I have had the privilege of learning from some of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world.  Attending mentorship programs from Coach Michael Boyle, listening to Alwyn Cosgrove and Gray Cook lecture, reading books from the likes of Stuart McGill, Shirley Sahrmann, Hoppenfield and Myers, and becoming a member of StrengthCoach.com, a web site leader in strength and conditioning information and research.  Some may say that I spend a lot of money on continuing education.  I would disagree wholeheartedly! I choose the word invest!  In fact, my business (2,700 sq foot facility in Columbus, Ohio) has prospered enormously from the valuable information that I have gathered from these coaches and put into practice. 

There is an evolutionary process involved in most professions called learning that can change the way we view things.  Alwyn Cosgrove or Michael Boyle might call these “Ah ha” moments.  Moments that make you scratch your head and think aloud, moments that challenge the way we have done things in the past, moments that allow us to grow (many of us are reluctant to grow for fear or just plain stubbornness).  It is in these moments that good coaches become great, or good coaches remain stagnant because they are stuck with “the way things used to be.”  Alwyn Cosgrove said “If you put a group of the most successful strength coaches in one room and their students in another, the students wouldn’t agree on any training philosophy or principal, whereas the coaches would agree on almost everything.” Indeed it is my personal experience that there are far more similarities than differences between good strength coaches.  Our job is to make athletes bigger, stronger and faster while reducing the chance of sport related injury. 

When we think about a recipe for success in sports such as hockey, soccer and lacrosse, we think of speed, power, strength and anaerobic capacity.  Although these are all mandatory ingredients needed to enhance the final product (athletic potential), one of the ingredients missing in many of today’s strength and conditioning programs is the ability to accelerate. Acceleration is simply the rate at which speed increases. Very few times in the sports mentioned above do we reach top velocity and sustain this for prolonged periods of time.  However, we do accelerate constantly!  Simple physics states: “The higher the velocity, the lower the rate of acceleration.”  If we don’t sustain top velocity on a regular basis, acceleration is then one of the keys to success. 

Although I am a relatively young strength and conditioning coach, I continuously take the time to educate myself through lecture, readings, DVD’s, seminars, mentorship programs, and most importantly through experience in training my athletes/general clients. I have had the opportunity to learn, apply and grow from many of the best in the industry. If this business has taught me one thing its that the learning process is truly ever evolving!