We live in a funny world, don’t we?  Most athletes, parents, clients and a lot of people around are judging your work as a strength coach by how tired you can make them during training sessions.  Following a Crossfit, P90X or other non-sense training system, people always seem satisfied with the results because they work hard.  After all, isn’t it what it’s all about?

These quotes make plenty of sense, don’t they…..

As a strength coach or a personal trainer it’s very easy to exploit these training systems or use other training methods to make yourself look good to the uneducated crowd out there, who always believed that working hard is the only thing it’s about.

Since that stuff sells and attract a lot of athletes and weekend warriors, it’s not easy to drift away from those training methods and still make your athletes and clients feel like they’re accomplishing something, even though they don’t crawl out the door with not an ounce of energy left. 

Let’s face it, what’s easier?:

- Beating your athletes to the ground every training session, and leaving them with the feeling they’ve worked hard? Or;

- Letting your athletes leave the weight room with some energy left, and sometimes even feeling refreshed, and having to sell to them why it is better than beating them to the ground when they’ve been led to believe otherwise all their life?

It’s an art to periodize your athletes’ training, and even more of an art to stick to it.  When you’ve planned to back off the weights at the beginning of the off-season to give your athletes some time to recover and take care of the imbalances they’ve created during their season, do you really stick with the plan?  Or do you get overwhelmed by the feeling that you should work them to the ground?

Managing training loads and volumes is critical, especially with high level athletes.  If you think that training hard and crushing your athletes is the way to go, you’re going to have a serious problem working (and being successful) with College and pro athletes.  I think I remember Sean Skahan, strength coach of the Anaheim Ducks in the NHL, saying that he feels more like a “recovery coach” than a strength coach at times.  I couldn’t agree more with him.

There are times during a training year where it’s all about maximizing recovery and handling training loads so the athletes can still perform at the highest level and avoid getting hurt.  Overtraining will drastically affect your performance level and make your risk of injury skyrocket.  The in-season and early off-season phases are perfect examples; athletes have a lot of stress put on their body with a lot of games, practices every day, travel, school (in the case of college athletes), etc.  That’s why they need a lot of recovery, injury prevention and corrective strategies during those times.  A certain level of strength can be maintained, but the volume must remain pretty low.

Make sure you don’t take the easy way out.  Do what’s right for your athletes, plan accordingly and resist the urge of just crushing them for the sake of it.  They’ll become better, stronger and more injury resistant athletes in the long run.

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I don’t know if you’re as excited as I am about the new baseball season, but I can’t wait for it to kick off officially!  I have many reasons to be excited;

- As a HUGE Red Sox fan, the acquisition of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez this off-season were great moves by the organization, and the season looks nothing but extremely promising for the Sox.  And knowing that Kevin Youkilis busted his ass and did quality training at Cressey Performance during the off-season just adds to the excitement!

- All our high school pitchers are going to start their season in the next couple of weeks, and I’m really excited to get out there and watch them play.  They all worked really hard during the off-season and got a lot stronger, more explosive, and pretty much all got their fastball up big time, so it’ll be interesting to see how they look on the mound once the season kicks off.

- Since moving to the Philadelphia, I’ve learned to like the Phillies (as my second favorite team I’d say), since it’s pretty accessible for me to go watch live games, which I enjoy more than anything.  Being from Montreal, enjoying live MLB games is something I haven’t had a chance to do much in the last couple of years.  That being said, with a pitcher rotation that includes arguably the 4 best pitchers in the league right now in Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and now Cliff Lee, how can I not be excited to go watch the Phillies?

Welcome back to Philly, Cliff!

That being said, the next few months of baseball are going to be pretty exciting!

On a different note, things are pretty quiet at Endeavor for now; our baseball and lacrosse players pretty much all left last week as tryouts are kicking off for all of them.  And we’re still a couple weeks away from hockey seasons progressively ending from the end of March for youth hockey organization ’til the end of May for some pro guys.  That means we’re going to start getting really busy, really soon.  This upcoming hockey off-season at Endeavor looks more promising than ever with a bunch of new players that are going to join the already amazing group of players we had last year.

Busier also means more work for the coaching staff.  That also means we’re going to need help to bridge the gap; we’re actually looking for interns (probably 3-4) for the summer period (May through August).  An internship opportunity at Endeavor means learning and sharing with passionate coaches who thrive to get better every day, learning how to perfect your coaching abilities, gaining experience with a wide range of hockey players from Tier II pee-wees to professional players trying to secure a job in the NHL, and much more.  Interning says a lot about the dedication you have at getting better and making it in the strength and conditioning business.  It will definitely build up your network and might even lead to a job offer.  If you’re interested in interning at Endeavor click on the link below for more details and to download the application form:

Endeavor Sports Performance Internship

You can send me the application via e-mail or by fax to Endeavor at (856)269-4153.  If you have any further question regarding the internship opportunity, don’t hesitate to contact me via e-mail.

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