Strength Coaching News

0:00Welcome listeners to Iron Radio, the long running podcast for all things strength sports and sports nutrition. With your hosts, Phil Stevens, grizzled better like they know how to tap in to that area, Lonnie Lowry, there's a mental fortitude that lifters have and Mike T. Nelson. Oh, my squat. Come on in. Good morning everybody. The other episode on Iron Radio, Phil Stevens here in the strength coach power lifter, you sport coach, highly games athlete, make over a bunch of stuff. Nice. Dr. Maxine Nelson, part of the physics lecture and the flex diet certification, physics lecture will be open again the second week of October. That's finally starting to get cooler here.

1:01Nice. Yeah, I'm ready for that. Yeah. That's going to feed into what we're going to talk about the next couple of weeks everybody. Just fall coming in what it invites. This is Lonnie Lowry. I was a university professor of exercise physiology and nutrition diatetics for a couple of decades went industry like many of us do senior nutrition scientists in the sports nutrition industry blah blah, writing some books and consulting and all that kind of stuff. Today, I just want to set this up. So I would like to do maybe two or three episodes about just stuff that just wrinkles you when you look at it on line or even in science about sloppy lifts, sloppy bulks, sloppy whatever, people going about things in a certain way. And I think we just give our opinions based on our education and experience. So Phil, I know that you said you saw some stuff online that was just kind of irritating you. Yeah, this has bothered me for a lot of years and it's bothered me more lately since I've been more involved in youth

2:08in high school athletics. Straight people, sports news. But one of, he's a listener of ours and a friend of mine sent me a video. And he's like check out the high school that my kids go to. And it was a video of a young man that the high school strength and conditioning program posted. So they posted this as like a, hey, look how awesome we are type of video promotional video. And the young man is doing three reps of a clean with 225 sophomore. And it is your typical most horrible. These, these go wide catch the bar way back trying to get a lumbar injury type of. It's not a clean. It's a take the bar from the floor, get it to your shoulders. Any way you can. And they're champion this kid. And I don't blame this fucking kid at all. It's not his fault. It's his lack of actual coaching. And you have all the coaches and stuff or cheering for while he's doing it.

3:10And basically what I said is, you know, this is the biggest problem with, with, especially high school sports. You get in college, it gets a little better. But this program is posting this as a promotional video and really end saying that look. Look how awesome he is. But what they're really saying is. Look guys, we have no clue how to coach. We have no clue how to teach these kids proper form. And please send your kid here. And we'll probably hurt you. And that's what all these programs are saying. And it bothers me that I've met with school districts and 80s and things like that. And I've seen the salaries of some of these sport coaches. They're all looking for the next greatest sport coach to fix their program. And meaning, you know, baseball basketball football coach. Where they just. They can't understand these 80s. You can't get it through their head that the one coach that they could hire. That would benefit every single program.

4:10And honestly, probably every kid in the school, if you gave them access to the coach. Would be a strength addition coach from performance on down to, you know, injuries and everything else. Oh, yeah. And my other problem is all these football coaches. They're also. Like I love lifting heavy weights. It's part in it's in my DNA. But as far as all these sport coaches are worried about the records on their record board. We have four, five hundred pound squatters. Yeah. They all fucking squat 60 high. And like that number means shit on the field. You know, I don't care what that number says. And honestly, the way you're going about it is just looking to hurt these people. Yeah, it's not going to work. Let me see these. Let me see your injury rates. Like I don't care. I want to see little Johnny learning how to do it right. And if he ends up squatting 400 and impeccable form, awesome. You know, but that's not my goal. My goal number one is not train these kids to hit.

