Ask them how many ankle, hamstring, ACL, Achilles, or knee injuries they have seen in their career? One famous steroid consultant who has had tremendous success in getting athletes to pass doping control said to the effect, Doping control is an intelligence test if you fail it, youre an idiot!). When you stop viewing the weight room as a place to break athletes down and start viewing it as a place to build them, your perspective on stress shifts from excess to optimal. ~ Matt Rhea. Say what you want, but 96 of every 100 NCAA football players did NOT wrestle. Many (most?) As the former editor of a youth sports fitness magazine for nearly two decades, Ive interviewed over a hundred successful head high school football coaches from all over the country. Matt Rhea, PhD Education and Training Dr. Rhea completed a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education (Southern Utah, 1998), a Master of Science in Exercise Science (Arizona State, 2001), a Doctorate of Philosophy in Exercise and Wellness (Arizona State, 2004), and a Master of Science in Sports Management (American Public University, 2016). Watch Dr. Rhea inspire his student-athletes to go FAST during speed training sessions that apply the 1080 Sprint in this dynamic, two-minute video available here on Youtube. Which is one of the things I think professionals have to do, Rhea says. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data. Contact us for more information. Once an athlete can squat 1.7 times their body weight, increases in squat strength beyond that are not contributing to speed, says Rhea. In this session Matt will share his approach and methods for incorporating overspeed training in collegiate American football. He put me on . The fifth potential first-round pick coming out of Alabama this year will be 64 310 pound DE Christian Barmore. 2 Board press, 42 - progress by adding sets until 8 sets are attained, then drop back to 4 sets and add weight. If you know what a number shouldbesay, an internal body temperature of 98.6 for a healthy human beingthen you can apply a mix of art and science toward interventions that will reduce the number when elevated or raise the number when sub-optimal. and has, Chasing Watts and Shaving 40 Times at the RIG Academy, Matt Rhea, Robert L. Hunter, & Tony Hunter, David Ballou, talking at IUs 2018 Media Day, One of the lead things that transfers to the football field at the highest level is single-leg movements in the weight room. And its not getting any better in Illinoisin the class of 2021 (131 D-1 football commits), only 39% ran track. So, to answer question, if I could give you one principle, it would be a FTC principle, not a track principle. Originally, the college S&C world was not even on our radar. 71.5% ran track. Check out hockey drills and workouts from goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, defenseman Duncan Keith, the University of Michigan hockey team and others. We will be discussing how to help your players take advantage of the summer in our webinar for coaches tomorrow evening. Those kind of improvements are a combination of the intense work ethic of our players and the fact Dave Ballou and I are willing to invest a ton of time into individualizing this as best we can for our players.. Our science driven programs are challenging, efficient, and effective. Image 1. With results like that, the program sells itself. Feed the Cats is speed-focused. The majority of track coaches in our country are not football people, they are from the cross country world. And here is the bad part: my football coaches tried to push me out to run track. By collecting data on his athletes at the outset of training, Rhea then has comparative baselines to guide return-to-play protocols in the event of an injury. Indoors, outdoors, speed class is in session on the turf with Dr. Matt Rhea, Athletic Performance Coach for the Indiana Hoosiers football team. This may be a loaded question, but if you had to choose one track principle to institute in developing football players, what would that be? Your statement can be made about anything. People in our Feed the Cats and TFC-world have been acutely aware of those rebel talents of the strength and conditioning field who are making a break from the meathead approach to football. When Coach Mike Sullivan began working with younger athletes, he realized that force couldnt be a differentiating factor in their speed development. Both. One of Dr. Matt Rhea's areas of expertise is speed training, and Alabama's new director of sports science has tweeted about the topics several times since joining the staff. In addition, track specifically *improves* these traits. Go to the USA Weightlifting website and find the contact information for national-level and above coaches, as they will often have been lifters themselves and have another 10+ years coaching. David Ballou's official title is Director of Sports Performance. The average track coach comes from a distance background or subscribes to a run-them-to-death, 10200 program. (All photos by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire.) So