“A study by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham looked at whether a small cutback in dietary carbohydrates would actually boost that sense of satiety you get after eating.
Led by professor of nutritional sciences Barbara Gower, the team noted that Americans typically get 55 percent of their daily calories from carbs such as sugars, starches and fiber. This was the “control” diet used in the study. The team had other adult participants go on a moderate carb diet where 43 percent of calories came from carbohydrates. Protein intake (a major influence on satiety) was the same for both diets, but people on the moderate-carb diet took in a bit more fat to make up the difference.”
More support for decreasing carbs and increasing fats. Another study showed that high GI carbs are an even greater problem.
The results: after a month, the 16 participants on the moderate carb diet had lowered blood insulin levels, more stable blood sugar, and a longer duration of a sense of fullness after a meal than did the 14 people on the control diet.
A longer time feeling full might translate into less snacking or eating and perhaps fewer added pounds, the team said. So, “over the long run a sustained modest reduction in carbohydrate intake may help to reduceenergy consumption and facilitate weight loss,” Gower said in a meeting news release.
One problem. It’s tough to increase dietary fat. A simple solution is a good quality fish oil. We are currently recommending ProGrade Kill Oil. Krill is an excellent source of “good” fat. In addition, the Prograde Krill is easy to swallow and leaves no fishy aftertaste.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2009 by mboyle1959
MBSC Internship with Sam Leahey: Building Relationship in The Weight Room
“No one really cares how much you know until they know how much you care”
- Some Really Smart Dude With Experience In That Thing Called “Life” (aka I forget who said it)
If you asked me about a week ago to explain the meaning of that quote I’m sure I’d give you an eloquent siloque of words rooted in passion and extravagant articulation . . . but you could have told me I still had no clue what the heck I was talking about! Guess what, you’d be right! Up until this week its definition was all words but recently the meaning of that quote manifested in a different sense through direct firsthand experience. It was an “ah-ha!” moment for sure in this young coaches life and one that will never be forgotten. One that I want to share with you fellow coaches as it really shows just how important people skills are in the field of strength and conditioning and it’s not always your understanding of post-activation potentiation or micro-hoopla that counts.
Building Relationships in Strength & Conditioning Anything!
In one of our mini-seminars with Coach Boyle he mentioned that when it came to working with the professional athlete groups we were to take more of an observer role rather than try and coach’em up. He gave an example of a past intern who apparently was giving advice to these big shots and after suggesting with upmost confidence “hey, you should really try this. . .” the response given back was a resounding “hey, you should try and screw yourself!” Coach Boyle made sure we understood that these guys have been training at MBSC for a while so they wouldn’t take advice from some young random newbie who just got a summer internship and feels like he needs to tell the million dollar man “WORK HARDER FOR PETE’S SAKE! THROW THAT MED.BALL LIKE YOU MEAN IT!”
Well as time rolled along my name was called to assist with the pro group. Right before the workout I tried to review everything Coach Boyle mentioned and how I was supposed to act during the session. Of course, with too much passion and an overwhelming zeal to take over the world of strength & conditioning and be the greatest coach of all time the information seemed to have slipped out the other ear! The very FIRST session I had with the pro’s I spotted an athlete doing the 1-2 Stick slower than molasses running up a hill in Antarctica! I couldn’t understand why he was moving so slowly through the hoops. So of course I gave it only 5 seconds thought before I decided to walk over and show him how the drill is supposed to look, maybe he didn’t know you’re supposed to go full speed? I blasted through the hoops with a perfect demonstration only to finish and then have him say “dude, I JUST had knee surgery, I’m not that lazy kid. I gotta take it easy you know”!
My response: Insert foot into mouth and then go defenestrate myself! HA! I didn’t say a word to any athlete for the rest of that workout and I wanted to kill myself for being an idiot. Low and behold he didn’t rat me out and life went on. That was Experience #1 with the pros.
Experience #2 came soon after when I was scheduled to work with them again, and this time around it was the polar opposite. I spent the entire time just basically engaging in small talk. Asking the guys where they went to college, how long they’ve been playing in the NHL or NFL, and where there from. Some of the D1 college football players from around New England were also in that group so we found commonality and chatted in between sets. This workout went much better and I didn’t want to kill myself at the end of it. So what’s my point? I took time to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS the second time instead of telling people what to do and as you’ll see it paid HUGE dividends the next workout!
