Fat Mom Blogging Secrets

I grew up in the late ’70s and ’80s, have been an athlete my entire life, and have loved football for as far back as I can remember. So one of my favorite training stories from the mainstream media as a kid was the hill that legendary running back Walter Payton used to condition himself in the off-season . Look anywhere on the internet and you can find stories of Payton’s out-of-this-world conditioning, how he would bring athletes from all sports to train with him, and how they would all ultimately tap out from exhaustion . He’s one of the NFL’s most prolific runners, arguably one of the greatest of all time, and the hill was his secret. I’ve been coaching for almost twenty years now, and I am obsessed with hill running. I have Payton to thank for this, and since speed is the ultimate goal in all of my programs, hills (or stairs for those of you who don’t have a suitable hill close by) are an absolute must in any speed or conditioning program . I’ve spent the bulk of my career split...

Programming is an art form; there’s no doubt about it. A person who demonstrates sharp instincts, flexibility , and creativity in a finely-tuned program is a talented coach/trainer. Many of us coaches get bogged down in systems and software. Plugging exercise A here and exercise B in there can perhaps add convenience, but the art form gets lost. The methods that worked like a charm 10 years ago are relics by today’s standards. Teaching methods and coaches are evolving, as are the cookie-cutter software programs . In many respects, the convenience of these programs is worth its weight in gold. But are we losing some of the magic when we do it this way? Photo courtesy of Chris Holder My Coaching History I can’t speak for all coaches because I don’t know what they are up against. My story is a bit of an unusual one for a college strength coach . I paid my coaching dues in a unique way. I started at Eastern Kentucky University as an intern in the spring semester of 2000. Six weeks i...