Hey guys,

Sorry I didn't get to post anything this past week until now, been crazy trying to juggle everything.  Internship, super busy at my other job, stuff in my personal life came up this week, and I am actually up in CT right now because my girlfriend (sorry ladies, taken) is taking a test for her Masters of Nutrition degree (the couple that gets degrees together, stays together!).  Still a great week at Defrancos, always learning...

One of the coaches who I've been following a lot got married this week.  A lot of people came through, including Arno Galmarini, a performance coach who has his own gym training center in Switzerland (http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/galmarini-elite-training/, http://www.elite-training.ch/).   Before the coach left on his honeymoon in the middle of the week however, his AAA pitcher started having issues with his throwing shoulder.  Turns out he slept on it wrong.  The was a learning experience for me however seeing how the "art of coaching" came in.  For the first time the coach wasn't 100% sure what his athlete was going to be doing.  He was just about to switch him to the next phase of his program as well.  He didn't freak though, just adjusted the training.  Instead of his general work he normally was doing baseball (see last post and Bondarchuk's general/sport specific model), he just wanted to take his pitcher through low intensity work bringing blood to the shoulder to loosen it up and bring some nutrients to the area.

Homemade bodyblade with pvc, duct tape, and two lacrosse balls.

Light rope work.

He also performed some ROM exercises and a few other light intensity drills.  He still hit some lower body strength work, but the main focus was getting that arm better.  After a day or two of this work, he came in Thursday saying he felt 100 times better and all the range was back to his arm.  

As far as working with the other coaches, I got some insight into their background and where they came from and their views on training.  Where as with Coach M, I sometimes get lost in some of the things he's talking about (super smart and relentless when it comes to learning), I find that with some of the other coaches I understand their methodologies a little better.  Coach P is a self-described, "basic and simple" coach.  His programming is straightfoward with a logical progression and is based on how much actual time he has with each athlete, such as 6, 18, 50 sessions.  Based on the time he has with the athlete, he can teach them what he can.  Coach CJ is more of Coach M's mindset in the type of programming (see Cal Dietz and his book Triphasic Training + Russian and Eastern block reseachers like Bondarchuk, Issurin, Verkhoshansky).  Coach C has been coaching for awhile now, and has worked under some of the best S&C coaches in football.  He knows Coach M/CJ's training style but has a "quicker" format.  Whereas Coach M's athletes may stay in the gym 2-3 hours running through everything their body may need like scap strengthening, better hip movement patterns, etc., Coach C will get to the nitty-gritty and hit the major problem areas or areas where the biggest improvement needs to be made.  

While each coach trains his own type of way, they could all switch their style to match the others very easily.  All these guys are VERY GOOD at what they do, and all are always staying up-to -date and evolving their own thinking.  However, I think its a testament to Joe Defranco that his coaches can coach they way they think will get the best results.  He could easily have an ego and tell his guys how he wants them coaching and that's it, but he realizes each of his guys brings something different and valuable to the table and the athletes benefit from this.  

As far as where I'm fitting in to the gym, I'm still getting to know all the athletes better and getting more comfortable with how things run in the gym and the methods that the coaches use.  It is still pretty slow, the gym gets maybe around 15 clients a day now, but as the coaches keep telling me, this is the "calm before the storm" when all the college guys come back from school over break.  Shortly after that, we'll probably get some NFL combine guys coming in for about 7-8 weeks getting ready for that.  I believe a local baseball team around high-school aged will start training 1-2 times a week, as well as other per-season baseball guys.  Looking forward to it!

Don't have my notes on me (stuck in CT), but I'll look over them later and let you guys know if there is anything valuable in there I can share.  I'm sure there is, one day in Defranco's learning from these guys is enough to have you researching the answers or what they talked about for hours! Can't wait til the semester's over so I can research and read some material some more...