Joe DeFranco!

If you can track it down (no pun intended) there is an article in the Winter 1994 #126 issue of Track Technique titled IN SEARCH OF SEPPO by Kevin McGill. Great inspirational piece on training. Inclement weather is just an excuse not to train. If you have the burning desire to be one of the best, you will let nothing, including weather or lack of facilities, stop you from trying to reach your goal. If you ever start to feel sorry for yourself because your training environment is not ideal, read this article and it will put things into their proper perspective.

Guys like DeFranco get results not by their training methods. Everyone knows how to get someone to jump higher or run faster. They get results because they take an athlete, lets say a football player who is preparing for the combine, and create an oppurtunity to train them for a one day event. It’s only a matter of the athlete now being available to train. Additionally, the athlete now has money, fronted by an agent in many cases, to help them live a little better and train. I know at Miami, Vilma and DJ got nice new rides and are eating better.

Now this athlete is in his last year and probably through with his school work or has graduated and has no classes. He has all the time in the world to train. Probably able to perform some RFD exercises he has never done before. Probably some plyos. Probably trained strong and slow most of his career. Gets to work on his start in the 40. Runs the pro agility and shuttle for the first time in their life. Anyone quick can do well at the agility and shuttle runs! There are little tricks and tips to shave off 100’s of a second and knowing these help.

In other words his 40, VJ, shuttles, etc… were never specificaly trained before. Of course you will see improvement! Sorry to blow DeFranco’s and all of the guru’s cover. There are no mysteries to training.

Most football players get tested before the season starts. How many of them prepare in the off season like they are getting paid for it. The financial motavation is always over looked in an athletes desire to excel. If an athlete can bust his butt and move up in a round and put a couple of hundred thousand in his pocket by putting 4" on his VJ, you better believe he won’t miss any workouts.

Don’t be fooled by the gurus.

Look for their secret meeting in Seattle now that they’ve been exposed. They’re probably plotting a new method of training.

Probably an exercise with a board balanced on a wood roller…No wait that’s been done already.

I can see the functional sport specific brochure now:

“Underwater high rep speed squats utilizing decreased oxygen intake will lower your 40 yd. time by .2 of a second!”

Jealous? Or bitter?

I’m not going to stand up for DeFranco, but if everyone can get results, then why don’t they? Why does Parisi and DeFranco produce the top numbers every year? Lots of athletes of the same talent level train with plenty of other people.

How long did it take for you to think up this little diatribe? Functional training, wobble boards…do you even know what they do? I never remember DeFranco claiming he was doing some innovative thing. He’s just making money and getting results.

Since you seem to know it all, why don’t you put up a website to spread your knowledge and help others instead of bashing some people just because they’re well known and more successful than you.

Interesting…do you even know what defranco does. state his methods and then dispute them and tell us why they don’t work. being general and saying he prob does some rfd and plyos and prob has athletes that trained slow is BS. defranco def gets results from the methods he uses, not just becuase he works with some great athletes for the combine. working with athlete’s for the combine is only one small part of what he does. and defranco is far from a “guru”. anyone that has the respect of dave tate and the elitefts crew must have at least some validity.

so lets basically take away any achievements from people because all they did was focus on one specific event or goal. this is ridiculous. lets not consider ben johnson great because he had all day to train and only focused on being the greatest at the 100. what’s your point…college football players want to go pro and a lot of money is at stake during the combine, why shouldn’t they do nothing else but train and how does that take away from the coach training them. what about all the other “guru’s” out there that get shitty results from their athletes…they fade away. so apparently he’s doing something right.

you obvioulsy have no clue what he does. don’t come bash a guy and state he probably does this and probably does that. get some facts about what he does and be specific or otherwise don’t make assumptions. there are no mysteries to training…def true but at the same time so many people are failing.

if you don’t think defranco is the real deal, take a trip to his facility and go train with him and some of his “full-time” athletes and see for yourself. bottom line…he trains hard, his athletes train hard and everyone is getting great results.

Very, very defensive. So serious. Very emotional. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs.

I bashed DeFranco? I just used him as an example of a personal trainer, where by conveinance and oppurtunity, has an athlete prepare for a one day event. Are there not other athletes who put up great numbers trained by other coaches? Yes.

What I wrote, if you take the time to re-read my post a little slower, is that
an athlete who has never trained for a particular event, now has the time to train, knowledge of the event, financial backing, (Does DeFranco train guys for the combine for free?) and financial motavation to do well, will usually do well.

Why do other gurus fail? Poor marketing? Athletes choking or getting injured? Over sleeping for a Pro Day?

Accepted by Dave Tate? He does a nice job. But do we need Dave Tates stamp of approval to be respected as coaches? I was never into idol worship.

You’re right I don’t know what else DeFranco does. I was writing of preparation for the combines.