5:12In the way our goal in the weight room is not to put a new number on that record board. It's to make them better and less injured. You know, that's what it is. It's like if what I'm doing in the weight room doesn't make them better on the field or doesn't make them more resilient on the field. It doesn't mean shit that his name's up there for the 500 pound squat. He sucks more. You know, and you just can't get these A.D.'s to understand that like that one simple coach could help every single program in the school. And it's worse than that. It's like they champion this crap. It's like they look at this thing as something I should post where where's you have people that actually know what they're doing. Like oh my god. Like the person that sent to me is like, yeah, that's why he won't let his kid train with. He's like he trains at home with me because I won't do it. But at the same time, I understand I have numerous kids that do that. I have several high school kids I'm working with now that you need to they need to do weights with the team because it's not just weights. It's also a team building thing, especially in like football, which is like the ultimate team sport.

6:15But like so there is a community built in there. But what I have them do a sandbag. Like that's fine. Go take part in it. And if coach says 80% you're doing 50. And it just is what it is. But you're at least you're there. You're doing the team building. And so they go really light in there. And it's just seen as our extra workout. And then we do the real work. Oh, that's funny. Then we do the real work. Yeah. And it's just his extra like conditioning workouts. You know, is there workouts. But now we're going to do it safely at my place. Yeah. But then they get that team building thing. But I mean, I just don't get it. Like I've been fighting with the school boards around here and just trying to get them. I said, I'm not asking you to hire me. That'd be I'll do it. Higher fucking someone. Right. Somebody. Somebody that knows what they're doing. Well, that should build trust because then you're not saying just give me money. You're saying get somebody gets someone in here that has an education.

7:17You know, like you if you look at this like a scientist like to me, this is a simple validity issue. Like measuring what you intend to measure. Right. If they think they're measuring real strength and performance and success on the field. No, they're not. They're using a top number that was done. Like you said, it was sloppy. It's not a quality lift. It's not going to survive any judges scrutiny. You know, and I get it that it's not necessarily about. Being powerlifting three judges and get the white lights and all that. But at the same time, it looks like a validity issue to me. They think they're measuring one thing. The A.D.s are really excited. And they don't realize what they're looking at is not valid. Yes, right. Well, and at this day and age, like we have numbers to look at. I'm not a big numbers guy, but I am in certain aspects. Like when I was training CrossFit people. I went and I added up what do the average high level Crossfitters do in all these lifts.

8:20And I was like, OK, we need to reach that. It's the same thing. Like at the high school level, the other thing that hurts me is like all these coaches are usually worried about. All they're worried about is winning their high school championship. When their main worry should be getting these kids ready for college. And I rewarded on that though. That's the problem. They aren't. But I mean, your real job is to prepare these kids to go to college. So what do we need to look at? We need to look at, oh, so Jones here, he's got the ability. He's number four in the state. He's got the ability to go to D1 school. What does the average D1 corner back lift? Right. Normous. We need to do that. I need to work with him on that. So he's ready when he does go into a college strength conditioning program. He's not fucking shocked. That's right. He's not shocked. Yeah. I saw this when I was teaching at one of my most recent universities. I'll try to be vague. And some of the guys in the football team were crushing Gen Pop norms on wind gates.

9:21And they were very proud of themselves. So I posted next to the end gate pro rugby pro rugby. And they're like, I can't even, I'm nowhere near that. I'm like congratulations. Now you know what population specificity or norms like you said feel like where you should be comparing yourselves. Yes. Yes. I just don't, I don't understand it. And the one that pisses me off the most is the injuries because I watch these programs with especially the ones that like I'm a powerlifter. I love powerlifting. But that's another thing I hate is that all these schools that just all they're worried about is numbers on the board. And they're pushing their kids to be strong, strong, strong, strong at all cost. And get numbers on that record board, get numbers on that record board. And then I look at their knee injuries. Hey everybody, Iron Radio is back and in an altered way. You may have noticed that the original iTunes feed stopped updating some time ago. This is partly due to the behind the scenes server issue, which is why we now broadcast through the Iron Radio Nutrition Radio Network.

