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?
BIGTIME
Used to go watch him play at the 55 Bar in NYC in the mid/late 90’s
He began instructing some master classes while I was at Berklee. He’s a super cool guy and way ahead of his time.
I formerly played trumpet in high school, and I have university degrees in non-sports science fields (BA, International Politics, MASc, Transportation Planning).
I guess we now know one of the templates for S&C education.
Here’s another one. Charlie played guitar and had a BA in History.
I’ve got a live WK disc that’s very good with Keith Carlock on drums or maybe it’s someone else?
I think Al DiMeola also attended Berklee?
This is the most enjoyable thread hijack ever.
Yes, Carlock became more of a regular with Krantz following Danziger.
A great deal of musicians attended Berklee at some point in their careers. Most of the highly talented ones did not actually graduate, however. They just roll through to make connections, play with other talented musicians, get some high level instruction, and gig around Boston and NYC.
I got to see him once there at 55, he’s great, fantastic time feel of course.
Personally, I think there is a connection between rhythm in music and rhythm in running/sports.
Agreed, I continually stress rhythm and relaxation to my guys regarding speed work, power speed, throws, and so on.
While there’s differences of opinion on how to perform power speed, particularly skips, (Pfaff likes flat foot landing) I prefer to instruct skips rhythmically with a forefoot landing and a degree of rhythm and flow to body movement almost as if one were performing power speed to a groove.
Pfaff states that it’s natural to land flat footed or even heel to toe during skips; however, I disagree as that was never my natural inclination nor have I witnessed it in the vast majority of my athletes over the years.
I’m critical of my guys attaining full extension of the support leg so I actually like to see a bit of a forward body angle (from shoulder to heel) during the A skip because this follows a conscious toe off when propelling one’s self forward horizontally.
This is what I went over with Craig James and Jesse Palmer during the small feature that they aired before half time on ESPN.
They both picked it up quite well and, having the requisite mobility and coordination, looked good on the A skips and Running A right out of the gates; requiring minimal corrections.
I’ve heard him say the reasoning behind this is that below a certain forward speed humans are wired to heel-toe. Walking is a heel-toe action and when drilling A skips the body is at a speed slower or similar to walking, so the drills should also be heel-toe.
Yes, I’ve heard him state the same thing;however, as I stated in my last post- I disagree; and again, I work with large numbers of players, and have through the years back to the high school level, and in all these numbers I’ve seen very few who naturally made a flat foot/heel first contact during power speed.
I would argue that footwear has created this thinking due to it’s overly supportive nature (something that I think causes more back and lower limb problems than most anything)
I have my athletes perform a great deal of warm up and power speed in their socks only.
give it a try and you’ll notice how making contact with your heels is not a natural event.
I should also note that power speed is more about vertical action, versus forward speed, so the more dynamic the vertical component becomes- RE Newton- the more dynamic the ground contact dynamics become.
At any rate, I firmly believe in the way I have my players perform power-speed for the reasons I’ve mentioned and I think if any sprinter/athlete clears their mind and just ‘does’ it they’ll find themselves on their forefoot as well.