Category: Blog Post

Last week I introduced why the Low Man doesn’t always win the rep CLICK HERE

The equation put forth is:

Stability + Maximization of Length (without over extension) + Agility + Meeting Force with Force

= Higher Probability for Success

 I will break these down to optimize your success:

Stability – In terms of OL play this is our base, the most important aspect of any offensive lineman. If you start with a base that isn’t efficient chances are you are not going to have repeatable success. If you start wrong you’re probably going to finish wrong.

Maximization of Length – Being long is important for offensive lineman we want to keep the defender away from our frame as long as possible because this allows more time for him to make a mistake and for us to take advantage of this mistake. This needs to be done in good context, playing too long or getting over extended can create a whole host of problems. Arm length is where very key this is why at the combine they take this measurement to see if an OL can strike a target that is father away. Length is important but being “too long” can become very problematic.

Agility – Personally to me this is the more important piece of the equation. Can you simply stay in front of your man? Offensive Line play is played in a rectangle 4 yards in width and 7 years in depth. Do you have the agility to stay in front of the defensive lineman? If you cannot stay in front of any given DL nothing else really matters this is why College/University recruiters and NFL scouts look at agility tests closely.

Meeting Force with Force – If we look at Newton’s Third Law he argues that when every any two objects react they are applying force to each other. If we apply this law to a 1on1 pass block situation and an offensive lineman is able to stay in front of the defensive line man and then he turns it into a “bull rush” the OL needs to bleed the force out through the ground, this happen because the OL is applying force back and transferring it through the ground.

Pass blocking is a very unnatural task, we are asked to stop a force without knowing where its destination is. So saying the low man always wins doesn’t make any sense. This idea would make sense if we absolutely knew where the DL destination point would be, we have a pretty good idea where the QB is but that can change is a hurry. If the DL was just going to run in a straight line to a stationary QB then I would say sure get as low as you can and take on the impact, but this is not the case.

The bio mechanics of any given offensive lineman are different. Some players might be better if they are lower than the defender, given the body that they are working with. Others may play better if they are higher and longer. This really all depends on what you are working with physically. Getting low playing offensive line has its place, but you should be at your lowest point throughout the entire rep because this doesn’t fit into the OL equation for winning. Getting low should be a defense mechanism against the bull rush. So in my personal opinion the LOW MAN DOES NOT ALWAYS WIN!!!

If you like to learn more about my upcoming OL CAMP please email or call me at 905 632 3558 and I will register you up!

Jamie “THE BIG CHILL” LaLonde

SST OL/ DL coach

BTW… Also check out SST’s “Speed & Skills” Camp for 2017 – HERE

PLUS – it is a bit early but HIGH PERFORMANCE Camps – HERE

One of the most common questions I receive is “How do I get rid of unwanted fat around my butt and thighs?”

Here is my top 3 list of foods/ advice to trim up these high estrogen sites.

3. Reduce alcohol intake – there is no point reducing estrogen if you don’t increase testosterone first
4. Cruciferous veggies – broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts and kale just to name a few
5. Watercress – one of the oldest leaf vegetables consumed by humans; this is the gold standard for estrogen modulators!

Next week I will explain the top 3 supplements to trim thighs!

Larry “The Big Dawg”

If you like what you read and would like to try a demo Butts and Guts class at any of our facilities please feel free to email me sst@sstcanada.com

SST is very excited to announce the addition of Chris “Chico” Anderi to our team.

WELCOME Chico!

Chico will be overseeing the nutrition of the athletes and members at SST, in addition to serving as a S & C coach. His primary area of interest is optimal feeding to enhance performance, recovery, and body composition.

