Toes On The Line Podcast Gio Grassi

Coach Gilfedder returns for his second time on Toes on the Line. I consider Coach Gilfedder one of the best strength coaches in the country when it comes to progressions in the weight room with all of his athletes.
In today’s episode, Coach Gilfedder talks us through his progressions in the weight room, and his step-by-step analysis of when the athlete has “earned the right” to progress to a more advanced exercise. He also sheds light on servicing athletes with the right tools for each individual based on various parameters and how he goes about evaluating his athletes to ensure they have earned the right to advance their training.

Coach Kristina Jeffries puts her Toes on the Line, and we are talking a lot about Hockey strength and conditioning.  Hockey is such a unique sport for the fact that players are skating on ice while twisting, turning, and accelerating.  Coach Jeffries talks about key KPIs in the sport of hockey, how she addresses those KPIs in training, and the training process itself.  
Hockey is a sport where athletes will be in a boot for the majority of their playing careers, joint mobility can become hindered, however Coach gets into details about ankle mobility in training to help emphasize “mid-foot strength” and “toe-flick” which is necessary to skating speed.
When it comes to speed and agility training for hockey, dryland training can become a supplemental part of their off-season training, and being on ice all year round is not necessary.
As always, I will get into the GPS/LPS conversation with coaches, and Coach Jeffries gets right into the details of using a Heart Rate monitor with hockey players, and how they identify “intensity of drill” which they attempt to mimic to an average Period.  And lastly, Coach Jeffries gets into individualizing programming per position groups for successful on ice performance, as well as how she uses force plates to assist with force production factors in her programming.

Coach Jarwarski Beckhum, Director of Speed Training with the University or Oregon puts his toes on the line.  Coach Beckhum has a similar history to myself, being that he started his coaching career at a speed training facility, Velocity Sports Performance.  He took what he has learned from there throughout his coaching journey and has been able to establish sound conditioning and sprint programs where he has coached.
In this episode, Coach Beckhum shares how he coaches running during speed as well as conditioning workouts, what he looks to identify and how he teaches to correct inefficient patterns.

Coach Tim Campbell puts his toes on the line in todays episode.  Coach Campbell is the Director of Strength & Conditioning with the University of Akron.
Coach Campbell has been at Akron for over a decade now and has worked with every sport program there, and currently oversees the Men Soccer & Softball programs.
Today's episode we take a deep dive into Coach Campbells time at Akron, how he got to his current roll, and how the Men Soccer program has become a National Championship winning program that has sustained elite play year after year.

Coach Joel Welsh puts his toes on the line today and he is sharing his journey of strength and conditioning throughout his career.  Coach Welsh brings a wealth of knowledge on this episode on what he has done, what he is currently doing, and what he truly believes makes a great strength coach at the collegiate level.

In this episode, I take a small dive into Rate of Force Development and its severe importance in sport.  As strength coaches, we can always get caught up in the "numbers" of how much is on the barbell (I was guilty of that at one point in my career), however when we look at the context of sports it is all about who can produced the most amount of force in as little time as possible.
To not upset anyone, there is a time and place for heavy slow muscle contractions during an athletes off-season, as maximal strength gains are very important.  The goal for this episode was to touch on a topic in which I believe is underutilized and overlooked.