Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog

Hope everyone is doing well. Things here in the Northeast have been a little crazy this past week and the way the weather has been treating us, it’s starting to feel like we’re bypassing fall and moving right into winter. That’s not all bad though, as it means we’re getting right into hockey season, which is always an exciting time of year for us. The athletes have been working hard and it’s always exciting to see all their hard work from the year come to fruition.

Things on strengthcoach.com have continued to gain momentum, and there has been a plethora of fantastic content. It’s funny, last week in staff meeting we went onto the site to try to find an article and it really hit home just how much content we are continually pumping out on a regular basis.

In the past few weeks, we’ve had a few great contributions from Anthony Donskov. First, he shared an article called The Case for Direct Cuff Training in Contact Sports which discusses the importance of training performing specialized direct work for the rotator cuff. The title suggests it’s just for contact sports athletes, but it really applies to everyone, so be sure to check it out. Next he wrote an article about training youth athletes called Youth Strength and Conditioning: Execute. Again, while the article focuses on hockey players, it’s really about youth athletes in general, so if you work with this population you’ll want to read this.

Next, Dr. Raymond Tucker contributed a very detailed piece about Teaching the Power Clean. This is a different approach to how we teach the clean at MBSC, but we thought it was important to share multiple viewpoints so you can compare and contrast various teaching methods.

Kevin Carr also came in with a great piece for newer coaches looking to break into the field as a strength coach or personal trainer called Laying the Groundwork where he gives a blueprint for achieving success in the early stages of your career. You don’t want to miss this.

On the video front, Anthony Donskov again provided an excellent video about Horizontal Pushing Grip Selection and how to determine which grip is best. This is a follow-up to another video he did about vertical pulling grip selection from several weeks prior, so if you missed that you may want to watch both. Next we showed an inverted row/hamstring bodycurl combination. This is a progression of the TRX bodycurl/leg curl that we have shown in prior weeks that adds in a row to target the back in addition to the hamstrings.

We’ve also had  some great new program contributions. Dave Rak came in with a Phase 1 strength program for baseball, and Robbie Bourke provided a Phase 2 program for gaelic football. This was a follow-up to a Phase 1 program from a few months back, so if you’d ike you can examine the similarities and progressions. We are really developing a very comprehensive database of programs at this point.

Lastly, things on the forum have been chugging along as usual. There have been some great discussions and it’s always nice to see new people participating. To further help newer members adjust to the forum, we created a thread in the “Best Of” section that includes a list of the best articles from the site. Be sure to give this a look as it will greatly increase your understanding of the forum discussions and help get everyone on the same page.

Log on soon and see everything that’s been happening. Please feel free to ask any questions or comments while you’re there.

Until next time, take care!

This entry was posted on November 2, 2011 at 3:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.