Experience #3 is where it all came together and helped me learn one of the biggest lessons of my life. As it goes, one of the elite college football players I had been chatting with previously showed up late on day. He was hoping to have a promising combine so better late to workout than never I suppose. The group was about 30 minutes ahead of him and as Coach Boyle noticed him coming in he turned to me and said “hey Sam, go take him through what he’s missed and we’ll see if he can catch up”. My jaw almost broke my toe as it dropped so hard. I couldn’t believe Coach was going to let me work one on one with this guy! Even though I was flipping out on the inside I pretended like it was nothing and said sure thing Coach.
He greeted me right away and even remembered my name from our previous small talk last week. I told him I’d be working with him for movement session until we went into the weight room. We foam rolled, warmed-up, did med. ball throws, etc. and surprisingly he would often ask for my critiqument. I cautiously worked in some more coaching cues and even more surprisingly he didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he was SUPER responsive! I was SHOCKED how much I was able to coach this guy and how much he didn’t mind it. I started wondering why. . .
We approached the final drill of the movement session, lean-fall-run. I gave a quick and simple demo expecting him to already know how to do it and probably having developed his own style anyway. Here’s where it gets crazy though. He did one rep and then stopped to talk to me about the NFL combine; he asked my opinions on it! We engaged in a couple minutes of more small talk after which he cranked out another rep. I noticed some flaws and since things were going so well I decided not to hold anything back and I coached the crap out of his acceleration mechanics. So much so that some guy next to us stopped doing his hurdle hops to look over and wonder “why the heck is this pro getting coached by that intern!” . . . I was wondering the same thing but I just kept going. It got so carried away he wanted to practice his 40 yard dash start and have me coach him on it! Finally, what was supposed to be a 30 minute movement session ended up with an extra 15 40 yard dash clinic!
Just stop for a second and get a perspective of what just transpired. This athlete who will probably make tons of money in the NFL one day trusted me to briefly coach him in one of the most important events at the NFL combine, the 40 yard dash. He welcomed my coaching the whole session in fact. Furthermore, he considered the young bucks’ opinions worth listening too. WHY?!?!?!?!?!?! I know EXACTLY why. Because last week I took the time to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS and just get to know him and the other guys in the group. I didn’t realize at the time we were chatting, but I was in fact gaining his friendship which eventually led to his trust and respect in me as a coach.
“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care”
I showed him I cared by building a relationship first and in turn he cared about what I knew and therefore wanted me to coach him. Lesson learned!
I could hardly contain myself with this new found revelation so I went up to Coach Boyle immediately telling him all about it. He merely hit me on the shoulder and said “that’s it Sam, that’s what it’s ALL about!” and then walked away with a smile on his face as if to say it was nothing new. I guess he must have realized this 25 years ago. I’m sure they’ll be many more lessons to come under my tutelage with Mike Boyle but one thing’s for sure, each new lesson is always more impacting than the last. I’m so thankful that this internship at MBSC opens the doors for me to be a better coach and gives me the opportunities I need at this stage of my coaching career.
Don’t ever forget that no one cares about how much you know until you show them how much you care about them and their situation first!
Posted in Uncategorized on July 6, 2009 by mboyle1959
Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. I know a lot of you will be heading to Vegas and the NSCA. Have fun and make sure you post updates about the good stuff you learn. Also while you are there make sure to cast a vote for John Graham for NSCA President. He is a great guy and, one of us. John is a coach and will be a great leader.
First up this week is part 2 of Conditioning for Soccer from Renato Capobianco. Renato has been both a soccer coach at the highest level and a strength and conditioning coach so he brings a unique perspective. I think these articles are in the “must read” category for any strength and conditioning coaches or sport coaches as Renato’s unique perspective in having been on both sides of the issue really comes through.
Next up is an article I put together from a Facebook thread called Delinquent Athletes. This is actual communications from one week ago and provides excellent insight into what actually occurs in the field and how some coaches deal with it. Another “must read”.
Last up is a follow up to Delinquent Athletes. Team Training is Like Dog Training was written a few years ago by Robb Rogers and appeared at www.sbcoachescollege.com . I think Robb’s thoughts reflect many of mine in this area and provide a great compliment to the previous article.
Video of the Week
Video of the week keeps us on our single leg strength theme. The video is one of Dewey Neilsen’s collegiate athlete performing a one leg squat with 135 lbs. He had 2 weight vests on. One was 25 lbs, one was 40 lbs. (65 total) 2 chains… 15 lbs each (30 total) and 2 -20 lbs dumbbells (40 total) for 135 lbs total.
