Agrred on all points. If I were going to use a 5 rep lift as an indicator, I would say “Player X benched 335 lbs for 5 reps” not somehow extrapolate those numbers into a predicted max. In my experience, the closer to 100% max, the less predictable. I see a lot of guys who can do 335 x 5 bench, yet can’t do 360lbs. Charts say he should do roughly 15 lbs higher. I think a lot of it becomes psychological. I see guys completely change the lift due to it being “heavy”. Set up look hesitant, eccentric bar speed slows, etc. Just a general lack of confidence overall. I think confidence plays a huge role in max reps. It’s kind of carries over to field of play. They feel like they are unstoppable in weight room and that attitude generally carries out to the field as well.
For sure, the confidence issue plays a huge part in the training and the competing. Just having “been there before” for many athletes is enough to be successful in subsequent attempts at lifts, jumps, throws, or simply playing the sport.
I agree on the point you make about ridiculous claims of lifts, performances. Those claims are almost more about the out of control ego of a strength coach who needs to show the world what his training can result in-even if the results are not at all accurate.
It does not matter if the numbers are lifts, 40’s, vertical jumps etc. Being able to claim some numbers (especially if they are not real marks)
does not make one a better coach or their program more effective but some coaches believe that.
It’s unfortunate, though, that people outside of the those progams hear of those inflated marks and assume that coach a must be better than coach b. They hear he has more guys that bench this weight or clean this weight or run sub 4.4 40’s when the marks are self reported by the coach with no way to tell how accurate the marks are/how stringent the testing to get these marks were.
I moved to the high school setting a couple of years ago. Previously, the team had been hand timed for their 40s. First thing I did was order a speed trap II. Our school would probably equate to a top AAA or mediocre 4A school in the US. Using the touch pad and electronic finish, all of the ‘4.6x’ hand timed guys immediately went into the high 4.8x to 4.9x category running on a mondo surface with flats or spikes.
Our team speed is no where what you would see at most top US schools (we’re a 750 student catholic boys school with mainly white/asian population). I usually get a couple in the 4.8x, and 5-6 in the 4.9x category. The remainder of the starters are in the low 5.0x-5.2x category.
Players complained at first, but now have accepted the stats and understand the reality of the situation.
Fastest time I have had this year prior to the start of training was a 6’2" soccer player who ran a 4.76 the other day.
I’ve used James’ hand time start method, and the times are usually close, or about 0.05-0.1 seconds faster at most if I miss the timing.
I’ve been down to visit Oregon State and know a number of guys from Brian Miller’s crew. A number of his GAs compete in Olympic lifting, and he runs a really solid crew with good technique from his athletes.
The results I had when I coached at the high school level were very similar to yours (using the speed trap with touch pad on synthetic track with spikes) although I did have 4 guys who were sub 4.7 and my population at the time was almost 100% rural Caucasian.
My players, and head coach, actually fully adopted the system and became proud of the fact that their times were much closer to being the truth and soon viewed stop watch times as science fiction.
I have guys in D I, II, III, and juco in all sports (football included) and they all tell me how there coaches all want the WEIGHT ROOM numbers to be certain numbers. I told my head coach (high school) dont worry about the numbers (ala buddy & james at pitt) just make sure it tranfers to the field (exercise wise).
Also does anybody use the Patented FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT SCREEN that is so popular now? I havent met or talked to a collegiate S&C coach or Athletic Trainer that does. Honestly I seriously think its overhyped.
Please share your thoughts.
Highlander
Yes, I must admit, I actually use the FMS with most of our teams. While it takes some time to implement, I believe it has helped our program in the last 2 years that I have used it. I understand that talented coaches can identify some of the movement pattern issues that athletes have simply by watching them play, but I do not see all of our sports teams in action on a regular basis…
How did we use it? After running the teams through the screen, I created 7-8 different categories of “pre-hab” movement groups that the players are sorted into. They work on correcting their individual movements and imbalances, before doing the main training portion of the day…
I’d also like to second James’ thoughts on the Brower Speed Trap. I time our 10’s/20’s/40’s and shuttles with it. We use the touch pad to start, and the gates at the finish. In 4 years, we’ve only had a handful of athletes in the 4.6 range - and these kids were ready to cry, believing they run 4.4’s;)
Here’s an evaluation tool that Al Vermeil uses.
http://www.sbcoachescollege.com/articles/Powerpoints/A.VermeilNEW.pdf
Pioneer
Thanks for that. As has been posted here many times before, anytime we get something from Al Vermeil that we haven’t seen before, we’re happy!
