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Can you describe what it takes to excel at the collegiate level in terms of strength & conditioning?
The mind is one of the most important tools the body has, and to truly excel the mind must be trained to push past what the body thinks is all it can do. The difference of one degree is all it takes sometimes, 211 degrees water is hot, at 212 it boils, makes steam and can move a locomotive. In the realms of collegiate athletics and strength & conditioning, the mind plays an extremely important role – a role that allows you to go from where you are to places you’ve never been before. Most college strength & conditioning programs will challenge you physically and mentally in ways you may have never been challenged before.
To overcome those challenges and excel at the collegiate level, one must be willing to put forth everything she or he has at that moment. I try to help my athletes understand that there is nothing else to worry about right now, everyone can think of a thousand excuses of how hard things are at the current time and why they should stop, maybe it’s for just a one second break, but what is your reason for pushing on and pushing through and not stopping, even for that half second break. That reason, once you find it, is one of the things that will carry the mind through anything. Then, once the mind can carry you through it, it doesn’t matter what the physical barrier might be, because you will be able to overcome it.
What do you think is the greatest transition from high school to college in terms of strength training, conditioning and the overall demand from your body?
One of the biggest demands in regards to strength and conditioning that is different from high school to college is the actual demand on the body. At the college level, the strength and conditioning program for a sport is developed around a 52 week plan, whereas many high school programs only look at off-season and pre-season. With this in mind, it creates a much longer demand on the body in terms of length of season. Secondly, the in-season is a very important time for strength at the college level, which often gets overlooked in high school as things get busy. In-season lifting is very important to ensure that injuries do not occur and that strength levels remain high throughout the season.
How does nutrition play a part in an athlete’s success?
Nutrition at the college level is very important. Many athletes have all the skills and talent possible, yet do not tap into their true potential because of nutritional deficiencies. Prior to college, most athletes have a large amount of help when it comes to nutrition from mom or dad and weren’t bound by a budget too. Many athletes then leave home for the first time, plus they have to find a way to eat on a budget.
I try to break nutrition down as simple as possible for our athletes – many individuals think you cannot eat what you like and still be on a healthy nutrition plan and that is not true. We work with all of our athletes to find out what foods they like and then we try to help them find foods that meet their needs from those foods.
In an athlete’s nutritional analysis, our first point of emphasis is a big safety net – I call it a safety net because it makes me think of the circus and the large net under the high cable performers, just in case they fall. What I am referring to is a general multi-vitamin. The multi-vitamin ensures that athletes are taking care of the most basic vitamin and mineral needs. While all of these needs can be met through proper nutrition, there are times when we do not meet them 100% of the time. In addition, the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) values do not account for the extra stresses placed on the body by athletes, thus some of these vitamins and minerals need a little extra supplementation even when we eat properly.
The second point of emphasis to help ensure success as an athlete is to eat breakfast. This truly is one of the most important meals of the day. When you sleep, your body is still hard at work and needs refueling, just like after a hard workout – which we will talk about next. During your sleep, your body is involved in many processes of repairing broken down muscles, fighting off sicknesses and even simple things of keeping you breathing and delivering blood throughout the body – all of which takes energy to do. Without breakfast, many individuals will go 16 to 18 hours without eating. Not many athletes would do that while they are awake, but do so following sleep. Eating when you wake up helps to jump start your day by providing energy, speeding up your metabolism and aiding in allowing you to take advantage of every opportunity to gain fuel to grow.
Finally, our third main emphasis in regards to nutrition and athletes revolves around post-workout recovery. Eating after workouts is often forgotten, yet it is very important because this is your opportunity to refuel and get needed nutrition to rebuild broken down muscles. If you eat within 30 minutes of workout, you maximize muscle glycogen uptake and enhance your ability to recover from your workout. Liquid foods/carbs are most easily absorbed for quickest recovery. During this brief window, your muscles can be “super loaded” up to three times their normal storage capacity. You will have a super saturated muscle glycogen store that can be utilized for your next practice or workout (even if it is the next day!). If you snooze, you lose! When asked of products in this category, I often recommend just regular chocolate milk due to its ratio of carbs and proteins – just not a whole gallon.
What are a few things that every Homeschool athlete out there could start doing right now that would help them in their sport while also preparing them for workouts at the college level?
Monitoring nutrition and beginning to make healthy choices on your own is something that once you begin doing it and make a routine for yourself, it only becomes easier with time. Another thing that is very important, especially when growing and developing at a very fast rate, is flexibility. I see many athletes who develop at such a fast pace that they lose flexibility with growth and thus as a result lose speed and the potential for strength and power. Stretching, and working on overall flexibility, would be the second thing that I would recommend for athletes to begin doing no matter what age they are. One area that I would recommend focusing on would be hip flexibility, which can be worked on great through simple hurdle drills, such as hurdle step-over and hurdle step-under drills. There are many drills that can be done by walking through hurdles that will help significantly. Finally, I would recommend that athletes spend extra time focusing on form when lifting. Using proper form will allow you to increase the amount of weight you can lift because you are not using as much effort as you would with bad form. This is especially true in regards to Olympic lifts where speed comes into play. HSI
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