Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[More3s]

Trending that way. Take that how you will

Ok everyone quiet. Nothing to see here…

 

[illiniguy24]

Trending that way. Take that how you will

 

[logjam]

Is there any rule against not giving a guy a scholarship and instead paying him a huge amount of money? If he doesn't have a scholarship maybe he can just skip classes? I mean why waste valuable training time in class/studying? What a crazy state of the World right now.

That's called the g-league...

 

[Grange Grover]

Trending that way. Take that how you will

 

[PepeSilvia]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball.

I agree with a lot about what you said about lifting heavy and the benefits of doing so but mobility and flexibility work have a huge impact on explosiveness and allowing your body to produce force while moving in a variety of different directions and angles that are necessary while playing basketball.

 

[logjam]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

/s.

 

[poor dirt farmer]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

Thanks for your awesome post we're lucky to have people willing have a different opinion and the courage to say it even when they don't think it's popular. Aside from some insiders how do we know how good Fletch is? But what does come across on this message board is that he is an amazing team player that has that rare ability to get through to the players he's coaching. That human element that he has is rare and immensely valuable. He sounds like he is incredibly accessible and the work he puts into these recruiting side of things is huge.

 

[derrick6]

Arizona or us

Hopefully Boswell helps here

 

[Illini4Christ]

If no to UK and Bama, and Zona is fading, then it’s welcome to the Illini family Will:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1775930939979215131

 

[IlliniCaboose]

 

[More3s]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

I think I agree with the general thesis of more focus on pure strength gain, although I don't know anything about Fletch or his plans, other than that he has a good reputation. (It also wouldn't totally shock me if the lifts they put on social media to generate engagement aren't actually all that prominent in their actual programs, although obviously I have no way of knowing if that's actually the case)

I'm not so sure about your strength standards, though - those are elite numbers, and I'd just be surprised if almost ANY college basketball player, being still young and with the leverage disadvantages they would have with their generally long limbs, could hit those targets. And again, these are still relatively young men, and you generally don't see people get to those elite strength levels until a little older. (Although it's true you see exceptions to this all the time, especially with football players, but those guys are like, the freaks of the freaks, as far as I can tell). I would be VERY impressed if I saw DGL squatting 500, though.

But like I said, I agree with much of your post. Those were my nits I'd pick. 100% with you on the bosu balls, too.

 

[Mobi]

Trending that way. Take that how you will

Like our chance since Caleb Love is still there. Boswell must have shared his experiences.

 

[Loyalillini10]

Thanks for your awesome post we're lucky to have people willing have a different opinion and the courage to say it even when they don't think it's popular. Aside from some insiders how do we know how good Fletch is? But what does come across on this message board is that he is an amazing team player that has that rare ability to get through to the players he's coaching. That human element that he has is rare and immensely valuable. He sounds like he is incredibly accessible and the work he puts into these recruiting side of things is huge.

He is nationally recognized as one of the best.

 

[Germanboxers]

I agree with a lot about what you said about lifting heavy and the benefits of doing so but mobility and flexibility work have a huge impact on explosiveness and allowing your body to produce force while moving in a variety of different directions and angles that are necessary while playing basketball.

Exactly. joint Angle and joint velocity are critical in translating force (strength) gains into meaningful performance gains. Many aspects to training, but it is critical to translate strength gains into the motions and speeds needed.

 

[Govoner Vaugn Fan]

I think we can all be on the same page here. DGL could improve tremendously as a 3-star sophomore, and still be getting only 10 minutes a game on a top-10 team.

Not that it matters, but DGL was 4 star #68 in his class.

 

[pcvIllini]

Main comp is Kentucky (more for 25 imo) and Arizona

Too bad Tommy Lloyd is in Argentina!!!

 

[BryceHopkins]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

I’m sure this is a really good post: Altenberger is a great contributor. But there’s no way I’m reading all of that. I’d barely read an email that long for work.

 

[illinoispeak]

Great sentence structure, bad take imo.

 

[RabidDawgClassic]

I’m sure this is a really good post: Altenberger is a great contributor. But there’s no way I’m reading all of that. I’d barely read an email that long for work.

I mean, he did put the TL; DR right up front, so…

 

[Keisersose]

Fletch is highly respected in the industry by his peers, coaches and players for a reason. What more evidence do you need that he’s one of the best? Players have credited him for their development, coaches have raved about him, yet Illini fans on and Illini fan forum are asking for more evidence that he’s a tremendous asset and one of the best in the biz? Come on people.

We are the only fanbase I know that does this. I don’t get it.

 

[JJB]

Fletch is highly respected in the industry by his peers, coaches and players for a reason. What more evidence do you need that he’s one of the best? Players have credited him for their development, coaches have raved about him, yet Illini fans on and Illini fan forum are asking for more evidence that he’s a tremendous asset and one of the best in the biz? Come on people.

We are the only fanbase I know that does this. I don’t get it.

All I know is that he is consistently featured heavily in our recruiting pitch and our recruiting over the last few years has been damn good. Maybe it is causation, maybe it is correlation. Whatever. Keep it rolling.

 

[Keisersose]

All I know is that he is consistently featured heavily in our recruiting pitch and our recruiting over the last few years has been damn good. Maybe it is causation, maybe it is correlation. Whatever. Keep it rolling.