Here’s a little more info from Chico’s Bio:

Education

Bachelor of Kinesiology, Brock University

Post Graduate certificate, Exercise Science for Health & Performance, Niagara College

(Current): MSc Kinesiology concentration in Physiology and Nutrition, University of Waterloo

Certifications

Certified personal trainer

Certified Exercise Physiologist (CSEP-CEP)

Athletic Career

Brock University baseball 2010-2014, 2 OUA championships

CoSIDA Capital One Academic All American, Second team (1 of 22 players in Canada and US)

Summer ball: Niagara Metros (senior AAA)

Relevant Experience

S&C with Brock baseball & swim teams

Various Bootcamps for individuals of all fitness levels

Personal Trainer at Brock U and University of Waterloo gyms

Trained Jessica Lewis for 2 years – Bermudan Paralympic Athlete – Wheelchair sprint (Gold medalist, 100m wheelchair sprint, 2015 Para Panam Games)

Be sure to look out for the great INFORMATION and BLOGS Chico will be sending out in the coming weeks and months.

 

Before you read part three make sure you go and read part two which is a very interesting read, If you haven’t here is the link. In part two we discuss the importance of agility training. In particular we discussed closed chain agility and open-chained agility. Both of these types of training can be very effective, but they need to be used properly with an understanding of what they do for an athlete’s development, in part two we discuss that.

Acceleration phase: Approximately 80% of most sports are played in this phase, so we spend at least 80% of our time training in this phase. Drills that I like to use include:

• 2-point starts
• 3-point starts
• Band resisted starts: This is one of my favourites! Note: Please make certain you do not apply too much resistance in order to keep the athlete’s mechanics from being altered.
• SpeedSac resisted starts: These are similar to sled sprints, but I have found that the SpeedSac to be more effective for two reasons. We can alter the weight to be more precise compared to the sled. The SpeedSac also has less shifting, as does the sled, thus our mechanics are not altered as much.

So, to answer the question, I like to spend 80% of my time training with open-pattern agility and acceleration exercises with my so-called more experienced athletes!

I follow the 80% rule in most things in life, and in this case, these training modalities provide our athletes with the best bang for their buck!

Speed is a very important aspect of all sports, but it has to be coached and developed in the right way. In this blog we discussed how to train speed and agility through numerous amounts of drills and theories. (Part 2 of 3) Not only is the teaching important but understanding who and how to teach/coach certain drills, will progress your athletes faster. (Part 1 of 3) Hopefully you all enjoyed reading this blog and will bring the principles taught in this blog to your coaching methods allowing you to coach your athletes more effectively and more efficiently.

From the onset of an offensive lineman’s pop warner career the number one cliché that is throw around is that the low man will always win. Throughout my career I have had a number of OL coaches who firmly believe in this adage. I have found that this idea of the low man always winning may not be entirely true. Simply getting low is a by-product of having good technique but a given body type can only get so low because of their bio mechanics.

In this post I will be talking about this idea relating to pass blocking only, because this is where the real money is made in terms of offensive line play, run blocking is an attitude two steps in the ground, punch then be the meanest, nastiest person you can be. Pass blocking is a learned skill, because of its unnatural characteristics. This is why we need to take a very scientific approach to this aspect of offensive line play.

I will personally argue that just saying the low man wins is a very simple and obtuse way of looking at offensive line production. Everything has to do with biomechanics and physics, how force is created and stopped biomechanically will change for different body types.

I will go on to argue that the LOW MAN DOESN’T ALWAYS WIN. The dropping of your center of gravity is the idea of “getting lower” that coaches talk about. This idea is just a by-product of an equation I will go over later in the reading.

Very simply offensive line play comes to the generation of force through coefficient of friction. Basically what this means in terms of offensive line play vs defensive line play, the winner of any given rep is the person who can create more friction to propel there force forward (Run Game) or stop there force from going backward (Pass Game).

Here inlays the prehistoric way of trying to teach young OL athletes to become more powerful. TO GET LOWER. This idea is inherently problematic and I will explain why using an example.

If we look at arguably the best Left Tackle in the NFL; Tyron Smith from the Dallas Cowboys we can often see that he is always taller than most of the defensive ends that he has to matchup with every week so asking him to get “lower than everyone” might not be the best recipe for success.