My players are also buying into the system - which is great. I’ll post your comments in the weight room (if you don’t mind). It just helps lend a little more credence to have someone like you state what I’ve been telling them - and it makes it sound like I actually know what I’m talking about 
As for the rest of the discussion - I wish our football head coach would put a little more importance on the speed/explosive work. In the summer I get them for 3 days/week of speed with only 5 weeks to work with. The remainder of the off-season they spend 4 days/week in the weight room, and I’m lucky if I get them once for speed development. Huge importance put on weight room numbers. However, technique is solid, with no BS lifts allowed. I’ve begun to start doing a technique session before each OL day which has cleaned up many of the previous faults.
Our football coach is an American who came out of the US collegiate system at a DI-AA school. When I first started working at the school, he had been programming their weights for the previous 10 years, so I tried to slowly optimize the weight program by making small changes without stepping on any toes. At that time (and every once in a while he still slips it in) he refered to speed work as ‘funning’ - which shows you where it ranked on the whole scale of off-season athletic development. However, he has been open to change and is slowly modifying the program based on my suggestions as I have earned his trust.
I love it when sport coaches provide input into how I should be doing my job. Just makes my whole day!
That’s the great thing about the profession, anyone can be a genius. My favorite situation is when someone begins their suggestion with one of the following sentences:
1 - “Well, I was on the internet and I read that…”
2 - “I was at the local YMCA and a big bodybuilder guy says that we should be…”
3 - “When I was a football player, we did…”
4 - “I couldn’t sleep last night and I was watching this infomercial and they were promoting this product…”
Just like when I had the roof replaced on my house this summer. I was out there telling them how to staple down the tar paper, lay the shingles and apply the flashing. They really appreciated it!
You mean your not really and expert if you stayed in a Holiday Inn last night…
Number 2,
Looking at the times for your university guys - you have some athletes that are blazing quick (obviously from your amazing coaching abilities!). I was going to email you on this, but since it got brought up in this thread - how do you have your timers set up?
Pioneer, thanks for the Al Vermeil evaluation. Devils, I do alot of pre-hab myself so I totally agree with you on that aspect. I will look into the Al Vermiel system network. After all you cant go wrong with him.
Put the tripods at the lowest setting, on the line and go from when they break it with the shin. Not exactly from first movement, but we do it the same way every time. Probably a 0.10 to 0.15 off of using it off first hand movement. If anyone bitches about it, we show them their 10 to 20 yard segment which you can compare with anyone else using the Speed Trap Timers. We have a good number of guys who can run a good 0 to 10 yard, but it seems the men are separated from the boys on the 10 to 20 yard segment.
On average our decent guys are running under 4.60 seconds. We had two guys last year under 4.40 and four guys under 4.50. I believe my timing method is balanced off by the fact that it is usually still bloody cold when we test in late March.
Thats classic. I have had parents do the same thing. I asked a Dad what he did for a living. He said he was a financial planner. I said “I’ll tell you what, I am going to go home and do a google search, read all things relevant to your job and then tomorrow, I will tell you how to do your job.” Immediate backpedal. AAAAAAAAHe was like I wasn’t trying to tell you how to do your job, I was just telling what coach X said. I said well, call coach X and get him to train your son. He never brought up his thoughts again. Don’t like to be a jerk but sometimes…
Problematically, it goes both ways because as we know there is so much incompetence in the field of “S&C” that I cannot blame those not in the profession who might overstep their bounds with such questions, idea sharing, this is what so and so does, and etcetera.
The simple fact that there is no legitimate qualification process for coaching in general in CONUS is why those of us in the industry are not thought of at the same level of professionalism as those who must pass rigorous selection/qualification procedures (ergo lawyer, MD, PhD, and so on). while every profession has it’s percentage of ‘how the hell is this person doing this job’ I have to imagine that the profession of coaching in general has a large percentage of such individuals.
Of course I can’t complain because I do not possess a post-collegiate degree, nor did I receive an undergraduate degree in a related field. Here I sit self-taught in the field of physical preparation with a bachelors in music performance.
Ironically, some of the most respected individuals in their related fields, in CONUS, have unrelated undergraduate degrees, if they have post-high school degrees at all:
- If I recall, Charlie studied history or English at Stanford,
- Pfaff has an undergrad in science education
- I don’t believe Louis Simmons completed high school,
- I’m fairly certain that John Smith has an unrelated undergrad from UCLA
- my superior Buddy Morris has a communications degree from PITT
and so on.
Due to the inadequate collegiate (as well as most certifying organization) curriculums we must educate ourselves if we are to assist our athletes to the fullest and take the comments from the peanut gallery with a grain of salt.
What instrument do you play?
I love interdisciplinary existences. :o
Started with piano, then trumpet, then guitar with guitar being my principle instrument for the last 20years. I do plan on picking the trumpet back up, however.
Studied jazz at Berklee college of Music in Boston.
You a Wayne Krantz fan?