Donskov Strength and Conditioning has built a niche over the years training hockey players. I would imagine my previous career in the sport (both at the college and semi-pro level) has led to the large influx of players and organizations entrusting DSC to train their athletes. I would also hope that my thirst for knowledge and professional experience in exercise science far surpasses my so-called career as a player. John Wooden once said “Don’t confuse professional experience with your ability to teach it.” Just because you played, doesn’t mean you’re a qualified coach. Although we take pride in our niche base of hockey players, I’ve never been a fan of what I would call “specificity overkill”, or sports specific overkill. Our job is defined, as Strength and Conditioning professionals not sport coaches. What’s the job of a strength and conditioning coach? Pretty simple; improve strength and conditioning qualities that can tangibly be carried over into competition!  Some qualities overlap regardless of sport. Some do not.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people confuse strength and conditioning with personal training. Take a look at the chat on web site forums, so-called fitness experts and armchair trainers and you may think that personal training and strength and conditioning are the same. Conversations such as:

Program design fascinates me!   So many unique elements make up the system that seeks to elicit results for various client populations. It takes years to master and is continuously under construction. As the saying goes, the best program is the one that you’re not currently on. Coach Boyle wrote an excellent article last year called “Should You Stick to the Recipe?”   This article is perfect for young, intermediate coaches who seek to build their own programs/recipes. The evolutionary stages of cook, sous-chef, and finally head chef are excellent analogies pertaining to learning the science of program design. Another important element is the menu. Once the recipe is mastered, there needs to be a menu set in place for your customers. What happens if a certain customer doesn’t eat red meat (they can’t squat) or is a vegetarian (had shoulder surgery)? Menu planning is an art. Here are the three stages of designing your own strength and conditioning menu. As Coaches, our goal is to design a menu that fits the needs of our customers.

“Character is made by what you stand for; reputation, by what you fall for.” (Robert Quillen) I’ve always believed that coaches have the unique ability to make a profound impact on the life of young minds. Strength and Conditioning is no different, the life lessons we preach at Donskov Strength and Conditioning move well beyond free weights, chalk, and hang cleans. We have worked to create an environment of accountability, attention to detail, work ethic, pride, perseverance, team first and FUN! It is our belief that these values are far more important than weights pushed or pulled and can be applied to all aspects of life.  This environment has also created a loyal following of dedicated, hard working people. These are the intangibles that create success regardless of sport. This is whom I want on my team! “There are certain qualities that you look for in people, whether you are on a football team or in business. You look for people who are committed, devoted, and doing the best job. Talent isn’t going to matter either. I’ll take the guy who is out breaking his butt over a guy with talent in a close situation every time. I may get my butt beat a few times, but in the long run, I’ll win because I’ll have the guy with more character.” (Mike Ditka)

There is nothing better than my Mother’s home made Thanksgiving dinner, 4000 calories of turkey, gravy, stuffing, salad, and enough pumpkin pie to feed a small army. In order to make it through without passing out, it’s mandatory to eat one bite at a time. Failure to do so can cause some serious indigestion, nausea, and a quick trip to the men’s room.  Indigestion can also occur in the weight room. Although our athletes don’t fill their bellies with turkey dinner, they do fill their minds with auditory, kinesthetic, and visual cues. Take home point: Don’t over coach! Repetition is the mother of success. If your athletes spend more time listening to muscle insertion points and the finer hip angle of the hang clean, you need some ex-lax because indigestion is just around the corner.

Experience is a valuable teacher, arguably the single most important step in the learning process. Learning from past success and failure allows us to build efficient, effective training methods, exercise components, philosophies, coaching cues, professional, hands-on knowledge, and most importantly saves time. “Time is of essence, and the essence of success is time.” (John Wooden) There are many avoidable mistakes young coaches make to form their experiences: from the muscle head coach who creates his workout regime from a Bodybuilding Magazine, to the Coach who tries to fit square pegs in round holes and hurts his clients or himself, to the Coach that thinks a former sporting career qualifies him as a competent, effective strength and conditioning professional. The question we all need to ask ourselves is: “Can we expedite the learning process?” “Can we learn from wise coaches with years of experience making mistakes so that we may avoid them?” The answer to this question is YES! I call this Fast Forward Learning.

As Strength Coaches our job is three fold: prevent injuries in the weight room, reduce sport related injuries, and enhance performance. Unfortunately most coaches focus on the last two and ignore the MOST important! I don’t care if your athlete can back squat 400 lbs if he has a stress fracture and herniated disk and can’t participate in his sport. Bottom line: injuries in the weight room are the fault of the STRENGTH COACH….PERIOD! Coach Dan John, who has been coaching before I was born, most recently reinforced this concept in a lecture at MBSC in Boston. He emphasized, “DO NO HARM!” We need to reassess this concept, as exercise selection and protocol are the responsibility of the coach. It’s a simple concept, yet we make it inherently difficult. Below are four ways to assess/implement the “Do No Harm” philosophy.

I don’t speak Italian fluently but with the help of technology I can understand each and every line of The Godfather. Foreign language is unfortunately foreign to me. Different countries speak different languages’ that their respective “tribes” understand. Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” explains that a tribe is a group of people (large or small), who are connected to one anther by an idea, common interest, principal or leader. Strength and Conditioning Coaches, we are a tribe! Our themes, connections and leaders unite us in the strength game. However, one of our biggest problems is this: We don’t speak the same language! No Habla Strength and Conditioning! Travel to France, people speak French, travel to Spain, people speak Spanish, travel to any weight room in the country and coaches simply don’t speak the same language. I can’t tell you how many programs I’ve looked at where I had NO idea what the coach was asking for from his/her athletes. If this is confusing to us, how do you think the athletes feel?

Either way we choose to look at it, we will all spend money on health.  The question is how we spend it.  It is much wiser to invest in “preventative” measures such as proper diet and exercise as opposed to “reactionary” measures such as disease and injury.  Our nation is fat (2007, 74.1% of Americans were considered obese) and does not move well.  Coupled with this problem is the fact that when many consumers’ are finally ready to exercise they are un-educated as to what constitutes effective/safe protocol.  We are consumed with the “magic pill” mentality of quick fixes.  It is not an easy problem to solve and the Hollywood angle only makes it worse.  Shows like The Biggest Loser and “celebrity” trainers offering professional advice only muddies the waters and makes our jobs that much more difficult. 

I’m sure during the coarse of a regular workday many coaches feel overworked, over stretched, and under strengthened.  Being successful takes hard work, early mornings, late nights, hours of deliberate practice and plenty of caffeine.  However, the scope of this article is not about our lives as coaches, but about our athletes and their ability to perform at high levels without setback.  Through hours of screening, education and application, I believe that we have plenty of muscle groups that are either overworked, overstretched or under strengthened.  In some cases, I believe that certain muscle groups fit in all categories.  That’s right!  I do believe that in certain instances we are overstretched!  Below are several examples of the overworked, over stretched, and under strengthened thought process.