10:23Please do a search within iTunes for that. Second, Mike Nelson is handling the weekly syndication of the show, which should expand its reach through different social media channels. The show will appear regularly through iTunes, Spotify, and most of your favorite podcasting sites. You may also want to check out the Iron Radio listener page on Facebook to see what's going on behind the scenes. Lastly, in addition to our YouTube Archives, which goes back several years and is free of course, Dr. Nelson is looking forward to putting together a new website that will give further information and allow those of you who have supported us in the past to make donations if you value the content. Iron Radio is one of the longest running, if not the longest running, strength training and sports nutrition podcast on the internet. We plan to continue to bring you the news, banter, and occasional guests that have made the Iron Radio listener base so well from the start. You are appreciated. What's going on is Dr. Mike Nelson here and wanted to let you know that I also have a free daily newsletter.

11:27So if you enjoy all the topics you hear on Iron Radio from Performance, how to add more muscle body composition, you can get onto my free daily insider newsletter. Just go to www.ironradio.darkermike.com That's R-O-N-R-A-D-I-O-D-R-M-I-K-E. .com. Thank you so much. See you there. And one more thing. Everybody knows that I write book chapters and books, and one of them coming out this fall in 2025 and of course will be new throughout 2026 is dietary supplements and sports performance. This is the second edition of the book, done with Kim Mueller. It has dozens of new entries. The idea behind this book is just to have something that's trusted, a guide that you could holding your hand that cuts through the noise gives evidence-based answers on most common questions about dietary supplements, relevant to sports. So for each supplement you'll get what it is and how it works, common names and food sources,

12:31potential performance benefits, research studies and outcomes, practical applications for dosing, and drug interactions and safety concerns. In addition to that, of course there's going to be some content in there about regulation, and special pops and other things. All you have to do is Google, Dr. Lonnie Lowry book, it's fail point out, and you should be able to get the link to dietary supplements and sports performance, again new book, physical books, so you don't have to dig around all over online and wonder if it's trusted information. And check it out. Thank you. Look at their movement, it's usually a pro-fuse. Their movement's shit and their angioreate is through the roof, and it's like, yeah, they need to get stronger, but not like that. This is really cool. We're looking to build a... Yeah, we're looking to build a tougher organism, and Goddamn, come on. And then you got the vice versa, then you got the schools that their... their damn numbers are so low that my middle school girls would beat them

13:32and lifting, because they're so worried about doing... They're on the ground doing dead bugs and all kinds of dumb bullshit, whatever. That's just not getting them ready, you know? Because you're scared to put them under weights, because you don't know what the hell you're doing, because you're a football coach that got the job and you're actually an economics teacher. So it just drives me crazy. You're an economics teacher. There's a T-shirt there, somewhere. Congratulations, quote-unquote, strange coach. Yeah, it's like... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like one of the solutions would be, you know, a lot of schools will pay for, like you said, a... a football coach or a very specific head coach, because I think that's the solid issue. And I didn't suggest that they're a couple of places. I'm like, take that salary, carve out part of it, not even half of it, maybe a third, and then hire a strength coach, and then hire, you know, your specificity coach,

14:33who's maybe air-quote not as good. And I guarantee your results will be better in soccer. It's not going to cost you any more money, so you can't use budget as your issue. Right. If you take... There's what is there? There's basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, football. There's at least 10 sports. Yeah, split it out over to them if you have to. Take 10% off each one. Right. And hire a fucking strength coach. And every one of those sports will get so much better, because at that level, and that's... Why has Wendler had so much success? Yeah. Because all of his kids can outwork every other kid, every other team out there. They're a small school. They have to play both ways, but they're in shape, and they're strong, and they're resilient. I think having for many years in a row, correct? And he has them many years in a row, yeah. And that's like... And that's... I was chatting with a coach, the school that I was supposed to be at, and it would have been three years now. He's like, if we just had your program for...

15:33This would be the third year. We would be so far ahead. I was like, I know. You're not going to show fruit in the year one. You're going to show a little bit, but it's that... It's when those freshmen turn into seniors, and they're beasts. You know, you come in there and you set real standards. Like, if you want to start on my line, by the time you're a senior, you need to be squatting 500. A linebacker's you need to be squatting 4-15. You know? But you have four years to do it. You know? Like, here's our four-year goal for all of you guys. And if you send this troop of kids into college, and you know, all the linemen are 250 plus, and squatting 500 pounds, holy shit. You know, they're going to be ready. Right. And you had four years to do it. I didn't have to try and rush it. And that's the other problem you've got. You have these coaches that the only people they pay attention to is the varsity starters. Well, they're all changes to seniors. I need to be working with the freshmen. Yes, you do. You know? Because that's two years from now, bro. It's not long. I like what you're saying about.

