About Michigan's new S & C coach

that shit was funny, now i must go jog some laps.:cool:

along with steve slanton 4.2 40yd dash.

good luck why, twhite play div1 ball?

I’d like to agree in theory; however, being a D1 coach myself I assure you that an overwhelming majority of the players don’t care enough to investigate, challenge, etcetera.

Forget about why this is because it is what it is.

I often ask my guys why they rarely, if ever, demand an explanation from me as to why I construct the training that I do. The answer is always, we trust you.

Many of the athletes, just like the rest of the masses, coaches, ADs, and so on, simply assume that if you work at a certain level (as absurd as the assumption is)- you must be good.

Laughing my ass off!

Seems like he is from the Paul Chek school?

I wonder if he had an interview for the position? I bet the other candidates gave up waiting…

I played D-1 football, not at a big time school but I can’t imagine the coaches being any stricter or consuming any more of your time when it comes to football.

I had a strength coach who ran things very tightly. Still, you can easily half-ass things you believe aren’t going to help you and go hard on things you think are going to help you (you just need to find out what these things are!). You can do extra work outs that you think will benefit you as well. Summer training is not mandatory either. I don’t care what anyone says, you can say it’s “voluntarily mandatory” but if you go home for summer, bust your ass and GET BETTER, at the end of camp if you are whooping ass on the field you will play. I know plenty of kids who stayed all summer, did fantastic on conditioning tests and shit only to have their spots taken by kids who did absolutely nothing all summer. And I mean absolutely nothing to the nth degree. Ultimately, a strength coach has you at his mercy for a max of about 10 weeks. Between in-season, winter break, spring ball, post-spring ball and summer, progress can be made.

No, you can’t control everything. But as James Smith stated their are too many players who take the advice of their strength coaches as if they are god. Blaming the strength coach for your short comings as progressing as an athlete is an excuse. Is it optimal? Again, no. But optimal is hardly ever reality to begin with.

But this is the problem. The “why” is because many athletes and people in general are lazy. It might be the way it is, but it’s not the way it has to be.

Like I said before, if you were faster/stronger in high school than you are in college, the athlete themself needs to do something about this and not just blame others.

Also, from my experience my fellow teammates were not that oblivious. I’d say at least 75 out of 100 teammates knew that running for 1 hour straight consisting of bear crawling, pushing bags, up downs, agility ladders, 300 yard shuttles (in freakin February) was NOT helping us become better football players and that all that “conditioning” was going to be irrelevant come August. It was merely a way for coaches to have control over us and make us “tougher.” However, many do accept this as the way it is. But that is their fault and not the way it needs to be.

Originally Posted by Pioneer
Number Two, I was told by someone on staff at WVU(faculty) that Owen Schmitt’s 500+ p.c. was actually(no surprise there I suppose) a predicted max with either 325 or 335 lbs. for multiple reps
.

Ah yes, the good ol’ predictor…
It’s always great when incredible bull crap gets called out…It’s almost like J. Goebells (sp?) - don’t tell a little lie, tell the BIG lie!
I wonder if any of the coaching staff was even aware that they were posting a power clean that rivals that of H. Rezzazadeh, the Iranian super heavyweight lifter…

I fully agree.

The question isn’t whether or not the situation can be improved; nor is their any doubt that the situation is unacceptable.

The reality, however, is that the situation is so damaged that it would take the obliteration of western academia and the sport training industry in general, via the reworking of curriculums far and wide taught by re-educated professors/instructors/trainers/coaches who then are educating aspiring professors, instructors, trainers, coaches, media, administrators, physical educators, etcetera to actually be informed and qualified to do their work and evaluate the work of their peers, subordinates, and so on.

This will then bleed down to the level of the athlete who will then become more informed.

What’s disturbing, and most of us here will agree, is that of the sea of available training information- only a minuscule amount is truly well founded and of great value.

Regarding sport training related literature, while the internet is an incredible information gathering tool it is also not too dissimilar from the lottery, when used by the uniformed, in that the chances of hitting the sport training jackpot on google are rather infinitesimal.

http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/open-discussion-work-safe/606229-legend-mike-barwis.html

This is a great insight:)

So can someone tell me what this strength and conditioning program looks like in terms of what is actually done on a day to day basis besides an unquoted general week layout?

I mean someone here should since everyone agrees what they are doing is terrible.

If you go to petecarroll.com you can see the results of the combine day Coach Carlisle has for his players. No power cleans but Brian Cushing ( Joe D. athlete)did 225 for 35 reps. Great job. Other stats on VJ, etc.
I know a player who just signed with the Pats who PC’ed 380 in college. He said the best he saw was around 420. I know another player on the Seahawks who was high 300’s. Anything above about 430 is freaky. I pitty Michigan fans when an S&C makes comments like this.

that came to Michigan are idiots. They motherfk kids constantly. I know some coaches who visited their practices and they were shocked at the language. Trust me these guys are pretty colorful verbally so to shock them, thats tough. Braylon Edwards went to one workout with Barwis and told him to Fk off midway. Barwis told him he was lazy. Braylon said “This shit is crazy, call me lazy, but I am leaving!” Now I have to contend with all these local coaches trying to emulate these idiots. I can’t believe Barwis has the nerve to call his training “science based”. The guy just plain wrecks kids. One coach said to me " Barwis is a great strength coach" I said yes if you are a Navy seal, not a football player. My question for Barwis is “If your training is so good, why did WVU look so ordinary whenever Pat White was out?” I didn’t see them line up and whip teams asses in the 4th quarter. Lets see how Barwis’ boys hold up when Wisconsin and Ohio State line up and pound Michigans overtrained, unexplosive crew of D-line.

