elitefts™ Sunday edition

It Isn't the Strongest of the Species That Survives

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” — Charles Darwin

When I began as an intern in strength and conditioning, there were only a handful of strength coaches who lived in my region. I began at the University of Pittsburgh in a time when Seinfeld was still on the air (it truly was a glorious time before reality television). Back in those days, Pitt had three full-time strength coaches, and I'm pretty sure there weren't any other schools in the Pittsburgh area with strength coaches. Now, Robert Morris University has a staff, Duquesne University has a staff, and Pitt has more strength coaches than I can count (or it just seems that way every time I visit).

The times they are a changing (thanks, Bob Dylan). Now when I speak of strength and conditioning coaches, I'm specifically speaking about strength coaches who are employed by a university or a professional sports team. I respect those strength coaches in the private industry, but the job isn't the same. The issues we deal with are far different from what the private sector personal trainers face.

Today, the issues we deal with are much different from what they were ten to twenty years ago. I like to think that, as a profession, we're much better than we were. Most strength coaches are more active in the rehabilitation of athletes. They help athletes with other issues within their lives, help them with life skills, and help them grow as people. In addition, many strength and conditioning coaches teach (by choice). With this being said, we must be able to adapt because I can promise you that what you do today isn't what you'll be doing in ten years. Change is the only constant in life. Knowing this, I thought it was important to speak to a good friend of mine about this exact issue and see how the changes in his life are affecting him as well as all of us.

For those of you who don't know him (yes, you already should), Dr. Bryan Mann is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). He has spent the past few years working as a strength coach at Mizzou, being strong, and working on his doctorate. This year he made the jump from athletics to academia. I'll let him tell you more about his journey in his own words.

Q: What is your history in the field of strength and conditioning?

A: I guess I should really start at the beginning. It isn't any secret that I have a large red birthmark on my face. Kids being kids, they were cruel and made fun of me on a daily basis. I decided when I was 11 or 12 that I would stop this any way I could. I thought that if I got bigger and stronger than everyone else, they would stop. So my mom bought me one of those little 110-lb weight sets for twenty bucks at Sears for my birthday. I was immediately hooked. I loved the feeling of lifting weights, of the weight in my hands, the blood through my muscles, the fatigue from the workout. I loved it all. As a side effect, all the people who were making fun of me just stopped one day.

When I was 13 (way back in 1992), I went to a two-day “camp” of sorts. It was the Midwest Sports Medicine Center Strength and Conditioning Clinic at Southern Missouri State (SMS) campus. The clinic was put on by Kirk Woolfolk (currently the director of strength and conditioning at Navy), Robb Rogers (currently training the US Special Forces), and Russ Ball (currently in the front office of the Green Bay Packers). They made everything fun and seemed to be having the time of their lives. I enjoyed the camp tremendously and spoke with all three of them at the end of the camp. They gave me the title of a book, Speed-Strength Training by EJ “Doc” Kreis to read. I went and bought it and still have it.

That same summer, Rocky 4 came out. Being a poor white boy, I never went to the movies, and I’m not sure if we even had a VCR. This was the first time that I saw Rocky 4. I was enamored with the science side of the training of Ivan Drago. They measured everything. Every bit of training he did was to improve his performance, and they were sure of it based on everything they measured. It was surreal. The camp made me want to become a strength coach, and the movie made me want to become a sports scientist. My love of science and strength caused me to gravitate toward the sport of powerlifting, which I did fairly well at given my good leverages.

Fast forward to 1999 and my start in strength and conditioning. I started out by being at the right place at the right time. When I was an undergraduate attending the then Southwest Missouri State University (now just Missouri State University), I happened to be skipping one class to study for another. It was a nice day, and I decided to study by the stadium (which was on campus). It had a Taco Bell for an endless supply of Diet Pepsi and bean burritos. One of my high school teammates was on the team at SMS and he stopped to talk to me on his way to his lifting group. The head strength coach, Rick Perry, came up to talk to my friend and my friend introduced us. Rick said to me, “You look like you lift.” I replied “Yep, I’m a powerlifter.”

