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5 Steps to Building Better Athletes
Today I’m giving you the goods. Not that I ever really hold back, but today, I want to give you something that will make a profound impact on how you train your athletes. As my good friend Joe Kenn says: The days of taking a kid and putting a bar on his back Day 1 […]
Continue ReadingPhysical Preparation with Mike Coval
Mike Coval is a gym owner in Ann Arbor Michigan, and a guy who is doing some amazing work with his young basketball players. He’s also a former IFAST intern, and I couldn’t be more excited to have him on the show. In this episode Mike and I are going to go in-depth into his […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: The Crossover Step-up
If you’ve been training for any extended period of time, you’re familiar with the step-up. The step-up is a fantastic exercise for many reasons: It builds single-leg stability and control, It can help iron out side-to-side strength imbalances, and It’s a functional, real-world movement. Like most weight room lifts, however, the step-up is very sagittal […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: The Sprinter Step-up
Step-ups are one of my favorite single-leg exercises. (Well if we’re being transparent, I think of them as pseudo single-leg exercises. But I’ll discuss that more in the EADS 3.0 videos coming soon!) There are numerous benefits to the step-up over similar exercises: It leads with a concentric (versus eccentric) movement. You can easily adjust […]
Continue ReadingWhy YOU Should Keep a Coaching Log
If you’ve been training for any period of time, chances are you’ve kept a training log at some point in your career. A training log is an invaluable tool, because it goes a step further than then typical tracking of sets, reps, etc. Instead, a training log digs deeper into each training session. What was your […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Thorax Rotation
Earlier this week, you and I had a little talk about alternating function. Needless to say, whether you want to play rotational sports, go for a leisurely jog from time-to-time, or simply want to be a better moving human being, you should find ways to emphasize alternating function in your programming. However, when I first […]
Continue ReadingThe What, Why and How of Alternating Function
(Lead photo courtesy of Keith Allison) One thing I’ve always tried to do is grow and evolve as a coach. When you’re just getting started you’re somewhat limited in your perspective, and we all have a tendency to model the coaches we spent time with early on. When I started coaching I was strongly influenced by powerlifting, […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Push-up to Downward Dog
We’ve focused a lot on the push-up in recent weeks (and in case you missed it, you see what I mean here, here, here, and the big push-up article here). With all of this focus on coaching and cuing, something I wanted to throw in this week was one of my favorite push-up variations of […]
Continue Reading4 Ways to Upgrade Your Programming and Coaching
As coaches and trainers, we’re constantly looking for tools to make us better. Maybe it’s a new style of programming. Maybe it’s a new exercise you’ve heard a lot about. And maybe it’s coaching and cuing one of our big-bang exercises in a slightly different way. The bottom line is that we coaches will leave […]
Continue ReadingPhysical Preparation with Greg Robins
Greg Robins is a guy who I’ve followed for years now. Not only is he a great coach, but someone who I feel is constantly educating himself and taking his own game to new levels. In this show, Greg and I talk about his wide-ranging path to working at Cressey Sports Performance, his personal philosophy […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: What Torso Position is Best on Split-Squats?
Split-squats are one of my all-time favorite exercises. When you think about it, they can do numerous things for you: Build single-leg strength, Improve flexibility in the trailing leg, Improve stability and control through the hip, knee and ankle, etc. Yet, when it comes to the split-squat, a common question comes up time and again: […]
Continue ReadingMy 5 LEAST FAVORITE Coaching Cues
(Lead Photo Courtesy of Flickr) After last week’s article, I was perusing the Twitterverse and came across the following comment: @RobTrainSystems can you write one with your least favorite cues? — Jared Rosenberg (@JRStrengthFit) June 8, 2016 Thanks Jared for the great idea! Normally I like to keep my articles positive. Yet in this case, […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Knees First on Squats?
The other day I was perusing the Interwebz, and I came across this awesome tweet from my guy Mike Roncarati: Vertical tibia during a squat means anterior head and trunk displacement as the first move for most. Or a very wide BOS #letquadswork — Mike Roncarati (@RoncMike) June 8, 2016 The timing was impeccable, because […]
Continue ReadingMy Top 5 Coaching Cues
(Lead photo courtesy of Flickr) As you may or may not know, I’ve gone through something of a Marvel obsession that past couple of months. Whether it’s the big Avengers roll-outs, the solo movies, or even the Netflix series’ like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, I’ve pretty much seen all of their recent work in the […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Make the Arrow on Push-ups
Lots of talk on push-ups lately, and for good reason. Great exercise. FANTASTIC exercise. But again, not always executed the way we would like. One of the most common questions has to do with arm and shoulder position. Quite simply, where should your elbows be relative to your torso? Should they be tucked in tight? […]
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