As always don’t forget to check out the StrengthCoach Podcast at www.strengthcoachpodcast.com. Also make sure you check out www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com This is another great educational vehicle that Anthony Renna of the Strength Coach Podcast is developing. Anthony has archived webinars on the site so you learn any time day or night without ever leaving your house. I recently recorded Understanding Sports Hernia for the site.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 1, 2009 by mboyle1959
In this video clip I talk about the difficulties of Training High School Football Players. High school males are a tough group to train. Get a little insight into the how and why. As always with Stack clips you need to sit through one commercial. Look forward to your comments.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 30, 2009 by mboyle1959
Along a similar note to last week’s blog/mini-article/entry/whatever is the notion of knowing how to be a better coach in the real world. Last time I discussed the time management factor. This week another coaching epiphany stirred my thinking. Specifically, prioritizing which coaching cues should be communicated first based on the level of competency or proficiency of the athlete(s) you are coaching. This is one of the many coaching revelations I’ve stumbled on this week.
Coaching Cue Progressions
“If you want to know how to train obese clients, then train one!”
-Mike Boyle
. . . and I say, if you want to know how to coach, then get a group together and coach’em up! While that’s not all there is to it, it’s a great starting point. Typically when you or I think of squatting, jumping, landing, sprinting, or bench press technique, we think in terms of ideal. The picture we have in our heads is flawless and demonstrates perfection. That’s a good thing and something that should always be kept in mind. However, when working with the young and/or inexperienced athlete/client I realize now there needs to be a dichotomy of thought in which you know the ideal yet on the other hand know how to progress to that perfection rather than just throw everything at them at once. I’m finding that this progression should be based on where the person is now and what he or she is showing me at the moment.
For example, show the beginner how to pick up and place the bar down with a flat back before you start worrying about using the hook grip for cleans! Extreme example but it gets my point across. The funny thing is, I would walk up on an athlete half way through her front squat set, notice her valgus frontal plane collapse first and immediately want to begin reactive neuromuscular training techniques. Only to look up and find she’s supporting the bar almost entirely with her arm strength instead of racking the bar comfortably on her shoulders during the decent. The bar wasn’t even touching her shoulders! Give her a little bit of “HIIT Coaching” now the next set she’s not all tensed up and wobbling all over the place worrying about the bar in her hands because her elbows are up and the bar is supported nicely on her shoulders. Guess what!?!? The knees went out naturally the next set, viola! I didn’t even have to mention it because she was nice and comfortable and the knees could “relax” during the decent a bit therefore going out automatically. It’s small things like this that make me think of the big picture of coaching. Another example, the very first time I had a group of kids this is how I instructed them on performing the cook hip lift. . .
WAY to much talking
Very quickly I realized that with about 6 coaching cues (and even more with other exercises) people have no clue what to do even though you just explained it thoroughly. The first time every kid in my group just looked at each other waiting to see what the other would do. This was HUGE lesson for me. After noticing they neither had the attention span nor understanding of my coaching cues I called upon one of the big timers here at MBSC, Dan Gableman.
Dan the man. . . he’s kind of “a big deal” at MBSC if you know what I mean.
The long and short of our conversation was this:
- Keep your coaching cues to a minimum and then build on it every set or two. Try to start off with just 3 and then add more during the set
- The athletes or clients don’t know what you know so don’t use terms like “engage your core”
- In a group setting especially, lead by steps, not long dialogues
So with that in mind I re-grouped and attacked it again, stripping everything down to the bare essentials. . .
MUCH less talking. . .
Guess what? With this coaching cue progression, I didn’t see anyone looking around at each other wondering what to do. They all were easily able to follow along. Most importantly, the final product was a quality Cook hip lift by the end of the set because I progressively gave them coaching cues during the set. Every day I try to find better ways to do things and every day the exact words I use change.
Continuing on, I was working with a group filled with high school athletes and a few college guys who had trained at MBSC once before. I figured they could handle more verbage so I gave it to them. . .
Too Much Talking again: Not good for a group of kids. . .
Of course, as it turned out we still had people stepping all over the place and looking like they just got tripped up or knocked over. So I went to the dummy proof version. . .
REAL simple. . .
And viola again! Everyone did it right! No problems what so ever because it was much easier to follow.
I could post videos all day about ways I’ve learned to progress to ideal form and technique in exercises like the rear-foot elevated Squat or trap bar deadlift but I think these basic examples get the point across, and besides, it’s only week 1!
