what James is saying. I don’t by any means think that the failure of Michigan is related completely to s&c failure. It’s just easy to point at due to both Barwis’ bombastic, arrogant approach to his own self promotion in the mass media. I have never heard interviews from most of the nations top s&c coaches. When people talked USC, it was Pete Carroll and Norm Chow. Florida, it was Urban Meyer. Michigan talks about Barwis as much as they do RRod. If you shamelessly self promote, you are due the questions regarding your product. As far as Michigan, I have a former player I trained who is a assistant to the team. He told me plenty of the crazy shit that goes on. Between the excessive running, constant berating of players, and complete lack of respect for anything recovery related, I am not surprised to see them not physically dominant. No 23 said mental fatigue could be an added factor. I agree. Could that not be a by product of excessive CNS stress? Michigan looked out of sorts and ill prepared. They were not physically dominant in any aspect of the game against an average team talent wise. I know the system is new and RRod hasn’t had a chance to get has personnel in place. I suppose the defensive front is an easy place to look as it was supposed to be the strength of the team. In a microcosm, they look worse than last year. They got little pressure on Clausen. They gave up big 3-4 yd runs that kept drives going. Bring back the fatter Terrance Taylor. At least he could the interior line. I just wonder if alot of the mistakes are fatigue related. I also wonder if Barwis has the players thinking that teams are going to fold due to Michigans superior conditioning. It’s kind of like boxing, you pound a guy for rounds and he is still in your face. Sometimes it works in reverse. When you aren’t wearing the other team out like you thought, maybe you get a little closer to quitting.
From what I’ve seen, despite the many shortcomings of MB’s program(many of which have been mentioned in this and other threads), I do believe the players look a bit better at the end of the games. It’s probably a bit early to make too much of a determination in any direction. They do, in my opinion, look fresher at then end of the games employing the failsafe eyeball technique:).
I think one point that some might be unaware of(not on this board, though) is just how bad things have been under Git. As over the top as MB is, Git. was incredibly bad. I won’t go over all of that now as it’s been posted(ad nauseum) by myself and others but Gittleson’s program was archaic and primitive to say the least.
Exactly - Yes it is
At the outset I have to admit not to knowing anythgin specific about the case in point - but just to point out that looking fresher means nothing - a sprinter and a marathon runner can both run 200m.
A marathon runner will/can look fresher, but have been blown away.
As Charlie says finishing strong means nothing if you lost in the first 10m!
It’s interesting too as any new coach will bring adaptations to to a team AT the START - especially if the training program is different from that which they were used to - regardless as to if it is the right one or not.
Fresher does mean something when the team has looked absolutely dead at times early in the second quarter against, for example the App. State game last year- let alone in the fourth- over the the years.
This is an aspect that does seem to be improved from what I can tell.
I certainly don’t think the s & c strategies employed are ideal but just pointing out some of the good mixed in with the bad, to be fair.
Yup, no argument there
A fine summary indeed.
So the moral of the story is … James … Sell Out!
profess to know the daily routine of U of M. I do however have first hand accounts from 2 fromer players who I know well who happen to be on the staff. They were a little stunned at both the training load, and the attitude of the staff. Most people would not want to take their kid to a practice for fear of the kid hearing a hundred fKs, Motherfks, and such. I think Barwis is a great improvement over Gittleson. I am however, intelligent enough to see extreme over training. I think Barwis implements good ideas in their parts. I just think he doesn’t seem to grasp training economy and recovery. Is that not periodization? Charlie taught me a valuable lesson a few years back. I sometimes expected concurrent gains in all areas of my programs. He taught me to deload one aspect when loading another. I try to keep players fresh. I played the game and understand the demand on your body. You rarely ever feel great going on the field. From what I watched so far I conclude this. Michigan is starting a new regime, so I will cut the technical aspect of execution out of this and stick purely to what I see physically. The d-line was supposed to be the strong point of the team. Barwis said Will Johnson was the strongest college player in the country. Terrance Taylor was considered a dominant d-line NFL prospect. They both have looked like they are on skates. They are experienced players so it’s not like they never played. The secondary looked slow and out of position. Sure the safety was out of position, but that doesn’t erase the fact that Tate flat out ran past Trent(supposedly fastest guy on Michigan). The only reason I beat the drum loudly about Barwis is that it directly affects me. I own an athletic prep company in SE Michigan and have to literally save some of my kids from local coaches “Trying to be Barwis”. I have had some kids just blown apart by the stupidity of high volume, low recovery training. I spend more time mending them then helping them improve. The jury is still out on Barwis as far as I go. It’s never too late to learn. But to quote Charlie " Punitive workouts are the tools by which morons define themselves".
There is no question that his volumes and recoveries(or lack thereof) are extremely lacking. That toughness stance of running when you don’t think you can’t walk has but limited value. I think Jamison and Schilling are two that have looked better than last year. On Taylor and Johnson I have mixed feelings as they can be very good or very average. Truth be told the guy who has been in the program the shortest time among the DL(?!), Martin, has looked the best in limited play. Coincidence?
Graham’s play has been very on and off-definitely takes too many plays off.