Rick then said that if I wanted, he could give me a trial run job in the weight room. He couldn’t pay me anything though. I accepted immediately, put the books in my bag, and went up and started working for him that very moment. I took a job bouncing at night to pay for my tuition because it fit in with my schedule as a strength coach. I’d be a coach from 5:30 a.m. or so until 6:30 p.m. or so, go home, take a nap until 9:00 p.m., bounce from 10:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., and go sleep in the weight room to start the next day.

I became essential to Rick to the point where they had to start paying me. Rick really challenged me and helped mold and shape me. He had a big shelf of books, and I started pulling them down, reading each one, and asking questions. He then started buying me books, too, to give me more information. We also visited various places. He introduced me to the conjugate methods and then took me to spend some time at Westside Barbell. He also introduced me to the Tendo unit, which I was a bit confused by and decided to look up a bit more information on (and we have what I’m known for today because of this). We also went to the Cleveland Browns to visit Buddy Morris and Tom Myslinski, which was fantastic. In Tom, I found another true nerd and we did nothing but talk about books for two hours.

From SMS, I went to intern under Joe “Big House” Kenn at Arizona State University. Due to my father's health though, my internship was cut short. Pat Ivey allowed me, a little nobody, to finish my internship for my degree at the University of Tulsa. I will always be grateful to Pat for taking a chance on someone in need. Being at Tulsa allowed me to spend time with my father several evenings a week and on weekends, which was invaluable time. You never know how valuable time is until your time with someone is almost up.

Rick had a graduate assistant position created for me at SMS, so I went back and took that. He forgot how much of a pain it is to have 21 sports by yourself during the summer and wanted to bring me back. So I went back to SMS for the 2003–2004 school year until Pat Ivey got the director of strength and conditioning position at the University of Missouri. I’ve been at Mizzou ever since. I started out as a graduate assistant and worked my way up. I kept working on my doctorate all along until May 2011. I’ve gotten to work with some incredible athletes along the way such as Ryan Howard, Jackie Stiles, Jeremy Maclin, Sean Wetherspoon, two-time Olympian Christian Cantwell, Mike Kearney, Max Scherzer, Aaron Crow, Ben Askren, and countless others. I’ve had the opportunity to experience many things that most people don’t.

Between powerlifting, earning my doctorate, and being a strength coach, I’ve had the opportunity to write a few books along the way. I wrote the first one because I was getting asked the same questions repeatedly about the Tendo unit after I wrote an article on it for elitefts™ quite some time ago, and the second one is on autoregulatory progressive resistance exercise (APRE). They're both available on Amazon as ebooks. The last book I wrote is the one I’m most proud of. It's called Powerlifting, and I wrote it with Dan Austin. It was published by Human Kinetics. It’s quite an awesome feeling to go into a bookstore and see your name on the shelf, and it’s an even better feeling when you see someone take a copy off the shelf.

My road is full of mentors, and I’ve learned from each of them. Rick Perry was my first boss and he taught me the value of knowledge. He pushed me to learn and was a constant pillar of support for me over the years. Joe Kenn taught me the tier system and tough love. Buddy Morris and Tom Myslinski have been outstanding resources for me over the years. Buddy always tells people about the “Sky bar incident,” when I met with them at the Sky Bar in Salt Lake City, Utah, to have a few drinks. As soon as they started talking training, I whipped out some folded up paper and a pen and started taking notes. Pat Ivey taught me compassion, power of the mind, and attention to detail (which I still need to work on or so my wife says). I’ve learned so much from so many. I wish there was enough space to talk about them all.

Q: Why did you make the jump from athletics to academia?

A: For me, it was something that I knew was inevitable. I made the move because I’ve always felt that those who have the ability to do something have the responsibility to do it. I’ve always heard so many people say that the research is behind the times, that science is studying the wrong things. I have the scientific background and the sport training background. I know both sides well enough to see what can be done. I think I can make some contributions to the profession.

