by giving everyone the same cookie-cutter program or you have the perfect program/are smarter then everyone else. And I highly doubt it’s the latter of the two. Progress some athletes. Regress some athletes. Lateralize some athletes. At the end of the day, just do what’s right for each athlete.
6. It takes courage to admit you don’t have all the answers. It’s also what the best of the best do and why they continue to grow.
7. I’ve been thinking a lot about Charlie Weingroff’s Lowest System Load thought process lately. I think it’s where strength training has gone with some of the best programs and coaches in the world and where more strength programs need to go in the future. I tend to think it is the way athletes should train year round, but if nothing else, it seems like an obvious way to train athletes in-season while keeping them fresh and not sore.
8. Do less better. Intensity and quality always trump volume and quantity.
9. The idea of micro-dosing really intrigues me. Having athlete come in more often but doing less seems like a no-brainer. Small but consistent doses probably lead to less fatigue, better training, and a more focused athlete during the shorter time period.
10. Every single strength coach will do the same things or think the same way as you or the coaches you associate with in the field – and that’s okay. Respect the differences. Learn from everyone. Constantly adapt. It’s not a bad thing that other coaches may challenge your thought process or challenge the status quo.