16:33Like, if you use norms of a very specific subgroup, like you're saying, like, big 10 collegiate linemen, what should you be squatting or pressing or whatever. Or even pro. Like, some of these kids want to be pro. I mean, we'll leave the delusional factor out of this for a minute. But then you can backtrack. You get four macro cycles. And then you break those down into meso cycles, or however you want to define these things. But you can backcalculate what each, you know, 12 week or whatever duration program that you've got with some offseason periods, of course, and in season maintenance or whatever you have to do. But yeah, you can backcalculate and you know where you are. And then you know where your freshmen, how far in the whole are they? Like, you guys aren't even at the beginning of my curve, of my, yes, you know, backtracked four year thing. And then biological reality of, you know, the surplus calories and protein that this is going to take and everything else.

17:33Yeah, you like we were talking about before we hit the record button. Hey, Lonnie, can you make these kids? We can only recruit 230 pound kids. Can you make them 270? Yeah, but not in their senior year alone. Yeah, exactly. And it's, but if you have that from the start, we have these weight room standards. If you want to be on the volleyball team and start varsity, you need to do this. It's going to make you a better and more resilient athlete. And they know this day one walking in as a freshman. They're going to buy into the weight room more. Hey, I want it. What can, what can, doesn't want to be varsity? Well, I need to get in the weight room because they're not going to let me play unless I reach that standard. But just imagine if you had a high school team where every frickin kid on the line was squatting 500 pounds, they're going to mop the floor with on most teams just out of their sheer strength. You know, and it, but it's just ignored and it's ignored for, that's either ignored or over compensated, you know, over relied upon to the point of injury because they try and push these kids from junior to senior.

18:33We're going to, we got to raise your squat 250 pounds in a year and a half. Yeah. You know, but if you have athletes who have more capacity and more capability as if you're the team or the sport coach, that makes your job way easier because you can do things other teams may not even be able to do from, you know, certain types of plays and designs. And I mean, you even see that at a professional level. So like, you know, Brian Flores, who's the defensive person for the Vikings, his first two years were okay. And part of that was he has a very specific thing. It's a high output that, you know, players have to be highly cognitive and how they see everything too. But by year three, he got to pick all of the players he wanted for his team that were specific to allow him to do the things he was able to do. It wasn't that the players were bad or anything. They just weren't the ones that were adapted to his system of play per se.

19:35Mm hmm. Well, and then you have to mention the fact that let's say you have a strength coach. And now, Sally the volleyball coach, Jim the football coach, Ronnie the baseball coach, didn't need to spend 12 hours a week in the weight room because they have a strength to get it. And coach, they can spend 12 more hours a week on what they should be doing. Yeah. Because they're not, they're not playing football. They're not playing strength to get it. And coach, you know, it's they have one that is their job. You look at a high level programs in college NFL, whatever in pro ranks of sports. The head coach isn't the strength coach. Even D one schools, the head coach is not the strength coach. There's a person to do that. You know, the head coach is busy planning game plans and and shit like that. And it's just it's sickening that the lack of instruction these kids are getting. And like I said, it's not I admire that kid for being able to do what he did with his lack of instruction.