 

[americanoutlaw11]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

I agree with your overall sentiment.. and I realize we’re dealing with the cream of the crop here, but your numbers are high by quite a bit- especially for a young (presumably tall) basketball player… I’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find 12 guys on our football team (remember, these are drug tested 18-22 year old kids) who can truly take 500 to the floor and straight bar pull 600. How many 7 footers out there- professional strength athlete or not- are pulling 800? It’s just not a thing.

But yeah, getting as strong as you can in the 1-3 rep range on squat variations (especially box squat), deadlift variations and power cleans is definitely where it’s at for athletes.

I mean really, what’s going to do more for performance? Single leg bosu ball squats with a 45 lb dumbbell at your chest for 12 reps? Or slapping a bunch of 45’s on the bar and taking it for a freaking ride… the kind of weight everyone stops to watch… everyone knows the answer, but for some reason they keep looking for a different one… it’s because everyone wants to either be the smartest guy in the room or everyone wants to believe there’s some secret out there that is the culprit for their own shortcomings. And since linear progression on compound lifts is boring, many assume it’s that one secret those smart guys are hiding from the rest of us

 

[Keisersose]

TL; DR: We have no idea. S&C programs appear to waste incredible amounts of time and resources and leave untold amounts of athlete performance on the table. These guys should be lifting heavy, which will enable them to couple their genetically-gifted neuromuscular efficiency (explosiveness) with immense force production, armor them against injury, and realize their physical potential. It won't happen anytime soon. Then they should go practice basketball. Skip the BOSU balls.

******************

I'll post what will certainly be an unpopular response (lol, who am I kidding... I'm gonna get dogpiled): we have no reason to believe he's a star in absolute terms though he may well be relative to other S&C coaches simply because the bar is set so low. I'll note in advance that I've never seen his training plan, and have only seen the social media snippets of guys in the weight room that the DIA publicizes. It seems clear, however, that a lot of performance is being left on the table, and our guys could benefit by being much stronger.

Any D-1 athlete is a genetic freak residing at the extreme end of the distribution of neuromuscular efficiency. Someone has a 35-inch vertical jump (or a 48-inch one if he's Darrell Griffith or MJ) because he's crazy efficient at recruiting motor neurons to contract muscles. It's not something that can be trained except at a very small margin (adding perhaps a couple %.) Bring these guys in at 18 and you can literally do little more than feed them and they will grow, get bigger by the time they're 22, and look like gods throughout.

D-1 players are on the court partly because they're incredibly explosive, a.k.a. "powerful." (In extremis: TSJ.) That power is a function of the force they can apply over a distance in a unit of time. "Time" is the explosiveness variable and (e.g., the SVJ) isn't amenable to training. But you can train the force component: lift heavy weights. Anything less is a suboptimal approach to using the limited time available for training. SVJ, agility, etc... can't be trained for meaningful gain. Strength certainly can, for years on end.

I may be wrong about what Adam is doing with the guys; however, from the social media I see, it's not lifting heavy weights. It's lifting fairly light weights, balancing on BOSU balls while asymmetrically loaded with dumbbells, and other suboptimal exercises.

I'm unaware of a single basketball program in which the S&C coach trains players meaningfully for strength. Everyone on our team should be at the very least squatting 500 and deadlifting 600. Probably much more. (Kofi probably should have been pulling upwards of 800.) The development of that kind of force production combined with innate neuromuscular efficiency would maximize their physical potential. It would also make them a great deal more difficult to push around on the court and bullet proof their joints (esp. knees) from injury. It would make them stronger, more powerful, more resilient athletes.

(Let's dismiss the strawman here that this will make them into fat, sluggish, mediocre linemen. No, it won't. Or, horrors, "musclebound.")

The problem is that head coaches aren't informed consumers of S&C programs, and so an S&C coach who wants to keep his job will never risk training his athletes to lift properly (and, frankly, few if any S&C coaches appear to understand how to lift properly.) Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength fame has written at great length about this topic for many, many years. (This article from 2016 for example. Yeah, it's long.) The barrier to entry here is understanding the mechanics of safe, efficient lifting, learning to coach it, and teaching lifters how to manage psychologically when the load gets really heavy. It's an acquired skill that takes time and intelligence. So instead we get high-volume sets at light weight, relatively light "squatlifting" with a trap bar, and "heavy squats will injure your knees!" Yeah, they will: if you do them incorrectly. If you do them correctly, which is fairly easy to learn, they'll write you an insurance policy against torn ACLs.

As for endurance, strength is an incredibly persistent adaptation. Getting up the cardio conditioning curve is a pretty quick process: we gain and lose that capacity quickly. Getting up that curve when you're very strong is effortless. Adam may well be making our guys relatively stronger than the competition, so they're better conditioned. I have no idea, of course, because I don't know how he trains them. It's obvious, however, that they don't lift meaningfully, and so a lot of potential goes unrealized. That's a shame.

It's incredible that these programs leave so much on the table where athlete performance is concerned. It's such low-hanging fruit it's unbelievable that it's ignored. I have little confidence, however, that it will change anytime soon.

 

[stevej64]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. It makes for a great narrative and recruiting tool ! Just go with it !