On the o-line I don’t know if the issue is lack of proper prep, lack of exp. or some of both. Molk with his great leverage has been shoved into the backfield a few too many times. Dorrenstein actually looked pretty good the other day. I think that there was too much of a focus on weight loss-esp. for the o-linemen.
According to Trent and co. they say the are faster but I’m not sure how they know this since they apparently have not done any testing. Brown is constantly out of position, misses tackles and great athlete or not is a defensive liability though according to RR it was in part the issue with other’s assignments. I don’t think Trent looks slower but I’m just guessing. Trent was supposed to have safety help on that play, from what I’ve heard but there was a “communication breakdown” or similar such. I think that Harrison is actually the fastest if you take their 40y dashes against each other as the deciding factor-maybe, maybe not the best way.
MB does make some ridiculous claims about performance ability of his guys-the latest is that Graham is now pc-ing 475(again this is from the vaunted rep. max prediction).
Long term, we’ll definitely have a better idea how this program thing works out. I do think some aspects are improved(metabolic conditioning) but the injuries seem only a little better than under Git. which is due, most likely, to the do “every method under the sun training strategy” that MB employs with zero RI and doing back to back high int. days. He seems to have no clue as to what would be HI int. and Low int.
One problem he has is that he thinks speed endurance or repeated speed endurance= speed.
Well put post. I think you are completely on the speed endurance=speed. I think his throw it all at the wall and see what sticks is problematic. I listened to his interview from goblue.com and I can’t tell what his philosophy is. He seems to borrow from every school of training known to man. I think if you want to be like Boyle and functional guys, stick to it for the most part. We seem to put out alot of fast, strong football players. It’s a hybrid of WSB meets CFTS. It’s not sexy, just effective. I have been doing this for 15 yrs full time and have been through everything from Chek to Charlie and everything in between. I discard much of what I found to as ineffective. When people see me speed train, they probably laugh at how little running my guys do and how few toys I utilize. Year in and year out, the kids turn heads at camps for speed. Maybe I would be better if I used the latest gadget. I think MB gets his players to buy into his system and I respect him for that. I just wish his program was actually steeped in science instead of him claiming it to be. By the way, Mike Martin is a force. My athletes program faced him every year. He is certainly a monster in the making. Great kid too. Never seen a kid take up wrestling his junior year then proceed to win back to back state championships. Freaky!
So Penn St is HIT. Many people including other local coaches say it’s shit. And this video says it’s awesome. And Penn State is awesome (I’m not even a big fan). Round and round we go.
HIT certainly makes you work hard. I don’t think it’s worse than no weights work and I’m sure there are plenty of “normal” strength coaches out there who do a lot worse BUT if I was going to sustain what those guys do I’d want to be sure what I was getting was the best it could be! Can’t be good for your confidence.
Speedcoach I agree with everything you’ve said.
I don’t, as you mention, understand his do it all and hope you’ve got your bases covered concept. It could work, I suppose but only if you carefully regulate the volumes/intensities and have your eyes heavily focused on the recovery aspect of the total program. Unfortunately, MB appears to do none of that.
You are right, it’s virtually impossible to tell what his philosophy could possibly be from that and other interviews when he mentions virtually every aspect of program design BUT the recovery aspect. When he’s talking to typical media types and fans who don’t know a clean from a cling(as you often see in articles) they are wowed by the use of terms such as “unstable apparatus training.” Just a bunch of rapid fire nonsense mixed in with some comments that seem to make sense. I think he’s just trying to put people into a trance with showing he’s got it all covered. It’s great to have enthusiasm and as you point out, it’s respectable to have a program that your players buy into but just what is his system?
The rep. maxes are just ridiculous. They are now stating that Brandon Grahams bench is up from 315 to just under 500. As ineffective as I think MG was, I find it hard to believe that BG’s bench got that low since he was reported to be low 400 or so coming out of h.s.(and it’s the one free weight barbell exercise they did, consistently, under Git.) so I’m sure it’s just an attempt to show just how much of an impact that he’s had on the program and to be sure he’s had an impact but I doubt to that degree.
It is a shame that so many programs have fooled parents, kids and coaches into thinking that the keys to success lies in toys rather than an effectively designed program. I’ve had coaches asking where my ladders were(the answer is typically it’s in my garage) or why I did not possess the latest and greatest tools that have been proven(?!) to be successful. I guess the selling point, initially, is they can’t see your experience nor your program and make heads nor tails of it(since they can’t discern the best one from the worst one) but they can see the gadgets and think that must be so cutting edge so they have to be more effective. Eventually, if they are paying attention, though, the results are really what speaks and should be the ultimate selling point via word of mouth-reputation.
I’d love to see the science, the research that he is basing his programs and templates on and who are the olympic sprinters he’s worked with-I believe that was the comment.
With all we’ve said regarding the problems with it, it would be hard for many to believe that he is still, likely, a major upgrade from Gittleson but we certainly believe he is. I’d love to see MB tone it down but as UM fan, I’m still glad he’s there and Git. is gone.
On Martin, yep he’s a stud with, as you mention, very little experience in wrestling but a lot of success. I think he threw the shot just under 64 ft. this year, also.
