Toes On The Line Podcast

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.

Monmouth University Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Tim Rehm puts his Toes on the Line, and he's talking about how we have been success in training the fastest FCS team in the nation during the 2022 football year. Coach Rehm shares his philosophy on what it takes to efficiently develop speed as well as his personal background being a track and football athlete. Tim talks about his time with the New York Giants and legendary Coach Jerry Palmieri, and how they were utilizing advanced methods prior to its popularity.

In this episode I talk about a newly coined term "Hamstring Vaccine". I speak mostly about my personal work, research, and data reviews on how we have been able to stay hamstring injury free over the course of the 2022 Football Season here at Monmouth University.   I cover: My top 4 hamstring injury risks 3 technological platforms that can help identify risk factors How to take data and apply it in a practical setting My top 3 "hamstring vaccine's" that I like to use in season My top 3 modifiable factors  

Season 3 is back, and we are kicking things off with Seton Hall University Strength and Conditioning Coach Angelo Gingerellli. A Strength coach, NSCA State Director, Author, sneaker head, hip hop enthusiast, Angelo is the premier guy to kick off Toes on the Line, Season 3! Angelo has been at Seton Hall University for over a decade and shares his experiences, as well as how he has been able to sustain a long career as a strength coach at one location, as well as progress his career via creating streams of income, becoming an author, and becoming NJ's NSCA State Director. Angelo's book Finish Strong: Resistance Training for Endurance Athletes is a book Angelo has recently written discussing training methods an endurance athlete can sustain.  He explains the difficulties of endurance athletes and the challenges they face, which was one reason why he felt it was necessary to publish the information. At the end of the episode, Angelo shares his TOP 5 Sneakers as well as his TOP 5 Hip Hop artists of all-time. He also shares an extremely interesting connection between a Hip Hop legend and being a Strength and Conditioning Coach in today's world. This is an AWESOME episode, you will want to listen to till the very end.

Bri Rubino puts her Toes on the Line today and she literally brought the heat from the Jersey shore on this episode. Coach Rubino is the Associate Director of Strength and Conditioning at Monmouth University and has been utilizing sports technology throughout her time there. She oversee's Polar HR data for women basketball, M/W lacrosse.   Throughout this episode, we chat about how Bri has evolved with sports technology, and how she has efficiently been able to monitor and control player loads throughout the years. Believe me, this is an episode you MUST take out the pen and pad for, because I literally learned so much in this episode, AND I WORK IN THE SAME OFFICE AS BRI LOL!

Coach Steve Georgio joins me today and puts his toes on the line, and we talk about how to develop an internship curriculum as well developing a great culture for interns to thrive off of.  Steve and I both coaches together at Fordham University where he interned for me back in 2019. His work ethic was unmatched and he was promoted to a full-time member of the staff and has ever since helped grow the internship program at Fordham Into what it is today. In this episode, Steve explains what it takes to be an intern strength and conditioning coach, his personal journey and various internships, as well as how young interns should approach their internships and time spent working for other coaches.

Coach Autumn Lockwood, from the University of Houston, puts her Toes on the Line in today’s episode.  Coach Lockwood talks about her Three-Tier Athlete Self-Accountability Model System, and how she helps develop her athletes’ qualities in: Self-Awareness, Self-Assessment, and Self-Leadership. She explains how she attacks the psychological aspect of her athletes’ development, and how she develops their sense of self accountability whilst training. Coach Lockwood not only has a passion to develop her athletes to succeed in their sport, but to also get them to fully develop as a person and to be able to identify markers for self-improvement and continuing to work towards their primary goal. As we get deeper into the conversation, Coach Lockwood touches base on how she specifies her athletes’ development with daily checklists to make sure her athletes are guided on the right path to success.  She also talks about her ACL specialization training that she does with her two sports: Women Basketball & Soccer. And the latter portion of the episode we share information on how we utilize GPS tracking with our athletes (Soccer & Football).

