Knowledge
Alex Vasquez Interview Pt. 2
This is part 2 of an interview with a renowned collegiate strength coach. Part 1 can be found here. Enjoy the rest!
Question 4
In terms of program construction, I’ve heard you talk about setting up a strength template and a power template. Is that what you use with your athletes, and if so, can you give a quick breakdown?
I answered this to some extent in the last question, so I will defer to that to start with and then add a little more:
I'll add that I "Train on the fly as the body adapts" - DB Hammer
So while progressions are important, I also look at the athletes’ adaptation response and let their bodies tell me when they are ready for the next progression. Here is one example.
I used to program depth drops as follows:
Week 1: 20
Week 2: 30
Week 3: 40
Then switch to a similar progression for Depth jumps. At 3x/week volumes roughly correspond to Yuri V.'s work.
More recently, once I pared down the exercise menu, it became much easier to watch what their bodies were actually doing. As a result the strength and power templates, because exercise selection is very similar, are easier to adjust on the fly. So now, for drops, when the team looks springy I switch to depth jumps. I can audible to another movement that they are ready for. My results have been much better this way.
When coaching teams, calling an audible is tough. You have to monitor so many variables. You have the athletes (30 or more at a time), technique, method, and of course exercise selection. If the program has too many exercises it becomes very tough to adjust on the fly. Now, since everyone has mastered the movement patterns, the templates stay almost the same so you can easily say "switch to reactive squats." and the adjustment is easy because they already know how to squat.
It's the whole jack of all trades, master of none theory. I'd rather have my teams master a few basic movement patterns and then adjust the means and methods used for those than waste a bunch of time teaching new exercises.
Question 5
A couple months ago, we talked briefly about your “super-secret” agility development method. Okay, so maybe you didn’t say it was “super-secret,” but you did say that it would be easier to show in person. However, I’m still going to put you on the spot and ask you to briefly outline how you develop agility and change of direction in team-sport athletes.
Step 1: breakdown, gather your feet and drop your center of gravity.
Step 2: plant your whole outside foot in the ground (yes your heel)
Step 3: load your hip and explode out of the turn
other tips:
If your glutes, hams, and gastrocs are responsible for making you fast, your quads and heel slow you down. Thus, changing direction involves slowing down, stopping, and accelerating. Slowing down and stopping are the opposite of acceleration and top speed. They are quad and heel dominant. Logical conclusion but is missed on the majority of coaches.
I know it flies in the face of conventional thought but if you think it through you will see the logic. Turning fast requires good breaks. You wouldn't take a Ferrari around a 90 degree turn at 200mph. If you were racing around a turn like that you would need great breaks and great acceleration.
If you are a change of direction athlete you need quads and at times need to get your heel into the ground!
Getting your whole foot in the ground ensures all of your cleats are in the turf. If is is slick or raining this will help with traction. When guys slip in bad weather they usually didn't get their cleats in the ground.
Don't cross your feet over, you have no balance or power in that position.
If you slip in good conditions chances are you cut off your inside foot.
Keep your center of gravity within your frame. That means get low when cutting and don't let your shoulders get over your outside foot. Recall Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas. Everyone raved about their low center of gravity. When turning drop your hips and lower your center of gravity.
Question 6
Do you have any difference between how you train male athletes and female athletes?
Nope. I know people that give this a lot of lip service; they talk about hormone cycles, Q-angles, etc… I work with 150 athletes, there is so much other stuff to monitor- their gender isn’t that important. As long as they are moving correctly, that is all I care about. I don’t actually know any S&C coaches who do train them differently.
I will say that female athletes tend to listen better and pay closer attention to detail. They also aren’t as “bench-press oriented” as males, which makes them a little more fun to work with.
Question 7
Okay, the last question is more of a toss-up. Feel free to drop some knowledge on any topic that I didn’t hit. Talk about one exercise, method, or anything else related to training that you really like and one thing that you really don’t like.
This one's tough. The previous questions hit at the heart of my thinking.
Recently there has been a lot of debate between overanalyzers and underanalyzers. I'd like to think I fall somewhere in the middle.
Here's my take:
Overanalyzing is fun. If we didn't love the topic we wouldn't be in this industry. We'd be overanalyzing gaming systems or some other bs.
I really feel that overanalyzation is valuable because this is how we learn and progress. The problem with overanalyzation and being a strength coach that deals with LARGE groups of kids at once (anyone else here overseen 120+ kids at once) is that you cannot really apply what is discussed. This is where the inno-sport system fails. You can't hit 40 guys at one time. So messing around with the overanalyzed programming in relation to your own training, or in a 1-3 on 1 scenario can work, but it is not feasible at the university level or with large groups.
This is one reason why I said Mike Boyle was right. With large groups of kids you need to identify sport needs and key problems. What you end up with, surprisingly, is that most athletes need the same things. First, keep in mind the sport coaches tend to run their kids to death so conditioning is out of the question.
So let's eliminate conditioning.
What's left?
#1 Hip extension. If your athletes run, jump, or even swing a club, all movements are powered by hip extension. The focus should be on the glutes as they are the primary extensors.
#2 Core strength. So many athletes run with a flexed or extended spine. They are leaking energy that should be going into the ground. On to racket and club sports. How many athletes turn their hips prior to their shoulders as opposed to moving as one unit? All of them. Again hip extension is creating this large rotational force but it's getting lost in the core. Stabilize their spines and improve thpracic mobility and they will hit the ball harder and farther.
Honestly, I would be happy if every kid could load there hips and glutes properly and develop a strong, stable torso.
Improving those two things will have your jumpers jumping higher, your runners running faster (both sprint and endurance guys) your hitters hitting harder and your throwers throwing harder.
Once those two are taken care of add strength and power methods and 95% of your athletes needs will be met.
More can be found from Alex at his blog here.
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