I have hit well over my internship hours at this point, and since I HAVE to start working again, I have begun to slow down my hours at Defranco's.  Actually at this point, I pretty much will be only going in to help out Coach CJ with the high school team.  I wish money wasn't an issue otherwise I would be at Defranco's all day to keep learning and being around the athletes, unfortunately money makes the world go round and I don't have any haha!  

Working with the high schools guys has been great though.  We have gotten a few more additions because winter sports are officially done, but these guys are working just as hard after coming right out of their seasons.  Some of the guys are really impressing us in how strong they are.  We had two athletes box squat 405 with room left in the tank, and a few guys bench well over 250 (form was in check on all testing- no half reppin’ here)!  Some guys have a lot to gain from the program as well; a few guys were only squatting a couple pounds above 100, and some of the benches were only 95 lbs.  This is to be expected out of some 13-15 year old kids, after all the biological age on these guys are all over the place with puberty and all.  Now that we have everyone tested, we have bodyweight and squat/bench weight goals for everyone.  Some of the linemen need to lose a few pounds, but most of the team really needs to put on weight.  We should see the body weight really accumulating by Week 8-10 (currently Week 5).  The weights on the lifts will probably be shooting up pretty continually now that we have the forms really dialed in.  This was a huge point because early on we saw how the kids (like 90% of all other high school football teams) thought it was correct to really load up the weight and go until the weight was too heavy to lift.

We have a much more organized format with the guys now compared to their “pre-Defanco’s” days.  The program has since been tweaked since I first described to you.  It still runs based off of the vertical integration principal (running all training components such as sprinting, plyometrics, strength training simultaneously) with an emphasis on the strength training.  In talking with Coach CJ and others, a lot of times if you want to get a younger, weaker athlete more “athletic”, get them stronger.  Stronger athletes can drive off their legs harder during the sprint or generate more force when throwing a ball.  We are still keeping simple plyos like box jumps and also working on sprint technique through simple drills like A skips and prowler sprints. 

A skip teach proper rhythm when sprinting, how to stay elastic on the pop and not tighten up too much (it looks pretty funny if someone is too stiff), proper arm drive (face cheek to butt cheek), and staying upright in a nice relaxed position.

Prowler sprints help teach proper shin and body angle during the initial start of the sprint, how to keep the body in a straight line from the ankle of plant leg to the shoulders of the sprinter, and also reinforces the need to stay "springy".  If the athlete is too hard on their feet and doesn't use the elastic step of the previous step, they will look like Fred from the Flinstones driving his prehistoric car moving his feet 100 mph but going nowhere.  We want to see bounding like steps, think gazelle.

For the guys’ lower body strength work, we have them on a Triphasic style of programming and for the upper body we have them performing a Juggernaut style.  I have talked about the Triphasic I believe, but it’s essentially build on the concept of breaking down the athletic motion into three parts and developing each; the Eccentric phase, the Isometric phase, and the Concentric phase.  We will accomplish this through exercises like Eccentric Squats, Pause Squats (sitting “in the hole” with the weight), and regular explosive Squats.  For the Juggernaut, the program will really help put mass and size on the guys’ upper bodies.  The program calls for 4 waves of sets of 10, 8, 5, 3 always working at submax weight and trying to set new rep records on the last set of the wave. 

Taken from Triphasic Training by Cal Dietz and Ben Peterson.  Great book jammed with exceptional information.  Graph shows the Eccentric (downslope), Isometric (bottom of “V”), and the Concentric phases of an athletic movement of a superior athlete vs a regular athlete.

Taken from The Juggernaut Training System by Chad Wesley Smith.  Outline of percentages and sets/reps scheme. 

          I’ll keep you up to date with the guys’ progress.  I will be keeping busy outside of the team with my regular job doing the construction, trying to get a job in the field.  I have been pushing my resume out there but apparently the economy hit the training sector as well.  I thought with my educational background as well as practical experience might have given me a leg up, but I guess those only take you so far.  Speaking of my educational background, as a part of this course I have to come up with an annual training plan as well as a program for an individual athlete.  The athlete is actually in the high school program now so I will be using him as a part of my assignment.  For the annual training plan however, I came up with a plan for a men’s college basketball player.

I based a lot of this on Bompa’s book Periodization Theory and Methodology, Charlie Francis’ Key Concepts, as well as other online sources as templates for this.  Pre-Defranco’s this would have looked completely different (probably a lot worse haha).  Check it out let me know what you think- what you like, don’t like, would add or take out.  All comments welcome!