20:36Mm hmm. He's just brute force and that thing up. It's like I'm pissed that the people that are posting the video and champion it. He's fucking awesome. No, you suck. Yeah. Yeah, he is pretty awesome because he's doing it despite you. Yeah. So, but where could you be? Yeah, where could he be if he had somebody that actually knew what the hell they were doing? So, and it doesn't take that long. People always try and talk about cleanses like, oh, it's they they talk about it like it's rocket surgery. It's not that hard. I can teach you how to do it properly in one session. Yeah, one that's good enough that's going to transfer and not get a minute. You're not trying to make them into an Olympic lift or at the highest level. But the problem with that is I have the kids come to me and they do it, but they only get one session. And then they go back to that shit. Stop doing that. Just fucking get it up there and go with wide feet. No, no. You got to be consistent in your message. If you make the kids do it right, they will do it right. And their strength will increase doing it right.

21:36Now, it won't pay off. I understand. Six minutes from now getting the bar up any way you can pays off. But in the long run, it doesn't. I'm not looking for six minutes. Now, I'm looking for four years from now when the kid goes to college. You know, and they have no long term outlook. They're just worried about winning next week and trying to win a championship this year. And it has nothing to do with the kids. Like it's usually sadly despite the kids. Let's run these fuckers into the ground. Let's get every ounce we can out of them. If they go to college, that's not my worry. We'll let the college deal with how many like Johnny's had three knee surgeries in high school. No. You know, Phil, it's funny. You're saying because not only are you're speaking to two things that I have experienced. One is, you know, people talk about the inshitification of America. Like things are fake. Like they're willing to pump up and broadcast fake number. I mean, and not like you said, kudos to the kid who can, you know, in a very grotesque way,

22:37force up a barbell. But they just want the number. And they're not about, it's not about authenticity. So there's that kind of like, almost social media, you know, boasting kind of thing that's, that anybody with a trained eye can see right through. But the other thing is something that he became kind of a buddy of mine. Ray, he was one of the strength coaches at a university where I was working. And he's, he said, well, the number one thing like in, in my charter, like in, in my job description, is injury prevention. It's not performance. It's not strength. I am a strength coach. I said, really, that's, that's what you're hired for. He said, yeah, injury prevention. I'm like, wow. And I mean, how different is that from what you're saying? Yeah. You know, these guys are boasting performance numbers. And it doesn't seem to have a lot of connection to, you know, the main goal of a lot of collegiate strength coaches, which is injury prevention. Yep. Like if it's not like injuries in the weight room happen.

23:40They're rare. But like if you're a strength coach and somebody gets injured in your weight room, you just failed. Like your literal job is to make them more resilient and to do better on the field. It doesn't matter. On the field is what matters. What you're doing the gym needs to show on the field. I don't care if a kid squats 600 pounds. Is it helping him? Probably not. Not the way you're getting to it. You know, well, it's a transfer. I mean, I talked to Caldeads a lot about that. We even put a lot of it in the tri-peresive tube book of, you know, even with some athletes getting them from, you know, a very violent squad of 315 to 405. Yeah. He's like, they got worse because to do 405 their rate of force development was so much slower than 315 that it wasn't worth to pay off. He's like, the downside is a lot of times you want to show your worth as a strength coach by showing your numbers.

24:40And yes, at some point, if they're weakest kittens, like Caldeads say, you have to get them stronger. There's no question about that. But at some point, you have to show transfer to the field. But if you're playing, you know, like, dad's on would say like a fuzzy sport like football, it gets harder. So like, Calde would always try new programs on athletes that were linear sport athletes that were tested. Track and field, swimming, things like that where you have times and can show improvement. He's like, if it worked for them, odds are, if their movement quality stays good, it's going to work for these other athletes. Yeah. But it's still too easy to just go, oh, Johnny went from back swatting 135 to 300. Well, he must be better or he went from 300 to 365. Hey, he's get to the higher end. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, it's like my own kid. I mean, he's 11 year old squatting 240. That's great. But we have to take. Now, we're not working on getting stronger.

25:40We're working on turning that new strength into the higher end. Turning that new strength into explosion. Yes. Yeah, and speed. And like, it's sure I could keep pushing him and by the end of the year, we're squatting 340 or whatever. But if he slows, shit, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's like, I don't want to do that. So now we have to take time and do other things and we're just trying to maintain strength. But you have the bigger engine, the bigger one RM to work with. Yeah. Right. Now, and then we will take a few wooden pounds. Like, who cares how fast it is? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, your two. Yeah. Like, you have to have that baseline of strength, especially if you're going, like, for him, he's alignment on both sides. He needs to be able to push other 150 pound kids around. You know, in a violent manner. So. And now he needs to be able to fire off the ball fast and do that. You know one mile an hour. I need you through there in a half a second.