were going to make sure that every one of our offensive and defensive lineman, that their velocity curves, that their peak power, that they have the ability to hit their peak power in front of .45 seconds.. I went to the high school who has put the most players in the NFL and all through H.S. Change of direction. There is still time to sign up . Expressing speed is about getting many different muscles to contract and relax at exactly the right times and in the exact right proportions. Perhaps you remember Ronaldo Nehemiahs football career. Required fields are marked *. After checking out the baseball workouts on STACK.com, browse through the articles and videos below for drills, advice, and motivation from some of the nations top coaches, college baseball programs, and elite athletes. Once youve built up your conditioning, check out some of our advanced volleyball drills and mental techniques. Ive been in the weight room as a lifter for 47 years and as a coach for 40, but I would never debate Michael Boyle on his turf. Ohio States roster featured an incredible 78% multi-sport athletes. This website uses cookies and third party services. How can peak power be measured and managed? For an example, while was at my 1st JC I had a young man that played football and ran track in H.S. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. Our groundbreaking technology is the product of a unique mix of expertise in sports physiology and advanced control systems. With these odds, a football coach should not be shocked when their star receiver comes out of the track season with knee tendinitis that requires weeks of rest or rehab until they can squat again to add the muscle he needs for football. Maybe the guy has incredible insights on sprinting. Did you know that the Iowa Hawkeyes are one [], Like every year, the NFL Combine and its main event the 40 yard dash brought excitement, amazement and [], The NFL Combine. Too many football coaches see the game through the lens of hard work and high effort, not the lens of maximum velocity and high outputs. Quarterback Mac Jones will also likely get picked in the first round. Remember, these are the same people who believe the weight room turns boys in into men and losers in champions, but see no value in track other than the genetic expression of athleticism. speed training, injury prevention and performance optimization to clients in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, International Olympic programs and top collegiate athletic departments. While writing this, on the day after the NCAA National Championship Game, I tweeted: It really seems like last night was a tipping point. And it truly feels like something happened, where things will never be the same again. 65 242 pound tight end Miller Forristall ran a 52.53 400m in high school. He has established a superb record of helping sports teams reduce injury rates and enhance performance through strength, power, and speed development. We will not spam you or share contact information with any 3rd party. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Will the S&C world continue to celebrate the number of players benching 405, cleaning 300, and then publish embarrassing videos of the worlds best athletes going through speed ladders? Tony retired from teaching chemistry after 38 years in the classroom and has 39 years of coaching experience (football, basketball, and track). I cant recall any of them telling me that their strength coaches often consulted their copy of Arnolds The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding when designing workouts for their athletes. Matt Rhea Matt Rhea High Performance Director, New Orleans Saints Published Jul 19, 2019 . He has published nearly 100 studies and presented in 7 countries around the world. For example, an imbalance in contribution between the hamstrings and quads during the act of sprinting. The track just reveals speed crowd would be fighting mad if someone with no weight room cred said The weight room simply *reveals* strength. Even though that statement is partially true, we know the weight room also *improves* strength. 11.19 in the 100m. After performing EMG tests on hundreds of athletes, Rheas identified five distinct muscle coordination flaws that commonly make people slower. Also solid in the 400: 49.34. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers. Its refreshing to know I dont need to shave my head, wear a shirt thats too small, wave a towel and pull the head coach back from the field to the sideline to be considered a quality S&C coach. For example, I would never debate RDLs vs Bulgarian Split Squats because my weight room background is not that of an expert. I hope so. And coach that says out of sight, out of mind, is not a very good coach at developing talent. Connect you with world class coaches. The light force production makes it laughable as speed developer. What are best practices for data analysis these days? Training Programs; Movement Library; Online Hangouts; Events; Store. Or, more likely you dontthe record-setting hurdler ran the deep fly and not much else during the couple seasons he spent with the San Francisco 49ers before being replaced by a more dexterous and powerful route-runner (some kid named Jerry Rice). The number Im actually working off of now is 1.7 times your body weight. Table 1. A Professor of Kinesiology, Rhea uses an avalanche of data points to inform each players prescribed training methods. Many exercises involve a unilateral component, as Rheas research has found muscle recruitment patterns during a single-leg or split-stance movement are often far different from a bilateral equivalentand usually more akin to whats required during sprinting. More importantly, if you train them properly, you can make fast players faster. So, were some of the only people our athletes are comfortable about having find their flaws because they know if we can find them, then we can fix them.. When arguing agility, speed is the tide that lifts all boats. Click Here to experience a Free Performance Evaluation Session. Having a lineman throw the discus or put the shot would be a better choice, but the athlete is not reacting to the movements of an opponent. 1080 Motion, Inc. will only send meaningful content and communication regarding our services and products. Every sprint coach I know values strength and values the weight room. Im embarrassed for these people. I totally agree. Dr. Matt Rhea joined the Hoosiers staff as an athletic performance coach on Jan. 9, 2018. . Starting CB Josh Jobe ran 10.90 in the 100m, 21.56 in the 200m, and ran on a super-fast 41: 40.97. Huh? Whether you want to become a better infielder, develop your bunt technique or increase pitching power, youll find videos, articles and interviews with some of the games top minds to help you become a better player. Like modern politics, football coaches live in echo chambers. For those of you new to the miles per hour game, DK Metcalf ran 1.37 mph faster than Budda Baker in the famous rundown back in October 2020. As for sprinting, is there any correlation between the 100m dash and the ability of an offensive lineman to hold off the charge of a defensive lineman? Only about 30% of our training volume over an entire. Sprinters who just sprint dont stay healthy. The University of Illinois just replaced their S&C coach. When they see the objective data, they can start to realize that they are actually at 80% or 85% or wherever theyre at. Rhea's research has also found a pure sprinting program with little-to-no resistance training isn't the best way to get faster, either. They love itthen neglect it. Since football is a power sport, Rhea and Ballou prioritize power output over the amount of weight on the bar. Well done article. What happens is that the track coach will often refuse to modify their program, saying they need all their practice time to focus on their track events youre all in, or not in at all! But, everyone recruits the best athletes. But a dynamic movement like an assisted walking lunge, or even a resisted walking lunge, is a great stimulus to get their muscle coordination and the contraction of all the musculature that crosses the knee and stabilizes the knee. At 226 pounds, Najee Harris played basketball and ran track in high school. Instead, his exploration of other factors led to a program of drills that he also uses to train speed in high-performance athletes. Smith is projected as a top ten pick in the NFL Draft. Since 2017, 1292 high schools in Illinois produced only 936 Division I football players. The snap in football is just thata split-second, with the first collision at the line occurring in roughly the same amount of time a major league hitter has to connect with a 95 mph fastball. It might be that an athlete cant create enough force, so it just takes the musculature and the contraction patterns more time to exert enough force to throw a medicine ball or to move their body mass, Rhea says. In addition to progressing that assistance over time, Rhea will also turn the athletes in the opposite direction to do resisted lunges away from the 1080 Sprint, generating power and force data for each leg similar to what he might see in a resisted run. Whether or not all strength improvement translates to improvement on the field is debatable, and I would think youd agree. By clicking submit below, you consent to allow 1080 Motion, Inc. to store and process the personal information submitted above to provide you the content requested. Ive timed 210,000 max speed sprints in 21 years. Multisport- 79% Really fast athletes actually have a pretty good ratio during running of how much the quads are working and how much the hamstrings are working, says Rhea. The athletic recruiting process is a lot like dating, with college coaches/scouts and high-school student-athletes sizing each other up and searching for the right match. We utilize a velocity-based training approach focusing on light to moderate training loads at moderate to fast training speeds. So when we select exercises for speed development, its based on what we really think (they need) in that wiring component(Making an