If week look at this rep between Tyron Smith #77 and Jason Pierre-Paul #90 we can see that throughout the rep there are times that Smith is higher but somehow wins the rep. I will explain why and how he makes this happen.

1on1 pass protection is arguably the most difficult task in all of football. I have developed an equation that will help you maximize your chances of winning any given rep.

Stability + Maximization of Length (without over extension) + Agility + Meeting Force with Force

= Higher Probability for Success

Getting lower is simply a by-product of this equation. If you can be stable, long, agile and be able to meet force with force at the moment of truth all the while being as low as your body with bio mechanically allow you to be, all the power to you, but for most this is not the case.

Next week I will discuss all parts iof this equation and how to achieve success;

If you would like to learn more about my upcoming OL CAMP please email or call me at (905) 632 3558 and I will register you up!

Jamie “THE BIG CHILL” LaLonde

SST OL/ DL coach

Goal setting is one of the most important skills an athlete can have, in order to help them achieve optimal performance. The goal-setting process helps athletes understand where they are currently and also where they want to go. But how do you set a goal?

Setting SMART goals is a great place to start:

S- Specific

A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. It is hard to achieve a goal such as ‘get faster at running’ or “eat better”. It should be very clear what your goal is, such as “run 5km in 25min” or “eat 120g of protein per day”. Knowing EXACTLY what it is you want to accomplish will give you better direction in achieving it.

To make sure you goal is specific try answering these six questions when setting a goal:

o   Who – is involved

o   What – do you want to accomplish

o   When – establish a time frame

o   Where- a location

o   Which – what are your requirement and constraints

o   Why – Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal

 

M- Measurable

Establish some criteria for measuring your progress. When you measure progress, you are more likely to stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the satisfaction of progressing towards your goal.

If you start with a 5km run that takes 35 minutes and 1 month later it takes 30 minutes you know you are making progress. If you have not made progress or very little that is okay too because it allows you to make adjustments in your training.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as: How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

 

A- Attainable

Setting an attainable goal can be tricky. If you set a goal to low and it is easy to accomplish it does not push past your limits. However, if you set goals too high you may never accomplish them.Goals should be within the realm of physics and plausibility for you but should also make you pee you pants just a little bit!

For me running faster is challenging but if I said I want to qualify for the Olympics for running (while that would be amazing!) is completely unrealistic for me. You want you goals to push you past your comfort zones and what you currently think you are capable of but not push you into a place that you are not able to succeed.

 

R- Realistic

To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective which you are both willing and able to work towards. Make a ‘to do’ list of sorts that will act as stepping stones towards your goal. To use my running example: run 30-minutes 3 times a week, do 2 interval runs per week, etc.

Consider your job, family, social life and make sure you choose steps that are realistic within your lifestyle. If I were to say I would get up at 6am 4 days a week to run I would be flat out lying (I am not a morning person).

You need choose things that you will ACTUALLY do (even on the days you don’t want to) in order to reach your goal.

 

T- Timely

A goal should have an end-date. A goal with no time frame is one with no sense of urgency. If I want to run 5km in 25 minutes when do I want to accomplish that by?  “Soon” does not work. Be specific and give your self a date, this will unconsciously set you in motion to begin working towards your goal, help you prioritize and hold yourself accountable for your training!

 

Here are a couple other tips that can help you set your goals and stick to them!

• Tell EVERYONE you know about your goal. The more people you tell the more you will be accountable for that goal
• Write them down
• Write them in a positive terms, i.e.. “I will run 5km in 25 minutes or less by June 30^th 2017”
• Write down goal in as much detail as possible
• Post your goal somewhere you can see it daily

 

Now, go set your goals and get to work! The results are SO worth it!!

Check back for part 2 of this blog where we discuss the three type of goals you can set; Outcome, Performance and Process goals.

If you need help setting your goals contact SST Mississauga to set up a personal goal setting session!

