Slow day at the gym today, guess people don't like snow even after most of it is cleared away haha…

  

None the less, we still got a few random athletes who came in as well as the core groups coming in; our NFL combine guys, the baseball pitchers, and the NFL guys.   Love watching these guys get after it cause they love the atmosphere and training so much.

These guys are currently using a form conjugate style of training made popular by Louis Simmons of Westside barbell and which Joe has a popular version of this type of training for athletes with his own program.  In talking with Joe he likes the CF style of training like the other coaches but has found great success with this style so has decided to stick to what has gotten his athletes better.  If it aint broke don’t fix it!!!

The combine guys are still getting a lot of volume in on their sprint technique with different variations.  They've done build up sprints, falling starts, kneeling starts, med ball starts, push up starts, among a few others.  The guys are really getting the technique down, and for them the sprints are like night and day.  

  

After they get their sprints in they've been taking a half hour break and getting their lifts in for the day.  Lots of benching and squatting.  Trust me, these guys are strong as they are fast.  Good group of guys though, laid back but hard workers. 4-5 times a week they come in and bust their butts.  Hope they all get a shot at the next level.

With all the down time got to BS with some of the coaches and athletes.  It’s pretty cool getting to know everybody more personally.  The thing I really like about Defranco’s is the people that are associated with it.  Pretty much everyone in there is a great person.  

Still working through another Charlie Francis book from Coach CJ.  Got to take some extra time reading it because some of the concepts are a little foreign but the more I read the more comfortable I get with it.  Either way trying to get my learning on as often as possible.

I'll be heading in again next week.  Until then…..

Hope everyone is enjoying these conference championship games- especially this NFC game.

Now that its so late in the season, that means most of the NFL players' seasons are done.  A few guys have already come back into Defrancos to start their offseason workouts.  Some guys are getting right into the tougher workouts, while other guys are too beat up from the season.  These guys are hitting some corrective exercises and GPP work to let their bodies heal up and get them functioning again.  Its amazing how well these guys move though and how quick and light on their feet they are for their size.

Another group we got going at Defrancos now is the combine crew, all the college football players that are preparing for the pro day tests.  This is when all the scouts will be able to see these guys perform general strength and speed skills (225 lb bench press max reps, 40 yd dash), as well position specific drills (bag drills, W drill, pass rush, etc). We don't have huge name guys, but these players are definitely capable of making a roster.  One is a OL/DL guy, and the other is a tailback.  Both guys are physical specimens, and their both workhorses.  As a coach these are the types you love having!  Check them out working out on their 10 yd sprints.

Both guys are working with Coach CJ, who was a D1 football player himself.  Its great being able to work with him on these guys programming and tests because he knows body position and how to shine on these tests (notice the bouncing pre 10 yd sprint).  These guys spend a few hours each day at Defrancos, the morning session they work on the tests they will perform at the combine, and later on when the NFL guys come in they get their lifting session in.

Still got the pitchers coming in and getting work done.  A few of the guys are looking really good already in their programs, throwing 90+.  Coach M has been experimenting with some work done by Bondarchuck with transfer of training of different weighted implements with throwing velocity.  Obviously paying off.  Now that the guys have been in their programs for a few weeks they are hitting a good amount of tempos at this point.  The weight training is pretty simple, slower tempo body weight stuff and deadlifts make up a bulk of the program.  Still interesting to pick Coach M's brain with this stuff because there is so much this guy has researched and read.

Also, last Saturday I got to spend a few hours back in Brooklyn near my undergrad in a dojo at a seminar presented by a former professor.  This guy is legtimatly a genius when it comes to training.  He competes nationally in strongman, and has two national champion strongman teenager competitors.  The seminar was about supine and quadraped exercises.  The exercises, where a little different.  Check out the professors warm up.

This is based on the SFMR, PRI (www.posturalrestoration.com), and DSN (or something like that).  Its hard to explain and honestly I don't completly understand, but I figured if someone had any more info they could leave it int he comments.  Basically they are exercises that can begin firing certain muscles and engaging them to a great degree to create balance in the body.  Interesting and people should definitely look into more.

I am feeling more and more confident as the days go on.  As funny as it sounds I am getting more comfortable accepting how much I don't know about strength and conditioning.  Everyday in the field I pick up something I've never even heard of, but I'm ok with that.  All that means is that I'm challenging myself and that I am in the right spot to further my career as a Coach. Everyday I keep trying to get better a little bit at a time.  The more I learn and pick up from these guys the more confident I am moving forward.  Couldn't ask for a better group of coaches to learn from.

Heading there tomorrow so I'll be updating soon.  Have a great week!

Hey, sorry for the long break from the blog.  Got wrapped up in the holidays and played a little catch up with everything, now I'm finally caught up to this again haha.  

Been putting in a good amount of time at Defrancos, which is perfect timing because of the winter break a lot of the college athletes have come back for their workouts.  Also, a ton of baseball guys have started coming back in for preseason training.  Pretty much all of the guys are top level pitchers (D-1 to MLB pitchers), and I've been learning a ton from their training as I had little to no experience with baseball guys.  Rite now we have them throwing on flat grounds in a range, for example 75-82 mph (which may be 70-75% of their max for example), mixing in lighter and heavier balls for them to throw.  I think I may have had an old post about this but we'll progress them to more specific work as the season nears.  For most guys we're getting them their volume back to game specific numbers then the speed will come next (CF long to short prinicple).

Also been seeing some stuff the coaches haven't used before. In this case the athlete's coach still want him hitting the O-lifts so to make sure he gets those in the coaches at Defrancos kept those in the athletes workout.  

With everyone coming back and needing certain things in their program to keep their coaches back at school happy, you begin to see some weird programs out there.  Certain guys from college and the pros have programs that don't entirly make sense and I think may be a case of the strength coach not really having a good grasp on training knowledge.  I don't like to put anyone down or belittle coaches but you see how there are people in certain positions that quite frankly don't truely understand the what, why, or how to get their athletes better, they just throw basic principles at them because its what they learned.  They never questioned why or thought is there anything better I could be doing with my athletes? For example one of our MLB pitchers' program calls for their pitchers to be tested in a long distance run, max sit ups in a minute, and other tests testing muscle endurance rather than strength or power (which is what they truely need to be a successful pitcher).

Still have the same mid day crew of pro football guys mixed with some fighters, D1 football players, and a WWE hopeful.  Interesting mix but they all work very hard and consistently get great results from the program.

With all the athletes coming back and getting work in I've been getting to work more with the athletes on a one-on-one basis.  I get to take them through their warm ups, and progress them through their workouts checking form and seeing how the athlete is doing that day to regulate intensity and volume of the workout, and get to know the athlete on a more personal level which I love.  

Check out this one boxer I got to work with, ranked top 15 in his weight class on the pro level.

Still learning an incredible amount everyday, getting more into CF concepts and looking forward to getting more into the Soviet coaches and their priciples (vertical integration, hi lo, etc.).  Also, keep picking stuff up from the coaches that are great tweaks or ideas for programs, such as hip mobility on upper days and shoulder on lower days to keep the athletes healthy without messing with their work capacity for the workout that day.

I'll be uploading more soon, should be some good stuff cause all the NFL crew comes back next week!