One other point that I can recall with MB is the overuse of the term prehab. Some fans have proclaimed this method/concept, whatever it is as some sort of insurance against injury-okaaaaaaay. So doing some mobility, corrective, etc. work in a complex and calling it prehab is going to make injuries go away? I’m not disputing that some of this is of value but it certainly won’t cause injuries to disappear as we’ve already seen. The suggestion is almost that he invented the concept and the exercises themselves. I’ve always thought that well programmed training, in itself, is the closest one can get to such a thing as injury prevention and it’s certainly not a guarantee of anything. It’s just, likely, a safer approach. Fans have proclaimed this as brilliance, address the injury before it comes or keep it from ever occurring.
Why didn’t we think of that?
Going back to this video… in addition to what I said earlier, the Philadelphia Eagles strength coach talks about how he thinks PSU s&c is very good and they steal strength training ideas from each other.
Are the Eagles HIT?
I liked the way you expounded on the points. All the “3 dimensionally unstable environment”, “prehab”, and comments of the like are borrowed from other coaches. You always hear Louie Simmons comment on prehab in his templates. Paul Chek was talking 3 dimensionally unstable ten years ago. The one thing MB doesn’t seem to see is these guys follow a SINGLE system. Perhaps there are better systems, but they both get results due to how their programs are designed. I think if you properly control the balance of exercises in relation to maintaining structural balance, then there is no need for “prehab”. With the amount of injuries Michigan has experienced already, it doesn’t seem to be working. I laughed about the ladders. I used to use them to teach young kids coordination of movement(10 yrs and below). The only I can think of for a use is a form of warm up. I just do the standard butt kick, A’s, B’s, etc. I am being honest when I say how simple the workouts are that we apply. The only thing I use besides cones is an Optum-SPS. It’s sort of a replacement for isorbic exerciser. Athlete’s can do tension controlled 30 yd accels. I only use it in small groups and only for short blocks of time. Parents who come to watch the 20-30 kid workouts are sometimes freaked out at how fast some of these kids move. We had a kid who plays LB at CMU 6’2" 235 lbs run a 4.47 hand timed. He is just a freshman this year. The funny thing is, just simple hybrid WSB and CFTS. The one RB I used to train ran 4.19 hand timed. He is starting RB at GVSU. He has cut close to .3 off of forty in 3 yrs. He was fastest kid at MSU camp out of 450 when he attended. Also fastest at Midwest Elite combine for highschool. His speed work. Short sprints, lots of recovery. I think if MB just simplified things, and addressed recovery instead of training athletes like Navy Seals, he would be a great s&c coach due to his ability to get kids to comply. It’s going to be hard to recruit athletes who know you are going to try to kill them. Many top basketball players avoided Indiana because Booby Knight’s methods. Mortac showed that clip of PSU. I thought it was pretty good. I don’t care for HIT myself, but JT keeps pumping out some good players. Hard to fault that.
I liked the way you expounded on the points. All the “3 dimensionally unstable environment”, “prehab”, and comments of the like are borrowed from other coaches. You always hear Louie Simmons comment on prehab in his templates. Paul Chek was talking 3 dimensionally unstable ten years ago. The one thing MB doesn’t seem to see is these guys follow a SINGLE system. Perhaps there are better systems, but they both get results due to how their programs are designed. I think if you properly control the balance of exercises in relation to maintaining structural balance, then there is no need for “prehab”. With the amount of injuries Michigan has experienced already, it doesn’t seem to be working. I laughed about the ladders. I used to use them to teach young kids coordination of movement(10 yrs and below). The only I can think of for a use is a form of warm up. I just do the standard butt kick, A’s, B’s, etc. I am being honest when I say how simple the workouts are that we apply. The only thing I use besides cones is an Optum-SPS. It’s sort of a replacement for isorbic exerciser. Athlete’s can do tension controlled 30 yd accels. I only use it in small groups and only for short blocks of time. Parents who come to watch the 20-30 kid workouts are sometimes freaked out at how fast some of these kids move. We had a kid who plays LB at CMU 6’2" 235 lbs run a 4.47 hand timed. He is just a freshman this year. The funny thing is, just simple hybrid WSB and CFTS. The one RB I used to train ran 4.19 hand timed. He is starting RB at GVSU. He has cut close to .3 off of forty in 3 yrs. He was fastest kid at MSU camp out of 450 when he attended. Also fastest at Midwest Elite combine for highschool. His speed work. Short sprints, lots of recovery. I think if MB just simplified things, and addressed recovery instead of training athletes like Navy Seals, he would be a great s&c coach due to his ability to get kids to comply. It’s going to be hard to recruit athletes who know you are going to try to kill them. Many top basketball players avoided Indiana because Booby Knight’s methods. Mortac showed that clip of PSU. I thought it was pretty good. I don’t care for HIT myself, but JT keeps pumping out some good players. Hard to fault that.
Mortac
Must be something in the PA water. I’m pretty sure Villanova is HIT as well…
Every program that is complimenting the Penn State program, in the video, is HIT or HIT influenced.