I think any good coach would agree that each year, there is something different about how they operate. After all, if you are not evolving, you are dissolving. 2018 was a year more than any other that brought about profound changes to my program at Soar Fitness. There are two main reasons for this.
- I was finally able to collaborate with a physical therapist that worked out of my gym, but as his own entity. I had grown tired of seeing numerous athletes come in with the traditional “stretching sheets” and band exercises that were given to them by the large PT providers in my area. I know that there are many quality therapists working in these locations, but more times than not, I was seeing athletes come in with symptoms treated, and underlying causes ignored. In fact, for a few years I was referring people all the way to Indianapolis to work with Bill Hartman at IFAST. Talk about a tough sell – 3 hour drive each way just for PT.
My belief in PRI methods and intelligent collaboration between the PT and myself was all I was looking for. Luckily Bill referred me to an understudy of his, Stephen Laflamme, and it has been smooth rolling ever since. Stephen has had a profound impact not only on getting my athletes who were in pain to feel better, but on my overall programming as well. I will outline a few examples later.
- I’m not going to lie, after 15 years in the strength and conditioning industry, I began to get bored in 2017. I felt like I was offering nothing different than anyone else was in an oversaturated market. Plus, more and more schools were making training mandatory, which meant kids were coming to my gym less. I had to do something different to reenergize myself and separate my program from the others in the area. Early in 2018 I began to see Joel reference a coach, Adarian Barr on a regular basis. After talking to Joel about him and interacting with Adarian some on Instagram, it became clear to me that I had to make the trip to Sacramento to meet with him. To this day, it’s the best thing I have ever done in my career. Adarian’s way of looking at training for speed is completely different than anyone else I had ever read or learned from. As a result, the things we do AND don’t do at SOAR for speed have forever changed.
Change #1 – Rethinking Posterior Chain Training
One thing that has guided my training over the last few years is there are no absolutes. There might be concepts and methods that work for just about everyone, but not EVERYONE. In my sixteen years of strength coaching, one of the concepts that I felt was for everyone was glute training. We hit the heck out of the glutes. Single and double leg Hip thrusts, swings, isometrics, Triphasic glute layering…..you name and we have done just about all of it. After all, the glutes are the king muscle right? Hit the pause button on that thought.
This is where my collaboration with Stephen, the PT working out of my gym, comes in to play. When he sees a client, he sends me a complete write up and I take that information and make a program. I then send the program back to him for his review. It was this past summer that I sent him a program for an athlete that we were working with who was coming off a back fracture. He hit me with this……”I would probably avoid any direct glute work with him.”
Say what?
I am going to give you the cliff notes here. The athlete we are talking about is already at end range hip extension. Stephen uses a tremendous analogy that will make this pretty clear. Think about Hank Hill from King of the Hill vs Kim Kardashian and especially where their asses are relative to their torso. This kid was Hank Hill. From what Stephen learned from Bill Hartman, an athlete like this has a pelvic outlet that was closed. When an athlete like this squats, you will see their butt disappear under them and typically their knees will shoot way out as a result of limited IR in the hip. The strategy we use is a focus on hamstrings and adductors. Consequently, any direct glute work would further close the pelvic outlet and work against us.
Athletes like this need flexion, not extension that comes with direct glute work. Below is a video of a squat variation that we use with our “needs flexion and IR” crowd.
Hamstring Squat
Change #2 – Switching Rowing Variations Predominantly to Unilateral or Alternating
This is one I have gravitated towards over the past few years and this past year have gone full go on it based on Stephen’s indications for a number of shoulder issues, including my own. If you really think about it, throwing, spiking and even sprinting are Tri-planar actions. They involve rotation of the thorax. Seated rows, prone rows and lat pull downs are all sagittal plane movements. Use of those exercises not only negate a chance to train rotation, but they could also build some poor movement patterns that can affect various athletes’ performances. Just think about the over-latted guy who can’t swing a golf club or a baseball bat.
Using unilateral and alternating rowing variations also give us a chance to train abs in a non traditional way by tying in an exhale and opposite arm reach with the pull. Top is off with a variety of split squatted and squatted stances, we have turned a simple row into a total body exercise.
Ipsilateral 1 Arm Cable Row
On a side note, I have not abolished bilateral rowing all together. I still have athletes perform chin ups and some inverted row variations. Also, if I have a football lineman/linebacker who really needs a wide back, I will still put traditional sagittal plane variation in their program. However, I will still supplement unilateral and alternating variations in there too.