So he’s worse than Gittleson? Mich fans will never be happy.

but he was part of Bo’s regime. The only reason why he was still there is due to the loyalty that was given to Bo’s guys. I don’t personally care other than many of the kid’s I train are put through bullshit programs just because their coaches go to a Barwis seminar and think " Wow he trains Michigan, he must be great!" Then I have to deconstruct the whole process to show them why the program is erroneous. I think I spend more time trying to keep my college kids from getting wrecked by shitty college strength coaches. Most kid’s I sent out last year to CMU and GVSU came back weaker and slower then when they were in high school. The brain surgeon at CMU had the kids do 50x3 on squats to start the one leg workout followed by a total volume of 1200 reps for the day. Can someone explain what that is. That might be a month of leg volume for my kid’s.

Interesting about GVSU. What do you know about them? I have a couple friends that play for them. I haven’t ever talked to them about their training, but I guess I just figured based on their results with lesser recruited players they were doing something right.

No question Gittleson was horrible-I’ve posted similar words here and elsewhere many times-other threads on this site on the topic-Michigan Madness for one. Based upon what I’ve heard so far, Barwis is very much over the top with volume and lack of recovery in the program. I’m not really disagreeing with your points only that I still think the program is better off right now with MB than it was with MG. I hope that in Sept./Oct./Nov. I will hold the same opinion.

Even with all I’ve heard that sounds like over-training in the works, I’d still say he’s still a major improvement over Git. esp. since Git was known to severely overtrain his guys while using his bad lifting protocols on mostly machines, 3 1/2 mile golf course runs, very little in the way of plyos or true speed just short recovery sprint work etc.

Git was at UM for nearly 30 years and held onto his job because his head coaches(Bo included) did not know good from bad s & c. That, and like you said, loyalty played a huge part in who stayed and who did not in the long term. He was the sacred cow of UM fb. Who, at UM, knew what s & c was supposed to look like since he’s the only head s & c coach UM had ever seen. Unfortunately they just took him at his word that the guys were in “great shape” whatever that meant to him. He was known to regularly avoided testing his guys for speed, strength(other than the 225 test!), jumping etc. since, I believe, he knew his program would not hold up to such scrutiny.

One thing that sells Barwis with the fans is his outspoken, rapid-fire talk of not being outconditioned by any other team, etc., etc. They love the aggressive attitude and I admit, to a degree, so do I particularly after all of the underachieving in recent years and the true voluntary nature of the off-season program-some did not do anything.

Now, UM fans, without the first clue about s & c are proclaiming him as a world beater and it’s mostly due to his personality, being upbeat, getting after the players, etc. but also comments from current players about being faster, fitter and considering the previous program I can believe it-also for the first time I can recall, a number of current nfl players are training there which scarcely happened under Git so the fans are believing in him. Some of that I can really get behind but the the mega-volumes combined with little recovery I can’t. I do like that he is primarily free weight and not $HIT, incorporates some use of plyos and real speed training but tons of short recovery sprint work(not really speed) but will he let up on his guys? Does he know the words taper or unload? I don’t know-remains to be seen.

There is definitely an environment of accountability at UM now that’s probably not been there, program-wide, since Bo last coached. I just hope he does not injure and fry the CNS of each player in his quest to work the hell out of the players. As of right now, though, I’d still take him with what I think I know about his program over Git. Of course, an MB coached UM team has not taken the field yet.

Regarding the language, as a coach, that’s not really my style(but then I no longer coach fb either-track only) but I have heard that Bo’s language was definitely not for the faint of heart either-heard he could be pretty brutal, actually. I personally have a policy of not directing any cursing(rarely do it any practice anyway) at anyone in particular.

What I have heard with regard to WVU is that prior to the Pitt game they took two+ straight week of training completely off and only conducted normal practices with no speed/conditioning/weights.

Not saying this is the case at CMU, but I have heard of programs that will do something similar during their first week of winter workouts. Squat a ridiculous volume (say 100 reps at 70%-you’ve got 1 hour to get it done) and then go time a 40 the next day so they end up with a ridiculously high pre-test and then run a 40 fresh some weeks later and can boast about how they dropped .3 off a guy’s 40.

job. Their program is power based movements. Cleans, Squats, Bench, Deads. Their conditioning is short sprint based. It’s one of the few programs my kids showed me that wasn’t a piece of shit. Most of the other stuff is not good in my opinion. I tend to CFTS and blend with a WSB hybrid. Have been seeing excellent results. Had a 260 lb 16 yr old D line do 17 reps at 260 lbs. Runs a 5.05 forty. I am not against these programs, I just hate seeing kids force fed programs that don’t work or worse, drive up injury potential. One of the local hagh schools that I work with had their kid’s do 45 mins of straight plyos. Not resting but one drill to the next in circuit fashion. These idiots already blew out a kids meniscus. Not to mention these kids are going to end up with 10 inch verticals. I think If I ever hurt a kid in prep i would consider doing something else.