I love solving problems. There isn't anything I enjoy more than finding the pieces to the puzzle to make them all fit. I'm fortunate to have a pretty good memory, and I pull things from all over and put them together. We’ve been able to fix many issues with that. For instance, we were trying to figure out how to categorize our athletes by position or weight for different sports and different positions within those sports for relative power, relative strength, and other factors because the distribution wasn’t normal. What that means is that we aren't really looking at what we think we’re looking at. I saw a study about something not really related, but it mentioned allometric scaling of body weight. Low and behold, we have something that so far is statistically working out.

I was also drawn to the academic side because I enjoy teaching. One of the reasons I got into coaching is because I enjoy teaching. I love being able to see students get it when it clicks in their heads. The only thing that is comparable to that is a last second come from behind win, and we had several of those last year.

The challenge of both the research side and the teaching side creates something really enjoyable for me. Plus, when you add in the continued coaching, it’s a dream job. I still have the women’s soccer team, so I think I have the best job in America. I get to do every single thing that I want, and I get paid for it!

Q: Where do you see our profession going?

A: Honestly, it’s tough to say. There is so much changing right now. One thing I do see is something I’ve considered writing an article on, but I don’t know where to submit it. That’s what is holding me back. I see what is going on as two things—a pendulum and a ladder. The pendulum is swinging back and forth from many different styles of training. There isn't anything new in these trends. I heard Mike Boyle once say, “If you want a new idea, read an old book.” This couldn't be truer in this profession. People swing back from anaerobic to aerobic, conjugate to unilateral, Westernized periodization to concurrent periodization. They move like this pendulum, back and forth, looking for the next big thing in training to stay ahead of the curve. They're looking for something new, some magic bullet, that doesn’t exist. These people are the “give me your program” people. I'll probably be criticized for that statement, but that’s OK. If it hurts, maybe they’ll see what’s going on.

Then there's a ladder. The ladder is the process of gaining knowledge and wisdom. When you climb a ladder, you get to see things from a different point of view. I had to replace a light bulb in a vaulted ceiling. From the floor looking around, the room looked to be in good order. But from the ladder looking down, I saw all the dust and dirt on top of shelves and things that had fallen over. I gained a new perspective. The same goes for gaining knowledge on training and programming. As you gain knowledge and understanding, you see the usefulness and applicability, or lack thereof, with the different swings of the pendulum. Instead of changing everything to go with the new trend, you can dissect the new trend and see if it contains anything you want to have in your program.

Where I see the profession going is actually very good. The internet has enabled more people to gain more knowledge and climb the ladder higher. This is especially good for the strength and conditioning professional who has a lot of athletes to train on a daily basis. He can see what is appropriate and when, and he knows what signs to look for to see if things are progressing. I would wager that we're at the renaissance phase of the profession. There are many changes going on, much of which is good and some of which isn't so good. However, the explosion of growth that is occurring will force people to get out of their comfort zones and climb the ladder. Climbing a ladder is difficult. It takes energy, time, and dedication. It’s easy to stay put. It requires nothing, but at the same time, you’ll never have a different viewpoint.

Q: What can we do to improve this profession?

A: Well, for one, we can simply communicate and get information out there with things like this "By the Coach for the Coach" article series you're doing. I think that all coaches need to do something like this. Also, I think that coaches need to get out of themselves and get on to campus more. When someone is a college strength coach, guess what? They have a college full of people who are experts in areas that will be helpful to them. I'm not talking just about exercise science or physical therapy either but engineering, medicine, agriculture, construction, or anything dealing with statistics. Anyone who complains that science is behind the times is part of the problem. If the people complaining would cooperate with the people on campus, everyone would benefit.

Those on the academic side want to help strength coaches for many reasons. First, there's school pride. The people who are working at the school, especially the long-term faculty members, love their school and want to see it succeed in all areas. Second, for many professors, research is a big part of their job. If they can use the data and get a publication out of it, they’re going to love it even more. For example, with engineering, if you come up with a new idea and they can get a patent, they’re golden.