Change #3 – Moving Away from Heavy Sled Marching and Pushing
To eliminate confusion, I classify a sled push as the sled moving fast and the leg action as fast as possible. A march is typically heavier, slower and from what I have previously seen and done, really focused on triple extension.
Pretty heavy sled pushing is something I started to shy away in the last few years. I just saw more and more athletes move the sled with their arms to start and as a result, fell into a posture that didn’t resemble anything like a sprint. So I began to ask these questions.
- To me, if the sled wasn’t there, would the athlete would fall on their face?
- Is this doing anything other than making the athlete tired?
- If the answers are yes and then no, then why are we doing it?
Now as far as sled marching goes, my removal of those from our programs stems from what I have learned from Adarian Barr and his ReWire concepts. The foundation of what he teaches stems from athletic posture, the foot and the sequence and timing of running. Really heavy sled marching violates all of those concepts.
For one, fast people remove a foot from the ground before they replace. This should even happen in acceleration.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoMm4gujHFO/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=16lm04sqfugl7
Sled marching most typically promotes the opposite – replace the foot before you remove the one that was just on the ground. In addition to that, a lot of really heavy sled marches seem to involve replace the foot in a position where it is not properly leveraged. For two, the extreme triple extension results in either overpowering the Achilles (ending up on toes) or overstretching the Achilles (losing the heel to the ground while toes are till on the ground). Neither one of those scenarios are ideal for speed and overall function of the Achilles. Thirdly, as I stated before, a really heavy sled push or march typically begins with the arms pushing the sled away and athletic posture being lost.
Although probably just fine for general population conditioning, pushing a sled like this has a lot of negative repercussions for athletes (postural dynamics, teaching late swing leg action and overpowering Achilles tendon via flat foot action)
Those that are proponents of full triple extension in acceleration are certainly free to disagree. But if you follow Adarian’s methods, you would learn that the foot should function as a second class lever. Full triple extension does not allow the foot to operate as such. I won’t get into any more detail about this, but if your interest is peaked, my advice would be to attend a ReWire clinic or at least find Joel’s three podcasts that he has done with Adarian.
Like anything else, I might go back to heavy sled marching or pushing if I find a way to make it work with the ReWire concepts. In the meantime, we push pretty light weight as fast as we can, in a posture that resembles sprinting.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpCafbQA_UF/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=xci2prm03fv2.
Editor’s note: Mike and I don’t think sled sprinting with the weight behind you is bad at all (it doesn’t lead to the poor posture issues and “replace remove” pattern that sled marching often does, and here is a quick example of the work he does in this fashion.
The squatted sled run checks the boxes of hip height in acceleration, remove-replace, posture, and proper impulse management.
Traditional Sled Sprint
I had a ton of fun learning in 2018. It was definitely a lot work changing things in my programs and essentially shifting the focus of our speed and jump programs to the ReWire concepts. A lot of times, you simply don’t know what you don’t know until you seek out information from really smart people. From there, you either choose to make change, or forget that you even met that person. Personally, I am just smart enough to take the advice from people who I know are smarter than me!
About Mike Kozak
Mike Kozak graduated from Ohio State University in 2001 with a B.S. in Sport Performance and Coaching and a Master’s Degree in Sport and Exercise Education. In 2004, he became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He has also added a Speed and Agility certification through the International Youth Conditioning Association.
After graduation from Ohio State, Mike was a physical education teacher at a variety of Columbus Public elementary schools. He also coached 6th grade basketball and worked in conjunction with the G2 basketball camps. In 2002, he created Soar of Columbus with his business partner Nate Fugitt. In between 2002 and 2006, Mike trained youth athletes in a variety of settings throughout Central Ohio including Marysville, Hilliard and Worthington. In 2006, Soar opened its first facility in Lewis Center. There he has trained hundreds of youth athletes as well as a number of current and prospective college and pro athletes. In addition to his duties at Soar, Mike is also working with the NFL as a National Field Supervisor for NFL Regional Combines.
Two simple qualities guide Mike’s training philosophy – expert teaching and sound program design tailored to the individual. Youth athletes receive the teaching that is necessary to establish a sound base of strength and speed technique. Advanced high school and college/pro athletes are trained in a manner that best prepares them for their sport or event. No gimmicks, no bells and whistles – just coaching at the highest level.
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