Coach Scott Leech, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Rhode Island puts his Toes on the Line! Coach Leech talks about his Football ‘Contact Prep’ conditioning work that he has installed with his team. Contact prep is basically preparing the athletes body for the contact they will face once the pads come on.  Players will face a physical cost for colliding with people, and there are things that go on during a tackle, and if the body is not prepared for it, greater soft tissue injuries may occur at the early onset of training camp.  Coach Leech lays out some drills that he uses with his linemen, when he uses them, and how he progresses everything to get his players’ bodies prepared for physical collision. Later in the episode, Coach Leech also talks about his vision for the future of the University of Rhode Island Strength and Conditioning department.  He also mentions a few key points to his future additions for what every FCS school should fight to get in their facilities.

Coach Brian Johnson, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cal University has spent much of his career analyzing the demands of the game of football both at the collegiate and professional levels.  In today's episode, Brian shares his process of how he and his staff objectively utilize the information they receive from their GPS monitors in practice. I have personally spent the past year studying the demands of the game both in practice, training, and games...and have concluded with our football staff which positions cover the most ground, accelerate and decelerate the most, and also cover the most high speed distances. This information is great, however if not utilized or communicated properly, it is useless information.  Brian shares how he objectively utilizes the data to ensure his players are being exposed to stress they need without sacrificing performance.

Jason Wooding comes back onto the podcast and shares his coaching techniques and knowledge on speed development. Coach Wooding talks about how he has transformed his sprint coaching techniques based on his testing and feedback he gets from utilizing the 1080 sprint.  Whether its about starting position, foot placement, angular positioning, Coach Wooding understands how to correct inefficient movement patterns to develop a more robust athlete when it comes to sprint at a high level.

Coach Don Day joins the show today and he shares his coaching journey, teams he’s coached, and how he has found his passion in coaching athletes. Talk about a guy that really loves what he does, Don Day is just that guy. Don Day is also an author of the book The Servant: Correcting a Flawed System, which he shares his coaching journey, as well as ups and downs, and personal battles he has faced while in the profession.  Don shares his insights on coaching his Rifle team, his personal KPIs in working with smaller teams like that and how he has developed a great training culture in his weight room. We also spent some time talking about training the baseball athlete, and spend some time talking about best practices to train a pitcher to allow for the best form of success when its time for them to take the mound.

Rodney Hill is back on the Toes on the Line podcast, and today we are chopping it up about our personal findings on dealing with force plates. Rodney and I both utilize two different force plate companies with our athletes, and over the past year have compared the data with each other. This episode is solely based on our personal findings and opinions on how to utilize force plates and what metrics we should analyze, track, and worry about at certain times of the year.

In this episode, Coach Kyle McMinn, Director of Sports Performance with USA Women National Field Hockey, takes the reigns to talk about how he and I developed a Bioanalytics Framework model in order to track athlete wellness and fatigue. Kyle and I coached together while at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where this model was originated. Kyle discusses in detail the process of the framework, as well as the interactions with coaches and players in order to develop the most effective recovery system for our athletes. In this conversation, Kyle talks through the practical application of what he used to gather information, what he was looking for, and how he was able to make individual player adjustments for training.  Overall, coaches and players all bought into this system as it then helped foster a championship culture of team and self accountability. Kyle McMinn can be reached via email at: Kylesmcminn@gmail.com

On this episode, Coach David Kitchen joins me today to shed light on Development Psychology. Dave is the Founder & CEO of Edge Leadership Academy, which is committed to training leaders and taking organizational culture to an elite level. Before we kick off Dave takes us through his past experiences of going through his trials and tribulations of becoming a Division I Strength and Conditioning Coach. From running out of money, to sleeping on a couch, Dave figured it out. In this episode we cover many topics such as: Stages of Psycho-Social Development, Identity Crisis, Narcissism, Music and Psych Development, & Mental Health topics. Dave is currently working on his PhD in Development Psychology. Basically, Development Psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans change over the course of their life. Sounds simple, however Coach Kitchens breaks down stages of Development Psychology and WHY human beings change over the course of their personal lifespan, and the influences are stemmed from different motivations at different stages of life. We talk about the work of Erik Erikson, who was a German-American development psychologist, who developed a theory of identity crisis, Stages of Psycho-Social Development. All these points are well spoken of during the episode, as Dave gives examples of each stage crisis. How the brain begins to develop and change over time is a huge interesting mystery to me, and we speak about how we can imply development psychology theories to athletes in the weight room. Dave can be reached via email or social media at: Dkitchen7863@gmail.com @coachDkitch