There are several professors who have done great things for athletic programs. The quickest example I can think of is at Truman State, a Division II program. A professor there by the name of Dr. Jerry Mayhew is constantly doing things to help the athletic teams. The services that he has provided for them over the years are astounding. One of the football coaches at Truman once said, “If it weren’t for Dr. Mayhew, we wouldn’t have had even half of the successes we have had.” Many coaches don’t want to go on to campus. Some think they're hated because they are in athletics, and some often are afraid of being told that the way they’re doing it isn’t the best. Both of these are invalid reasons. If you’re too insecure in your program to invite someone in to make it better, you’re in the wrong field.

Back to my main point in this area—if you find out what works and what doesn’t and publish, things will go much further much faster. If research is behind in the profession, the professionals aren’t doing their jobs. Your ship doesn’t just come in and fall in your lap. You have to build the ship yourself.

Another area that could be improved in this profession is advocacy. People need to step up as advocates and lobbyists within the profession and not just expect someone else to do it. Being at Missouri, I’ve been fortunate to work with an athletic trainer by the name of Eric McDonnell. To those in the athletic training world, that's quite possibly a well-known name. Eric and I worked together with the women's basketball team. What struck me about Eric the most wasn’t his taping, rehabilitation, or assessment skills but his passion for his profession. This guy was lobbying senators, congressmen, doctors, and others. He was trying to get people in government to see the athletic training side of things. He spent his energy trying to do things that bettered the entire profession and didn’t worry as much about himself. If our field had an Eric McDonnell, we wouldn’t have some of the issues that we have now. Some strength coaches are being put under athletic training because athletic trainers are being considered the experts. If we were to have some people who were out lobbying with the government and showing that we are the experts, we wouldn’t have this issue. Instead of complaining that the NSCA or the CSCCa aren’t getting the job done, they should be asking what they can do to further the profession.

People often look back to the way things used to be in the golden age of our country. Well, when you look back, you’ll hear things like what President John F. Kennedy said: “You should ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” You can do something. You can make a difference, not just at your school but for the entire profession. This is tough to do. It takes time and sacrifice, but it's something that has to be done.

Shifting gears, I think we need to examine training as a stressor on the athletes as organisms, and we need to look at all stressors as a whole. There was a study done a few years ago out of Andy Fry’s lab at the University of Memphis. They looked at hormone levels, power, and other indices. Basically, what they found was that during the true off-season and before the mat drills and winter conditioning, hormone levels were great, power was great, and everything was golden. The only stressor was training. However, whenever the mat drills and winter conditioning started, everything started dropping off. Power went down, body composition worsened, and hormonal profiles went downhill and stayed low until well after spring ball when they returned to baseline. The results were poor because the other factors weren’t taken into consideration.

All stressors will affect the body, albeit not to the same intensity. The stress of school, sport, and training all affect the athletes' bodies. Unfortunately, none were accounted for in the above study. I bet that if everyone tracked their injuries over the course of the season, there would be peaks, and those peaks would fall in with major test weeks such as mid-terms and that one weird week between the beginning of school and mid-term when all teachers try to cut back the information on the mid-term by having a test before it. If an athlete has two practices a day right around this time, his chances of injury increase not only from the physical stress but from the mental and emotional stresses as well.

Q: How can one prepare for the future as a strength professional?

A: The first thing you need to do is something you probably aren't expecting me to say—work on your public speaking. You should be able to talk to groups, coaches, athletic directors, and athletes with great ease. If you can’t, that shows a lack of confidence, and honestly, those people will eat you up. You might have a great program, but if you don’t show confidence in speaking about it, an athletic director won’t think you’re up to par. A good friend of mine is Jason Riddell, who is now the basketball strength coach at Auburn. He had an assistant of his enroll in Toastmasters so that he would get experience talking in front of groups and gain confidence in himself. I think this is fantastic. This is a skill that can be developed just like juggling a soccer ball or getting perfect technique on a squat or clean.

