Another month, another post full of random thoughts that have been going through my head. Hope it sparks a little thought in people and you enjoy!

1. We as a profession need to do a better job of building the profession, of being respected strength coaches and not the idiots that are loud and have athletes lift weights and run sprints. Strength coaches aren’t paid to be cheerleaders, they are paid to be professionals.
2. “I don’t feel like I ever do enough for my athletes.” – Kurt Hester on The Art of Coaching Podcast. Love it.
3. Culture is WAY more important then sets and reps are. Get culture right and everything else will fall into place nicely. Culture > Everything else.
4. Piggybacking off this, make the weight room an exciting and fun environment to be in. Not every athlete is going to love lifting, but at least they won’t hate being there.
5. Two things I can do a better job at as a strength coach. One, attention to detail, and this is in so many different aspects of my jobs as a strength coach. Two, explaining the ‘why’ of what we are doing better – I need to do a better job of over-communicating why we are doing the things that we are doing.
6. One big change I’ve made with hockey populations is a 2:1 ratio of Pulling to Pushing and Hip Dom to Knee Dom in-season. The sport keeps you in a constant shoulders rolled forward position and a constant hip flexed position. More pulling, more hip extension.
7. Complacency kills more coaching careers then anything else does.
8. So many coaches go to social media to learn and follow what many others in the field are doing – yet so many coaches criticize other coaches for putting themselves out there on social media. You can’t win.
9. It is extremely rare to find someone with good thoracic spine rotation. That said, its probably a good idea to be performing some type of t-spine mobility drill with every group every time you see them.
10. The key to keeping hamstrings healthy is smart programming. Hamstring/posterior chain movements need to be movements that ask the hamstring and the glute to work together to create movement. The means 1-Leg RDL’s, Slideboard Leg Curls, Nordics/GHR’s, bridging variations and deadlift variations. Lying leg curls do the opposite. Manual resisted leg curls do the opposite.