I had the pleasure of attending this years conference hosted by KU Men’s Basketball S&C coach Andrea Hudy. Seeing old faces and meeting new ones is always the best part of any kind of gathering. This years conference had 2 tiers for which you pick from, so unfortunately, I cannot give you my 2 cents for everyone. Also, I rode up with my great friend Jozef Szendrai (@gymintegrity) and theres nothing like talking shop and life with my man who is literally larger than life! I actually had to buy a new car so he could fit!
First off, Coach Bill Self filled in for Holly Rowe as she missed her flight. He gave a few minutes of his time and was VERY complementary of what Coach Hudy has done for his program over the years.
Tim Schlosser was next on the agenda. He is a Personal Development / Life Coach. His talk was on how thinking matters and strategies on helping others get out of their own way. Being a coach and dealing with all sorts of happenings in life via clients / athletes, it was a really good talk on some strategies to help people. We not only affect people physically, but can be a huge relief to them mentally / psychologically. The average person has 15 – 70,000 thoughts per day and of those, less than 30% are positive. The steps he advocated to aid in turning negative thought processes into more positive OR real thoughts;
- Notice
- Analyze: circumstances / facts verses thoughts (shit happens)
- Interpret: The unintentional vs intentional model
His example was a player not getting enough playing time and thinking the coach doesn’t like him. Noticing that there is an issue is the first step. Analyzing the circumstances verses thoughts of why player was not getting enough playing time. In talking to the athlete, we see that his THOUGHTS were he didn’t get playing time and the reason was the coach didn’t like him. In reality, he wasn’t putting in the work and was not able to help the team. Intrepeting these thoughts and turning them around to assist this athlete will help him see that if he puts in more time training, or doing a little extra, whether it be in the film room, recovering, or working harder in practice, we can see that in reality, it has nothing to do with if the coach likes you or not.
My next session was with Mitch Hauschildt; “Assessing & Training Rotational Movement Patterns.” This guy reminds me of me, but with better hair and is smarter…..so really not me at all! He is the Performance Coordinator at Missouri State University, and works with around 400 athletes in 17 different sports. His progressions and regressions are very similar to mine (which makes me feel great and that I am on the right track if Mitch is!). He is heavily influenced by Functional Movement Systems and their Mobility / Stability continuum.
4 Step Rotational Training Process is as follows:
- Assessment of the athlete
- Mobility
- Anti – Rotation
- Dynamic Rotation
If you are not assessing, you’re guessing! Do yourself a favor and at least screen someones movement before starting a program. Mitch uses tests from the SFMA to assess rotation and breaks out Multi Segment Rotation with Thoracic Spine, Hip, and Tibial rotation breakouts. Once you’ve assessed, Mobilize what needs to be mobilized! Anti-Rotation is next and is vital to strength this for our rotary athletes. We can’t shoot a cannon from a canoe! The last but definitely not least is dynamic rotation! This is the fun training options you can do with med balls, cables, whatever you can think up.
Dr. Phil Wagoner, who started Sparta Science, did a talk on data, and what do we do with it. He looks at exercise pharmacologically. We get doses of medicine and that is the medical model. Dr. Wagoner has gathered TONS of pieces of data and wants to “dose” exercises for athletes to find the optimal zone for performance. That is an extremely high hill to climb but he has a great start. His testing groups athletes into 3 categories; Load, Explode, Drive. Depending on their sport and energy demands, he can narrow down what the athlete needs to optimize their performance. Biggest take away is that technology’s biggest use is its ENGAGEMENT with the client / athlete.
Lunch was catered and delcious! Talked shop with some strength coaches in the high school world and met some great coaches from Athletic Inc.
I attended the hands on sessions in the afternoon. My good friend Coach Scott Caufiled opened it up and talked about using potentiation for a warm up protocol with you athletes. He demos some simple, yet effective movements to get more out of your warm up.
Coach Cory Schlesinger was up next and is a certified bad ASS!! He is the head mens’s basketball S&C coach at Stanford. He is engaging and passionate about working with his athletes. I have enjoyed watching him on his social media, and was stoked to see and talk to him in person. He talked about his opinions on training athletes and using kettlebells to impact your athletes. He uses the kettlebell swing exercise WITH a partner to throw. Watch the video for a demo.
Zac Woodfin and his assistants demoed plyometric progressions he uses with his athletes. It was everything I already use but was great in validating that I am doing what the Director of Football S&C at the University of Kansas is doing!
In all, it was great to meet and network with professionals in the industry. I will always refer to myself as a student in this industry due to the range of people, sports, data, energy systems, ages, mechanics, and psychology of athletes / clients. Making people better is my goal and am glad I had a chance to sharpen my skill set over the weekend.