exercise unilateral) adds a complexity to the lift that is more neurological than it is muscular.. Having already previewed his speed curriculum in Speed 101, Rhea recently joined us to discuss a topic for which velocity is just one of multiple components: Peak Power. Matt Rhea was quoted in a Stack article, How a Unique Speed Training Program Flipped the Fortunes of Indiana Football, saying what makes him revolutionary: "The old adage you can't teach speed or you can't develop speed in guys at this level is just highly inaccurate." (Alabama Athletics/Kent Gidley) . Every football coach I know was a hard-working grinder as an athlete. LSUs Ed Orgeron went on the recruiting trail looking for track athletes as soon as they won last years national title. One of the advantages I have of working in a large team setting is being able to get 100 or more athletes on [a new technology] to accumulate data quickly. In addition we share some lessons on team speed, training speed in a large group setting, and even off-ice speed training for on-ice performance by Xavier Roy. The athlete is doing the lunge, but its accentuating the stability on the land. When I do EMG testing, our players absolutely love looking at their coordination patterns and comparing it to past results. Rather, it's a combination of resistance training,. And, to remain ahead of the competition, a system must evolve over time. Regardless, Rhea and Ballou will change the stereotype. Another advantage that basketball and wrestling have over track is the pressure of going head-to-head with an opponent. If the kid rejects track, they sign up for the weight room. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. One week of poking, prodding, and testing potential talent from head to toe not just figuratively [], This site uses cookies small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. I live in SoCal and I can echo the article most of the top players in this state all run track or play another sport. High-level athletes tend to be intrinsically motivated to improve, but having objective data at hand can push them to continue on their path and validate the effort theyve invested in shoring up deficiencies: whether that be gaining a measurable mph in sprint speed or improving a notch in peak power output. Whereas track focuses on positional speed (i.e., going from Point A to Point B in a straight line, except for wide turns), basketball focuses on other qualities needed by the skill football players, such as change of direction and reacting to the movements of an opponent. Once our athletes started to see that there was a lot more to a sprint than just your 40 time, I think they start to fully realize how advanced our system is at identifying their limitations and knowing how to address them. And since many regard the Barbell Back Squat as the king of lower-body exercises, pushing up your max there must be a surefire way to get faster. Tons of coaches have strong opinions on sprinting and track, yet they have no track cred. "It's a computerized system that allows me to apply a very . Research shows that to significantly improve sports performance, overall athleticism and physical ability, athletes must complete training sessions in addition to playing their sport. When it comes to speed, special results require a special approach. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). Much faster movements, faster movements at lighter to moderate amounts of weight, plyometric type activities, and again, things like resisted and assisted actions from a running standpoint, Rhea offers as ways to train toward this goal. I think that type of exercise helps us there. It was speed training I'd never been on. You have to get data and you have to live in the data for a good amount of time before you really know what its telling you and what its not telling you, Rhea says. A compromise would be for the football coach to ask the track coach to include some drills for lateral speed or change of direction in their workouts, but then you run into a cultural problem. Bad teams are screwed. 63 327 pound Emil Ekiyor Jr. played basketball in high school. For a 200-pound athlete, 1.7 times their body weight would be 340 pounds. On this week's GAINcast, Matt Rhea explains how the forward-thinking setup he installed . About this Webinar : Matt Rhea is a renowned specialist on speed development in team sports who recently joined the Crimson Tide as Director of Sports Science. Baseball- 9% No conditioning. Or will we find people who can make those athletes faster and more powerful? By clicking submit below, you consent to allow 1080 Motion, Inc. to store and process the personal information submitted above to provide you the content requested. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. Sports performance training is the physical and mental process of working toward specific athletic, performance or fitness goals through a regimented program. Shaved head, caveman beard, tight shirt, powerlifter. ), 50% played high school basketball. 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