I love innovation. I love new exercise variations. I love learning new methods. I love new technology. It’s fun for me to watch new trends come and go, and I enjoy trying to predict what’s coming. Over the past year, however, it’s been hammered home time and time again that practicality is one of the [...]
About Jim Kielbaso
Jim has trained thousands of athletes including professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey players, Olympic competitors, hundreds of college athletes and too many high school and youth athletes to count. This work has allowed him to create his Ultimate Speed Development program found at www.UltimateSpeedDevelopment.com.
Flexibility Mini-Series Part 2: 3-D Stretching
Part 2 of our Flexibility Mini-Series discusses 3-D stretching. The concept of 3-D stretching was introduced to me by renowned physical therapist Gary Gray, and I now use some version of it with just about every athlete I train. To take advantage of 3-D stretching, all you really need to know are some basic stretches [...]
Flexibility Mini-Series Part 1
This is Part 1 in a mini-series on flexibility. While flexibility is certainly an integral part of athleticism, perhaps too much has been made of its importance to speed and agility. Many coaches and trainers believe that increasing flexibility as much as possible will allow the muscles to move more freely through their range of [...]
Maintaining Weight In-Season
Getting bigger and stronger is a priority for many athletes over the summer. Putting on size is a major concern for many football, hockey, and basketball players wanting to improve their game. I cant tell you how often I hear guys saying that they need to put on size. By the end of the summer, [...]
Copying a Program is a Mistake
Jim Kielbaso – Trying to copy some big time college program is common mistake made in high schools. I’ve been engaged in a series of e-mails with one of our Ultimate S & C members about his situation at a high school, and I thought it was worth sharing. He has been asked to implement [...]
Ken Mannie – Michigan State S & C Coach
Michigan State University Strength & Conditioning Coach Ken Mannie is a legend in the world of S & C. Not only is he an incredible coach, he has done things the right way. He gives back to young coaches through writing, speaking, hosting clinics and taking on interns/GA’s. Instead of jumping from school to school [...]
Programming for Football
Football coach and trainer Steve Greene discusses the key components involved in a football training program. As another summer fades and gives rise to the fall, countless football players join the ranks of gym rats, their minds, bodies and hearts poised on being the best player of the gridiron. The unending and unyielding search for [...]
Shades of Grey – Part 3
In this edition of Shades of Grey, we will explore Spinal Flexion Exercises and Olympic Lifting. If you didn’t catch the beginning of this series, I started it because I’ve been thinking about some of the things that I’ve changed my mind about through the years. These are things I used to see in black [...]
Crowded Field
Jim Kielbaso talks about how to get ahead and stay on top in the crowded field of strength and conditioning. I get calls and e-mails from people all the time asking about internships, jobs, opportunities, etc. Often, these people are very qualified. In the last month, I’ve had at least five people contact me about [...]
Shades of Grey – Part 2
In this edition of Shades of Grey, we will explore Single Sets vs. Multiple Sets and Training to Failure. If you didn’t catch the beginning of this series, I started it because I’ve been thinking about some of the things that I’ve changed my mind about through the years. These are things I used to [...]
Wil Fleming – Speed & Agility Drills Defined
Speed & Agility Drills Defined – How do you go about selecting speed and agility drills for your athletes daily use and instruction? If you were like me you would choose the ones that you like, equal parts lateral and linear and then write them in the program. You would probably use some progressions from [...]
Shades of Grey – Series Intro
Shades of Grey – Series Intro: When I got into strength & conditioning back in the early 90’s I was young and thought everything was black and white. That’s how things appear when we’re young. I was a hot-shot college strength coach and I thought I was right about just about everything. I didn’t have [...]
Assessing Credibility on the Internet
I wrote this over a year ago and have been a little hesitant to post it. A recent Strengthcoachblog.com post got me to sit down and finish this article. Tim Edgerton, a UK strength and conditioning coach, named me the most influential man is strength and conditioning the other day which was cool. However the [...]
Glutamine Supplementation Review
Review of Glutamine Supplementation – Jarrett Kratzer Glutamine is an amino acid and one of the main building blocks in protein synthesis. Glutamine is considered non-essential simply because the body makes glutamine regularly, although recent studies show that glutamine could be considered a conditionally essential amino acid. Glutamine is one of 20 amino acids in [...]
Research Review: NFL Combine Testing
Our friend and Advisory Council member, Bret Contreras, has teamed up with Chris Beardsley to launch a product they call a “strength & conditioning research review service.” Basically, they read a ton of research, review each study, and compile the findings into one, easily-readable page. They do this for dozens of studies, and compile it [...]
Northwestern Spring Conditioning
This video shows the controlled chaos of a Northwestern University football conditioning workout. It’s pretty difficult to tell what’s going on here, so the video doesn’t really give you any usable ideas, but it’s interesting to see the coaches getting guys to hustle from station to station. There appears to be some competition going on, [...]
Gaining Knowledge from Reflection
Good coaches and trainers are constantly looking for ways to increase their knowledge base. We spend a great deal of time reading books and articles, watching videos, attending clinics, and talking to other coaches. Yet, there is another very simple practice that people often forget to use. I was taught this concept a long time [...]
Tony Rolinski – Notre Dame Hockey
Whether you’ve been following our series of influential strength coaches or noticed his name on our Advisory Team, you’ve undoubtedly seen the name Tony Rolinksi on this site. Tony is the Director of Strength & Conditioning for Olympic Sports at Notre Dame, and he is one of the top coaches in the country. Rolinski has [...]
Don’t Do This….Ever
We’ve talked about neck training several times, and you’ve probably heard us talking about some of the crap that’s out there or unsafe exercises. If you haven’t been looking closely, you may not be aware of how bad it actually is. Well, this is an example of something you SHOULD DEFINITELY NEVER DO, but it’s [...]
Vision Training is Now Practical and Meaningful
Training an athlete’s vision has come up over and over again through the years. Books have been written about it. Products have been created. Programs have been proposed. Unfortunately, there has never been a proven method that was easy to implement, practical to use and affordable. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Nike headquarters [...]
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