I don’t train anymore. DeFranco trains hard? Does that make him a better physical prepartion specialist and me a lesser one?

delldell, because you’ve never heard of me or know of my successes or financial earnings, does that make me any less of a success? How foolish of you.

Oh and a wobble board is used for…I don’t know.
Why don’t you tell us.

No emotions here. You’re the one that ranted. The thread title IS Joe DeFranco. You say “sorry for blowing DeFranco’s cover” specifically, and now say it’s more general. Just wondering what was the point of the post? To say their athlete’s accomplishments aren’t that impressive? Or what?

I don’t know who you are. Since you’re so successful, are your athletes getting the top #s at the combine every year? Forget that, are your athletes making transformations. Give an example.

Mentioning wobble boards or whatever tangent you were going off on is funny since DeFranco is not a big fan of that stuff and shows you didn’t even know people’s background before grouping them together.

i still have no idea what your point is. i’m defensive because defranco is a good strength and conditioning coach and your first sentence was, “guys like defranco get results not from there methods” without knowing anything that he does. and please tell me where are all these coaches that know how to get athletes to run faster and jump higher are hiding? my brother plays football at a major d1 school and the strength program there is a joke. yeah its possible that some of the athletes there are improving, but the majority are not. the fact is, good s&c coaches are few and far between.

i refer to dave tate because he is well respected and when he respects what another coach in his field is doing, that usually means he is good. i don’t need dave’s stamp of approval but since you know nothing about what defranco does, i figured i’d point out someone who does and likes what he’s doing.

since you’re referring to the combines, defranco consistently gets good results…did he start out getting elite athletes? i don’t know. i do know that year in and year out his athletes perform well at the combines. does that mean something, i think so. there are a lot of athletes that come to the combines ill-prepared and lose out on a lot of money initially. is it worth a few thousand or whatever he charges for a athlete to make a couple hundred thousand more? so why shouldn’t defranco capitalize on an opportunity to make money when he is constantly getting good results?

thomas, you might be a great s&c coach and if you are, contribute something to this board so maybe everyone here can learn more. i don’t know why, but it seems like every strength and conditioning coach that gets some recognition always ends up getting criticized for making a name for themselves and making some money…i don’t get it??? i have no problem questioning his methods or another s&c coach’s methods, but have some solid facts before you make ridiculous comments.

Please re-re-read the original post. I think its terrific DeFranco makes money and has success. All I wrote was that there are many other factors involved which leads to an athlete performing well in a series of tests and only a handful of people have not cornered the market on how to do it.

You have the right to think my statements are ridiculous but do you have enough life’s experiences and emotional prepared to think on your own yet.

delldell, I don’t train any athletes that competed at the combine. Does that make me any less of a coach? Transformations? My athletes transform themselves. I don’t do it for them and I don’t take credit for it.
How’s the foot and ankle strengthening coming along?

As for wobble boards…found this on DF’s site.

T-Nation: Okay, interesting stuff. Now let’s hear some mutant athlete stories. Any good ones?

JD: I can talk forever on this subject, but I’ll give you three of my favorites. First, three years ago I had the good fortune of training University of Iowa wide receiver, Kevin Kasper, for the NFL Combine. Kevin is still the most well-rounded athlete I’ve ever trained. He’s strong, fast, flexible, and shredded!

One of the evaluation tests for our athletes was to analyze their squat form on a wobble board. This is a great test to determine muscular imbalances, flexibility issues, and weaknesses. Most athletes suck at this test. Kevin stood on the wobble board, squatted ass to the ground without the slightest movement of the board, stood up, and then did a back flip off the board and landed perfectly on his feet! It was amazing. He then went on to break three all-time Combine records and gets drafted by the Denver Broncos.

Yes there are other factors, but if there’s so much money to be made, then why aren’t more of these experts producing results? I figured you might bring up that about wobble boards. What I meant was that he was not one of those functional trainers that are always ridiculed lately.

Anyways, I hope you’d share more of your knowledge because your info on injury prevention was excellent. I haven’t gotten to try all of your idea yet for the foot and ankle stuff, but I’m starting soon.

Just curious, but are you a local performance coach or do you work with a specific professional or college team? I remember you mentioning you used to play for Miami or have some link to Swasey.

I didn’t play for the Hurracanes but I speak to Swasey every so often.
I don’t work for a pro or college team. I have more time and freedom working on my own.

I’m in the process of building an extended stay facility and training complex for a small number of athletes to train and live for 6-8 weeks. Do you know where DeFranco’s out of town athletes stay when they train with him or do most of them stop in get a workout and fly out again?

I don’t know DeFranco, just read stuff on his site. I think most of his athletes are based in the New York and surrounding area so they’re local. Not sure about combines.

check out defranco’s site, in the q&a this week he answers a question about the wobble board.