26:41And it's training that. And that's why we take times like before the season, he said, okay, I want to do track. We did track and you got a hundred and forty pound 11 year old, which is a thick kid and he's out there running hundreds. Yeah, but with the other kids, he's like, Dad, this is fucking horrible. But I know it's gonna help my football. And it's like, you know, that's, yeah. And things like that, you gotta go through some of that suck and like, there's times to lay off the numbers. Like if Johnny's strong as shit, but he's slow as hell and he's in an explosive sport, well, we need to work on that now. And that's where strength comes in. You have to ID that stuff. No, see, now that's exactly what I was thinking, listening to both of you guys is to me, just taking a big step back. This is these ADs. They are not respecting what a strength coach knows. You know, like we've talked about, you'll give a lawyer 300 bucks an hour and people want fitness advice for free. It's devalued because like you guys are talking about,

27:43like you can look at the single number that's up on the board for lift. But you can also dissect that. And I know you're saying there's a time for numbers or a time for not, but you can actually say power is what matters. It takes you into account both the speed and the load. You know what I mean? Or like RFD, right, of course. All the kind of stuff that you guys are just talking about, you can, like it doesn't help to have that big number if you're super slow, like that old crack about, you know, the biggest venture, you know, slow venture is the guy on the sideline kind of thing. But to my point, you know, if you have super high bar velocity and you're squatting 95 pounds, you know, you're all so on the sideline. Yeah, you're right, a force of up. But there's more to it than they understand. And they need that respect level to say a strength coach knows this. My head coach just doesn't. And that's okay. And that's okay. And that's okay. I mean, all you can do is, you know, it's not like you have to have a whole straight conditioning staff out of the gate for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Contract someone like you guys are saying,

28:43skim off the top of some of these, you know, salaries or take the money, reallocate from something else in the program. Yep. Maybe it's not even one of the coaches' salaries. And contract, just try it. Try it for two, three years enough time, you know, to show some progress and get a consultant on board. You could literally have a guy come in two, three days a week. Yeah. And see these kids in person and then leave a program for the other dude to run. But you get, but you have eyes on two to three days a week. Yeah. Yeah. For a couple hours, whatever. And then, and then your coaches are getting educated as well. Yeah. And it even back up further back to what is the reason you're doing all of this. And I got this one buying grass. So he's like, so for you sport, like, what is the main reason we're doing any of it? He's like, how many of these people are ever going to make it to D1 or even a professional level? You can argue about the numbers, but it's really, really, really tiny.

29:45So if you're teaching bad movement patterns, you're getting kids injured, you're doing worse things to them than, you know, all the other life lessons they can learn through sport. Because most of them are not going to play at a professional level. They're going to go on and do something else. But there's a ton of lessons they can learn by doing it there. And that whole concept is lost on just about every what it seems like an ad niche. Yep. You're saying we mean that weird? I'm like, oh, God. Yeah. I mean, back to the beginning is that sure as hell, it is not the goal of the athletic director who's like, I just want to boast a big number. Right. Right. Yes. Yep. All right. No good stuff. Well, Brian, thank you for sending that over. You started a rant online and on the radio show. Yeah. It's going to set up some other stuff, too. Because I think in coming weeks, we're going to talk about bulking and, you know, and just different things that we see in our opinion. Well, not just opinion. And fact, people are doing wrong.

30:47And so that'll be fun. OK. OK. Next week. See you. The Iron Radio podcast and all of the audio and Iron Radio dot org is pretty informational purposes only. You're interested in studying a diet or exercise program. It's important to check with your position. Also see if they help with your dietitians, athletic trainers, and qualified exercise physiologists in order to make the progress that you need.