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RTS Coaching: The Plate Squat
Anyone who is serious about training likes to squat. Well, let’s be honest – it’s probably more of a love-hate relationship. Maybe a better way to put it is that everyone who is serious about training respects the squat. But this leads us to a big question: How do you teach someone to squat safely, […]
Continue Reading5 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 […]
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