Med Ball Mastery

Near completion for my Med Ball Mastery presentation that I am doing for Anthony Renna's new website Strength & Conditioning Webinars. Being able to present via the internet is a great way to maintain my secret identity so I'm pumped about the opportunity. Anthony is also just about the nicest guy I inter-know so I'm glad I can help him continue to develop his website.

The thing I love about showing what one knows and does not know is I am just arrogant enough to want to make sure that I know my stuff (at least specific to the topic). Some of my programming concepts are honestly works in progress and while I'm confident in what they do for development it would be a flat out lie to say that it has had this tremendous impact on LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development) or similarly hard to reach goals that are the true test of a coach beyond a basic return to fitness/conditioning.

Also have had the time this weekend to:

-Continue reading the IOC Medical Commission publication 'Volleyball'. The chapter on 'The Elite Athlete' is freakin' sweet. Really, the whole book has been excellent although I would disagree with much of the methodology presented in Bompa's chapter on 'Peak Conditioning for Volleyball'. I will save most of the disagreement's for my book. At least those that go beyond what one can pick up from what I have written so far (which ain't much).

-Sit down and review several dvd's that have stimulated some great thought. DVD's were the HPC Elitetrack Gold Medal Track Clinic and Developing a Dynamic Warm-Up Program for Speed-Power Athletes. Presentations from Dave Kerin, Will Wu, Tom Tellez, Larry Judge, Dan Pfaff, and Mike Young on the HPC Elitetrack Clinic DVD were all just fantastic for me. I do have to say that it seems like I cannot get through 1 track/field seminar or DVD without an attack on the agility ladder. While I do not use these much at all I find it incredibly ironic that track coaches would attack these when their own 'sprint' drills do not even serve the purpose their name describes. Ask a good track coach what these drills do and often you will get the answer that while they do not help actual sprinting, they do help with postural alignment, dynamic flexibility, or as a good way to extend the warm-up/transition into sprint work. That sounds like the same thing an agility ladder can do if used properly. I like to use sprint drills and skips in the warm-up, however, most of these drills utilize a vertical posture. This vertical posture is not seen frequently in sport. Whether one uses the agility ladder or not in the training of the team sport athlete is not important. The important thing is that we address postures specific to shin angle and plane of movement in the warm-up and in the training. The appropriate use of the agility ladder can help to do that.

- Had a 60-minute battle with about 20 yellow jackets. I wanted to barbecue (including beer can chicken) and drink a beer or two and these suckers were out to ruin it for me from the beginning. Underprepared but highly motivated, I was determined to take every one of these things down. This ended up being much more fun than just sitting there toasting my excellence.