All in all what I’ve discovered is that at times, and by that I mean most times, I was more worried about their left toenail being externally rotated too much, causing and inefficient force transfer up their deep longitudinal system and into the posterior oblique system, leading to dysfunctional energy leaks up the kinetic chain and thus right earlobe overcompensation. Too bad the kid is only 12 and just needs to know how to correctly pick up and put down a barbell first, HA!
A lot of this may seem simple and common sense but for some reason these things resonate with me. Hopefully it makes you think more about the way you coach too.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 28, 2009 by mboyle1959
First up this week is part two of the article from Jennifer Lewis of Athletes’ Performance Understanding Chronic Knee Pain Part 2- The “What”.
Next up is part 1 of Conditioning for Soccer from Renato Capobianco. Renato has been both a soccer coach at the highest level and a strength and conditioning coach so he brings a unique perspective.
This week’s video is former BU captain Brian McGuirk performing another 1 leg squat variation with 70 lbs. We have experimented quite a bit with ways to get proper depth in one one leg squats and this method worked quite well. The vest is 40 and the dumbbells are 15 ea.
Also make sure you check out www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com This is another great educational vehicle that Anthony Renna of the Strength Coach Podcast is developing. Anthony has archived webinars on the site so you learn any time day or night without ever leaving your house. Last week I recorded Understanding Sports Hernia for the site.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 25, 2009 by mboyle1959
Would you like to learn a little bit more about training for the NFL Combine? Take a look at another great interview from Stack Magazine and Stack TV. NFL Combine Training.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 23, 2009 by mboyle1959
What if I told you that for a whole week Mike Boyle would give you a mini-seminar everyday! Well as an MBSC intern that’s exactly what you get. A one and a half hour hands on practical with Mike Boyle the entire week. How cool is that! The time was very informative and we got inside the mind of Coach Boyle, learning the nuances of his program and why things are done the way they are. For me, I think that week saved us all allot of money as well. Much of what we learned was a collection of various topics that Coach Boyle has made into DVD’s or addressed at previous seminars. So all in all we were learning new things and saving money at the same time – two plusses for this broke college student! The week was full of new thought processes for coaching but I’ll address the most practical take home point from this week.
The Time Factor of Coaching
We all know those people who have an answer for everything. They know all the facts, concepts, principles, details, and latest research yet when you ask them to apply it in a practical real world setting their dumb as a post, especially when dealing with a group of people. The same is true for strength & conditioning coaches (performance enhancement specialists if you’re 25 years old or under). Many people are well read and can talk about training concepts until the cows come home however when in front of a group a whole new set of factors should run through your mind. For me, the “time factor” was almost none existent in my coaching. I could tell you all about the exercise/workout itself but if you only gave me 55 minutes to get everything in, I would fail miserably because I talk too much. I found myself trying to explain the “whys” of everything to the athletes. Athletes Performance solves this problem by allotting a small block of time each day to educate the athlete/client and empower them with the “whys” of their training; however it’s done at the END of the workout, not during. I think that is the best solution. If you only have an hour for training you really have to get things moving quickly and keep the down time to a minimum.
Sam off in the back thinking about the “whys”
There’s a big push here at MBSC for keeping things running smoothly within the time allotment. For example the time limit for each component is listed right on your coaching sheets:
Foam Roll (0-5min)
Static Stretch (5-10min)
Activation (10-15min)
Active WarmUp (15-25min)
etc. . .
you can see how if I am in charge of the group and attempt to give them a summary of trigger point therapy during the first part we might back up the whole workout, which means the group before them is waiting to use the same equipment and I won’t be ready to coach the group after them because I’m still working with the same group. If your business model is similar to MBSC (group training running nearly every 15 minutes) then a big part of your success is each group flowing smoothly from open to close without any traffic jams or hold ups during the day. I’m not aware of any other training facility (that actually gets results!) who is as efficient with their time as MBSC. From beginning to end it’s a constant flow of performance enhancement training with no time wasting.
