Today’s episode features sport performance coach and consultant, Walt Cline. He is the founder of AMPS Training Systems. Coach Cline has served as an assistant athletics coach, private coach and consultant to teams and programs at multiple levels in the USA. His athletic projects include thousands of prospective scholastic athletes, collegiate athletes and professional athletes. Cline’s work and contracts are based primarily on movement biomechanics, team Sports, throwing & striking sports, speed development, strength & conditioning and curriculum design.
Our chat revolves around Walt’s arrangement of training, which features block and roll-over arrangement of three distinct training days: strength-endurance, strength and velocity. I first learned of Walt’s work about 6 years ago, and found his approach to periodization, potentiation and cluster training unique and insightful. Walt is one of those guys you haven’t heard much about, since he is not very active on social media, but his experiences, mentors and knowledge of speed and power development is of an extremely high level.
I’ve always been a huge training organization and structure guy. I won’t write out a whole season before I get there, but I like frameworks and ideas for arranging training that make sense. I am always thrilled to see a system of training in place that makes complex ideas simple, and helps me to understand what is doing on with my athletes, and how to better give them what they need as a season unfolds.
In this episode, Walt gives a thorough explanation of his workout classification, which works on a color system, and matches what is happening on the track and in the weightroom. It has resemblance to training structures such as the Cube system, as well as Dan Pfaff’s 3-day rollover, but is free-flowing and easily adaptable to any situation. Simply having an idea of how Walt does program design is sure to give any coach great ideas on how to make what they are doing even better.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Key Points:
- Walt’s background as an athlete and coach
- How Walt creates and arranges workouts based on a “color” system of strength endurance, maximal strength, ballistic strength and regeneration
- Using isometrics for potentiation when working speed and velocity
- How Walt creates blocks of training out of season and in-season using a revolving or blocked periodization of his color system (strength-endurance, maximal strength, velocity)
- Chat on blocked training vs. undulating training models, as well as progressing weekly based on a “color” theme
- Integrating cluster training into Walt’s training system
“I may do the same thing three weeks in a row, but it will have a very different intensity each time”
“To do high repetition efforts, eccentric and isometric holds, all this stuff helps because it helps them build the stability of doing the exercise correctly, and once they start doing that, then we are ready to pick up some heavier weight”
“Red zone being strength endurance, on the track a 300 example is running a 30 down and back 10 times and trying to get under a minute. White zone approach running the 300 zone is down and back with 20 second rest, 5 times, or run 10 hills. The blue zone model would be, run a 30 as fast as you can with a walk-back“
“In the weightroom, what I try to do is match up the energy systems. If I have a guy working strength endurance in the weightroom, I want to do that on the track”
“If we are working on pushing or pulling heavier sleds, we’re picking up heavier weights in the weightroom”
“A couple of ways I like to potentiate, have them do a quarter squat or a mid-thigh pull, have them take 3-5 minutes, then have them blast out and perform their first few push steps in their sport.”
“In a couple months, we might go red, red, white blue, red, white, white, blue, red white, blue, blue, red, white, blue, gold, playoffs, hopefully a championship”
“When my athletes aren’t playing as much baseball, I’ll stretch out those zones a few more weeks if we really want to work on something; it’s difficult sometimes when they are in season”
“You are trying to touch on (all qualities) at least once a month”
“I can’t get them to work on skill or things that are really going to tax them out on exam week”
“In team sports when they compete on the weekends, I’m a big fan of red, white and blue in a week”
“In the red zone, I control the interest rest interval at 10 seconds, white zone 20 seconds, blue zone 30 seconds”
“Muscles can’t contract explosively unless they are rested”
“My athletes seem to have the most fun in the blue zone”
“I’ll ask athletes what’s a 10-scale of their RPE, and I’ll also ask them what is their control (single leg stance test)”
About Walt Cline
Walt Cline is a Consultant Performance and Sport Science Coach in the D.C. Area. Coach Cline’s primary role is to design and execute projects and programs to help athletes, teams and organizations get to the next level. Coach is the Owner and founder AMPS Training Systems.
Coach Cline has served as an assistant athletics coach, private coach and consultant to teams and programs at multiple levels in the USA. His athletic projects include thousands of prospective scholastic athletes, collegiate athletes and professional athletes including but not limited to: NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, NCAA (ACC, SEC, PAC12, MAC), WBC / WBA, PGA, WLPGA and USTA. Cline’s work and contracts are based primarily on Movement Biomechanics, Team Sports, Throwing & Striking Sports, Speed Development, Strength & Conditioning, Curriculum Design, Individual Design, Group Clinic & Team Training, Clinic & Workshops.
Previous roles and Projects include: D.C. United Soccer (Off Season Speed & Movement Consultant), Washington Nationals (Off Season Speed, Strength & Conditioning), Four Star Tennis Academy (Director of Athlete Development), Velocity Sports Performance-Alexandria, VA (Sports Performance Director), Velocity Sports Performance-White Plains, NY, Jamaica Track & Field ( Sports Performance), Subject Matter Expert (USMC Warfighting Lab & NAVY Research), VeloWorks Cycling (Strength & Conditioning), Annandale Soccer Academy (Speed & Fitness), Soccer Revolution Academy (Soccer Fitness) Baby Joe Mesi Boxing (Strength & Conditioning / Buffalo, NY) West Side Rowing Club (Buffalo, NY). Fort Hays State University Football (Graduate Assistant), Fort Hays State University Track & Field (Assistant Coach) Kansas State University at Fort Hays (Heath & Human Performance Dept. Teaching Assistant)
Cline earned a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology/Pedagogy from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY, where he competed in football and track and field. He also holds a master’s degree in Health and Human Performance from Kansas State University (Fort Hays). Cline is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCAS), a licensed teacher in Health & Physical Education in New York State and the owner and operator of H2 Kinetics, AMPS Training Systems and PoweredbyAMPS.com.
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