Before you read part two make sure you go and read part one, if you haven’t here is the link. We discuss the importance of understanding that all athletes can’t be trained the same. We also talk about the importance of coaching athletes to make them better, finding adjustments and tweaking training methods is so important to an athlete’s speed and conditioning development.

Agility training: I believe many of us spend too much time on linear speed training for sports when we should focus more on lateral speed work. Unlike track, sports are multi-directional, and GREAT athletes not only possess top-end speed, but also the quickness of a cat. Think Barry Sanders from the Detroit Lions; he would break ankles on the football field! There are many methods to teach agility, and we focus on closed and open-chain agility exercises.

• Closed-chain: These types of drills and exercises are what we call patterned drills. Examples include all ladder drills and specific drills that are patterned. With high-end athletes (could be high school as well), we tend to spend very little time with closed-chain exercises.  The few we like to include in our programing in the early preseason are drills in which we have our athletes learning how to decelerate. (Note: Sometimes, an athlete has a difficult time changing direction not because of form, but because they tend to be eccentrically weak. This has to be taken care of in the weight room.)  We use the cue “STICK IT” to make certain they stop on a dime!
• Our drills for this may be as simple as a 5-yard sprint and stop before the line. Our athletes focus on accelerating as fast as they can but then lower their hips and stop on a dime before the line! The next progression to this is having our athletes perform the same distance but moving in a different direction (backpedal, crossovers, and shuffling).
• After we have mastered the ability to stop after moving in all directions, we teach our athletes how to change direction, which is VITALLY important in ALL sports! For example, we will have an athlete shuffle for 5 yards, and once they touch the line with their foot, they change their body position and direction and shuffle back.  We cue the athlete to stick it where they started.  Once they master each direction, we then progress to multidirectional movements, such as sprinting for 5 yards then crossover back and stick it.  Your imagination is endless with these drills, but we try to be specific to the sports and position.  For examples, defensive backs in football focus on all, but we tend to have them backpedal much more since they pretty well do this on every play.

Open-chained agility. This is SPORTS. React to what you see and make it happen.  When is the last time you were in a game of football and a player was running and a coach yelled to go left then right, etc.? NEVER!  Games are played by reaction with your senses, especially your eyes.  This is why I firmly believe younger athletes should play multiple sports. In fact, kids should play more in uncontrolled environments. This is where they can be creative and learn to react!

Since my last few articles, “To Squat or to Power Clean, That Is the Question” and “How to Train the 40-Yard Dash in the Weight Room – Part One & Part Two” I have had tremendous positive feedback. With this in mind, I have had a few people email me regarding what type of speed drills I would choose for college and professional football players (American football).  If people wish, I can write about speed work and demands for football, aka soccer, in an upcoming article.

Back to the purpose: what speed drills do I like to use with my college and pro football players?

To start, I have all my athletes perform a proper dynamic warm-up, which includes many drills, such as:

• Walking A’s
• Marching A’s
• B’s
• Plus the conventional drills we all use as track coaches

I am going to assume that these athletes know many of the basic drills mentioned, so I won’t spend much focus on this.  Here is the catch: I will watch an athlete, and if there are mechanical issues, then we will focus on a drill or drills SPECIFIC to that athlete.  The purpose of this is to reinforce a good habit and correct the issue(s).  I learned a long time ago from good coaches that anyone can teach the X and O’s, but the good coaches can see and make adjustments in making the athlete better.

So, we at SST do not really spend much time with so-called drills to improve performance.

Where do I differ with my athletes?

1. Know your position! For example, I don’t waste my time doing repetitive 100-meter sprints with O linemen. I have seen this numerous times with coaches and just shake my head. What is the purpose of 300-lb men running 100 meters? When do they ever do this in the game?  The question I then get is do we need to condition them? No! These guys are paid to have a fight in a phone booth. Conditioning drills should be more functional, such as tire flipping and pushing cars!
2. Top-end speed: Athletes such as wide receivers and running backs focus on top-end speed. Development. I do not waste time with linemen with this training method- we may spend one training block a year on long runs over 40 yards and that’s it!