So how is this all applied? How do you coach groups or individuals efficiently without taking forever? Since it’s only been a week so far my answer is still tentative. For starters I decided to let go of explaining all the “why’s” of things and focus on actually getting them into proper position and moving correctly. I’ll save the education part for the end of the workout or I’ll give them a one to two sentence answer if they do ask during the workout “why are we doing this or that”. But in general I see coaching now kind of like HIIT: Short bursts of high intensity coaching followed by a period of “get the heck outta my face and let me do it now”. This has become my slogan for the summer. Give the athlete great coaching cues that really get the point across then back up and assess (aka let them work on getting strong without you talking to them the whole set). There are definitely exceptions however like “squeeze your glutes, chest up, knees out, pinch my fingers with. . ., etc.” that you tell athlete to do as he is doing the set, but in general I find the “HIIT Coaching Method” to work pretty well and it keeps the workout flowing smoothly and on time! Mainly, you don’t want a case of paralysis by analysis happening, and that’s just what you’ll get if you don’t employ the HIIT Coaching Method. As a matter of fact, that sounds like a good e-book title after I get my 10,000 hours of “experience” in, because everyone knows you can produce a training product until you get those sacred 10,000 hours in.
Take Home Point: With only 1 hour you don’t have time for a Lecture or Hands-on-Seminar during the workout!
Now if you’re just hanging out at the MBSC intern house and you do have all the time in the world with no rush then you can get into deep stuff and talk about them as much as you want . . .
I wanted to focus this week’s blog post on the “outer unit” side this time factor concept. Next week’s installment will be focused on the “inner unit” with much more attention to the details, specifically about coach cue progressions and how to maximize your groups ability to do things the way you want them too.
Sam Leahey CSCS, CPT
P.S. Here are a couple shots of the Winchester intern group. . .
Posted in Uncategorized on June 21, 2009 by mboyle1959
This week we have a mixed bag of articles. First up is an article by Daniel Martinez called Principles of Volleyball Performance Training Part 1- Organization. Daniel is a brilliant young coach and frequent forum contributor. This is a very detailed look at the preparation process in general with particular emphasis on volleyball preparation. I would strongly recommend you read this article even if you don’t deal with volleyball. Much like Dewey Neilsen’s previous MMA article, this is just good stuff and the title might cause you to skip over it.
Next up is an article from Jennifer Lewis of Athletes’ Performance called Understanding Chronic Knee Pain Part 1- The “Why”. Jennifer has been kind enough to let me reprint these. This is a great overview article. Don’t miss it. Part 2 will run in two weeks.
Last up is a Sample Twelve Week Conditioning Program. The Jing screen capture program allows me to transfer Excel files to Word documents easily. A recent forum post about “finishers” got us around to things like volume and progression so, I thought I would post what I am currently doing with some of my athletes.
Bonus Article- In addition, we have a bonus article for the hockey strength coaches on the site. On-Ice Multi Directional Intervals for Hockey by Maria Mountain demos a great on-ice drill that combines the physical and mental aspects of the game.
Video of the Week
Video of the week is another longer look at the Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat. As I have ranted about over and over, this is not a Bulgarian Lunge. It is neither Bulgarian, nor a lunge. However, I think this lift might be the future of our lower body training. It is extremely evident to me, as last week’s video showed, that my athletes can exceed fifty percent of their 1 RM in this lift. What this shows me is the limiting factor in squatting is the back, not the legs.
Also make sure you check out www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com We will be doing Understanding Sports Hernia Tuesday at 8 PM EST. To get your strengthcoach.com member discount you need to sign up by Monday. The webinars are archived so even if you plan to view it later make sure to sign up by Monday.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 19, 2009 by mboyle1959
I will be doing another webinar for StrengthandConditioningWebinars.com called “Understanding Sports Hernias.”
This is from an article I wrote on the topic:
“An area that has become of increasing interest to me, and to many others in the fields of performance enhancement and physical therapy, is the area of sports hernia. It seems like every week another athlete is having surgery for a ’sports hernia”. In order to begin to understand the concept of sports hernia, the first thing we need to do is attempt to describe a sports hernia. In the technical sense, the sports hernia is a tear in the lower abdominal wall in the inguinal area. Unlike a classic inguinal hernia there is rarely a significant tear that results in a bulge. Rather there is a gradual onset of pain in the lower abdominal area, usually beginning as groin pain.”
I will be discussing in further detail the definition and reason for the increase in sports hernias, what we can do to prevent them and what we can do to rehab them.
This is a 50 minute presentation with 20 minutes reserved for questions.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 8pm EST
To sign up for this individual webinar, click below:
If you want a better deal, this is the perfect time to sign up as a member to StrengthandConditioningWebinars.com- Tuesday’s webinar is $24.99, but a monthly membership is only $29.99, and you get other webinars each month along with the presenter forum. Do the math, it’s a great deal.
You can test run it Monday night with a Free webinar from Frank Dolan called “Evaluation and Program Design for Teams and Large Groups.”