The next thing you should to prepare is gain knowledge through practical means. Yes, you should read, but you should try it out for yourself. One of my favorite stories is about the old monk and the young monk. I think I got this story from Buddy Morris. An old monk and a young monk are walking around the grounds of the monastery. They walk by a fountain and pool of water. The young monk asks the old monk, “Is the water cold?” In response, the old monk throws the young monk into the water. The young monk is confused and furious and asks the old monk, “Why would you do something like that?” The old monk responds, “How do I know if you think the water is cold? When I think that something is cold, I think something is cold. When you think that something is cold, you think something is cold. It is best to experience it for yourself.”

The point of this is that you need to get under the bar and lift something. How are you going to help train a football player or thrower to get stronger if you haven’t done it for yourself? How are you going to understand how it feels for the athletes to go too long on a max effort exercise before changing it if you haven’t done it yourself? How can you expect the athletes to work and get PRs for a coach who has never done the same?

Sometimes some of the younger coaches get the wrong idea when they're watching and modeling the older coaches. At some point, you get older and you can’t train like you used to. Much of your training is to make up for old sports injuries. Surgeries create a limited range of motion for some joints and prevent some exercises from being performed. Well, the younger strength coaches see this and they perform workouts consisting of all mobility work and things like that. They don't push it, and they don't try to get strong. They don't train. They just work out. They think that the water must be cold because we look like the water was cold. They don't go in and find out for themselves. They don't spend the time under the bar, and when they tell an athlete to do something, the athlete looks at them like they’re crazy. Some athletes say, “When you do that, I will too.”

It's also important to understand proper nutrition and recovery. The hours on the job are long and the work is hard. While it’s fun and you may not feel like you're working, your body will begin to break down. Eating fast food because it’s convenient won't allow you to be at a high level of coaching. You need micronutrient-dense foods. It isn't about calories in and calories out for the coach. It’s about vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals in, and coaching out. Use all the recovery means available to you including foam rolling, contrast baths, cold tubs, massage, and vibration training. If you aren't recovered, you're tired, and if you're tired, the athletes aren’t getting their best possible workout in because you're tired and unable to give them your full attention. You’re in a state of survival, and if you’re in a state of survival, you can’t try and help someone else thrive. Just go back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Oh — and sleep! Get sleep whenever you can and wherever you can. Between the long hours at work and having a family or outside life, many coaches probably only can afford five hours of sleep a night. Experts recommend eight. Having any sort of deficit for any extent of time will lead to sleep deprivation and the bad stuff that comes with that. You need to learn how to take naps and take them whenever and wherever you can. Learn how to sleep under your desk or in your car or find some shady, quiet place. You have to get sleep. You can be “fake awake” from stimulants, but you’ll never recover without sleep.

Q: Any other thoughts?

A: I get paid to think now, so I have many other thoughts. If you’re getting into strength and conditioning because you like the science of it, you’ll be out of it within three years. I was in it because of the impact I could have on other people. A man named Jim Duree took me under his wing and taught me how to powerlift. That got me through some difficult times in my life. I wanted to pay it forward. I believe in the butterfly effect, which I first learned from Martin Rooney’s old book Train to Win. He gives a great description of how it works for training.

Recently, Scott Bird, another great mentor of mine, shared with me Andy Andrews' video on the butterfly effect and people. The story hit home, and I couldn’t believe how his story illustrated what people have done in my life. It's the reason that I coach.

The butterfly effect is the reason why I joined the Young Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (YSCCa). When I started in this field, I was a 19-year-old undergraduate. I did a lot of stupid things. I should have gotten fired a bunch of times. The reason why I joined on as a board member of the YSCCa is so I could share my experiences and be accessible to the young strength coaches. When they have a question, we can answer it for them and keep them from making the same stupid mistakes we made. For those who seek wise counsel and heed their advice, we can be of great assistance. But some people first need to know that the water is cold.